Policy implications of LESA factor and weight determination in Douglas County, Kansas
The Land Evaluation and Site Assessment System (LESA) developed by the United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service is designed as an aid to local planning officials to protect important agricultural lands. Preliminary LESA development for Douglas County, Kansas indicates the overall usefulness of the model for its designated purpose within Douglas County. However, model development also indicates several inherent problems with the original system, stemming predominantly from arbitrary weight recommendations and predetermined factor suppositions which do not reflect the needs of a given planning area. The effect of these recommendations and suppositions are most evident when there is a conflict of scale due to incorporation of both national and local standards through the LESA model.
LESA—agricultural land evaluation and site assessment
AGRICULTURAL land protection policy is not a “no-growth” policy. It is a policy that supports urban growth in a compact, efficient pattern, conserving both agricultural and urban resources. Determining which agricultural land to protect and under what conditions involves important, difficult decisions.

Over the past two years, the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) has tested the agricultural Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) system, which shows promise for helping state and local officials make sound decisions about land use. LESA was designed in response to requests from SCS district conservationists and Cooperative Extension Service personnel in a number of states. These people's work with state and local planners on agricultural land protection indicated a need for a technically sound tool to evaluate land at the local level and to determine the conditions that justify conversion of agricultural land to other uses. Planners found it difficult to judge whether prime, highly productive farmland near urban areas should be protected and under what conditions such farmland should not be protected.

LESA has now been tested in 12 counties in six states: Washington, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, and Florida.

LESA in action 

LESA is designed for use by planning …
Single step formation of biocompatible bimetallic alloy nanoparticles of gold and silver using isonicotinylhydrazide.
Manufacturing nanoparticles with controlled physicochemical properties using environment-friendly routes have potential to open new prospects for a variety of applications. Accordingly, several approaches have been established for manufacturing metal nanoparticles. Many of these approaches entail the use of hazardous chemicals and could be toxic to the environment, and cannot be used readily for biomedical applications. In the present work, we report a single step bio-friendly approach to formulate gold (Au), silver (Ag), and Au-Ag alloy nanoparticles with desired surface corona and composition using isonicotinylhydrazide (INH) as a reducing agent. INH also functioned as a stabilizing agent by enabling a surface corona around the nanoparticles. Remarkably, within a single step INH could also provide a handle in regulating the composition of Au and Ag in bimetallic systems without any additional chemical modification. The physicochemical and surface properties of the different nanoparticles thus obtained have been examined by analytical, spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. Cell cytotoxicity (release of lactate dehydrogenase), cell viability and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) assays confirmed that the Au, Ag, and Au-Ag bimetallic nanoparticles prepared with INH are biocompatible. Finally, the presence of organic surface corona of INH on the nanoparticles was found to impart nanozyme activity and antimycobacterial sensitivity to the nanoparticles.