Collaborative implementation for ecological restoration on US Public Lands: implications for legal context, accountability, and adaptive management.

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), established in 2009, encourages collaborative landscape scale ecosystem restoration efforts on United States Forest Service (USFS) lands. Although the USFS employees have experience engaging in collaborative planning, CFLRP requires collaboration in implementation, a domain where little prior experience can be drawn on for guidance. The purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which CFLRP's collaborative participants and agency personnel conceptualize how stakeholders can contribute to implementation on landscape scale restoration projects, and to build theory on dynamics of collaborative implementation in environmental management. This research uses a grounded theory methodology to explore collaborative implementation from the perspectives and experiences of participants in landscapes selected as part of the CFLRP in 2010. Interviewees characterized collaborative implementation as encompassing three different types of activities: prioritization, enhancing treatments, and multiparty monitoring. The paper describes examples of activities in each of these categories and then identifies ways in which collaborative implementation in the context of CFLRP (1) is both hindered and enabled by overlapping legal mandates about agency collaboration, (2) creates opportunities for expanded accountability through informal and relational means, and, (3) creates feedback loops at multiple temporal and spatial scales through which monitoring information, prioritization, and implementation actions shape restoration work both within and across projects throughout the landscape creating more robust opportunities for adaptive management.

Mono-, few-, and multiple layers of copper antimony sulfide (CuSbS2): a ternary layered sulfide.

Layered materials with controlled thickness down to monolayer are being intensively investigated for unraveling and harnessing their dimension-dependent properties. Copper antimony sulfide (CuSbS2) is a ternary layered semiconductor material that has been considered as an absorber material in thin film solar cells due to its optimal band gap (∼1.5 eV) with high absorption coefficient of over >10(4) cm(-1). We have for the first time developed solution-based approaches for the synthesis of mono-, few-, and multiple layers of CuSbS2. These include a colloidal bottom-up approach for the synthesis of CuSbS2 nanoplates with thicknesses from six layers to several layers, and a hybrid bottom-up-top-down approach for the formation of CuSbS2 mesobelts. The latter can be exfoliated by Li-ion intercalation and sonication to obtain layers down to monolayer thickness. Time-dependent TEM studies provide important insights into the growth mechanism of mesobelts. At the initial stage the nanoplates grow laterally to form nanosheets as the primary structure, followed by their folding and attachment through homoepitaxy to form prolate-like secondary structures. Eventually, these prolate-like structures form mesocrystals by oriented attachment crystal growth. The changes in optical properties with layer thickness down to monolayers have been studied. In order to understand the thickness-dependent optical and electrical properties, we have calculated the electronic structures of mono- and multiple layers (bulk) of CuSbS2 using the hybrid functional method (HSE 06). We find that the monolayers exhibit noticeably different properties from the multilayered or the bulk system, with a markedly increased band gap that is, however, compromised by the presence of localized surface states. These localized states are predominantly composed of energetically favorable Sb pz states, which break off from the rest of the Sb p states that would otherwise be at the top of the gap. The developed solution-based synthesis approaches are versatile and can likely be extended to other complex layered sulfides.

Tailoring morphology in free-standing anodic aluminium oxide: control of barrier layer opening down to the sub-10 nm diameter.

Free-standing, highly ordered porous aluminium oxide templates were fabricated by three-step anodization in oxalic, sulfuric or phosphoric acid solutions, followed by dissolution of the aluminium substrate in HgCl(2). Opening of the pore bottoms on the barrier layer side of these templates was carried out by using chemical or ion beam etching. Chemical etching is capable of achieving full pore opening, but partial pore opening occurs inhomogeneously. On the contrary, ion beam etching enables homogeneous and reproducible partial pore opening, with the pore size controlled through the etching time. By this method, pore openings as small as 5 nm can reliably be obtained.

Tunneling magnetoresistance from a symmetry filtering effect.

This paper provides a brief overview of the young, but rapidly growing field of spintronics. Its primary objective is to explain how as electrons tunnel through simple insulators such as MgO, wavefunctions of certain symmetries are preferentially transmitted. This symmetry filtering property can be converted into a spin-filtering property if the insulator is joined epitaxially to a ferromagnetic electrode with the same two-dimensional symmetry parallel to the interface. A second requirement of the ferromagnetic electrodes is that a wavefunction with the preferred symmetry exists in one of the two spin channels but not in the other. These requirements are satisfied for electrons traveling perpendicular to the interface for Fe-MgO-Fe tunnel barriers. This leads to a large change in the resistance when the magnetic moment of one of the electrodes is rotated relative to those of the other electrode. This large tunneling magnetoresistance effect is being used as the read sensor in hard drives and may form the basis for a new type of magnetic memory.

A mode of action for induction of thyroid gland tumors by Pyrethrins in the rat.

Prolonged treatment with high doses of Pyrethrins results in thyroid gland tumors in the rat. To elucidate the mode of action for tumor formation, the effect of Pyrethrins on rat thyroid gland, thyroid hormone levels and hepatic thyroxine UDPglucuronosyltransferase activity was investigated. Male Sprague-Dawley CD rats were fed diets containing 0 (control) and 8000 ppm Pyrethrins and female rats diets containing 0, 100, 3000 and 8000 ppm Pyrethrins for periods of 7, 14 and 42 days and for 42 days followed by 42 days of reversal. As a positive control, rats were also fed diets containing 1200-1558 ppm sodium Phenobarbital (NaPB) for 7 and 14 days. The treatment of male rats with 8000 ppm Pyrethrins, female rats with 3000 and 8000 ppm Pyrethrins and both sexes with NaPB resulted in increased thyroid gland weights, which were associated with follicular cell hypertrophy. Thyroid follicular cell replicative DNA synthesis was increased by treatment with Pyrethrins and NaPB for 7 and/or 14 days. Treatment with Pyrethrins and NaPB increased hepatic microsomal thyroxine UDPglucuronosyltransferase activity and serum thyroid stimulating hormone levels (TSH), but reduced serum levels of either thyroxine (T4) and/or triiodothyronine (T3). The effects of Pyrethrins in female rats were dose-dependent, with 100 ppm being a no-effect level, and on cessation of treatment were essentially reversible in both sexes. The concordance between the effects of Pyrethrins and NaPB suggests that the mode of action for Pyrethrins-induced rat thyroid gland tumors is similar to that of some other non-genotoxic inducers of hepatic xenobiotic metabolism.