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Poor research reporting is a major contributing factor to low study reproducibility, financial and animal waste. The ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines were developed to improve reporting quality and many journals support these guidelines. The influence of this support is unknown. We hypothesized that papers published in journals supporting the ARRIVE guidelines would show improved reporting compared with those in non-supporting journals. In a retrospective, observational cohort study, papers from 5 ARRIVE supporting (SUPP) and 2 non-supporting (nonSUPP) journals, published before (2009) and 5 years after (2015) the ARRIVE guidelines, were selected. Adherence to the ARRIVE checklist of 20 items was independently evaluated by two reviewers and items assessed as fully, partially or not reported. Mean percentages of items reported were compared between journal types and years with an unequal variance t-test. Individual items and sub-items were compared with a chi-square test. From an initial cohort of 956, 236 papers were included: 120 from 2009 (SUPP; n = 52, nonSUPP; n = 68), 116 from 2015 (SUPP; n = 61, nonSUPP; n = 55). The percentage of fully reported items was similar between journal types in 2009 (SUPP: 55.3 ± 11.5% [SD]; nonSUPP: 51.8 ± 9.0%; p = 0.07, 95% CI of mean difference -0.3–7.3%) and 2015 (SUPP: 60.5 ± 11.2%; nonSUPP; 60.2 ± 10.0%; p = 0.89, 95%CI -3.6–4.2%). The small increase in fully reported items between years was similar for both journal types (p = 0.09, 95% CI -0.5–4.3%). No paper fully reported 100% of items on the ARRIVE checklist and measures associated with bias were poorly reported. These results suggest that journal support for the ARRIVE guidelines has not resulted in a meaningful improvement in reporting quality, contributing to ongoing waste in animal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This systematic review contributes to the understanding of the characteristics of built food environments that may be associated with choices of alternative protein foods (APF). Using the built food environment typology proposed by Downs et al., we investigated various environmental structures (e.g., supermarkets, other retailers, farmers' markets, restaurants, schools, and online vendors) and the characteristics that may facilitate or hinder consumers' choices. For example, facilitators and barriers may refer to the physical characteristics of environmental structures, food presentation practices, the organizational strategies or policies operating in the setting, or the actions that retailers or consumers engage in while selling, serving, choosing, trying, or purchasing APF in these environmental structures. Methods: A systematic review (PROSPERO database preregistration; no. CRD42023388700) was conducted by searching 13 databases for peer-reviewed journals focusing on the fields of economics and business, agriculture, medical sciences, and social sciences. Data searches, coding, and quality evaluations were conducted by at least 2 researchers. A total of 31 papers (36 original studies) were included. The risk of bias was evaluated with the Joanna Briggs Institute quality evaluation tool, with 24 publications presenting low risk of bias. Results: The findings indicate that perceived and actual availability facilitate consumers' APF choices across a built food environment. Several barriers/facilitators were associated with APF choices in specific types of built food environments: the way food is presented in produce sections (supermarkets), consumer habits in terms of green and specialty shopping (grocery stores), and mismatches among retailer actions in regard to making APF available in one type of food environment structure (e-commerce) and consumers' preferences for APF being available in other food environment structures (supermarkets, grocery stores). The effect of a barrier/facilitator may depend on the APF type; for example, social norms regarding masculinity were a barrier affecting plant-based APF choices in restaurants, but these norms were not a barrier affecting the choice of insect-based APF in restaurants. Conclusions: Addressing barriers/facilitators identified in this review will help in developing environment-matching interventions that aim to make alternative proteins mainstream. Trial registration: PROSPERO database registration: #CRD42023388700. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of elasticities of substitution between inputs is a standard method for addressing the effect of a change in the mix of inputs used for production from a technical or cost standpoint. Most estimation methods use parametric production or cost functions or frontiers to estimate these elasticities. A potentially useful nonparametric alternative is data envelopment analysis (DEA). The purpose of this paper is to derive elasticities of input substitution for both technical and cost frontiers using DEA, extending the use of this approach in the field of economics and associated fields. The paper provides derivations for both Hicksian (production and cost frontier) and Morishima (cost frontier) elasticities of input substitution, as well as a parsimonious method for estimating them using DEA. The derivations are presented using an agricultural example form Kansas, USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A diversity of arthropods (myrmecophiles) thrives within ant nests, many of them unmolested though some, such as the specialized Eucharitidae parasitoids, may cause direct damage to their hosts. Ants are known to discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates, but whether they recognize the strength of a threat and their capacity to adjust their behavior accordingly have not been fully explored. We aimed to determine whether Ectatomma tuberculatum ants exhibited specific behavioral responses to potential or actual intruders posing different threats to the host colony and to contribute to an understanding of complex ant-eucharitid interactions. Behavioral responses differed significantly according to intruder type. Ants evicted intruders that represented a threat to the colony’s health (dead ants) or were not suitable as prey items (filter paper, eucharitid parasitoid wasps, non myrmecophilous adult weevils), but killed potential prey (weevil larvae, termites). The timing of detection was in accordance with the nature and size of the intruder: corpses (a potential source of contamination) were detected faster than any other intruder and transported to the refuse piles within 15 min. The structure and complexity of behavioral sequences differed among those intruders that were discarded. Workers not only recognized and discriminated between several distinct intruders but also adjusted their behavior to the type of intruder encountered. Our results confirm the previously documented recognition capabilities of E. tuberculatum workers and reveal a very fine-tuned intruder discrimination response. Colony-level prophylactic and hygienic behavioral responses through effective removal of inedible intruders appears to be the most general and flexible form of defense in ants against a diverse array of intruders. However, this generalized response to both potentially lethal and harmless intruders might have driven the evolution of ant-eucharitid interactions, opening a window for parasitoid attack and allowing adult parasitoid wasps to quickly leave the natal nest unharmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food safety is a global public health issue, which often arises from asymmetric information between consumers and suppliers. With the development of information technology in human life, building a food traceability information sharing platform is viewed as one of the best ways to overcome the trust crisis and resolve the problem of information asymmetry in China. However, among the myriad information available from the food supply chain, there is a lack of knowledge on consumer preference. Based on the best-worst scaling approach, this paper investigated consumer preferences for vegetable, pork, and dairy product traceability information. Specifically, this paper measured the relative importance that consumers place on the traceable information. The results indicate that consumers have varying priorities for information in different cases. “Pesticide/veterinary use,” “picking/slaughtering date,” and “fertilizer/feed use” are the most preferred traceable information for Chinese consumers in the case of vegetables, while “picking/slaughtering date” and “history of illness and taking protective measures” are the most preferred information in the case of pork. In the case of dairy products, consumers prefer “processing information,” “environmental information of the origin,” and “traceable tag certification information” most. The results of this study call for the direct involvement of the Chinese government in the food safety information sharing system as following. First, given consumers’ diverse preferences, different types of traceable information should be recorded into the information sharing platform depending on food types. Second, the government could promote the step-by-step construction of such a platform based on the priority of consumers’ preferences. Third, new technology should be applied to guarantee the reliability of traceable information. Finally, local preferences in terms of the way consumers receive and understand information should be taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animal mobility is a common strategy to overcome scarcity of food and the related over-grazing of pastures. It is also essential to reduce the inbreeding rate of animal populations, which is known to have a negative impact on fertility and productivity. The present paper shows the geographic range of sheep provisioning in different phases of occupation at the Iron Age site of Turó de la Font de la Canya (7th to 3rd centuries BC). Strontium isotope ratios from 34 archaeological sheep and