Valuing landslide risk reduction programs in the Italian Alps: the effect of visual information on preference stability

Climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of weather-related natural hazards everywhere. In particular, mountain areas with dense human settlements, such as the Italian Alps, stand to suffer the costliest consequences from landslides. Options for risk management policies are currently being debated among residents and decision makers. Preference analysis of residents for risk reduction programs is hence needed to inform the policy debate. We use discrete choice experiments to investigate the social demand for landslide protection projects. Given the importance of information in public good valuation via surveys, we explore the effect of specific visual information on the stability of preference estimates. In our survey, we elicit preferences before and after providing respondents with scientific-based information, based on visual simulations of possible events. This enables us to measure information effects. Choice data are used to estimate a Mixed Logit (MXL) model in WTP space to obtain robust estimates of marginal willingness-to-pay (mWTP) estimates and control for the effect of information. Mapping posterior individual specific mWTP estimates provide additional policy implications. Overall, we found the mWTP estimates to be dependent on information

Lidocaine and bupivacaine as part of multimodal pain management in a C57BL/6J laparotomy mouse model

While the use of local anesthesia as part of multimodal pain management is common practice in human and veterinarian surgery, these drugs are not applied routinely in rodent surgery. Several recommendations on the use of local anesthesia exist, but systematic studies on their efficacy and side effects are lacking. In the present study, male and female C57BL/6J mice were subjected to a sham vasectomy or a sham embryo transfer, respectively. We tested whether a mixture of subcutaneously injected Lidocaine and Bupivacaine in combination with systemic Paracetamol applied via drinking water results in superior pain relief when compared to treatment with local anesthesia or Paracetamol alone. We applied a combination of methods to assess behavioral, emotional, and physiological changes indicative of pain. Voluntary Paracetamol intake via drinking water reached the target dosage of 200 mg/kg in most animals. Local anesthesia did not lead to obvious side effects such as irregular wound healing or systemic disorders. No relevant sex differences were detected in our study. Sevoflurane anesthesia and surgery affected physiological and behavioral measurements. Surprisingly, Paracetamol treatment alone significantly increased the Mouse Grimace Scale. Taken together, mice treated with a combination of local anesthesia and systemic analgesia did not show fewer signs of post-surgical pain or improved recovery compared to animals treated with either local anesthesia or Paracetamol

Ecosystem services' values and improved revenue collection for regional protected areas.

The management of conservation areas is a costly enterprise, especially vulnerable to budget cutting when austerity measures are being considered. Optimal spatial taxation dictates that tax-payers contribute proportionally to the benefits they receive. This paper provides a framework to derive spatially varied benefit estimates for ecosystem services produced in Natura 2000 protected areas of Lombardy (Italy). These may be used as a framework for spatially optimised taxation to improve the efficiency of public funding. In the process we used non-market valuation techniques, as well as benefit functions’ transfer

On the theory of double quantum NMR in polymer systems: The second cumulant approximation for many spin i = 1/2 systems

General analytical expressions for Double Quantum Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (DQ NMR) kinetic curves of many-spin I = 1/2 systems are derived with an accuracy of the second cumulant approximation. The expressions obtained exactly describe the initial part of the kinetic curves and provide a reasonable approximation up to times of about the effective spin-relaxation time. For the case when the system contains two isolated spins, this result exactly reproduces known expressions. In the case of polymer melts, the intermolecular magnetic dipole-dipole interactions significantly influence the time dependence of the DQ NMR kinetic curves. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC

Segmental Dynamics of Entangled Poly(ethylene oxide) Melts: Deviations from the Tube-Reptation Model

