Perceived risks of mountain landslides in Italy: stated choices for subjective risk reductions

Mountain landslides have occurred in countries such as Italy regularly throughout recorded history, often resulting in fatalities. Because of this, policies that would reduce landslide fatality risk need to be carefully formulated. As a first step in the exploration of preferences for these risk-reducing policies, we examine public perceptions of risk for landslides and related events. Subjective probabilities for others who might die in a landslide, as well as one’s own subjective probability of death, are elicited for a sample of visitors and residents of a region in Italy prone to landslides. We present one portion of the sample with scientific information and allow them to update their risk estimate if they so choose, allowing the role of such information to be tested. The subjective probabilities are then used to construct risk-related attributes in a pivot-design version of a conventional stated choice model. Larger risk changes as departures from the baseline risk are found to be significant in explaining choices

Choice set formation for outdoor destinations: the role of motivations and preference discrimination in site selection for the management of public expenditures on protected areas

Effective public expenditure currently dominates the management focus of many protected areas. This calls for explicit modeling of constraints and motivations that, respectively, obstruct and stimulate visits to selected outdoor destinations. Choice set formation is the result of screening and/or inclusion of specific sites (alternatives) to form the set of sites considered in real choices. Evidence shows that the omission of a structural representation of choice set formation is harmful to econometric inference. Yet, the literature has largely ignored the underlying behavioral phenomenon. We show, using a discrete choice experiment involving selection among seven recreational sites in an Italian national park, that choice set formation is behaviorally relevant, even after controlling for preference discrimination. Motivations (why visit?) are important determinants of preliminary site screening for choice set inclusion, as well as site selection, justifying the additional value of such modeling extension

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

Types of front of pack food labels: Do obese consumers care? Evidence from Northern Ireland

The introduction of an effective Front of Pack food labelling (FoPL) system is at the forefront of the food policy debate. Nutritional information is seen as an effective tool to help fight obesity and its associated co-morbidities, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, for which unhealthy diet represent a major preventable risk factor. This paper explores the influence of FoPL formats on consumer’s stated choice of weekly food baskets using data from a discrete choice experiment carried out in Northern Ireland in 2011. Two of the three baskets were experimentally designed while the third represented the respondent’s actual current food choice (or status-quo basket). Four nutritional attributes were used: (i) total fat, (ii) saturated fat, (iii) salt, and (iv) sugar. Baskets were portrayed at different price levels to elicit the sensitivity of choice to price and to derive marginal willingness to pay estimates. Results from random utility models with various forms of heterogeneity reject the null of no association between preference classes and healthier food baskets and also the null of no effect of the nutritional information described. We find that the influence of the FoPL format used to convey nutritional information combines with selected socio-demographic covariates to determine membership to preference classes. A sensitivity analysis is used to validate the preferred model and the response sensitivity of selection probabilities to potential policy levers, such as a more realistic appreciation of self-body image and the habit of reading labels

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

Autopsy in adults with congenital heart disease (ACHD).

The adult congenital heart diseases (ACHD) population is exceeding the pediatric congenital heart diseases (CHD) population and is progressively expanding each year, representing more than 90% of patients with CHD. Of these, about 75% have undergone surgical and/or percutaneous intervention for palliation or correction. Autopsy can be a very challenging procedure in ACHD patients. The approach and protocol to be used may vary depending on whether the pathologists are facing native disease without surgical or percutaneous interventions, but with various degrees of cardiac remodeling, or previously palliated or corrected CHD. Moreover, interventions for the same condition have evolved over the last decades, as has perioperative myocardial preservations and postoperative care, with different long-term sequelae depending on the era in which patients were operated on. Careful clinicopathological correlation is, thus, required to assist the pathologist in performing the autopsy and reaching a diagnosis regarding the cause of death. Due to the heterogeneity of the structural abnormalities, and the wide variety of surgical and interventional procedures, there are no standard methods for dissecting the heart at autopsy. In this paper, we describe the most common types of CHDs that a pathologist could encounter at autopsy, including the various types of surgical and percutaneous procedures and major pathological manifestations. We also propose a practical systematic approach to the autopsy of ACHD patients