goat enamel, two archaeological bones and 14 modern tree leaves are presented. The isotopic results suggest that sheep and goats consumed at the site were reared locally (within a few kilometres radius) during the whole period of occupation. The paper discusses the isotopic results in light of the socio-political structure of this period, as complex, strongly territorial societies developed during the Iron Age in the north-east Iberian Peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely recognized that increasing agricultural production to the levels needed to feed an expanding world population requires sharply increased public investment in research and development and widespread adoption of new technologies, but funding for national and international agricultural research has rather declined in recent years. In this situation, priority setting has become increasingly important for allocating scarce research resources among competing needs to achieve greater impacts. Using partial equilibrium economic surplus models and poverty impact simulations, this paper assesses cassava research priorities in Africa, Latin America and Caribbean, and Asia based on the potential economic and poverty reduction impacts of alternative research and technology options. The results showed that efficient planting material production and distribution systems and sustainable crop and soil fertility management practices have the greatest expected economic and poverty reduction impacts in the three regions. Lack of clean planting materials is a major constraint to adoption and it is envisaged that efficient production and distribution systems for planting material can accelerate technology adoption by farmers. Similarly, sustainable crop and soil fertility management practices play a key role in closing the observed yield gaps, especially in Africa. The paper discusses the results of the priority assessment for key cassava research options and concludes with the implications for cassava research priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recreational fishing is often perceived as harmless when it comes to fisheries management, and its impact often estimated to surpass the economic outcomes of e.g. large-scale fisheries. Recreational fisheries are often an indication of political stability and sound ecosystem management. However, despite a high economic impact, the economic costs on traditional and small-scale commercial fishers is yet to be known. This paper answers the question of how unregulated recreational fisheries could rather generate a loss to an economy, and cause unfair competition with existing commercial sectors using the example of Algeria. This paper assesses catches and economic value of recreational fisheries in Algeria, and finds that over 6,000 tonnes reach commercial markets annually, competing directly with the small-scale artisanal sector, while selling recreationally caught fish is still illegal. The paper further finds that the public is thereby deprived—through lost tax, licence income and landed value of $45 million US annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) have been playing an increasing role in interventions aiming to generate and scale innovations in agricultural systems. However, the contribution of MSPs in achieving innovations and scaling has been varied, and many factors have been reported to be important for their performance. This paper aims to provide evidence on the contribution of MSPs to innovation and scaling by focusing on three developing country cases in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. Through social network analysis and logistic models, the paper studies the changes in the characteristics of multi-stakeholder innovation networks targeted by MSPs and identifies factors that play significant roles in triggering these changes. The results demonstrate that MSPs do not necessarily expand and decentralize innovation networks but can lead to contraction and centralization in the initial years of implementation. They show that some of the intended next users of interventions with MSPs–local-level actors–left the innovation networks, whereas the lead organization controlling resource allocation in the MSPs substantially increased its centrality. They also indicate that not all the factors of change in innovation networks are country specific. Initial conditions of innovation networks and funding provided by the MSPs are common factors explaining changes in innovation networks across countries and across different network functions. The study argues that investigating multi-stakeholder innovation network characteristics targeted by the MSP using a network approach in early implementation can contribute to better performance in generating and scaling innovations, and that funding can be an effective implementation tool in developing country contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge of detecting research topics in a specific research field has attracted attention from researchers in the bibliometrics community. In this study, to solve two problems of clustering papers, i.e., the influence of different distributions of citation links and involved textual features on similarity computation, the authors propose a hybrid self-optimized clustering model to detect research topics by extending the hybrid clustering model to identify “core documents”. First, the Amsler network, consisting of bibliographic coupling and co-citation links, is created to calculate the citation-based similarity based on the cosine angle of papers. Second, the cosine similarity is also used to compute the text-based similarity, which consists of the textual statistical and topological features. Then, the cosine angle of the linear combination of citation- and text-based similarity is considered as the hybrid similarity. Finally, the Louvain method is applied to cluster papers, and the terms based on term frequency are used to label clusters. To test the performance of the proposed model, a dataset related to the data envelopment analysis field is used for comparison and analysis of clustering results. Based on the benchmark built, different clustering methods with different citation links or textual features are compared according to evaluation measures. The results show that the proposed model can obtain reasonable and effective clustering results, and the research topics of data envelopment analysis field are also analyzed based on the proposed model. As different features are considered in the proposed model compared with previous hybrid clustering models, the proposed clustering model can provide inspiration for further studies on topic identification by other researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries have some kind of energy-system transformation either planned or ongoing for various reasons, such as to curb carbon emissions or to compensate for the phasing out of nuclear energy. One important component of these transformations is the overall reduction in energy demand. It is generally acknowledged that the domestic sector represents a large share of total energy consumption in many countries. Increased energy efficiency is one factor that reduces energy demand, but behavioral approaches (known as “sufficiency”) and their respective interventions also play important roles. In this paper, we address citizens’ heterogeneity regarding both their current behaviors and their willingness to realize their sufficiency potentials—that is, to reduce their energy consumption through behavioral change. We collaborated with three Swiss cities for this study. A survey conducted in the three cities yielded thematic sets of energy-consumption behavior that various groups of participants rated differently. Using this data, we identified four groups of participants with different patterns of both current behaviors and sufficiency potentials. The paper discusses intervention types and addresses citizens’ heterogeneity and behaviors from a city-based perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, high-resolution magnetometry surveys have led to the discovery of a special category of buildings–so-called ‘mega-structures’–situated in highly visible positions in the public space of Tripolye giant-settlements of the late 5th and first half of the 4th millennium BCE. In this paper we explore what these buildings actually are and how they can contribute to the understanding of the development of social space in Tripolye giant-settlements. For this investigation, we linked newly obtained excavation data from the giant-settlement Maidanetske, Ukraine, with a much larger sample of such buildings from magnetic plans obtained in the region between the Carpathian foothills and the Dnieper River. Accordingly, Tripolye mega-structures represent a particular kind of integrative building documented in many non-ranked ethnographic contexts. Based on our results we are interpreting that these buildings were used for various ritual and non-ritual activities, joint decision-making, and the storage and consumption of surplus. In Tripolye giant-settlements at least three different categories of mega-structures could be identified which most likely represent different levels of socio-political integration and decision-making. The emergence of this hierarchical system of high-level integrative buildings for the whole community and different low-level integrative architectures for certain segments of local communities was related to the rise of Tripolye mega-sites. The presence of different integrative levels most likely reflects the fusion of different previously independent communities in the giant-settlements. Later in the mega-site development, we observe how low-level integrative buildings increasingly lose their importance indicated by shrinking size and, finally, their disappearance. This observation might indicate that the power which was previously distributed across the community was transferred to a central institution. It is argued that the non-acceptance of this concentration