Ecosystem Management in the Southeast United States: Interest of Forest Landowners in Joint Management Across Ownerships

In the south-east United States, 70% of the forest area is privately owned, by an estimated 5 M landholders. If ecosystem or landscape-level management is to work, cooperation across private ownerships is essential. As a first step in garnering cooperation among landowners, a mail survey was carried out to understand their characteristics, attitudes, beliefs and interest in ecosystem management. A specific area of the Coastal Plain of South Carolina, typical of rural forest-dominated areas of this region, was chosen as the study site. Forestry-related uses, specifically timber production, are the main reasons why over half the respondents own their land. Only one-third of the respondents are familiar with the concept of ecosystem management. However, about 70% are interested in learning more about joint management with other landowners. The major concerns about participating in joint management are loss of land and timber values. Most of the landowners who would participate in a landscape corridor system, for example, want to maintain control of their land rights and limit outside intervention in the process

Educating the educators: Graduate student involvement in teaching natural resources

Awareness of the need to prepare future faculty for the teaching challenges they will face is growing rapidly. In one response, North Carolina State University established the Preparing the Professoriate program in 1994. Doctoral students work with a faculty mentor over the course of 1-2 years, depending on the frequency with which the course is taught, with the students moving from the role of observer to that of instructor. In addition to working closely with a member of the faculty in designing and delivering an undergraduate course, graduate students in the program attend monthly meetings at which they hear presentations and share experiences, and they complete a teaching portfolio. Entry into the program is competitive, as only ten student/mentor teams are selected each year. Selected students receive a $2,000 stipend

Transitioning from wild collection to forest cultivation of indigenous medicinal forest plants in eastern North America

Paper presented at the 11th North American Agroforesty Conference, which was held May 31-June 3, 2009 in Columbia, Missouri.In Gold, M.A. and M.M. Hall, eds. Agroforestry Comes of Age: Putting Science into Practice. Proceedings, 11th North American Agroforestry Conference, Columbia, Mo., May 31-June 3, 2009.The forest flora of eastern North America includes many herbaceous plant species traded in domestic and international medicinal markets. Conservation concerns surrounding wild-collection exist and transitioning to cultivation in agroforestry systems has potential economic and ecological benefits. Costs and revenues associated with adopting forest cultivation were modeled for eight North American medicinal forest plants. Sensitivity analysis examined profit potential in relation to (1) discount rates; (2) propagation methods; (3) prices; (4) growing period; (5) production costs; and (6) yields. Results indicate that intensive husbandry of six of eight species would be unprofitable at recent (1990-2005) price levels. Exceptions are American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.), and under certain circumstances (e.g., maximum historic prices, low production costs) goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis L.). Direct marketing to consumers and retailers might improve grower profits, but is undermined by the availability of cheaper, wild-collected product. We suggest that the North American medicinal plant industry could play a key role in facilitating any transition from wild to cultivated product, perhaps through development of a certification and labeling program that brands "forest cultivated" products. This could generate price premiums, to be passed along to growers, but must be accompanied by aggressive consumer education. A "forest cultivated" certification and labeling program has potential to benefit industry and consumers if assurances regarding product identity and quality are a central feature. Plant species that are not viable candidates for commercial cultivation due to limited consumer demand (i.e., species with "shallow," erratic markets) are best addressed through proactive government and industry initiatives involving targeted harvester education programs.Eric P. Burkhart (1) and Michael G. Jacobson (2) ; 1. Shaver's Creek Environmental Center, the Pennsylvania State University, Petersburg, PA 16669, USA. 2. School of Forest Resources, the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.Includes bibliographical references

Association of the Asn306Ser variant of the SP4 transcription factor and an intronic variant in the β-subunit of transducin with digenic disease

Purpose SP4 is a transcription factor abundantly expressed in retina that binds to the GC promoter region of photoreceptor signal transduction genes. We have previously shown that SP4 may be involved in the transcriptional activation of these genes alone or together with other transcription factors such as SP1, neural retina leucine zipper protein (NRL), and cone-rod homeobox gene (CRX). Since mutations in NRL and CRX are involved in inherited retinal degenerations, SP4 was considered a good candidate for mutation screening in patients with this type of diseases. The purpose of this work, therefore, was to investigate possible mutations in SP4 in a cohort of patients affected with different forms of retinal degenerations. Methods 270 unrelated probands with various forms of retinal degeneration including autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive retinitis pigmentosa (RP), autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive cone-rod dystrophy (CRD), and Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA), were screened for mutations in the SP4 gene. Single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis was performed on the six SP4 gene exons including flanking regions followed by direct sequencing of SSCP variants. Results Nine different sequence variants were found in 29 patients, four in introns and five in exons. Many of the probands were previously screened for mutations in the genes encoding the α-, β- and γ-subunits of rod-specific cGMP phosphodiesterase (PDE6A, PDE6B, PDE6G), the β-subunit of rod-specific transducin (GNB1), and peripherin/rds (RDS). One group of seven probands of Hispanic background that included five with arRP, one with RP of unknown inheritance (isolate) and 1 with arCRD carried an Asn306Ser mutation in SP4. Of the seven, the isolate case was homozygous and the other 6 heterozygous for the variant. Two arRP and the arCRD probands carried an additional intronic GNB1 variant. DNA from the family members of the arCRD proband could not be obtained, but for the other two families, all affected members and none of the unaffected carried both the SP4 Asn306Ser allele and the GNB1 intronic variant. Conclusions If mutations in SP4 do cause retinal degenerative disease, their frequency would be low. While digenic disease with the SP4 Asn306Ser and the GNB1 intronic variant alleles has not been established, neither has it been ruled out. This leaves open the possibility of a cooperative involvement of SP4 and GNB1 in the normal function of the retina.PubMedWo

Atomic Resonance and Scattering

Contains research objectives, summary of research and reports on four research projects.Joint Services Electronics Programs (U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, and U. S. Air Force) under Contract DAAB07-71-C-0300National Science Foundation (Grant GP-28679)National Bureau of Standards (Grant NBS2-9011)U. S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research (Contract F44620-72-C-0057

A left-handed simplicial action for euclidean general relativity

An action for simplicial euclidean general relativity involving only left-handed fields is presented. The simplicial theory is shown to converge to continuum general relativity in the Plebanski formulation as the simplicial complex is refined. This contrasts with the Regge model for which Miller and Brewin have shown that the full field equations are much more restrictive than Einstein's in the continuum limit. The action and field equations of the proposed model are also significantly simpler then those of the Regge model when written directly in terms of their fundamental variables. An entirely analogous hypercubic lattice theory, which approximates Plebanski's form of general relativity is also presented.Comment: Version 3. Adds current home address + slight corrections to references of version 2. Version 2 = substantially clarified form of version 1. 29 pages, 4 figures, Latex, uses psfig.sty to insert postscript figures. psfig.sty included in mailing, also available from this archiv

Symmetries and reversing symmetries of toral automorphisms

Toral automorphisms, represented by unimodular integer matrices, are investigated with respect to their symmetries and reversing symmetries. We characterize the symmetry groups of GL(n,Z) matrices with simple spectrum through their connection with unit groups in orders of algebraic number fields. For the question of reversibility, we derive necessary conditions in terms of the characteristic polynomial and the polynomial invariants. We also briefly discuss extensions to (reversing) symmetries within affine transformations, to PGL(n,Z) matrices, and to the more general setting of integer matrices beyond the unimodular ones.Comment: 34 page