Introducing Elinor for monitoring the governance and management of area-based conservation.

Monitoring the governance and management effectiveness of area-based conservation has long been recognized as an important foundation for achieving national and global biodiversity goals and enabling adaptive management. However, there are still many barriers that prevent conservation actors, including those affected by governance and management systems from implementing conservation activities and programs and from gathering and using data on governance and management to inform decision-making across spatial scales and through time. We explored current and past efforts to assess governance and management effectiveness and barriers actors face in using the resulting data and insights to inform conservation decision-making. To help overcome these barriers, we developed Elinor, a free and open-source monitoring tool that builds on the work of Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom to facilitate the gathering, storing, sharing, analyzing, and use of data on environmental governance and management across spatial scales and for areas under different governance and management types. We consider the process of codesigning and piloting Elinor with conservation scientists and practitioners and the main components of the assessment and online data system. We also consider how Elinor complements existing approaches by addressing governance and management in a single assessment at a high level for different types of area-based conservation, providing flexible options for data collection, and integrating a data system with an assessment that can support data use and sharing across different spatial scales, including global monitoring of the Global Biodiversity Framework. Although challenges will continue, the process of developing Elinor and the tool itself offer tangible solutions to barriers that prevent the systematic collection and use of governance and management data. With broader uptake, Elinor can play a valuable role in enabling more effective, inclusive, and durable area-based conservation.

Introducción de Elinor para el monitoreo de la gobernanza y la gestión de la conservación con base en zonas geográficas Resumen El monitoreo de la efectividad de la gobernanza y de la gestión de la conservación basada en zonas geográficas ha sido reconocido durante mucho tiempo como una base importante para alcanzar las metas nacionales y mundiales de la biodiversidad y permitir un manejo adaptativo. Sin embargo, todavía existen barreras que evitan que los actores de la conservación, incluidos aquellos afectados por los sistemas de gobernanza y gestión, implementen actividades y programas de conservación y recopilen y usen datos de la gobernanza y la gestión para informar las decisiones a lo largo de las escalas espaciales y a través del tiempo. Exploramos los esfuerzos hechos en la actualidad y en el pasado para evaluar la efectividad de la gobernanza y la gestión así como las barreras que los actores enfrentan al usar los datos y el conocimiento resultantes para informar la toma de decisiones de conservación. Para ayudar a derribar estas barreras desarrollamos Elinor, una herramienta de monitoreo gratuita y de software libre que parte del trabajo de la ganadora del Premio Nobel Elinor Ostrom, para facilitar la recopilación, almacenamiento, divulgación, análisis y uso de los datos sobre la gobernanza y la gestión ambiental en las escalas espaciales y para las zonas con diferentes tipos de gobernanza y gestión. Planteamos co­diseñar y pilotear Elinor con los científicos y practicantes de la conservación y usando los componentes principales del sistema de evaluación y de datos en línea. También planteamos cómo Elinor complementa las estrategias existentes al abordar la gobernanza y la gestión en una sola evaluación a un nivel elevado para diferentes tipos de conservación basada en zonas geográficas, lo que proporciona opciones flexibles para la colecta de datos, e integramos un sistema de datos con una evaluación que soporta el uso y divulgación de datos en diferentes escalas espaciales, incluido el Marco Mundial para la Biodiversidad. Aunque los retos seguirán existiendo, el proceso de desarrollo de Elinor y la propia herramienta ofrecen soluciones tangibles a las barreras que previenen la colecta sistemática y el uso de datos de la gobernanza y la gestión. Con una mayor aceptación, Elinor puede tener un papel importante en el momento de hacer posible una conservación basada en zonas geográficas más eficaz, integradora y duradera.

Untangling social-ecological interactions: A methods portfolio approach to tackling contemporary sustainability challenges in fisheries.

Meeting the objectives of sustainable fisheries management requires attention to the complex interactions between humans, institutions and ecosystems that give rise to fishery outcomes. Traditional approaches to studying fisheries often do not fully capture, nor focus on these complex interactions between people and ecosystems. Despite advances in the scope and scale of interactions encompassed by more holistic methods, for example ecosystem-based fisheries management approaches, no single method can adequately capture the complexity of human-nature interactions. Approaches that combine quantitative and qualitative analytical approaches are necessary to generate a deeper understanding of these interactions and illuminate pathways to address fisheries sustainability challenges. However, combining methods is inherently challenging and requires understanding multiple methods from different, often disciplinarily distinct origins, demanding reflexivity of the researchers involved. Social-ecological systems' research has a history of utilising combinations of methods across the social and ecological realms to account for spatial and temporal dynamics, uncertainty and feedbacks that are key components of fisheries. We describe several categories of analytical methods (statistical modelling, network analysis, dynamic modelling, qualitative analysis and controlled behavioural experiments) and highlight their applications in fisheries research, strengths and limitations, data needs and overall objectives. We then discuss important considerations of a methods portfolio development process, including reflexivity, epistemological and ontological concerns and illustrate these considerations via three case studies. We show that, by expanding their methods portfolios, researchers will be better equipped to study the complex interactions shaping fisheries and contribute to solutions for sustainable fisheries management.