of power and the decline of lower decision-making levels might be a crucial factor for the disintegration of Tripolye giant-settlements around 3600 BCE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the trends in today’s tourism sector is the development of environmentally-friendly tourism activities which rely on natural resources of cultural heritage and on biodiversity. This is definitely the case for agritourism, a form of rural tourism. The purpose of this paper is to identify the development aspects of Polish agritourism with particular emphasis on natural and cultural attractiveness. To demonstrate the relationship between agritourism activities of Polish farms and the cultural and natural attractiveness, the Hellwig’s synthetic development indicator was used. As shown by research, the cultural and natural attractiveness of a destination is an important exogenous development factor. Another finding was that the intensified efforts undertaken by the farmers to access EU funds were not focused on areas with valuable natural or cultural resources and an untapped agritourism potential; instead, they were oriented at regions dominated by semi-subsistence or family farms. For a large part of farmers, the new form of support is about to become a source of additional incomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To balance the supply and demand in China's beef market, beef consumption must be scientifically and effectively forecasted. Beef consumption is affected by many factors and is characterized by gray uncertainty. Therefore, gray theory can be used to forecast the beef consumption, In this paper, the structural defects and unreasonable parameter design of the traditional gray model are analyzed. Then, a new gray model termed, EGM(1,1,r), is built, and the modeling conditions and error checking methods of EGM(1,1,r) are studied. Then, EGM(1,1,r) is used to simulate and forecast China’s beef consumption. The results show that both the simulation and prediction precisions of the new model are better than those of other gray models. Finally, the new model is used to forecast China’s beef consumption for the period from 2019–2025. The findings will serve as an important reference for the Chinese government in formulating policies to ensure the balance between the supply and demand for Chinese beef. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the price changes in global bluefin tuna (BFT) markets in response to shifts in regional and global landings to evaluate the conservation and economic incentives from changes in the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) managed by all three Regional Fisheries Management Organizations. A fisherman’s income, and thus the financial incentive to accept management measures controlling catch levels, depends in part on how responsive price is to overall catch. Individual fisherman, with their own best interest in mind, used to wish to increase their individual landings and create an incentive to ask to increase the TAC for the industry, without realizing the possible revenue loss due to the resulting falling prices. To protect the value of all stakeholders’ property rights, a consensus to avoid abruptly raising the TAC, without first considering the potential loss due to market response, is needed. Alternatively, if revenue increases with lower TAC, a positive economic incentive for conservation is created if price increasing proportionately more than the lower supply, with harvest profits boosted by lower costs of production. To capture the complexity of substituting across various sources of supply and product form, a general synthetic inverse demand system is estimated to identify the impact of overall landings on BFT prices. This system estimates price flexibilities of both fresh and frozen longline-caught sashimi-grade tunas (Pacific, Atlantic and southern bluefins, and bigeye) at the Tokyo Center Market in Japan, including the Tsukiji Market, the world’s largest fish auction market that served as the single global price leader for BFT. The resulting estimation shows that own-quantity price flexibilities of every type of fresh and frozen BFTs are less than unity and inflexible in their own consumption. This creates poor individual producer incentives for fishermen to reduce wild or farmed BFT supply, as there is a chance to increase their own revenue, under the unlikely condition that the total supply is fixed. However, by observing the rapid increases in the TAC of Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna (EABFT) in the coming years, suppliers may not be better off as price will drop proportionally faster and total revenue if the estimated scale flexibility is greater than one. Based on the estimated scale flexibility of frozen BFT, which is slightly less than unity, the frozen subsector of EABFT suppliers is the only winner under the supply increases. Suppliers of frozen BFT in other regions, fresh BFT (in the Atlantic and elsewhere), and southern BFT and bigeye tuna will all be harmed through lower revenue by the supply increases. Additionally, while total revenue might stay the same for frozen BFT suppliers, fishermen will potentially receive lower profits due to higher operating costs associated with increased landings when the supply of EABFT increases. Given the number of sectors that ultimately lose financially in the short term and given the ecological (and production) risks accompanying an abrupt increase in fishing pressure in the long term, the global economic losses resulting from an increase in the allowable catch of Atlantic bluefin tuna will outweigh any potential increases to revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizations are increasingly using sustainability reports to inform their stakeholders and the public about their sustainability practices. We apply topic modelling to 9,514 sustainability reports published between 1999 and 2015 in order to identify common topics and, thus, the most common practices described in these reports. In particular, we identify forty-two topics that reflect sustainability and focus on the coverage and trends of economic, environmental, and social sustainability topics. Among the first to analyse such a large amount of data on organizations’ sustainability reporting, the paper serves as an example of how to apply natural language processing as a strategy of inquiry in sustainability research. The paper also derives from the data analysis ten propositions for future research and practice that are of immediate value for organizations and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a zooarchaeological analysis conducted on the occupation layer of a compound structure (Residential Unit 1) of the Pucara de Tilcara archaeological site (Jujuy Province, northwestern Argentina). Its occupation span extends between the 13th and 15th centuries AD, but evidence diagnostic of the Inka Period (AD 1430–1536) is predominant. Residential Unit 1 was a house-workshop that hosted specialized crafts like metallurgy and lapidary during the Inka Period. It was proposed in previous works that artisans living at Pucara de Tilcara were provisioned with agropastoral products by the Inka administration. This paper aims to test that hypothesis against the zooarchaeological evidence of Residential Unit 1. Three variables were used as proxies for state-sponsored distribution: taxonomic diversity (family and species ranks), and skeletal and age profiles of the predominant zoological family (Camelidae) in the assemblage. The results show a high degree of continuity with the regional record, characterized by a herding-hunting strategy focused on domestic and wild species of Camelidae and a mixed mortality pattern. The skeletal profile shows a strong and negative correlation with the desiccation potential of elements, which could be indicative of local production of chalona. Overall, faunal evidence does not show any sign of centralized distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tobacco industry interference has been identified as the greatest obstacle to the implementation of evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use. Understanding and addressing industry interference in public health policy-making is therefore crucial. Existing conceptualisations of corporate political activity (CPA) are embedded in a business perspective and do not attend to CPA's social and public health costs; most have not drawn on the unique resource represented by internal tobacco industry documents. Building on this literature, including systematic reviews, we develop a critically informed conceptual model of tobacco industry political activity.Methods and Findings: We thematically analysed published papers included in two systematic reviews examining tobacco industry influence on taxation and marketing of tobacco; we included 45 of 46 papers in the former category and 20 of 48 papers in the latter (n = 65). We used a grounded theory approach to build taxonomies of "discursive" (argument-based) and "instrumental" (action-based) industry strategies and from these devised the Policy Dystopia Model, which shows that the industry, working through different constituencies, constructs a metanarrative to argue that proposed policies will lead to a dysfunctional future of policy failure and widely dispersed adverse social and economic consequences. Simultaneously, it uses diverse, interlocking insider and outsider instrumental strategies to disseminate this narrative and enhance its persuasiveness in order to secure its preferred policy outcomes. Limitations are that many papers were historical (some dating back to the 1970s) and focused on high-income regions.Conclusions: The model provides an evidence-based, accessible way of understanding diverse corporate political strategies. It should enable public health actors and officials to preempt these strategies and develop realistic assessments of the industry's claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops two-stage inverse data envelopment