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© 2020 by the authors. What influences farmers' decisions to adopt agricultural technologies is an important question for international agricultural research projects. There are often interpersonal differences between women and men that influence the adoption of decisions and behaviours, but few studies in the literature focus on these factors. We describe a game-based approach to explore decision-making processes underpinning the adoption of new farming technologies and practices in Lao People's Democratic Republic. Sowing a different rice variety is the tailored technology. The game explored adoption behaviours influencing decisions on transitioning from growing glutinous rice, a traditional variety preferred for consumption, to "white" rice for commercial export to international markets. We conducted separate game-workshops with 36 women and 36 men in 4 villages of southern Laos that were transitioning from subsistence to commercial smallholder production. The gaming exposed various possible behaviours and decisions that women and men considered. Access to resources, both assets and information, was equal for all players, yet women were found to adopt new rice varieties more readily than men and to engage in cooperative behaviours in the game situation. The study highlighted the need for further gender-sensitive research into cooperation among women in the agricultural context-an understanding beneficial for countries and regions undergoing agricultural transition., Sustainability, 12 (16), ISSN:2071-1050

Hydrogen exposure of insulating d0-titanates, such as SrTiO3 (STO), has displayed the formation of intriguing conducting states. These conducting states form through the use of forming gas (N2/H2) annealing or hydrogen plasma exposure, where hydrogen gas is exposed to high energy microwaves. The exposure of STO to hydrogen causes metallic conductivity due to the introduction of hydrogen cations on some of the oxygen sites. However, the optical properties of this hydrogen-exposed STO have not been well-studied. Further, Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 (BST), an insulating dielectric, also shows changes in its conductivity upon hydrogen exposure. Unlike STO where the conductivity of the hydrogen-exposed material has been characterized, the optical, electronic, and transport properties of hydrogen exposed BST have not been studied. Thus, by studying hydrogen-exposed BST and STO, our understanding of the effects of hydrogen on insulators can be enhanced. In the first study, the effects of the exposure of insulating dielectric BST thin films to a hydrogen plasma is presented. These BST thin films are deposited on GdScO3 (GSO) substrates via Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). After deposition, the thin films are exposed to a hydrogen plasma. Just five minutes of hydrogen plasma exposure is enough to induce conductivity in the BST thin film. This conducting state is dominated by the interplay of disorder and strong electron correlations introduced during hydrogen exposure. Further, the optical properties indicate the formation of a transparent conductor, as the introduction of disorder and strong correlations has not changed the optical properties of the BST thin film in the visible spectrum. BST demonstrates an example of a new type of transparent conductor that utilizes large effective mass carriers to generate conductivity. In the second study, the effects of hydrogen doping on the surface of STO is explored. The conducting heterointerface that forms between PLD-deposited thin films of LaAlO3 (LAO) on STO is used as the standard to explore this hydrogen surface doping. The optical, electronic, and transport properties of water-leached and buffered hydrofluoric acid (BHF) etched heterointerfaces are characterized and compared. The recently developed water-leaching method is compared with the well-known BHF etching method, which has been shown to unintentionally dope the STO surface with fluorine and hydrogen. Both methods generate single-terminated atomically flat STO substrate surfaces that are ideal for heterointerface formation. After deposition, the optical, electronic, and transport properties of both the water-leached and BHF-etched heterointerfaces show no meaningful difference, demonstrating that water-leaching may also unintentionally dope the STO substrate surface with hydrogen. However, these results confirm that water-leaching generates a high-quality conducting heterointerface without the safety concerns of BHF., Copyright © John Gerard Connell 2019