There is an important role for indigenous and local knowledge in a Multiple Evidence Base to make decisions about the use of biodiversity and its management. This is important both to ensure that the knowledge base is complete (comprising both scientific and local knowledge) and to facilitate participation in the decision making process. We present a novel method to gather evidence in which we used a peer-to-peer validation process among farmers that we suggest is analogous to scientific peer review. We used a case-study approach to trial the process focussing on pollinator decline in India. Pollinator decline is a critical challenge for which there is a growing evidence base, however, this is not the case world–wide. In the state of Orissa, India, there are no validated scientific studies that record historical pollinator abundance, therefore local knowledge can contribute substantially and may indeed be the principle component of the available knowledge base. Our aim was to collate and validate local knowledge in preparation for integration with scientific knowledge from other regions, for the purpose of producing a Multiple Evidence Base to develop conservation strategies for pollinators. Farmers reported that vegetable crop yields were declining in many areas of Orissa and that the abundance of important insect crop pollinators has declined sharply across the study area in the last 10–25 years, particularly Apis cerana, Amegilla sp. and Xylocopa sp. Key pollinators for commonly grown crops were identified; both Apris cerana and Xylocopa sp. were ranked highly as pollinators by farmer participants. Crop yield declines were attributed to soil quality, water management, pests, climate change, overuse of chemical inputs and lack of agronomic expertise. Pollinator declines were attributed to the quantity and number of pesticides used. Farmers suggested that fewer pesticides, more natural habitat and the introduction of hives would support pollinator populations. This process of knowledge creation was supported by participants, which led to this paper being co-authored by both scientists and farmers

SummaryFactors associated with agricultural intensification, for example, loss of seminatural vegetation and pesticide use has been shown to adversely affect the bee community. These factors may impact the bee community differently at different landscape scales. The scale dependency is expected to be more pronounced in heterogeneous landscapes. However, the scale‐dependent response of the bee community to drivers of its decline is relatively understudied, especially in the tropics where the agricultural landscape is often heterogeneous. This study looked at effects of agricultural intensification on bee diversity at patch and landscape scales in a tropical agricultural landscape. Wild bees were sampled using 12 permanent pan trap stations. Patch and landscape characteristics were measured within a 100 m (patch scale) and a 500 m (landscape scale) radius of pan trap stations. Information on pesticide input was obtained from farmer surveys. Data on vegetation cover, productivity, and percentage of agricultural and fallow land (FL) were collected using satellite imagery. Intensive areas in a bee‐site network were less specialized in terms of resources to attract rare bee species while the less intensive areas, which supported more rare species, were more vulnerable to disturbance. A combination of patch quality and diversity as well as pesticide use regulates species diversity at the landscape scale (500 m), whereas pesticide quantity drove diversity at the patch scale (100 m). At the landscape scale, specialization of each site in terms of resources for bees increased with increasing patch diversity and FL while at the patch scale specialization declined with increased pesticide use. Bee functional groups responded differentially to landscape characteristics as well as pesticide use. Wood nesting bees were negatively affected by the number of pesticides used but other bee functional groups were not sensitive to pesticides. Synthesis and Applications: Different factors affect wild bee diversity at the scale of landscape and patch in heterogeneous tropical agricultural systems. The differential response of bee functional groups to agricultural intensification underpins the need for guild‐specific management strategies for wild bee conservation. Less intensively farmed areas support more rare species and are vulnerable to disturbance; consequently, these areas should be prioritized for conservation to maintain heterogeneity in the landscape. It is important to conserve and restore seminatural habitats to maintain complexity in the landscapes through participatory processes and to regulate synthetic chemical pesticides in farm operations to conserve the species and functional diversity of wild bees.

