Climate change scenarios in Zambia: modeling farmers’ adaptation

Background: At the center of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by the United Nations is climate change. Analyzing adaptation processes is fundamental to enhance resilience in the poorest parts of the world. The analysis harmonizes top-down and bottom-up approaches by integrating general circulation models into the method of mathematical optimization. The article designs a quantitative farm planning model for rural Zambia and focuses on optimal allocation of land, labor and cultivation methods. Our research takes advantage of recent survey data of 277 Zambian households from 2018. The model simulates a baseline scenario, 2 climate change scenarios and 7 variations of farmers’ land availability, labor capacity and off-farm work possibility. This results in 21 possible future outcomes and farmer adaptations. Results: Climate change negatively affects future livelihoods at the study site. A dry climate decreases a farmer’s wealth by around 30% and a wet climate by nearly 20%. However, simulations show households are able to sustain their livelihood through adaptation processes at the farm level. Farmers’ variation in land size for crop cultivation indicates the strongest livelihood impacts in response to climate change. Increasing the land for cultivation is the best response, whereas a reduction of labor supply at the farm leads to households being more vulnerable to a changing climate. Off-farm employments reveal significant potential for climate change adaptation. An increase in work opportunities at a refugee camp nearby has a significant positive effect on rural livelihoods, without reducing the households’ farm production. The refugee camp, however, may imply future land competition. Conclusions: The study concludes climate change has a serious impact on farm yields and requires land and labor adjustments to prevent losses in wealth. Altering the cropping mix, reallocating planting times or changing farming techniques are meaningful instruments to respond to climate change at the study site. Agricultural intensification can increase the productivity per hectare and the mix of on- and off-farm work indicates income diversification as possible response to climate change. The analysis is specified to a rural farm context in Zambia, but is applicable to similar settings in sub-Saharan Africa and useful for local policy implementations towards climate change adaptation

Tick-borne encephalitis virus in dogs - is this an issue?

The last review on Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in dogs was published almost ten years ago. Since then, this zoonotic tick-borne arbovirus has been geographically spreading and emerging in many regions in Eurasia and continues to do so. Dogs become readily infected with TBE virus but they are accidental hosts not capable to further spread the virus. They seroconvert upon infection but they seem to be much more resistant to the clinical disease than humans. Apart from their use as sentinels in endemic areas, however, an increasing number of case reports appeared during the last decade thus mirroring the rising public health concerns. Owing to the increased mobility of people travelling to endemic areas with their companion dogs, this consequently leads to problems in recognizing and diagnosing this severe infection in a yet non-endemic area, simply because the veterinarians are not considering TBE. This situation warrants an update on the epidemiology, clinical presentation and possible preventions of TBE in the dog

The reciprocal relation between cancer-related fatigue and physical and psychosocial functioning in survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma

Stadtbäumer N, Mayer A. The reciprocal relation between cancer-related fatigue and physical and psychosocial functioning in survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma. Presented at the International Symposium on Hodgkin lymphoma (ISHL11), Cologne

Perpetuation and Risk Factors of Quality of Life Impairment in Hodgkin Lymphoma Patients: A Substantive-Methodological Synergy

Stadtbäumer N. Perpetuation and Risk Factors of Quality of Life Impairment in Hodgkin Lymphoma Patients: A Substantive-Methodological Synergy. Bielefeld: Universität Bielefeld; 2023

Comparing longitudinal structural equation models with autoregressive effects

Stadtbäumer N, Mayer A. Comparing longitudinal structural equation models with autoregressive effects. Presented at the 14th Conference of the Section Methods and Evaluation of the German Psychological Society, Kiel

Heterologous Expression of Syntaxin 6 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The molecular mechanisms of vesicular protein transport in eukaryotic cells are highly conserved. Members of the syntaxin family play a pivotal role in the membrane fusion process. We have expressed rat syntaxin 6 and its cytoplasmic domain in wild-type and pep12 mutant strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to elucidate the role of the syntaxin 6-dependent vesicular trafficking step in yeast. Immunofluorescence microscopy revealed a punctate, Golgi-like staining pattern for syntaxin 6, which only partially overlapped with Pep12p in wild-type yeast cells. In contrast to Pep12p, syntaxin 6 was not mislocalized to the vacuole upon expression from 2 micron vectors, which might be attributed to conserved sorting and retention signals. Syntaxin 6 was not capable of complementing the sorting and maturation defects of the vacuolar hydrolase CPY in pep12 null mutants. No dominant negative effects of either syntaxin 6 or syntaxin 6deltaC overexpression on CPY sorting and maturation were observed in wild-type yeast cells. We conclude that syntaxin 6 and Pep12p do not act at the same vesicular trafficking step(s) in yeast and higher eukaryote

Comparing Revised Latent State-Trait Models Including Autoregressive Effects

Stadtbäumer N, Kreissl S, Mayer A. Comparing Revised Latent State-Trait Models Including Autoregressive Effects. Psychological Methods . 2022.Understanding the longitudinal dynamics of behavior, their stability and change over time, are of great interest in the social and behavioral sciences. Researchers investigate the degree to which an observed measure reflects stable components of the construct, situational fluctuations, method effects, or just random measurement error. An important question in such models is whether autoregressive effects occur between the residuals, as in the trait-state occasion model (TSO model), or between the state variables, as in the latent state-trait model with autoregression (LST-AR model). In this article, we compare the two approaches by applying revised latent state-trait theory (LST-R theory). Similarly to Eid et al. (2017) regarding the TSO model, we show how to formulate the LST-AR model using definitions from LST-R theory, and we discuss the practical implications. We demonstrate that the two models are equivalent when the trait loadings are allowed to vary over time. This is also true for bivariate model versions. The different but same approaches to modeling latent states and traits with autoregressive effects are illustrated with a longitudinal study of cancer-related fatigue in Hodgkin lymphoma patients. Understanding the longitudinal dynamics of behavior, its stability and change over time, are of great interest in the social and behavioral sciences. Researchers investigate the degree to which an observed measure reflects stable components of the construct, situational fluctuations, method effects, or just random measurement error. An important question in such models is whether carry-over effects from one time point to another occur between the residuals, as in the trait-state occasion model (TSO model), or between the state variables, as in the latent state-trait model with autoregression (LST-AR model). The residuals represent events at each measurement, such as situational influences and person-situation interactions, whereas the state variables depict the momentary state of the person. In this article, we compare both models by using a theory (latent state-trait theory revised, LST-R theory) that takes into account that a person is not static over time, but is allowed to change over the time of measurement. Contrary to the expectation, we show that the two models are equivalent. Our study is not only an essential contribution to the existing research of models investigating the longitudinal dynamics of behavior, but also helps applied researchers to interpret the results from LST-R models with autoregressive effects

Predicting cancer-related fatigue of Hodgkin Lymphoma survivors: Identification of risk factors

Stadtbäumer N, Kreissl S, Borchmann P, Mayer A. Predicting cancer-related fatigue of Hodgkin Lymphoma survivors: Identification of risk factors. Oncology Research and Treatment . 2021;44(Suppl. 2):38