Impact of Obesity and Low Back Pain on Exercise Self - Efficacy , Physical Activity , and Health - Related Quality of Life in Nursing Home Employees

The NSF-funded Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has committed itself to examining the linkages between ecosystems and human society, particularly through ecosystem services: naturally-occurring processes and provisions that benefit humankind. Natural scientists have pointed to ecosystem services valuation as being a key tool for drawing societal attention to natural capital, and, in turn, encouraging environmental protection. Yet, an oft-neglected question is whether those benefitting from ecosystem services actually value them. The answer to this question could influence the viability of a " natural capital argument " for environmental protection. In partnership with the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR) LTER site, we investigate this issue through a mail survey of residents of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. In particular, we consider: (1) why Eastern Shore residents care about the environment, (2) what ecosystem services Eastern Shore residents value, and (3) whether such values correlate with preferences for climate change adaptation, namely coastline management. Our survey design was primarily informed by focus groups facilitated on the Eastern Shore over a one year period. Adopting a randomized, six-part, mailing methodology, we sent surveys out to 1000 households in each of the two counties that make up the Eastern Shore. We received approximate 300 usable responses from each county. Our preliminary results suggest that the ecosystem services valued most by residents, particularly if protected or strengthened by a coastline management measure, are preservation of wildlife habitat, saltmarsh accretion to combat coastal flooding, and shoreline protection of property. Respondents overall preferred living shorelines over seawalls for shoreline management. Those ranking ecosystem services highly were more willing to pay for a coastline management plan than take no action; the corollary also held true. Respondents' willingness-to-pay for coastline management increased as acreage of village land protected increased; this trend did not hold for forest or farm land. Controversies surround credit stacking policy often goes as the following: credit stacking policy may potentially bring more profit to credit market participants by allowing credit producer to sell all credits stacking on spatially overlapped area; while not allowing credit stacking may enable us to benefit from the " by product " for free due to production complementarity. Previous researches on the credit stacking issue often ignore farmers' behavior responses when the policy change. Build on Woodwards' (2011) model, we offer a game theory framework to analyze farmers' technology choices change, especially on choosing the complementarity and specialization level. We show …