analysis models with undesirable outputs to formulate resource plans for 16 Chinese listed commercial banks whose outputs are increased and overall efficiency is kept unchanged in the short term. We use these models to meet three different output targets, namely, increasing both the desirable and undesirable outputs by the same percentage, increasing these outputs by different percentages, and increasing only the desirable outputs while keeping the undesirable outputs unchanged. We find that operation cost and interest expense are more flexible than labor in the adjustment process and that deposits have no obvious law of change. The findings of this work provide some suggestions for bank managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about the use of child labor in West African cocoa production became widespread in the early 2000s in many high-income countries. In 2015 in Ghana, 91.8% (or a total of 878,595) of the children working in the cocoa sector were involved in a form of hazardous work. Child labor in cocoa production is not just a symptom of poverty but also a contributing factor, as children often forgo a formal education to work in cocoa orchards. Current Ghanaian law prohibits child labor, but, with many cocoa households living in poverty, child labor becomes a necessity for survival, and as such, current child labor laws are rarely enforced. Therefore, an effective policy that eliminates child labor could compensate farmers by providing an economic incentive. In this paper, we develop and calibrate a farm household model to estimate the cocoa price premium necessary to eliminate child labor from cocoa production while leaving the farm household welfare unchanged. This welfare-neutral price premium removes the negative effects of eliminating child labor for the farm household. Varying degrees of child labor exists, with certain forms posing a greater risk to children’s wellbeing. The results show that eliminating the worst forms of child labor would require a cocoa price premium of 2.81% and eliminating regular work (non-hazardous work but over the maximum hours allowed for a child) and the worst forms would require an 11.81% premium, which could be paid for by the well-established Ghanaian Cocoa Marketing Board. An incentive for the Cocoa Marketing Board to pay the price premium and monitor and enforce this policy would be the ability to differentiate their cocoa as child-labor free and not lose market share to countries who cannot currently certify this practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the literature on willingness to pay (WTP) for local food by applying meta-regression analysis to a set of 35 eligible research papers that provide 86 estimates on consumers’ WTP for the attribute “local.” An analysis of the distribution of WTP measures suggests the presence of publication selection bias that favors larger and statistically significant results. The analyzed literature provides evidence for statistically significant differences among consumers’ WTP for various types of product. Moreover, we find that the methodological approach (choice experiments vs. other approaches) and the analyzed country can have a significant influence on the generated WTP for local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the calculation of the inclusive financial development level of 22 provinces and 4 municipalities in China from 2004 to 2017, this paper uses the Kernel density estimation method to further analyze the evolution of the inclusive financial index. Based on the above analysis, we make empirical analysis of the impact of China's inclusive financial inclusion development index on farmers' entrepreneurship using static panel and dynamic panel estimation method. The empirical conclusions show that there are certain differences in inclusive financial inclusion development level in various provinces in China. Improving the inclusion development level of inclusive finance can better promote farmers' entrepreneurship. Urbanization level, economic openness and regional economic development level have a significant positive effect on farmers' entrepreneurship, while farmers' income and education level have a significant negative effect on farmers' entrepreneurship. It is possible to promote farmers' entrepreneurship by improving the inclusive development level of inclusive finance, combining urbanization, increasing government investment in productive fixed assets, increasing economic openness and improving regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human populations show rich cultural diversity. Underpinning this diversity of tools, rituals, and cultural norms are complex interactions between cultural evolutionary and demographic processes. Most models of cultural change assume that individuals use the same learning modes and methods throughout their lives. However, empirical data on ‘learning life histories’—the balance of dominant modes of learning (for example, learning from parents, peers, or unrelated elders) throughout an individual’s lifetime—suggest that age structure may play a crucial role in determining learning modes and cultural evolutionary trajectories. Thus, studied in isolation, demographic and cultural evolutionary models show only part of the picture. This paper describes a mathematical and computational framework that combines demographic and cultural evolutionary methods. Using this general framework, we examine interactions between the ways in which culture is spread throughout an individual’s lifetime and cultural change across generations. We show that including demographic structure alongside cultural dynamics can help to explain domain-specific patterns of cultural evolution that are a persistent feature of cultural data, and can shed new light on rare but significant demographic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The particularities of agriculture, as a sector which ensures food supply, result from many factors, including the multilateral interaction between the environment and human activity. The extent of human intervention in the food production process is usually measured with the amount of capital expenditure. Therefore, the food production potential and the resulting food security depend on both natural and economic factors. This paper identifies the current status of food security in different countries around the world, considering both aspects (physical and economic availability) combined together. The variables published by FAO were used together with a variable estimated based on the author’s own methodology to identify 8 groups of countries characterized by economic development level, net trade in agricultural products, and selected variables related to agriculture and food situation. As shown by this study, the degree to which food security is ensured with domestic supply varies strongly across the globe. Domestic production provides a foundation for food security in wealthy countries, usually located in areas with favorable conditions for agriculture (including North America, Australia, New Zealand, Kazakhstan) and in countries which, though characterized by a relatively small area of arable land per capita, demonstrate high production intensity (mainly European countries). International trade largely contributes to food security in Middle East and North African countries as well as in selected South American countries which are net importers of food products. The most problematic food situation continues to affect Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthworms are primary candidates for national soil health monitoring as they are ecosystem engineers that benefit both food production and ecosystem services associated with soil security. Supporting farmers to monitor soil health could help to achieve the policy aspiration of sustainable soils by 2030 in England; however, little is known about how to overcome participation barriers, appropriate methodologies (practical, cost-effective, usefulness) or training needs. This paper presents the results from a pilot #60minworms study which mobilised farmers to assess over >1300 ha farmland soils in spring 2018. The results interpretation framework is based on the presence of earthworms from each of the three ecological groups at each observation (20 x 20 cm x 20 cm pit) and spatially across a field (10 soil pits). Results showed that most fields have basic earthworm presence and abundance, but 42% fields may be over-worked as indicated by absence/rarity of epigeic and/or anecic earthworms. Tillage had a negative impact (p < 0.05) on earthworm populations and organic matter management did not mitigate tillage impacts. In terms of farmer participation, Twitter and Farmers Weekly magazine were highly effective channels for recruitment. Direct feedback from participants included excellent scores in trust, value and satisfaction of the protocol (e.g. 100% would do the test again) and 57% would use their worm survey results to change their soil management practices. A key training need in terms of earthworm identification skills was reported. The trade-off between data quality, participation rates and fieldwork costs suggests there is potential to streamline the protocol further to #30minworms (5 pits), incurring farmer fieldwork costs of approximately £1.48 ha-1. At national scales, £14 million pounds across 4.7 M ha-1 in fieldwork costs per survey could be saved by farmer participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution in animals of a first possession convention, in which individuals retain what they are the first to acquire, has often been taken as a foundation for the evolution of human ownership institutions. However, among humans, individuals actually only seldom retain an item they have acquired from the environment, instead typically transferring what they possess to other members of the community, to those in command, or to those who hold a contractual title. This paper presents a novel game-theoretic model of the evolution of ownership institutions