The Contested Floodplain. Institutional Change of the Commons in the Kafue Flats, Zambia

The Contested Floodplain tells the story of institutional changes in the management of common pool resources (pasture, wildlife, and fisheries) among Ila and Balundwe agro-pastoralists and Batwa fishermen in the Kafue Flats, in southern Zambia. It explains how and why a once rich floodplain area, managed under local common property regimes, becomes a poor man’s place and a degraded resource area. Based on social anthropological field research, the book explains how well working institutions in the past, regulating communal access to resources, have turned into state property and open access or privatization. The study focuses on the historic developments taking place since pre-colonial and colonial times up to today. Haller shows how the commons had been well regulated by local institutions in the past, often embedded in religious belief systems. He then explains the transformation from common property to state property since colonial times. When the state is unable to provide well-functioning institutions due to a lack in financial income, it contributes to de facto open access and degradation of the commons. The Zambian copper-based economy has faced crisis since 1975, and many Zambians have to look for economic alternatives and find ways to profit from the lack of state control (a paradox of the present-absent state). And while the state is absent, external actors use the ideology of citizenship to justify free use of resources during conflicts with local people. Also within Zambian communities, floodplain resources are highly contested, which is illustrated through conflicts over a proposed irrigation scheme in the area.

A Cruciform Electron Donor-Acceptor Semiconductor with Solid-State Red Emission: 1D/2D Optical Waveguides and Highly Sensitive/Selective Detection of H2S Gas

In this paper, a new cruciform donor–acceptor molecule 2,2'-((5,5'-(3,7-dicyano-2,6-bis(dihexylamino)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']difuran-4,8-diyl)bis(thiophene-5,2-diyl))bis (methanylylidene))dimalononitrile (BDFTM) is reported. The compound exhibits both remarkable solid-state red emission and p-type semiconducting behavior. The dual functions of BDFTM are ascribed to its unique crystal structure, in which there are no intermolecular face-to-face π–π interactions, but the molecules are associated by intermolecular CN…π and H-bonding interactions. Firstly, BDFTM exhibits aggregation-induced emission; that is, in solution, it is almost non-emissive but becomes significantly fluorescent after aggregation. The emission quantum yield and average lifetime are measured to be 0.16 and 2.02 ns, respectively. Crystalline microrods and microplates of BDFTM show typical optical waveguiding behaviors with a rather low optical loss coefficient. Moreover, microplates of BDFTM can function as planar optical microcavities which can confine the emitted photons by the reflection at the crystal edges. Thin films show an air-stable p-type semiconducting property with a hole mobility up to 0.0015 cm2V−1s−1. Notably, an OFET with a thin film of BDFTM is successfully utilized for highly sensitive and selective detection of H2S gas (down to ppb levels).

Alpine Common Property Institutions under Change: Conditions for Successful and Unsuccessful Collective Action by Alpine Farmers in the Canton of Grisons, Switzerland

The protection and sustainable management of alpine summer pastures has been stated as a goal in Swiss national law since 1996, and direct payments from the state for summer pasturing have been tied to sustainability criteria since 2000. This reflects the increasing value of the alpine cultural landscape as a public good. However, provision of this public good remains in the hands of local farmers and their local common pool resource (CPR) institutions for managing alpine pastures. These institutions are increasingly struggling to maintain their institutional arrangements, particularly regarding the work needed to maintain the pastures. This paper examines two cases of local CPR institutions for managing alpine pastures in the Swiss Canton of Grisons that manifest different institutional developments in light of changing conditions. The differences in how these institutions reacted to change and the impacts this has had on the provision of the CPR are explained by focusing on relative prices, bargaining power, and ideology as drivers of institutional change that are often neglected within common property research. Key words: summer pasture management, institutional change, bargaining power, ideology

The elusive S2 state, the S1/S2 splitting, and the excimer states of the benzene dimer

We observe the weak S 0 → S 2 transitions of the T-shaped benzene dimers (Bz)2 and (Bz-d 6)2 about 250 cm−1 and 220 cm−1 above their respective S 0 → S 1 electronic origins using two-color resonant two-photon ionization spectroscopy. Spin-component scaled (SCS) second-order approximate coupled-cluster (CC2) calculations predict that for the tipped T-shaped geometry, the S 0 → S 2 electronic oscillator strength f el (S 2) is ∼10 times smaller than f el (S 1) and the S 2 state lies ∼240 cm−1 above S 1, in excellent agreement with experiment. The S 0 → S 1 (ππ ∗) transition is mainly localized on the “stem” benzene, with a minor stem → cap charge-transfer contribution; the S 0 → S 2 transition is mainly localized on the “cap” benzene. The orbitals, electronic oscillator strengths f el (S 1) and f el (S 2), and transition frequencies depend strongly on the tipping angle ω between the two Bz moieties. The SCS-CC2 calculated S 1 and S 2 excitation energies at different T-shaped, stacked-parallel and parallel-displaced stationary points of the (Bz)2 ground-state surface allow to construct approximate S 1 and S 2 potential energy surfaces and reveal their relation to the “excimer” states at the stacked-parallel geometry. The f el (S 1) and f el (S 2) transition dipole moments at the C 2v -symmetric T-shape, parallel-displaced and stacked-parallel geometries are either zero or ∼10 times smaller than at the tipped T-shaped geometry. This unusual property of the S 0 → S 1 and S 0 → S 2 transition-dipole moment surfaces of (Bz)2 restricts its observation by electronic spectroscopy to the tipped and tilted T-shaped geometries; the other ground-state geometries are impossible or extremely difficult to observe. The S 0 → S 1/S 2 spectra of (Bz)2 are compared to those of imidazole ⋅ (Bz)2, which has a rigid triangular structure with a tilted (Bz)2 subunit. The S 0 → S 1/ S 2 transitions of imidazole-(benzene)2 lie at similar energies as those of (Bz)2, confirming our assignment of the (Bz)2 S 0 → S 2 transition.