Agri-environmental attitudes of Chinese farmers – The impact of social and cognitive determinants

Chinas’ successfully increased food production during the last 30 years has caused significant negative external impacts and subsequent escalating environmental costs (Ash and Edmonds, 1998). This dilemma has recently become a popular issue and the government attaches great importance towards a more sustainable agricultural production (UNDP, 2006). The challenge is to enhance well-grounded approaches that accomplish of effective agricultural trainings, encouraging farmers to adopt optimized practices. According to recent decision-making theories, a successful implementation is also closely related to the target group’s social and cognitive preferences. In order to get more information about farmers’ inherent decision-making factors an explorative quantitative survey of 394 farmers was conducted in Shandong Province. Next to descriptive economic and agronomic analyses, a structural equation model gave evidence that beside farmers’ economic reasons, values and guānxi-relationships indeed show an influence on the extracted agri-environmental attitude factors as well as on manifest behaviour variables. Concluding results reveal the farmers varying preferences and give explanations out of the social and cognitive paths to explain why they behave different or have other focussed attitudes. Finally, recommendations for more effective training methods are given that consider the farmers’ individual motivations.China, agri-environmental attitudes, guānxi, SEM, values, Land Economics/Use,

The capability of personal values and guanxi to reduce negative external effects of Chinese agriculture

China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of agricultural products, but the intensive agriculture contributes in a remarkable manner to environmental problems. Since environmental protection has recently become a popular issue in China, the government attaches great importance to the formulation of laws and regulations. Accordingly, China faces serious challenges inter alia in the accomplishment of effective agricultural trainings, environmentally sensitive farming and especially in the farmers’ willingness to adopt optimized farming approaches. In order to promote a sustainable adaption of reduced input techniques, farmers’ behaviour and their production decisions are crucial. Based on a social-psychological approach of individual behaviour, this contribution likes to close a considerable gap in analysing the Chinese farmers’ personal value positions and their social fallback system, namely personal relationship networks called guānxi. Next to the theoretical framework, this paper reports key results from a farmer survey in two intensive agricultural counties of Shandong Province on the capability of guānxi and personal values to reduce negative effects of agricultural inputs.China, environmental attitudes, farmers’ decision-making, guānxi, values, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics,

Differences in physical aging measured by walking speed: evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Background: Physical functioning and mobility of older populations are of increasing interest when populations are aging. Lower body functioning such as walking is a fundamental part of many actions in daily life. Limitations in mobility threaten independent living as well as quality of life in old age. In this study we examine differences in physical aging and convert those differences into the everyday measure of single years of age. Methods: We use the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, which was collected biennially between 2002 and 2012. Data on physical performance, health as well as information on economics and demographics of participants were collected. Lower body performance was assessed with two timed walks at normal pace each of 8 ft (2.4 m) of survey participants aged at least 60 years. We employed growth curve models to study differences in physical aging and followed the characteristic-based age approach to illustrate those differences in single years of age. Results: First, we examined walking speed of about 11,700 English individuals, and identified differences in aging trajectories by sex and other characteristics (e.g. education, occupation, regional wealth). Interestingly, higher educated and non-manual workers outperformed their counterparts for both men and women. Moreover, we transformed the differences between subpopulations into single years of age to demonstrate the magnitude of those gaps, which appear particularly high at early older ages. Conclusions: This paper expands research on aging and physical performance. In conclusion, higher education provides an advantage in walking of up to 15 years for men and 10 years for women. Thus, enhancements in higher education have the potential to ensure better mobility and independent living in old age for a longer period. (author's Abstract

An International Perspective on Aging and Cognitive Decline

Worldwide populations are growing older. Thus, many countries fear economic and societal burden, but population aging can also be seen as an opportunity for a society. Which view prevails is very much dependent on the chosen measures of aging that are so far mainly based on chronological age. In the first part of this thesis measures of population aging are analyzed and new measures are proposed. The novel cognition adjusted dependency ratio (CADR) is introduced as an alternative to the old-age dependency ratio (OADR), which only considers a chronological age threshold. A CADR based ranking of certain countries across the world shows a completely different picture compared to an OADR based ranking of the same countries. Northern European countries and the United States are listed at the top according to their CADR, while they are at the bottom end considering their OADR. This difference is discussed in detail within this thesis. On the micro level, a characteristics based approach is proposed to measure and compare individual aging. More specifically, differences in aging are converted into single years of age, which highlights the magnitude of differences between groups such as socioeconomic subpopulations. The second part of this thesis addresses the huge variability in cognitive functioning, a dimension of healthy aging, between and within countries. The relationship between cognition and education (e.g. individual and national level) is investigated across countries that vary substantially in terms of their demography and level of economic and social development. The results indicate that increasing the national educational level is assigned with better individual cognitive performance in addition to the positive individual education effect. In the subsequent study, determinants associated with the differences in cognitive functioning across countries, cohorts, and gender are examined. Improvements in living conditions and education support better cognitive performance. Moreover, better living conditions and higher education will increase gender differences in some cognitive functions and decrease or eliminate the gender differences in other cognitive abilities. (author's abstract

