Herders’ Forage-Livestock Decision Behavior in Northern Grassland regions of China

China has approximately 393 million hectares of grasslands, accounting for 41.7% of the national land area. However, 90% of useable grasslands are degraded because of human and natural reasons. Overgrazing was the dominant factor affecting grassland condition. In order to control the grassland degradation problems, the government has proposed the „forage-livestock balance‟ policy in 2002. A series of ecological policies were (Hou et al., 2013) and outcomes have been described as a “partial improvement amidst overall deterioration”. Reasons for apparent failure of the policy have been the subject of much discussion over the years. However, there has been a lack of research on the role of herder decision making behavior regarding the balance between animals and grass. Under the Household Responsibility System, the herders are directly responsible for managing these vast and important lands for China, and their decisions have both direct and indirect impact on the balance between animal needs and forage supply. Self-reliant herders are the main livestock producers in the Chinese northern grassland regions. Those herders breed animals mainly based on their own available rangelands, and buy forage and fodder only for winter use. They often consider they have lived in pastoral areas for generations, and have their understanding of the rangeland carrying capacity, thus always breed livestock number that they think are reasonable. As a result, overgrazing is universal. A better understanding of the effect herders‟ behavior has on the grassland condition and the details of decision making and their stock-breeding practices is urgently needed to develop more effective policies and programs to alleviate the degradation of grassland

Implications of Herder Attitudes for Stocking Rates in China and Mongolia

Over-grazing of the grasslands in China and Mongolia is a common problem. Herders typically aim to increase their animal numbers to then hopefully, improve their status and incomes. Various studies have shown that stocking rates often need to be halved to restore grasslands to a sustainable state. Governments have been enacting policies to achieve a reduction in stocking rates, especially in China. However, in both countries, herders have freedom to set their own stocking rates. A survey was done of ~900 herders in Inner Mongolia, on the five main grassland types, to define their styles, attitudes and intentions for stocking rates, their desired stocking rates and how that related to actual and recommended stocking rates and the implications for policies designed to rehabilitate degraded grasslands. Most herders only provide minimal inputs to livestock relying primarily on grasslands for fodder. Herders were grouped into four main types, those who intended to increase or decrease stocking rates Vs their actual stocking rates as a function of their desired stocking rates (+/-). They varied from those who had less than their desired stocking rates yet intended to reduce them further, to those who had more than their desired stocking rates and were intending to increase them. There was a general relationship within villages between the ratio of desired to actual stocking rates and actual number of animals held by the household. This general relationship indicated that within a village the herder’s actual ‘desire’ was for a specified number of animals, rather than a specified stocking rate. Similar attitudes prevail in Mongolia where herders do not think about animals per hectare. The policy implications are discussed

Framing Effect and Pastoralist Decision Making Behavior Regarding Lambing Time-An Analysis from Inner Mongolia, China

Grassland is the largest terrestrial ecosystem in China. However, it is seriously degraded. Lower stocking rates have been necessary for rehabilitating the degraded grassland. In order to rehabilitate the grassland the government proposed the “balancing animals and grass” policy. However, it has been resisted by pastoralists. (Brown et al., 2009). The reasons for the policy’s failure have been widely discussed. To date, there has been a lack of discussion on explicitly addressing the role of pastoralist behavior regarding stock numbers and lambing time. The pastoralists continue to maintain their traditional stocking rate, and take short-term adaptive measures to balance their animal’s needs with feed supply. Winter lambing is considered as one of efficient measures rehabilitating grasslands degradation. In northern China, however, those pastoralists generally buy little forage for sheep and lambs. Because they would graze the livestock, including lambs, on the grassland in the early growing season. However, early season growth on the grasslands is unpredictable and winter lambing could increase the grazing pressure and exacerbate degradation problems. If pastoralists have enough forage supply and sheds for stall-feeding, they could choose to lamb in winter and at the same time comply with the grazing-rest policy. Under the Household Contract Responsibility System, the pastoralists hold the grasslands and breed livestock themselves, and their decisions have both direct and indirect impact on the balance between animal needs and forage supply. However, unpredictable markets and climate change result in pastoralists facing increasingly more decisions making about lambing time and buying forage. Thus, it is becoming imperative to understand how pastoralists make decisions and the biases they exhibit. The framing effect is observed when a decision maker’s risk tolerance depends on how the alternatives are described. Many empirical studies have been conducted to demonstrate and investigate the framing effect in different contexts. Similarly, many theories have been developed to explain human decision making behavior based on gains and losses. However, little is known about pastoralist decision making behavior from a “framing effect” perspective, especially in pastoral areas of northern China. Early research has indicated agricultural decisions vary substantially by ethnicity (Heinimann et al., 2013). In northern China, the majority of pastoralists are with Mongolian background. They have their own culture, values and norms. While most Han pastoralists migrated from agricultural areas, generally take into account more economic interests when making decisions, More importantly, for all those pastoralists who livelihoods depend solely on grassland resources, stockbreeding not only supplies them with monetary income, but also many economic outputs. All these aspects have a substantial impact on pastoralists’ making decisions. Their decisions are an important factor to consider in policy formulation and implementation. However, the importance of ethnicity tends to be ignored in addressing grassland sustainability issues. The objective of this study is to explore the pastoralist decision-making behavior about lambing time, and to propose potential and efficient measures for controlling degradation problems for sustainable grassland development