as rules governing resource transfers. Integrating existing findings, the model contributes a new perspective on the emergence of communal transfers among hominin large game hunters around 200,000 years ago, of command ownership among sedentary humans in the millennia prior to the transition to agriculture, and of titled property ownership around 5,500 years ago. Since today’s property institutions motivate transfers through the promise of future returns, the analysis presented here suggests that these institutions may be placed under considerable pressure should resources become significantly constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the development impacts of migration and remittances in migrant source communities by applying insights from the New Economics of Labor Migration (NELM) theory to Ethiopia’s migration. Using household survey data, we empirically evaluate how household participation in migration arises and so that the subsequent labor losses and the influx of remittances affect income sources and asset accumulation of smallholder farm households. To account several econometric issues and consistently estimate the impacts of migration and remittances, we adopted three-stage least-squares method complemented with endogeneity and multicollinearity test. Besides, using logistic and multinomial logistic regressions respectively, we estimate the determinants of the household migration decision to have migrants, as well as the probability of the household to send out temporary or permanent migrants. Findings suggest that larger and wealthier households are less likely to have migrant family members, while households living below the poverty line, as well as villages with the highest unemployment rate, are the most likely to have both temporary and permanent migrants. However, a rise in months spent out of agriculture has a significant negative effect on crop income and asset accumulation, but only for permanent migration. By contrast, the influx of remitted income from migrants has led to increased crop income and asset values in the form of land and livestock holdings. Finally, this manuscript provides more comprehensive evidence by showing the net-returns of migration in terms of initial lost-labor effects and the positive developmental impacts that it produces varied for households with different types of migration and production conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social inclusiveness of agricultural extension services in India. We estimate the probability and frequency of farmers’ access to extension services and resulting changes in crop income across different caste groups. The literature suggests that caste-based social segregation manifests in various spheres of life, and perpetuates economic inequality and oppression. An econometric analysis of nationally-representative data from rural India verifies this with respect to the agricultural sector. Farmers belonging to the socially-marginalized castes are found to have a lower chance of accessing the public extension services, primarily due to their inferior resource-endowment status. Contacting extension agents at least once increased the average annual crop income by about 12 thousand Indian rupees per household, which is equivalent to 36% of the annual crop income of those without access to extension services. There exists significant impact heterogeneity. Farmers from the socially-marginalized castes hardly benefited from accessing the extension services. Based on these observations, we have developed a number of policy recommendations that could improve the social inclusiveness of agricultural development strategies in rural India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Equine influenza (EI) is an infectious respiratory disease of horses that has never been reported in New Zealand (NZ). However, the 2007 EI outbreak in Australia, previously EI free, spurred the NZ government and stakeholders into evaluating alternative EI control strategies in order to economically justify any future decision to eradicate or manage EI. To build on the policy debate, this paper presents an epinomic (epidemiologic and economic) modelling approach to evaluate alternative control strategies. An epidemiologic model to determine how alternative EI control strategies influence the distribution of EI. Model results were then input into a cost-benefit analysis framework, to identify the return and feasibility of alternative EI eradication strategies in NZ. Methods: The article explores nine alternative eradication scenarios and two baseline strategies. The alternative scenarios consisted of three vaccination strategies (suppressive, protective or targeted) starting at three time points to reflect the commercial breeding-cycle. These alternatives were compared to two breeding-cycle adjusted baselines: movement restriction in the breeding season (August to January) or non-breeding season (February to July). The economic loss parameters were incursion response, impact to the commercial racing industry (breeding, sales and racing), horse morbidity and mortality, and compensation to industry participants. Results and conclusions: Results suggest that the economic viability of the EI eradication programme is dependent on when within the breeding-cycle the EI outbreak occurs. If an outbreak were to occur, the return on each dollar invested for protective or suppressive vaccination strategies would be between NZD$3.67 to NZD$4.89 and between NZD$3.08 to NZD$3.50 in the breeding and non-breeding seasons, respectively. Therefore, protective or suppressive vaccination strategies could be prioritised, regardless of season. As multiple industry stakeholders benefit from these strategies, the study will enable policy development and to better formulate a user-pays eradication programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The percentage of protesters in contingent valuation surveys is substantial–about 20% across many studies. This paper seeks to clarify the motivations behind protest responses. In addition, the question whether the estimation of willingness to pay (WTP) is more biased by the exclusion or inclusion of protest bids is yet undecided. Methodological improvements are difficult for three reasons: motivations behind protest responses are largely unclear, definitions of protest differ between studies and often only participants who state a zero WTP are asked for their reasons. Our survey on farm animal welfare (n = 1335) provides detailed motivations, two definitions and includes debriefing of all participants for their WTP. We find that protest bids are not a refusal to answer, they are neither irrational nor driven by lack of understanding. Quite the contrary, a large part of participants is directly motivated by moral reasons. Furthermore, protest responses are not coupled to a zero WTP. In our sample, only 8% out of 32% protesting participants had a zero WTP. Only a small fraction of zero bids (0.4%) are true WTP-statements, i.e. respondents were satisfied with the status quo. This finding has important implications for existing WTP-estimates which might be biased. Finally, we provide detailed estimates of the WTP for animal welfare issues by including and excluding different types of protesters and outliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an empirical agent-based model to assess the impacts of Brexit on Scottish cattle farms. We first identify several trends and processes among Scottish cattle farms that were ongoing before Brexit: the lack of succession, the rise of leisure farming, the trend to diversify and industrialise, and, finally, the phenomenon of the “disappearing middle”, characterised by the decline of medium-sized farms and the polarization of farm sizes. We then study the potential impact of Brexit amid the local context and those ongoing social processes. We find that the impact of Brexit is indeed subject to pre-Brexit conditions. For example, whether industrialization is present locally can significantly alter the impact of Brexit. The impact of Brexit also varies by location: we find a clear divide between constituencies in the north (highland and islands), the middle (the central belt) and the south. Finally, we argue that policy analysis of Brexit should consider the heterogeneous social context and the complex social processes under which Brexit occurs. Rather than fitting the world into simple system models and ignoring the evidence when it does not fit, we need to develop policy analysis frameworks that can incorporate real world complexities, so that we can assess the impacts of major events and policy changes in a more meaningful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holocene climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin is often cited as a potential driver of societal change, but the mechanisms of this putative influence are generally little explored. In this paper we integrate two tools–agro-ecosystem modeling of potential agricultural yields and spatial analysis of archaeological settlement pattern data–in order to examine the human consequences of past climatic changes. Focusing on a case study in Provence (France), we adapt an agro-ecosystem model to the modeling of potential agricultural productivity during the Holocene. Calibrating this model for past crops and agricultural practices and using a downscaling approach to produce high spatiotemporal resolution paleoclimate data from a Mediterranean Holocene climate reconstruction, we estimate realistic potential agricultural yields under past climatic conditions. These serve as the basis for spatial analysis of archaeological settlement patterns, in which we examine the changing relationship over time between agricultural productivity and settlement location. Using potential agricultural productivity (PAgP) as a measure of the human consequences of climate changes, we focus on the relative magnitudes of 1) climate-driven shifts in PAgP and 2) the potential increases in productivity realizable through