HEART-RATE-VARIABILITY IN PATIENTS WITH ORTHOTOPIC HEART-TRANSPLANTATION - LONG-TERM FOLLOW-UP

To evaluate heart rate variability (expressed as the standard deviation of RR intervals) within 5 years of follow-up, we studied 20 patients (14 males, 6 females, mean age 44 +/- 12 years) who underwent orthotopic heart transplantation. Six measurements were taken: one in the first 3 weeks after transplantation, and the others once annually, for 5 years. Twenty healthy subjects (mean age 44 +/- 7 years) constituted the control group. Heart rate variability increased significantly in the first 3 years of follow-up (7.2 +/- 1 vs. 11.1 +/- 4, p0.001; 11.1 +/- 4 vs. 15.2 +/- 4, p0.01; 15.2 +/- 4 vs. 18.9 +/- 5, p0.05); in the following years this trend slackened and values did not reach a statistically significant difference (18.9 +/- 5 vs. 21.4 +/- 5; 21.4 +/- 5 vs. 22.5 +/- 5). The mean standard deviation was invariably greater in the control group (63.6 +/- 12). These findings show that sinus rhythm variability in the denervated heart progressively increased over 5 years of follow-up. The absence of presynaptic uptake, which is responsible for adrenergic hypersensitivity to circulating catecholamines and intrinsic cardiac reflexes, does not appear to cause this phenomenon, since these mechanisms are not able to evolve in time after cardiac transplantation. Therefore, an enhanced beta-adrenergic receptors density or affinity to circulating catecholamines or a limited sympathetic reinnervation may be the more probable underlying mechanism

Guías para la práctica de la autopsia en casos de muerte súbita cardíaca

A pesar de que la muerte súbita cardíaca es una de las formas más importantes de muerte en los países occidentales, este problema no ha recibido la atención que merece por parte de los patólogos y de los médicos de los sistemas públicos de salud. Se han desarrollado nuevos métodos de prevención de arritmias potencialmente mortales, y el diagnóstico de certeza de las causas de muerte súbita cardíaca es en este momento de particular importancia. Los patólogos son responsables de determinar la causa exacta de la muerte súbita pero existen diferencias considerables en el modo en el que se aborda esta cada vez más compleja tarea. La Asociación Europea de Patología Cardiovascular desarrolló unas guías que representan el estándar mínimo necesario en la práctica habitual de la autopsia para la valoración de la muerte súbita cardíaca, incluyendo no sólo un protocolo para el examen del corazón y el muestreo histopatológico, sino también para la investigación toxicológica y molecular. Nuestras recomendaciones son aplicables a centros médicos universitarios, a hospitales regionales y locales y a todo tipo de Institutos de Medicina Forense. La adopción a lo largo de la Unión Europea de un método uniforme de investigación supondrá la mejora de la práctica habitual, permitirá realizar comparaciones significativas entre distintas comunidades y regiones y, lo que es más importante aún, favorecerá que se monitoricen los patrones de las enfermedades que causan una muerte súbita. Although sudden cardiac death is one of the most important mode of death in Western Countries, pathologists and public health physicians have not given this problem the attention it deserves. New methods of preventing potentially fatal arrhythmias have been developed, and the accurate diagnosis of the causes of sudden cardiac death is now of particular importance. Pathologists are responsible for determining the precise cause of sudden death but there is considerable variation in the way in which they approach this increasingly complex task. The Association for European Cardiovascular Pathology developed guidelines, which represent the minimum standard that is required in the routine autopsy practice for the adequate assessment of sudden cardiac death, including not only a protocol for heart examination and histological sampling, but also for toxicology and molecular investigation. Our recommendations apply to university medical centres, regional and district hospitals and all types of forensic medicine institutes. If a uniform method of investigation is adopted throughout the European Union, this will lead to improvements in standards of practice, allow meaningful comparisons between different communities and regions and, most importantly, permit future trends in the patterns of disease causing sudden death to be monitored

P316Expression and functional role of Ccdc80 in developing heart and in cardiomyopathies.

n/