Research and training opportunities at Makerere University Biological Field Station located in Uganda\u27s Kibale National Park

Makerere University’s Biological Field Station (MUBFS), located in western Uganda’s Kibale National Park, offers excellent research and training opportunities in the physical, biological, and social sciences. This region of East Africa has exceptional natural and cultural resources, and is home to seven national parks and numerous protected areas. The Station can accommodate researchers and trainees year-round, and offers a wide range of facilities and services, including lodging, meals, laundry, phone, fax, e-mail, a library, and limited transportation and computer access. MUBFS is easily accessible, has a strong 25-year research record, and an extensive forest trail system. Uganda’s stable democratic system, English language, and favorable climate make the Station an ideal site for research and training. For more information contact the MUBFS Homepage on the World Wide Web at http://www.usu.edu/~mubfs/index.html

Education\u27s role in sustainable development: Uganda\u27s Kibale National Park

Kibale National Park (KNP), located in western Uganda, offers a rich diversity of tropical flora and fauna. The Park’s mid-altitude, moist tropical forest supports 11 of Uganda’s 20 non-human primate species, some of which occur in very high densities. The region around KNP is home to seven national parks and numerous protected areas. Located within KNP is the Makerere University Biological Field Station (MUBFS), with an extensive 25-year research history and a mandate to assist KNP in protecting the ecosystems of the region through management-relevant research. While KNP and MUBFS have received much visibility within Uganda, East Africa and the tropics as an important biological resource, both institutions face formidable obstacles in meeting their respective conservation mandates. For KNP, severe human population pressures around the Park, coupled with chronic shortages of capital, personnel, and other resources, make maintaining current Park resources problematic, let alone ensuring their long-term viability and protection. For MUBFS, declining donor support make it increasingly difficult to fund research programs and operations. Together, these challenges highlight the need for revenue-generating activities that can bestow direct and tangible benefits to KNP, MUBFS, and surrounding communities. This paper examines the contributions that study abroad programs can make to resource protection efforts in the KNP region. Direct benefits include income generated through course fees, meals, housing accommodations, miscellaneous purchases, and staff and instructor fees. Indirect benefits include the increased awareness of the region’s economic, scientific and ecological value by study abroad participants, local communities, institutions, and policy makers. Since the challenges facing KNP and MUBFS are common throughout Africa and much of the developing world, the issues and opportunities discussed here have widespread application

Comparison of Spontaneous Emission in Trapped Ion Multiqubit Gates at High Magnetic Fields

Penning traps have been used for performing quantum simulations and sensing with hundreds of ions and provide a promising route toward scaling up trapped ion quantum platforms because of the ability to trap and control up to thousands of ions in 2D and 3D crystals. A leading source of decoherence in laser-based multiqubit operations on trapped ions is off-resonant spontaneous emission. While many trapped ion quantum computers or simulators utilize clock qubits, other systems rely on Zeeman qubits, which require a more complex calculation of this decoherence. We examine theoretically the impacts of spontaneous emission on quantum gates performed with trapped ions in a high magnetic field. We consider two types of gates -- light-shift and Molmer-Sorensen gates -- and compare the decoherence errors in each. We also compare different detunings, polarizations, and required intensities of the laser beams used to drive the gates. We show that both gates can have similar performance at their optimal operating conditions and examine the experimental feasibility of various operating points. By examining the magnetic field dependence of each gate, we demonstrate that when the $P$ state fine structure splitting is large compared to the Zeeman splittings, the theoretical performance of the Molmer-Sorensen gate is significantly better than that of the light-shift gate. Additionally, for the light-shift gate, we make an approximate comparison between the fidelities that can be achieved at high fields with the fidelities of state-of-the-art two-qubit trapped ion quantum gates. We show that, with regard to spontaneous emission, the achievable infidelity of our current configuration is about an order of magnitude larger than that of the best low-field gates, but we also discuss alternative configurations with potential error rates that are comparable with state-of-the-art trapped ion gates.Comment: Main text: 19 pages, 13 figures, Appendix: 7 pages, 1 figure, updated to improve presentatio

Protected Areas: Mixed Success in Conserving East Africa’s Evergreen Forests

In East Africa, human population growth and demands for natural resources cause forest loss contributing to increased carbon emissions and reduced biodiversity. Protected Areas (PAs) are intended to conserve habitats and species. Variability in PA effectiveness and ‘leakage’ (here defined as displacement of deforestation) may lead to different trends in forest loss within, and adjacent to, existing PAs. Here, we quantify spatial variation in trends of evergreen forest coverage in East Africa between 2001 and 2009, and test for correlations with forest accessibility and environmental drivers. We investigate PA effectiveness at local, landscape and national scales, comparing rates of deforestation within park boundaries with those detected in park buffer zones and in unprotected land more generally. Background forest loss (BFL) was estimated at −9.3% (17,167 km2), but varied between countries (range: −0.9% to −85.7%; note: no BFL in South Sudan). We document high variability in PA effectiveness within and between PA categories. The most successful PAs were National Parks, although only 26 out of 48 parks increased or maintained their forest area (i.e. Effective parks). Forest Reserves (Ineffective parks, i.e. parks that lose forest from within boundaries: 204 out of 337), Nature Reserves (six out of 12) and Game Parks (24 out of 26) were more likely to lose forest cover. Forest loss in buffer zones around PAs exceeded background forest loss, in some areas indicating leakage driven by Effective National Parks. Human pressure, forest accessibility, protection status, distance to fires and long-term annual rainfall were highly significant drivers of forest loss in East Africa. Some of these factors can be addressed by adjusting park management. However, addressing close links between livelihoods, natural capital and poverty remains a fundamental challenge in East Africa’s forest conservation efforts

Incorporating Beliefs and Experiences into Choice Experiment Analysis: Implications for Policy Recommendations

We show that respondents\u27 beliefs about future outcomes and prior recreational experiences affect policy recommendations from choice experiments. For New England residents, we find that willingness to pay for a new national park in Maine differs based on respondents\u27 stated beliefs about the status quo long-term land use. We also find that respondents who do (do not) hunt or snowmobile would pay significantly more (less) for a park allowing these activities. Land managers may find a two-park solution (one allowing the activities and one prohibiting them) would be best; this insight would be missed when neglecting to model conflicting recreational preferences