agricultural intensification. Together these offer a means of assessing the scale and mechanisms of the vulnerability and resilience of Holocene inhabitants of Provence to climate change. Our results suggest that settlement patterns were closely tied to PAgP throughout most of the Holocene, with the notable exception of the period from the Middle Bronze Age through the Early Iron Age. This pattern does not appear to be linked to any climatically-driven changes in PAgP, and conversely the most salient changes in PAgP during the Holocene cannot be clearly linked to any changes in settlement pattern. We argue that this constitutes evidence that vulnerability and resilience to climate change are strongly dependent on societal variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When making decisions under uncertainty, individuals may form subjective expectations about probabilities of events relevant for their choice. Accurate measurement of subjective expectations is critical for high-quality data needed to analyze individual behavior. This paper reports the development and validity of a new method of eliciting point subjective expectations in developing countries. We developed a touchscreen-based application that combines an animated slider along with dynamic images that change relative sizes based on the probability indicated by the respondent. We compare our method to the more traditional approach of using beans as visual aids. First, we find that respondents have a sound understanding of basic concepts of probability. Second, we test for equality of the distributions elicited with the different methods and find them highly comparable. Third, we provide evidence that respondents report a more favorable opinion about the slider method and more willingness to complete long surveys using the slider rather than beans. Our findings suggest that the slider could be a viable elicitation method for empirical researchers who aim to collect data on subjective expectations in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distribution centers (DCs) are an important part of the modern logistics system. The selection of a location for a DC is significant for saving costs and reducing externalities caused by distribution. In this paper, we propose a new hybrid method based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and 2-tuple hybrid ordered weighted averaging (THOWA) to select the location of a DC in a megacity. First, we propose a new set of evaluation criteria integrating economic, political, social and ecological information based on the characteristics of Chinese megacities. Second, subjective criteria weights are calculated by AHP combining the evaluation of logistics experts. Third, experts from academia, enterprise and government assess the performance of alternatives. In addition, the overall evaluation values are aggregated by an improved THOWA operator to rank the alternatives. Finally, we conduct a sensitivity analysis to investigate the influence of criteria weights on the decision-making process. The proposed method is novel and addresses the uncertainty under limited quantitative information, which has the advantages of avoiding information loss and distortion problems in the integrating process and operating linguistic evaluation information effectively. The proposed method can be practically applied by municipal planning departments in deciding on the location of new DCs. A numerical application of the proposed method is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The 2015 earthquake in Nepal caused massive damages and triggered relief activities to minimize human suffering. The post-earthquake nutrition and food security situation in the hardest hit areas remains uncertain. Methods: Two national cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 2014 and 2016 among households (HH) with pre-school aged children or newly married women. Of the 21 village development committees (VDCs) included in this sample, 7 fell within “earthquake-affected” areas. This paper presents data from 982 HH, 1015 women, and 883 children from 2014 and 1056 HH, 1083 women, and 998 children from 2016 living in these areas, with longitudinal overlap of about 55%. Prevalence estimates and 95% confidence intervals were calculated, and logistic regression was used to calculate p-values, both using robust estimates of standard errors to account for clustering. Results: From 2014 to 2016, child wasting (weight-for-height z score <-2) fell from 4.5% (95% CI 3.3%– 6.1%) to 2.1% (1.4%– 3.1%) and food insecurity (assessed using the household food insecurity access scale) dropped from 17.6% (11.7%– 25.6%) to 12.4% (6.9%– 21.2%). Child stunting prevalence remained similar at both time-points. Improvements were also evident in dietary diversity and breastfeeding indicators. Conclusions: Nutrition and food security conditions remained comparable or improved one year after the earthquake despite evidence of structural and other damage. Livelihood resilience to shocks and/or effective nutrition, food or health interventions may have helped buffer the impact on nutrition, although this hypothesis requires further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to innovatively use or even manufacture different tools depending on a current situation can be silhouetted against examples of stereotyped, inborn tool use/manufacture and is thus often associated to advanced cognitive processing. In this study we confronted non-specialized, yet innovative tool making birds, Goffin’s cockatoos (Cacatua goffiniana), with an apparatus featuring an out-of-reach food reward that could be placed at different distances from a tool opening. Alternatively, the food stayed at a constant distance but the tool opening in the front of the apparatus had different diameters. We used a novel material for tool manufacture (cardboard) that demanded an incrementally increased manufacturing effort from the actor, depending on the length of the tool required. We found that our subjects used two strategies to succeed in this tasks: either by making carboard-stripe tools using the full length of the material sheets originally offered or by adjusting the lengths of their tools to different goal distances. Subjects also discarded cardboard stripes that were too short to reach the goal prior to use and discarded longer pieces when the goal was further away than when it was close. Nevertheless, likely due to morphological constraints, the birds failed to adjust the widths of their tools depending on the diameter of the tool opening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Onchocerciasis control in Côte d’Ivoire started with aerial insecticide spraying in 1974 and continued with community directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTi) from 1992 to the present. Onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis (LF) are co-endemic in 46 of the 81 health districts in the country. Fourteen and 12 districts are endemic for only LF or onchocerciasis, respectively. This paper aims to review the impact of past interventions on onchocerciasis in Côte d’Ivoire between 1975 and 2013, and review plans for disease elimination. Methods: We reviewed microfilaria (MF, skin snip) prevalence and community microfilarial load (CMFL) data from published reports from 53 health districts during two major epidemiological assessment periods. Data from 1975 through 1991 provided information on the impact of vector control, and data from 1992 through 2016 provided information on the impact of CDTi. Results: Weekly aerial insecticide spraying in 8 endemic districts between 1975 and 1991 reduced the overall MF prevalence by 68.1% from 43.5% to 13.9%. The CMFL also decreased in 7 out of 8 surveyed communities by 95.2% from 9.24 MF/snip to 0.44 MF/snip. Ivermectin distribution started in 1992. The coverage targets for control (65% of the total population) was reached in most endemic districts, and some areas achieved 80% coverage. Two sets of surveys were conducted to assess the impact of CDTi. Results from the first repeat surveys showed a significant decrease in overall MF prevalence (by 75.7%, from 41.6% to 10.1%). The second follow-up evaluation showed further improvement in most endemic districts and also documented major reductions in CMFL compared to baseline. Conclusions: Extensive data collected over many years document the very significant impact of interventions conducted by the National Onchocerciasis and other Eyes Diseases Control Programme during challenging times with periods of civil unrest. The Health Ministry has now integrated efforts to control neglected tropical diseases and adopted the goal of onchocerciasis elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory planning networks made of government agencies, stakeholders, citizens and scientists are receiving attention as a potential pathway to build resilient landscapes in the face of increased wildfire impacts due to suppression policies and land-use and climate changes. A key challenge for these networks lies in incorporating local knowledge and social values about landscape into operational wildfire management strategies. As large wildfires overcome the suppression capacity of the fire departments, such strategies entail difficult decisions about intervention priorities among different regions, values and socioeconomic interests. Therefore there is increasing interest in developing tools that facilitate decision-making during emergencies. In this paper we present a method to democratize wildfire strategies by incorporating social values about landscape in both suppression and prevention planning. We do so by reporting and critically reflecting on the experience from a pilot participatory process conducted in a region of Catalonia (Spain). There, we built a network of researchers, practitioners and citizens across spatial and governance scales. We combined knowledge on expected wildfires, landscape co-valuation by relevant actors, and citizen participation sessions to design a wildfire strategy that minimized the loss of social values. Drawing on insights from political ecology and transformation science, we discuss what the attempt to democratize wildfire strategies entails in terms of power relationships and potential for social-ecological transformation. Based on our experience, we suggest a trade-off between current wildfire risk levels and democratic management in the fire-prone regions of many western countries. In turn, the political negotiation about the landscape effects of wildfire expert knowledge is shown as a potential transformation pathway towards lower risk landscapes that can re-define agency over landscape and foster community re-learning on fire. We conclude that democratizing wildfire strategies ultimately entails co-shaping the landscapes and societies of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agriculture has become a common form of urban land use in European cities linked to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits, as well as to diversified forms (from self-production allotments to high-tech companies). Social acceptance will determine the development of urban agriculture and specific knowledge on citizens’ perception is required in order to set the basis for policy-making and planning. The ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture can be determinant in this process. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the social acceptance and the perceived ecosystem services of urban agriculture in the city of Bologna (Italy), as an example of a Southern European city. In particular, we evaluated the preferences for urban land uses, for different typologies of urban agriculture and for the resulting products, the perceived provision of ecosystem services and the willingness to engage in new initiatives. A survey that investigated these topics (including open questions, closed questions and Likert-scale evaluation) was performed on the citizens of Bologna (n = 380) between October and November 2016. Results showed that urban agriculture is widely accepted by the inhabitants of Bologna, particularly regarding vegetable production. Although intensive farming systems were the least preferred forms to be implemented in Bologna, citizens highly accepted a large variety of urban agriculture goods, with preference for those obtained from plants as compared to animal products. The willingness-to-pay for urban food products was mostly the same as for conventional ones, although the participants recognised the social values, proximity and quality of the former. Socio-cultural ecosystem services were perceived as more valuable than environmental ones. Policy-making recommendations can be extracted from the results to facilitate the development of urban agriculture plans and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interrelationships among 9 advanced economies using a novel multichannel approach to investigate, beyond the usual causal relationships, the time-varying dimension of the channels conveying causal relationships. The model is derived from the well-known Markov Switching setting and account for systems described by multiple variables. A Markov switching causality measure is adapted to account for information transmissions between distinct multivariate systems. Each country is described by 5 different fundamental variables reflecting its state. Our multichannel causality measure is then applied on these sets of time series to determine, over time, the main channels through which the information is transmitted between the different countries. In a second step, we investigate the relationships existing between these countries and the commodity markets and look at the possible use of the commodity markets as an indirect channel of information transmission between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large amount of medical waste is produced during disaster relief, posing a potential hazard to the habitat and the environment. A comprehensive understanding of the composition and characteristics of medical waste that requires management is one of the most basic steps in the development of a plan for medical waste management. Unfortunately, limited reliable information is available in the open literature on the characteristics of the medical waste that is generated at disaster relief sites. This paper discusses the analysis of the composition and characteristics of medical waste at a disaster relief site using the retrospection-simulation-revision method. For this study, we obtained 35 medical relief records of the Wenchuan Earthquake, Sichuan, May 2008 from a field cabin hospital. We first present a retrospective analysis of the relief medical records, and then, we simulate the medical waste generated in the affected areas. We ultimately determine the composition and characteristics of medical waste in the affected areas using untreated medical waste to revise the composition of the simulated medical waste. The results from 35 cases showed that the medical waste generated from disaster relief consists of the following: plastic (43.2%), biomass (26.3%), synthetic fiber (15.3%), rubber (6.6%), liquid (6.6%), inorganic salts (0.3%) and metals (1.7%). The bulk density of medical relief waste is 249 kg/m3, and the moisture content is 44.75%. The data should be provided to assist the collection, segregation, storage, transportation, disposal and contamination control of medical waste in affected areas. In this paper, we wish to introduce this research method of restoring the medical waste generated in disaster relief to readers and researchers. In addition, we hope more disaster relief agencies will become aware of the significance of medical case recording and storing. This may be very important for the environmental evaluation of medical waste in disaster areas, as well as for medical waste management and disposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, we have observed an intensification of science, technology and innovation activities in Brazil. The increase in production of scientific papers indexed in international databases, however, has not been accompanied by an equivalent increase in the impact of publications. This paper presents a methodology for analyzing production and the impact of certain research areas in Brazil related to two aspects: the origin of the journals (national or foreign) and international collaboration. These two variables were selected for being of particular importance in understanding the context of scientific production and communication in countries with emerging economies. The sample consisted of papers written by Brazilian researchers in 19 subfields of knowledge published from 2002 to 2011, totaling 85,082 papers. To calculate the impact, we adopted a normalized indicator called the relative subfield citedness (Rw) using a window of 5 years to obtain measurements evaluated in 2 different years: 2007 and 2012. The data on papers and citations were collected from the Web of Science database. From the results, we note that most of the subfields have presented, from one quinquennium to another, improved performance in the world production rankings. Regarding publication in national and foreign journals, we observed a trend in the distribution maintenance of production of the subfields based on the origin of the journal. Specifically, for impact, we identified a lower Rw pattern for Brazilian papers when they were published in national journals in all subfields. When Brazilian products are published in foreign journals, we observed a higher impact for those papers, even surpassing the average global impact in some subfields. For international collaboration, we analyzed the percentage of participation of foreign researchers and the connection between collaboration and the impact of papers, especially emphasizing the distinction of hyperauthorship papers in terms of production and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main manifestations of climate change will be increased rainfall variability. How to deal with this in agriculture will be a major societal challenge. In this paper we explore flexibility in land use, through deliberate seasonal adjustments in cropped area, as a specific strategy for coping with rainfall variability. Such adjustments are not incorporated in hydro-meteorological crop models commonly used for food security analyses. Our paper contributes to the literature by making a comprehensive model assessment of inter-annual variability in crop production, including both variations in crop yield and cropped area. The Ganges basin is used as a case study. First, we assessed the contribution of cropped area variability to overall variability in rice and wheat production by applying hierarchical partitioning on time-series of agricultural statistics. We then introduced cropped area as an endogenous decision variable in a hydro-economic optimization model (WaterWise), coupled to a hydrology-vegetation model (LPJmL), and analyzed to what extent its performance in the estimation of inter-annual variability in crop production improved. From the statistics, we found that in the period 1999–2009 seasonal adjustment in cropped area can explain almost 50% of variability in wheat production and 40% of variability in rice production in the Indian part of the Ganges basin. Our improved model was well capable of mimicking existing variability at different spatial aggregation levels, especially for wheat. The value of flexibility, i.e. the foregone costs of choosing not to crop in years when water is scarce, was quantified at 4% of gross margin of wheat in the Indian part of the Ganges basin and as high as 34% of gross margin of wheat in the drought-prone state of Rajasthan. We argue that flexibility in land use is an important coping strategy to rainfall variability in water stressed regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to demands for transformed farming practices requires new forms of knowledge. Given their scale and complexity, agricultural problems can no longer be