Herder Mental Stocking Rate in the Rangeland Regions of Northern China

In 2002, the Chinese government issued the “balancing animals and grass” policy to control the degradation problem of northern China, but these programs have been widely resisted by herders. We proposed that herder had their mental stocking rate, which refers to the number of animals that the herders think they can place or maintain on a piece of rangeland over a specified period of time. It is the mental stocking rate that guides herder on how to adjust livestock-breeding practices. This study surveyed herder opinion of grass-animal balance in the meadow steppe, typical steppe and desert steppe regions of northern China. Most herders admitted that they bred more livestock than ten years ago, whereas they insisted that there was no overstocking in their rangelands and more than half even thought that their rangelands could still carry more livestock when the policy was implemented. Most herders hold that they took into account the carrying capacity of rangelands when making decisions about stock-breeding practices. Herders from three regions nominated the following mental stocking rates; 0.75-1.50, 0.60-1.50, and 0.50-0.75 sheep/ha, insisting these rates were necessary and reasonable

Topical Halometasone Reduces Acute Adverse Effects Induced by Pulsed Dye Laser for Treatment of Port Wine Stain Birthmarks

Introduction: Pulsed dye laser (PDL) for treatment of port wine stain (PWS) usually causes some acute adverse effects, including pain, erythema, scabbing and swelling. This study aimed to determine whether topical halometasone can be used to reduce these acute adverse effects for post-PDL care of patients.Methods: A total of 40 PWS subjects were enrolled in this study and randomly assigned into two regimens: PDL alone and PDL + halometasone. All subjects were given a single treatment of PDL with wavelength of 595 nm, fluence of 8.0~13.5 J/cm2, pulse duration of 0.45~20 ms (We mainly used purpuric pulse duration for PWS) and spot size of 7 mm. Subjects in the PDL + halometasone group received topical application of halometasone daily for 3 days. Subjects were followed-up on days 3, 7 and one month post-PDL to evaluate the reduction of adverse effects.Results: Subjects in the PDL + halometasone group had significantly improved erythema and scab scores and had less erythema duration days as compared to those in the PDL alone group. Topical halometasone also showed a decrease in pain index among subjects, but was statistically insignificant. Topical halometasone did not affect the ultimate efficacy of PDL treatment for PWS.Conclusion: Topical halometasone can significantly reduce acute adverse effects induced by PDL for treatment of PWS birthmarks, thus providing a safe and efficacious solution for post-PDL care of PWS patients

Water/Ethanol Soluble p-Type Conjugated Polymers for the Use in Organic Photovoltaics

We have developed two series of p-type conjugated polymers based on poly[2,3-bis-(3-octyloxyphenyl)quinoxaline-5,8-diyl-alt-thiophene-2,5-diyl] (TQ1) polymeric backbone utilizing polar pendant groups, i.e., tertiary amine and pyridine, to achieve switchable solubility in water and ethanol. By balancing the ratio between polar and non-polar side-groups, we could combine green-solvent processability with the manufacturing of functional photovoltaic devices. Due to the unavailability of water/alcohol soluble acceptors, the photovoltaic performance of these new polymers was evaluated using organic solvent by incorporating PC61BM. For water/alcohol soluble partial amine-based polymers, we achieve a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of ∼0.8% whereas alcohol soluble partial pyridine-based polymers show enhanced PCE of ∼1.3% with inverted device structure. We propose that the enhancement in PCE is a result of the reduction in amino-group content and the lower basicity of pyridine, both of which decrease the interaction between functionalized polymers with the anode interface material and reduce the miscibility of the donor and acceptor. Further improvement of the photovoltaic performance, in particular the open-circuit voltage (Voc), was achieved by using an anode buffer layer to mitigate the unfavorable interaction of the amino/pyridine groups with the MoO3 electrode. Our work demonstrated the possibility of substituent modification for conjugated polymers using tertiary amine and pyridine groups to achieve water/alcohol soluble and functional donor materials