While an increasing number of studies indicate that the range, diversity and abundance of many wild pollinators has declined, the global area of pollinator-dependent crops has significantly increased over the last few decades. Crop pollination studies to date have mainly focused on either identifying different guilds pollinating various crops, or on factors driving spatial changes and turnover observed in these communities. The mechanisms driving temporal stability for ecosystem functioning and services, however, remain poorly understood. Our study quantifies temporal variability observed in crop pollinators in 21 different crops across multiple years at a global scale. Using data from 43 studies from six continents, we show that (i) higher pollinator diversity confers greater inter-annual stability in pollinator communities, (ii) temporal variation observed in pollinator abundance is primarily driven by the three-most dominant species, and (iii) crops in tropical regions demonstrate higher inter-annual variability in pollinator species richness than crops in temperate regions. We highlight the importance of recognizing wild pollinator diversity in agricultural landscapes to stabilize pollinator persistence across years to protect both biodiversity and crop pollination services. Short-term agricultural management practices aimed at dominant species for stabilizing pollination services need to be considered alongside longer term conservation goals focussed on maintaining and facilitating biodiversity to confer ecological stability.

A mathematical model has been developed for predicting radius profiles in cylindrical pores during tungsten deposition from silane, tungsten hexafluoride, and hydrogen. The model is based on an unsteady-state mass balance over a differential element of the pore, from which a system of partial differential equations has been derived. The conformality of deposition is measured by the parameter step coverage.Step coverage is found to be highly sensitive to deposition rate, decreasing with increasing temperature, silane and hydrogen reactant concentration, and aspect ratio of the pores. However, it is found to increase with increasing tungsten hexafluoride concentration even though the deposition rate is zero order in this variable. Experimentally derived step coverage measurements were also compared to simulations run under comparable reactor conditions. The agreement between the experimental and simulated results is good.) unless CC License in place (see abstract). ecsdl.org/site/terms_use address. Redistribution subject to ECS terms of use (see 128.192.114.19 Downloaded on 2015-06-28 to IP ) unless CC License in place (see abstract). ecsdl.org/site/terms_use address. Redistribution subject to ECS terms of use (see 128.192.114.19 Downloaded on 2015-06-28 to IP

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In the current work, a design space for developing the performance enhanced strain-engineered Si nanowire field-effect-transistors has been provided. The fraction of insertion of the nanowire channel into the Insulator-on-Silicon substrate with judicious selection of high-k gate insulators is used as the key design parameter. The combined effect of fractional insertion and gate insulators results in inducing stress into the nanowire channel and, depending on their selection, it changes from tensile to compressive. Such induced-stress alters the existing inherent phononic-stress, leading to the modification of the carrier transport in the device channel. The carrier transport behavior in such partially embedded nanowire FETs has been modeled by incorporating the relevant stress-related effects into the indigenously developed self-consistent quantum-electrostatic framework. These equations are solved by employing the non-equilibrium Green's function formalism. The study shows the phonon scattering under tensile strain to occur at the expense of electron energy; however, the electrons can also gain energy during such scattering in compressive stress. Thus, the device current has been observed to increase with tensile stress and it achieves relatively smaller values when the inherent tensile phononic stress is balanced by the induced compressive stress. However, the current is finally observed to increase once the compressive stress overcomes the inherent tensile phononic stress. In general, the present devices exhibit promising Ion/Ioff ratio for all of the fractional insertions and gate dielectrics with a maximum Ioff of <10 nA/μm, threshold voltage of sub-0.3 V, gm of ∼104 µS/µm, sub-threshold swing of ∼100 mV/dec, and drain-induced-barrier-lowering of ∼100 mV/V.

This document is the author's post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it.

Abstract:Environmental complexity and spatial heterogeneity are important factors influencing the structure of ant species assemblages. This paper documents the effect of different vegetation and environmental factors on ant community structure and functional group composition in different habitat patches. Ants were sampled at 16 sites distributed across five habitat types in the Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary. Sampling was performed 10 times over a 2-y period using pitfall traps. A total of 100 species belonging to 41 genera were collected during the study. Ant species richness was best explained by a combination of percentage grass cover, percentage litter cover and number of saplings whereas percentage litter cover and soil nitrogen concentration significantly explained the variation in ant species abundance. Dominant Dolichoderinae were present only at forest edge and were found to be associated positively with percentage bare ground cover and negatively with percentage litter cover. Generalized Myrmicinae, subordinate Camponotini and tropical climate specialists were prevalent in shaded forest habitats whereas opportunists were more common in two types of open habitat. Our study underpins the influence of vegetational complexity, litter and soil chemical properties on the structure and composition of ant species assemblages and various functional groups across forested habitats in this little-studied region.