solved by linear transfers in which technology developed by specialists passes to farmers by way of extension intermediaries. Recent research on alternative approaches has focused on the innovation systems formed by interactions between heterogeneous actors. Rather than linear transfer, systems theory highlights network facilitation as a specialized function. This paper contributes to our understanding of such facilitation by investigating the networks in which farmers discuss science. We report findings based on the study of a pastoral farming experiment collaboratively undertaken by a group of 17 farmers and five scientists. Analysis of prior contact and alter sharing between the group’s members indicates strongly tied and decentralized networks. Farmer knowledge exchanges about the experiment have been investigated using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Network surveys identified who the farmers contacted for knowledge before the study began and who they had talked to about the experiment by 18 months later. Open-ended interviews collected farmer statements about their most valuable contacts and these statements have been thematically analysed. The network analysis shows that farmers talked about the experiment with 192 people, most of whom were fellow farmers. Farmers with densely tied and occupationally homogeneous contacts grew their networks more than did farmers with contacts that are loosely tied and diverse. Thematic analysis reveals three general principles: farmers value knowledge delivered by persons rather than roles, privilege farming experience, and develop knowledge with empiricist rather than rationalist techniques. Taken together, these findings suggest that farmers deliberate about science in intensive and durable networks that have significant implications for theorizing agricultural innovation. The paper thus concludes by considering the findings’ significance for current efforts to rethink agricultural extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares land use patterns of mestizo colonists and indigenous populations in the central Ecuadorian Amazon, based on data from a household survey covering mestizo colonist, Kichwa and Shuar households. As expected, colonists mostly engage in commercial agriculture and cattle ranching, but there are substantial differences in land use patterns between the Shuar and the Kichwa. The Shuar engage in cash cropping and cattle ranching, and on average, devote even more land to agricultural uses than mestizo colonists in this sample. In contrast, the Kichwa engage more in subsistence crop production and less in commercial agriculture. Such different patterns appear related to local conditions, earlier migratory and settlement patterns, and the level of exposure to markets. The implications of this for policy are explored in the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Poverty and human capital development are inextricably linked and therefore research on human capital typically incorporates measures of economic well-being. In the context of randomized trials of health interventions, for example, such measures are used to: 1) assess baseline balance; 2) estimate covariate-adjusted analyses; and 3) conduct subgroup analyses. Many factors characterize economic well-being, however, and analysts often generate summary measures such as indices of household socio-economic status or wealth. In this paper, a household wealth index is developed and tested for participants in the cluster-randomized Sanitation, Hygiene, Infant Nutrition Efficacy (SHINE) trial in rural Zimbabwe. Methods: Building on the approach used in the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS), we combined a set of housing characteristics, ownership of assets and agricultural resources into a wealth index using principal component analysis (PCA) on binary variables. The index was assessed for internal and external validity. Its sensitivity was examined considering an expanded set of variables and an alternative statistical approach of polychoric PCA. Correlation between indices was determined using the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient and agreement between quintiles using a linear weighted Kappa statistic. Using the 2015 ZDHS data, we constructed a separate index and applied the loadings resulting from that analysis to the SHINE study population, to compare the wealth distribution in the SHINE study with rural Zimbabwe. Results: The derived indices using the different methods were highly correlated (r>0.9), and the wealth quintiles derived from the different indices had substantial to near perfect agreement (linear weighted Kappa>0.7). The indices were strongly associated with a range of assets and other wealth measures, indicating both internal and external validity. Households in SHINE were modestly wealthier than the overall population of households in rural Zimbabwe. Conclusion: The SHINE wealth index developed here is a valid and robust measure of wealth in the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a response to the growing reference to archaeological evidence by linguists and geneticists interested in the spread of early farmers and pastoralists in southern Africa. It presents two databases. The first contains the archaeological evidence for pastoralism and farming in southern Africa, for the period 550 BC to AD 1050. This is the first time that the seven different types of archaeological evidence that have traditionally been used to identify both spread events are presented together at this scale. This was stimulated by our interest in investigating the antiquity of an early ‘Iron Age package’ relative to the spread of single archaeological traits. The analysis shows that the package appears approximately 700 years after sites containing pottery, cattle and sheep, without agriculture, appear in the drier parts of the sub-continent. It post-dates the appearance of earlier sites with pottery associated with farmers, metal-working and cultivation in the eastern half of the sub-continent. While poor preservation undoubtedly explains the absence of some parts of the package, the analysis suggests that other explanations should be considered. The second database is a quantitative, spatial study of archaeological publications on southern African farming and pastoralism for the period 1950 to 2016, covering the same geographical area and archaeological timeframe. This is presented as a proxy for research-intensive areas in attempt to show the gaps in archaeological fieldwork and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use change (LUC) is a main cause of global environmental change, and is an important activity to be studied. Our research aims to examine the current state of evidence on the link between LUC and human health in the Amazon region. We conducted a scoping review of literature in two research databases, resulting in 14 papers for analysis. Our analysis demonstrated a lack of clear definitions for LUC, a wide variety of negative health effects from LUC, the lack of qualitative articles, a lack of studies exploring the potential positive health effects of LUC, and the predominance of studies coming from the Brazilian Amazon. Our study validated the prevailing idea that LUC can lead to negative health consequences, if not managed properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies indicated that cognitive conflict continues to bias actions even after a movement has been initiated. The present paper examined whether cognitive control also biases actions after movement initiation. To this end, we had participants perform a Stroop task in which we manipulated the item-specific proportion of (in)congruent trials (80% congruent vs. 20% congruent). Importantly, participants responded via mouse movements, allowing us to evaluate various movement parameters: initiation times, movement times, and movement accuracy. Results showed that mouse movements were faster and more accurate during congruent trials compared to incongruent trials. Moreover, we observed that this congruency effect was larger for 80% congruent compared to 20% congruent items, which reflects item-specific cognitive control. Notably, when responses were initiated very fast – rendering virtually no time for stimulus processing before movement onset – this item-specific control was observed only in movement times. However, for relatively slow initiated responses, item specific control was observed both in initiation and in movement times. These findings demonstrate that item-specific cognitive control biases actions before and after movement initiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the Retailer Stackelberg game in a supply chain consisting of two manufacturers and one retailer where they compete simultaneously under three factors including price, service and simple price discount contract. It is assumed that the second manufacturer provides service directly to his customers, and the retailer provides service for the first product’s customers, while the retailer buys the first product under price discount from the first manufacturer. The analysis of the optimal equilibrium solutions and the results of the numerical examples show that if a manufacturer chooses the appropriate range of discount rate, he will gain more profit than when there is no discount given to the retailer. This situation can be considered as an effective tool for the coordination of the first manufacturer and the retailer to offer discount by manufacturer and to provide the service by the retailer. We obtain equilibrium solution of Retailer Stackelberg game and analyze the numerical examples under two cases: a) the manufacturers sell their products to the retailer without price discount contract. b) The first manufacturer sells his products to the retailer with the simple price discount contract. The preliminary results show that the service and the price discount contract can improve the performance of supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]