Clinicopathologic features and pathologic diagnosis of hepatitis E

Infection with the hepatitis E virus (HEV) is one of the most common causes, if not the most common, of acute hepatitis worldwide. In the last decade, we have learned that in addition to the endemically and epidemically occurring form of hepatitis E, which is predominantly transmitted by contaminated drinking water, and constitutes a significant health problem in resource-poor countries, there is a globally existing form of hepatitis E, which is a zoonosis, and as such primarily transmitted by the consumption of contaminated meat products. Although in most cases hepatitis E is subclinical or mild and self-limiting, pregnant women and patients with liver cirrhosis may have severe, occasionally even fatal disease, and immunocompromised individuals may develop chronic hepatitis E. Considering the substantial global health burden caused by HEV infection, it is surprising how limited our knowledge of hepatitis E pathology still is. In this paper, we describe localization studies on HEV infection and discuss their implications for everyday diagnostics. Furthermore, we outline and discuss the spectrum of histologic changes, which can be found in HEV infection in various clinical contexts

Future trends in the prevalence of severe activity limitations among older adults in Europe: a cross-national population study using EU-SILC

Objective: To project the proportion of population 65+ years with severe long-term activity limitations from 2017 to 2047. Design Large: population study. Setting: Population living in private households of the European Union (EU) and neighbouring countries. Participants: Participants from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions aged 55 years and older and living in one of 26 EU and neighbouring countries, who answered the health section of the questionnaire. Outcome measures: Prevalence of severe long-term activity limitations of particular subpopulations (ie, 55+, 65+, 75+ and 85+ years) by sex and country. Results: We find a huge variation in the prevalence of self-reported severe long-term limitations across Europe for both sexes. However, in 2017, about 20% of the female population aged 65 years and above and about 16% of their male counterparts are expected to report severe long-term activity limitations after accounting for differences in reporting. Accounting for cultural differences in reporting, we expect that European countries will have about 21% (decile 1: 19.5%; decile 9: 22.9%) of female and about 16.8% (decile 1: 15.4%; decile 9: 18.1%) of male 65+ years population with severe long-term activity limitations by 2047. Conclusions: Overall, despite the expected increase of life expectancy in European countries, our results suggest almost constant shares of older adults with severe long-term activity limitations within the next 30 years

Enhancement of experimental metastasis by tumor necrosis factor

The influence of endogenous and exogenous tumor necrosis factor (TNF) on metastasis was investigated in an experimental fibrosarcoma metastasis model. A single intraperitoneal injection of recombinant human (rh) TNF or recombinant mouse (rm) TNF into mice 5 h before intravenous inoculation of methylcholanthrene-induced fibrosarcoma cells (CFS1) induced a significant enhancement of the number of metastases in the lung. Dose responses of rmTNF and rhTNF demonstrated a stronger metastasis-augmenting effect by rmTNF compared with rhTNF. This effect was time dependent, as administration of rmTNF 5 h before or 1 h but not 24 h after tumor cell inoculation caused an increase of tumor cell colony formation on the lung surface, suggesting an influence of TNF on the vascular adhesion and diapedesis of tumor cells. Since tumor-bearing mice showed an enhanced ability to produce TNF after endotoxin injection compared to control mice, tumor-bearing mice were treated with anti-mTNF antibodies. Neutralization of endogenous tumor-induced TNF led to a significant decrease of the number of pulmonary metastases. Histological analysis of micrometastases in the lung on day 5 by silver staining of proteins associated with nucleolar organizer regions revealed more metastatic foci and augmented proliferative activity of the tumor cells after rmTNF pretreatment of mice. However, no direct effect of rmTNF on the proliferation rate of tumor cells was seen in vitro. These findings suggest that low doses of endogenous TNF or administered TNF during cytokine therapy might enhance the metastatic potential of circulating tumor cells

The Guide to Usefulness of Existing AI Solutions in Nonprofit Organizations: A starting point for nonprofit organizations that are embarking on their AI journey

The goal of this Guide to Usefulness of Existing AI Solutions in nonprofit organizations is to provide a starting point to those embarking on their AI journey. It focuses particularly on generative AI tools, with a range of available solutions and some cautionary advice. By no means is it a complete list - rather, we want to encourage nonprofits to try out the solutions on offer, to understand their functionality and limitations, and to assess what benefits their use may deliver, as well as hold risks in mind

A cross-country comparison of math achievement at teen age and cognitive performance 40 years later

BACKGROUND Maintaining cognitive functioning through mid- to late-life is relevant for the individual and societal aim of active ageing. Evidence shows considerable stability in individual-level rank-ordering of cognitive functioning, but little attention has been given to cohort performance over the life cycle and macro-level factors that could affect it. OBJECTIVE The main goal of this paper is to address cross-national variation in mental performance from younger to older ages. METHODS Using a quasi-longitudinal approach, we compare the relative country ranking in standardised mathematical test scores of young teenagers in 1964 from the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS) and cognitive test performance at mid-life in 2004, based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe(SHARE) for the cohort born between 1949 and 1952. RESULTS Our results show that those countries which had the highest scores in math tests taken by 13-year-old-grade-level students are not the same countries that, 40 years later, have the top performing scores in cognitive tests among mid-age adults. CONCLUSIONS This article highlights the importance of considering country-level influences on cognitive change over the life cycle, in addition to individual characteristics, and provides some descriptive findings that could be incorporated with further research on the link between specific contextual factors and cognitive functioning