© 2018 American Chemical Society. The dynamics of entangled polymer melts not only is of fundamental theoretical interest but also has wide-reaching consequences for developing a theoretical foundation for investigating biological macromolecules and complex systems relevant to material sciences. Despite several decades of intensive experimental and theoretical research in this field, open questions remain regarding segmental dynamics over the wide range of time scales from local to global motion. This work employs a novel approach based on nuclear magnetic relaxation to scrutinize the character of dipolar interactions in entangled polymer melts, thereby accessing unique information about segmental diffusion and rotation. The main focus is set on the separate consideration of intra- and intermolecular contributions to the proton dipolar interactions, which have been previously shown to possess a different, nontrivial time dependence. A combination of well-established field-cycling T1 relaxometry and recently developed methods based on spin echo is utilized to investigate dipolar couplings in entangled poly(ethylene oxide) melts of various molecular weights. Isolation of the intermolecular contributions to the corresponding experimental quantities provides a means to observe segmental translations taking place during more than 6 orders of magnitude in time. Time dependences of the mean-square displacement obtained in this way revealed apparent exponents of the power laws significantly deviating from predictions of the widely used tube-reptation model of polymer dynamics in the regime of entangled motion. In addition to that, the relative ratio of intermolecular dipolar interactions over the intramolecular counterpart is probed through their corresponding contributions to the transverse relaxation rate. A strong deviation from the tube-reptation model predictions for the evolution of this quantity is observed in the whole range probed experimentally. The obtained data do not reflect the restricted character of segmental motion anticipated in the corresponding time regime. It is emphasized that similar results, both in amplitude and in qualitative behavior, have been previously demonstrated in polybutadiene and polyethylene-alt-propylene, thereby allowing to discuss the universality of the observed deviation

Anything for a Cheerio: Brown Capuchins (\u3cem\u3eSapajus [Cebus] apella\u3c/em\u3e) Consistently Coordinate in an Assurance Game for Unequal Payoffs

Unequal outcomes disrupt cooperation in some situations, but this has not been tested in the context of coordination in economic games. To explore this, we tested brown capuchins (Sapajus [Cebus] apella) on a manual version of the Stag Hunt (or Assurance) Game, in which individuals sequentially chose between two options, Stag or Hare, and were rewarded according to their choices and that of their partner. Typically, coordination on Stag results in an equal highest payout, whereas coordinating on Hare results in a guaranteed equal but lower payoff and uncoordinated play results in the lowest payoff when playing Stag. We varied this structure such that one capuchin received double the rewards for the coordinated Stag outcome; thus, it was still both animals\u27 best option, but no longer equally rewarding. Despite the inequality, capuchins coordinated on Stag in 78% of trials, and neither payoff structure nor their partner\u27s choice impacted their decision. Additionally, there was no relationship between self-scratching, a measure of stress in capuchins, and choices. After completing the study, we discovered our reward, cheerios, was sufficiently valuable that in another study, capuchins never refused it, so post hoc we repeated the study using a lower value reward, banana flavored pellets. Capuchins completed only 26% of the pellet trials (compared to 98% with cheerios), constraining our ability to interpret the results, but nonetheless the monkeys showed a decrease in preference for Stag, particularly when they received fewer rewards for the coordinated Stag outcome. These results reinforce capuchins\u27 ability to find coordinated outcomes in the Stag Hunt game, but more work is needed to determine whether the monkeys did not mind the inequality or were unwilling to sacrifice a highly preferred food to rectify it. In either case, researchers should carefully consider the impact of their chosen rewards on subjects\u27 choices

On the theory of the proton free induction decay and Hahn echo in polymer systems: The role of intermolecular magnetic dipole-dipole interactions and the modified Anderson-Weiss approximation

The influence of the intermolecular magnetic dipole-dipole interaction on the free induction decay (FID) as well as on the Hahn-echo of proton spins in polymer melts is investigated. It is shown that for isotropic models of polymer dynamics, when polymer segment displacements do not correlate with an initial chain conformation, the influence of the intermolecular magnetic dipole-dipole interactions to the FID and Hahn echo is increasing more rapidly with evolution time than the corresponding influence of the intramolecular magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. On the other hand, the situation is inverted for the tube-reptation model: here the influence of the intramolecular magnetic dipole-dipole interactions to the FID and Hahn echo is increasing faster with time than the contribution from intermolecular interactions. A simple expression for the relative mean squared displacements of polymer segments from different chains is obtained from the intermolecular contribution to the FID. A modified Anderson-Weiss approximation, taking into account flip-flop transitions between different spins, is proposed and on that basis, the conditions for extracting the relative intermolecular mean squared displacements of polymer segments from the intermolecular contribution to the proton FID is established. Systematic investigations of intermolecular contributions, which were considered as an unimportant factor for FID and Hahn echo in polymer systems by most previous works, actually cannot be considered as negligible and opens a new dimension for obtaining information about polymer dynamics in the millisecond regime. © 2012 American Institute of Physics