The Institutional Design and Effectiveness of Timber Benefit Sharing under Joint Forest Management in Madhya Pradesh, India

This paper explores the institutional design of timber benefit sharing under the Joint Forest Management (JFM) policy and its effectiveness as an incentive for forest protection in Madhya Pradesh, India. Institutional analysis and case studies including household surveys for five committees were carried out. Except for plantations newly created under JFM, the places and times of timber harvesting were determined solely by the state forest department according to the division-level working plan. The sharing of the monetary benefits was determined by the state government and paid in equal amounts to committees in a lump sum, without taking the committees’ differing degrees of performance into consideration. Except in one committee, only a few respondents knew about the benefit sharing. In a committee where the shared benefits had been paid, even though little collective action had taken place, the money was used without communal decisions. It was confirmed that benefit sharing from timber production in Madhya Pradesh had not been implemented with flexible calculation and payment systems based on local people’s involvement in the decision-making process. Information provided by the concerned forest officers was the only way to motivate local people, and yet the appropriate information provisions were not likely to be in place. At the very least, improvements in the information provision with a change in the forest officers’ perceptions and attitudes are desirable.     

Gigantic photoresponse in 1/4-filled-band organic salt (EDO-TTF)2PF6

We report that the organic salt (EDO-TTF)2PF6 with 3/4-filled-band (1/4-filled in terms of holes), which forms an organic metal with strong electron and lattice correlation, shows a highly sensitive response to photoexcitation. An ultrafast, photoinduced phase transition from the insulator phase to the metal phase can be induced with very weak excitation intensity at near room temperature. This response makes the material attractive for applications in switching devices with room-temperature operation. The observed photo-induced spectroscopic change shows that this photoinduced phase transition process is caused by the cooperative melting of charge ordering assisted by coherent phonon generation.     

The effect of photodynamic therapy on squamous cell carcinoma in a murine model: evaluation of time between intralesional injection to laser irradiation

Successful treatment of naturally occurring periocular squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in horses with photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been performed by injecting residual tumor with verteporfin and applying laser irradiation immediately following injection. This study used a murine model to evaluate the influence of time between intralesional injection of verteporfin to laser irradiation on tumor growth inhibition with PDT. Mice were randomized into six groups (n=10/group). Each tumor was injected with either 0.1mg/cm(3) of verteporfin (Tx) or 5% dextrose in water (C). Tx and C groups 1, 2, and 3 were irradiated at 1, 30, and 180min after injection. Wilcoxon-rank sum test (P< or =0.05) was performed to determine the relative change in tumor volume (RCTV) between groups. Statistical significance was demonstrated between treatment groups. Although verteporfin-PDT treated mice in Tx1 and Tx2 demonstrated a lower RCTV compared to C1 and C2 mice, the differences were not statistically significant.