Neutron activation diagnostics at the National Ignition Facility (invited).

Neutron yields are measured at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) by an extensive suite of neutron activation diagnostics. Neutrons interact with materials whose reaction cross sections threshold just below the fusion neutron production energy, providing an accurate measure of primary unscattered neutrons without contribution from lower-energy scattered neutrons. Indium samples are mounted on diagnostic instrument manipulators in the NIF target chamber, 25-50 cm from the source, to measure 2.45 MeV deuterium-deuterium fusion neutrons through the (115)In(n,n')(115 m) In reaction. Outside the chamber, zirconium and copper are used to measure 14 MeV deuterium-tritium fusion neutrons via (90)Zr(n,2n), (63)Cu(n,2n), and (65)Cu(n,2n) reactions. An array of 16 zirconium samples are located on port covers around the chamber to measure relative yield anisotropies, providing a global map of fuel areal density variation. Neutron yields are routinely measured with activation to an accuracy of 7% and are in excellent agreement both with each other and with neutron time-of-flight and magnetic recoil spectrometer measurements. Relative areal density anisotropies can be measured to a precision of less than 3%. These measurements reveal apparent bulk fuel velocities as high as 200 km/s in addition to large areal density variations between the pole and equator of the compressed fuel.

The neutron imaging diagnostic at NIF (invited).

A neutron imaging diagnostic has recently been commissioned at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). This new system is an important diagnostic tool for inertial fusion studies at the NIF for measuring the size and shape of the burning DT plasma during the ignition stage of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) implosions. The imaging technique utilizes a pinhole neutron aperture, placed between the neutron source and a neutron detector. The detection system measures the two dimensional distribution of neutrons passing through the pinhole. This diagnostic has been designed to collect two images at two times. The long flight path for this diagnostic, 28 m, results in a chromatic separation of the neutrons, allowing the independently timed images to measure the source distribution for two neutron energies. Typically the first image measures the distribution of the 14 MeV neutrons and the second image of the 6-12 MeV neutrons. The combination of these two images has provided data on the size and shape of the burning plasma within the compressed capsule, as well as a measure of the quantity and spatial distribution of the cold fuel surrounding this core.

Heteroepitaxy of Nd(0.67)Sr(0.33)MnO3 on silicon for bolometric x-ray detector application.

We have recently reported the design concept and sensor fabrication for a novel bolometric x-ray detector based on a rare earth manganite material for application as a total energy monitor for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) free electron laser at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The detector employs epitaxial thin films of Nd(0.67)Sr(0.33)MnO(3) grown on Si by pulsed laser deposition. In this paper we report details of the fabrication of the actual detector, its response characteristics under photon illumination from LCLS, and improvements in the growth scheme of the sensor material on Si using a buffer/template layer scheme that employs yttria-stabilized zirconia, cerium oxide (CeO(2)), and bismuth titanate (Bi(4)Ti(3)O(12)). The thermal sensor response changes linearly with the energy of an optical calibration laser as expected, and the signals from optical and x-ray pulses at LCLS are very similar, thereby validating the design concept. To the best of our knowledge, the LCLS detector application reported here is the first practical use of colossal magnetoresistive manganite bolometers.

Hepatic progenitors and strategies for liver cell therapies.

Liver cell therapies, including liver cell transplantation and bioartificial livers, are being developed as alternatives to whole liver transplantation for some patients with severe liver dysfunction. Hepatic progenitors are proposed as ideal cells for use in these liver cell therapies given their ability to expand extensively, differentiate into all mature liver cells, have minimal immunogenicity, be cryopreservable, and reconstitute liver tissue when transplanted. We summarize our ongoing efforts to develop clinical programs of hepatic progenitor cell therapies with a focus on hepatic stem cell biology and strategies that have emerged in analyzing that biology.