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The problem of excess capacity has persisted in many fisheries worldwide, threatening the sustainability of fisheries, even in cases where there are regulatory restrictions on fishing inputs. Getting fishers involved in monitoring illegal fishing has been one of the solutions proposed to tackle excessive investment in fishing capacity. However, the real effects of participation in monitoring have not yet been investigated in a rigorous and quantitative way. Using survey data for small-scale fisheries under a Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries (TURFs) system in Vietnam, this study measures the extent of excess capacity at individual fisher level using a bootstrapped Data Envelopment Analysis and investigates the effects of fisher participation in monitoring on level of excess capacity by employing an Endogenous Switching Regression model. We find evidence of substantial excess capacity even under TURFs, with fishers on average operating at 59% capacity. However, the results also show that participation in monitoring contributes to a significant reduction in excess capacity. Non-monitors are likely to have short-sighted investment behavior while monitors are likely to be driven by perception about the management of TURFs, and long-term incentives in their investment behavior. Age, education, and alternative livelihood also help explain the variation in the level of excess capacity among fishers. Knowledge of the drivers of fisher investment are of critical importance to policy-makers to establish effective capacity management interventions. Engaging fishers in monitoring should be considered as one of the key strategies for reducing excess capacity. To promote fisher participation in monitoring, effort should be directed towards enhancing awareness of the consequences of illegal fishing and building fisher trust in peers and local government officials.

Sustainable fisheries management largely depends on how effectively fishing regulations are enforced, which often relies on active monitoring by fishers. If fishers perceive that monitoring schemes do not fulfill their needs, they will resist participating in monitoring. However, fisheries managers worldwide have been making blanket assumptions about the way fishers respond to a monitoring scheme. Although this has been proven to be a common mistake, the literature has remained almost silent about heterogeneity of fisher preferences for monitoring scheme, and how it affects their participation. This study contributes to this knowledge gap by carrying out a choice experiment with artisanal fishers in Vietnam to elicit preferences and value key design elements of monitoring schemes. This is the first study to investigate fishers' preference heterogeneity using an advanced technique - the Scale-adjusted Latent Class model - that accounts for variance in both preferences and scale. We identified five distinct preference classes. Remarkably for a poor community, monetary compensation was found not to be the prime driver of fishers' choices. A one-size-fits-all monitoring scheme is ill-suited to all fishers. The design of flexible schemes can be an effective way to enhance the likelihood of fisher participation and the effectiveness of regulation enforcement.

A series of Eu3+ doped Ca2Al2SiO7 were synthesized by the solid-state reaction method. Structural and luminescent properties of the obtained samples were investigated through X-ray diffraction, Raman and luminescence spectra. The luminescent characteristic of the 5D0 → 7F0,1 transitions from emission spectra of Eu3+ ions showed that the Eu3+ ions occupy at two different sites in Ca2Al2SiO7 lattice. The Ca2Al2SiO7:Eu3+ red phosphors have three phonon sidebands with energies ~673 cm−1, 848 cm−1 and 1443 cm−1 which have been determined via the excitation spectra of Eu3+ ions in Ca2Al2SiO7 materials. These obtained phonon energies coincided with the vibrational energies observed from Raman spectra. The multiphonon relaxation rates for the excited levels of 5D1, 5D2 and 5D3 of Eu3+ ions in Ca2Al2SiO7 were also calculated.

Emerging as an innovation for improving the management of overexploited fisheries around the world, rights-based fisheries management systems are being implemented in the form of either species- or area-based management. While there are numerous reviews on species-based management, there have been none on area-based management. To fill this gap, we undertake a critical review of the literature on area-based management systems known as “Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries” (or TURFs). Following an exhaustive search, seventy-nine peer-reviewed journal papers discussing the evolution, effectiveness, enforcement, and management context of TURFs were identified and selected. Review of these papers reveals that there is a growing interest in investigating the real-world effects of TURFs, both positive and negative. The variability in TURF performance appears to be due to design features, enforcement behavior of fishers, and specific contextual conditions, namely, biological fishery characteristics, socio-economic aspects of fishers, and institutional arrangements. The bulk of the published research has focused on theoretical analysis and empirical evidence based on fishers’ perception and experience. And there has been little research on enforcement issues or how design features and management contexts influence performance. This review emphasizes the need for rigorous empirical analyses of TURF effects, including assessment of the cost-effectiveness of different enforcement schemes and the effects of contextual conditions on TURF performance. Addressing current shortcomings in the literature could improve the design, implementation and performance of TURFs worldwide.

By employing Ostrom’s set of eight design principles (DPs) as an analytical framework, this study evaluates the robustness of the institutions introduced by Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries (TURFs) and investigates how the DPs are interrelated. Data were collected from unstructured and semi-structured interviews with government officials and fishers in fishing communities in Vietnam. Although TURF institutions were found to be in better conformity with the DPs (and therefore more robust) than non-TURF ones, none of the TURFs satisfy all the DPs. Principles relating to collective choice arrangements, monitoring, and nested enterprise structures appear to be the missing elements in the current TURF design, despite the influence they have on the likelihood of adherence to other DPs. Results suggest management policies should better empower fishers, promote fisher participation in monitoring activities and establish horizontal linkages between fishing communities. Lessons learnt from this study will be useful for developing more robust TURF institutions and more sustainable fisheries.

In this note, we derive a new characterization of Asplund spaces and give a clarification of the proof of the approximate mean value theorem in Mordukhovich (2006) [5] and Mordukhovich and Shao (1996) [1] .

Vertically-aligned, self-assembled carbon–Fe:TiO 2 hybrid nanobelts were synthesized using a simple and low-cost metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Residual C, a by-product of MOCVD reaction, was utilized to form a nanographitic layer at the tip of the nanobelts, by which the Fe:TiO 2 nanobelt growth was mediated as the growth temperature was determined judiciously at 510 °C. The Fe:TiO 2 coating on the nanographitic layer is governed by Volmer–Weber and step-flow growth modes. The resultant vertically-aligned C–Fe:TiO 2 hybrid nanobelts have significant potential for various photocatalysis, solar cell, and Li-ion battery applications.