BACKGROUND There is currently a lack of reliable information on the exposures of residents and bystanders to pesticides in the UK. Previous research has shown that the methods currently used for assessing pesticide exposure for regulatory purposes are appropriate for farm workers 1. However, there were indications that the exposures of bystanders may sometimes be underestimated. The previous st...

Land degradation is a global problem that particularly impacts the poor rural inhabitants of low and middle-income countries. We improve upon existing literature by estimating the extent of rural populations in 2000 and 2010 globally on degrading and improving agricultural land, taking into account the role of market access, and analyzing the resulting impacts on poverty. Using a variety of spa...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the feasibility, costs and sample representativeness of a recruitment method that used workers with back injuries as the point of entry into diverse working environments. METHODS Workers' compensation claims were used to randomly sample workers from five heavy industries and to recruit their employers for ergonomic assessments of the injured worker and up to 2 co-work...

Psychologists have consistently documented people’s tendency to be overconfident about their own ability. We interpret workers’ confidence in their own skills as their morale, and investigate the implication of worker overconfidence on the firm’s optimal wage-setting policies. In our model, a wage contract both provides incentives and conveys to the worker the firm’s opinion about her ability, ...

Land surface radiation and energy budgets are critical to address a variety of scientific and application issues related to climate trends, weather predictions, hydrologic and biogeophysical modeling, and the monitoring of ecosystem health and agricultural crops. This is an introductory paper to the special issue of land surface radiation and energy budgets from an international conference on t...

Prior Converted Croplands (PCCs) are historic wetlands that were transformed (drained, dredged, filled or leveled) to support production of agricultural crops prior to “Swampbuster” provisions of the 1985 Food Security Act. Our research suggests that PCCs can substantially reduce nitrate export from agricultural watersheds in the region, an ecosystem function shared with natural and restored we...

With this presentation, my role is to help to stir the discussion. Perhaps it will open the dialogue so that we have a sense of where we have been, where we are, and then what’s ahead. Figure shows a photograph from 986, and in Figure is a photograph taken two years later. We developed a tomato phenotype—viral coat-protein-mediated resistance to a common disease of tomato—with a technology that...

OBJECTIVES Research has consistently revealed a negative relationship between chronological age and promotion orientation, that is, the motivational orientation toward approaching possible gains. In addition, experimental research has demonstrated that activating positive self-relevant stereotypes (e.g., for men, the stereotype that men are good at math) can stimulate increases in promotion ori...

The twenty-five fold expansion of oil palm cultivation in Sarawak over the past two and a half decades constitutes the most rapid and radical transformation of the agrarian landscape ever seen in that state. From 23,000 ha in 1980, mostly in government schemes, the area planted with oil palm has increased to over 580,000 ha in 2006, mostly in private estates, closing in on an official target of...

The study was to determine the role of Dietary diversity (DD), household food security (HFS), and agricultural biodiversity (AB) on stunted growth in children. Two cross-sectional studies were undertaken 6 months apart. Interviews were done with mothers/caregivers and anthropometric measurements of children 24-59 months old. HFS was assessed by household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS). A ...