A Conceptual Model to Optimize Operating Cost of Passenger Ships in Macau

To facilitate more convenient travel as the economy of Macau expands, the government of Macau has allowed shipping companies to add passenger ships and shipping lines. This paper demonstrates how shipping companies can reduce costs by optimizing passenger ships and crew size. It analyzes operating conditions for each shipping depot, including transit time, ships, and volume of passengers. A series of integer programming models is proposed. After a practical demonstration using Excel to solve the LP model, we show that the reduction in the number of passenger ships and crew size could reach 22.6% and 29.4%, respectively

The Importance of Schottky Barrier Height in Plasmonically Enhanced Hot‐Electron Devices

Plasmonically enhanced hot-electron (PEH) photodiodes are a new class of optoelectronic device with the potential to be selective to spectral position, polarization, and bandwidth. Reported solid-state PEH devices based on metal nanoparticles generally have low performance, in part, due to low collection efficiency of photogenerated hot electrons. A correlation is found between the measured external quantum efficiency (EQE) and the temperature at which the ALD-TiO2 is deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD) in Au–TiO2-based PEH photodiodes. By investigating the material properties of the TiO2, it is demonstrated that the change in EQE is driven by a change in the energy levels in the semiconductor. The results show that lowering the implied Schottky barrier height increases the collection efficiency of hot electrons over the junction, in agreement with existing analytical models. This work demonstrates the crucial role that barrier height plays in hot electron devices in general, and indicates that this is an important design consideration for the improvement of PEH photodetectors.Australian Research Council. Grant Number: DE18010038

In situ recombination junction between p-Si and TiO2 enables high-efficiency monolithic perovskite/Si tandem cells

Increasing the power conversion efficiency of silicon (Si) photovoltaics is a key enabler for continued reductions in the cost of solar electricity. Here, we describe a two-terminal perovskite/Si tandem design that increases the Si cell’s output in the simplest possible manner: by placing a perovskite cell directly on top of the Si bottom cell. The advantageous omission of a conventional interlayer eliminates both optical losses and processing steps and is enabled by the low contact resistivity attainable between n-type TiO2 and Si, established here using atomic layer deposition. We fabricated proof-of-concept perovskite/Si tandems on both homojunction and passivating contact heterojunction Si cells to demonstrate the broad applicability of the interlayer-free concept. Stabilized efficiencies of 22.9 and 24.1% were obtained for the homojunction and passivating contact heterojunction tandems, respectively, which could be readily improved by reducing optical losses elsewhere in the device. This work highlights the potential of emerging perovskite photovoltaics to enable low-cost, high-efficiency tandem devices through straightforward integration with commercially relevant Si solar cells

Efficient Passivation and Low Resistivity for p+-Si/TiO2Contact by Atomic Layer Deposition

The monolithic, two-terminal (2-T) perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell is a promising candidate to increase the power conversion efficiency beyond the theoretical limit of 29.4% for crystalline silicon solar cells. To achieve a high-efficiency 2-T tandem, it is critical to have an interface that can connect the bottom and top subcells together so that both efficient passivation and good electrical contact are achieved. The majority of works done to date in this area, applied an intermediate layer as the recombination layer between perovskite and silicon, which incurs higher manufacturing costs and an additional processing step. Here we demonstrate a unique and straightforward interlayer-free approach to passivating highly boron-doped low-resistivity n-Si using a thin layer of TiO2 fabricated by atomic layer deposition (ALD) and a suitable pretreatment of the silicon surface. The passivation of this film is found to be superior to that of thermally grown SiO2 formed at high temperatures over 700 °C. The TiOX layer leads to a sufficiently low contact resistance of 0.45 Ω.cm2 and high-quality passivation with a recombination current density (J0) of 152 fA/cm2. The structure is applicable to both perovskite/Si tandems and single-junction Si solar cells.We acknowledge the support of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP), and the ANFF ACT Node in carrying out this research. H.T.N. acknowledges the fellowship support of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics. T.P.W. is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (Project No. FT180100302) funded by the Australian Government