Taking Differences in Institutional Quality into Account in Global Forest Modelling

Forest cover and land-use change models are commonly used for climate scenarios and provide policy advice. The IIASA Global Forest Model (G4M) compares the net present value of agriculture and forestry, and makes a land-use change decision, based on this comparison. Moving beyond this purely economic rationale, we aimed at understanding in how far integrating differences in environmental institutional quality, could allow improving the representation of forest cover change processes of the model. Through an econometric regression analysis, we identified the most significant out of a larger set of variables on environmental institutional quality and created a composite index. We then implemented the composite index into the model. Its components are: the internalization of environmental norms, the strength of institutions, the ability of the institutions to guarantee macroeconomic stability, the quality of the administration and the efficiency of the bureaucracy. Through the inclusion of the composite index, the model’s residual could be significantly reduced. The results suggest that future research should consider taking differences in environmental institutional quality into account to improve modeling of deforestation processes. Moreover, the implementation of the index into the model allows for the first time to create scenarios for institutional quality and its impact on forest cover

Working conditions and Work-Family Conflict in German hospital physicians: psychosocial and organisational predictors and consequences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Germany currently experiences a situation of major physician attrition. The incompatibility between work and family has been discussed as one of the major reasons for the increasing departure of German physicians for non-clinical occupations or abroad. This study investigates predictors for one particular direction of Work-Family Conflict – namely work interfering with family conflict (WIF) – which are located within the psychosocial work environment or work organisation of hospital physicians. Furthermore, effects of WIF on the individual physicians' physical and mental health were examined. Analyses were performed with an emphasis on gender differences. Comparisons with the general German population were made.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were collected by questionnaires as part of a study on <it>Psychosocial work hazards and strains of German hospital physicians </it>during April–July 2005. Two hundred and ninety-six hospital physicians (response rate 38.9%) participated in the survey. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ), work interfering with family conflict scale (WIF), and hospital-specific single items on work organisation were used to assess WIF, its predictors, and consequences.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>German hospital physicians reported elevated levels of WIF (mean = 74) compared to the general German population (mean = 45, <it>p </it>< .01). No significant gender difference was found. Predictors for the WIF were lower age, high quantitative demands at work, elevated number of days at work despite own illness, and consequences of short-notice changes in the duty roster. Good sense of community at work was a protective factor. Compared to the general German population, we observed a significant higher level of quantitative work demands among hospital physicians (mean = 73 vs. mean = 57, <it>p </it>< .01). High values of WIF were significantly correlated to higher rates of personal burnout, behavioural and cognitive stress symptoms, and the intention to leave the job. In contrast, low levels of WIF predicted higher job satisfaction, better self-judged general health status, better work ability, and higher satisfaction with life in general. Compared to the German general population, physicians showed significantly higher levels of individual stress and quality of life as well as lower levels for well-being. This has to be judged as an alerting finding regarding the state of physicians' health.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In our study, work interfering with family conflict (WIF) as part of Work-Family Conflict (WFC) was highly prevalent among German hospital physicians. Factors of work organisation as well as factors of interpersonal relations at work were identified as significant predictors for WIF. Some of these predictors are accessible to alteration by improving work organisation in hospitals.</p

Time-resolved photodissociation of oxygen at 162 nm

International audienceOxygen was excited by 10-fs pulses in the Schumann-Runge continuum at 162 nm, which is by 0.57 eV above the dissociation limit. It was probed by high-intensity ionization at 810 nm with 10 14 W cm −2, measuring the ion yields. The O 2 + signal decays in 4.3 fs, which is much shorter than the expected time for dissociation. It is ascribed to a rapid decay of the ionization probability. In a similar time, the ion in the second excited state (with excess energy taken over from the neutral) reaches the dissociation limit, whereas this time would be much longer from the two lower ion states. In fact, the O + signal rises to a (first) maximum at 6 fs. The preference for the higher ion state is rationalized by an intermediate resonance in the neutral molecule, for which the polarization dependence also provides evidence. But the shape of the O + signal is very odd: it exhibits three maxima (at 6, 29 and 53 fs) of increasing intensity, before decaying rapidly (≤3.5 fs) to a pedestal. In contrast to the first maximum, the others appear at times when there is practically no interatomic force left in the excited state. We postulate a highly repulsive doubly excited state as a resonance for interpreting the second maximum, and for the third an ion-pair state lying further outside. Comparison is made with enhanced ionization, which has often been found at large interatomic distances on multiple ionization in strong laser fields. Consistent with this mechanism is the absence of similar observations at negative delay times, where five fundamental photons act as a pump and the fifth harmonic as a probe