We analyze the impact of different adaptation strategies on crop net revenues in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia. We estimate a multinomial endogenous switching regression model of climate change ...adaptation and crop net revenues and implement a counterfactual analysis. Households data are combined with spatial climate data. We find that adaptation to climate change based upon a portfolio of strategies significantly increases farm net revenues. Changing crop varieties has a positive and significant impact on net revenues when coupled with water conservation strategies or soil conservation strategies, but not when implemented in isolation.
In this paper, after a review of the evolution of the literature on climate change economics in agriculture, I present some evidence of the impact of different moments of the distribution of rainfall ...on farmers risk aversion. It is found that while more rainfall is negatively associated with the probability of observing risk aversion, rainfall variability is positively correlated. This result highlights an important behavioural dimension of climatic factors.
In resource dependent rural areas of developing countries, common property resource management has been considered as one of the most viable options for combining poverty reduction, enhancement of ...local level economic development and biodiversity conservation. The past decade has witnessed an increasing emphasis on community-based forest management, with transference of forest management responsibility into the hands of local communities. However, although community forestry (CF) has succeeded in halting resource degradation and conservation of biodiversity, the equity aspect of CF not been fully examined. Nepal is a good location for a case study to examine this question, as community forest programs have been in place longer than in many other countries. This study analyzes the relationship between key household characteristics and common property resources used in order to assess whether poorer households are able to gain greater access to community forests as a result of institutional change. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that forest product collection from community forests is dependent on various socio-economic variables. In general it appears that land and livestock holdings, caste, education of family members and household economic status exert a strong influence on appropriating benefits from the commons. Based on this analysis, it can be concluded that, at least for some key products, poorer households are currently facing more restricted access to community forests than ‘less poor’ or relatively better off households.
This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the impact of financial assistance to farms on crop biodiversity in an uncertain setting. The findings reveal that risk aversion is an ...important driving force for crop biodiversity conservation. Risk-averse farmers can hedge against the uncertainty they face by allocating land to different crop species. However, policies intended to stabilize revenues by supporting particular species may alter this link by
delinking crop biodiversity from the management of revenues risk.
This paper investigates the dynamic effects of rainfall shocks on agroecosystems productivity. The analysis estimates a panel data model of cereal production in southern Italy. It documents the ...adverse effects of a reduction in rainfall on the agroecosystem productivity both in the short run and the long run. It investigates how increasing the level of spatial crop diversity can mitigate this negative impact. The empirical evidence shows how higher diversity supports resilience and maintains the system productivity under challenging climatic conditions. (JEL Q24, Q54, Q57)
There are conflicting data on the effect of a gluten-free diet (GFD) on the nutritional status of celiac patients. In the present study, we evaluated, in adult celiac patients, the influence of a ...long-term, strictly GFD on their nutritional status and compared it with matched healthy volunteers.
Our study included 39 celiac patients and 39 healthy volunteers. The body mass index (BMI) of patients and controls was evaluated at enrollment, while the patients' BMI before the GFD was retrieved from clinical records. In addition, at enrollment, in both groups, we compared BMI, fat mass (FM), bone mineral density (BMD), as well as their dietary intake, recorded on a 7-day diary.
At the time of diagnosis, the majority of celiac patients (82.0%) had a normal BMI or were overweight, while 10.3% were malnourished. After the GFD, patients with a normal BMI showed a significant weight increase (P=0.002), but none of them switched in the overweight or obese category. Two (50%) of the four malnourished patients achieved a normal BMI. Controls and patients on a GFD had a similar BMI, FM, BMD and total calorie intake, but the amount of lipids and fiber intake was significantly different in the two groups (P=0.003 and P<0.0001, respectively).
Our study demonstrates that a GFD is able to improve the nutritional status of celiac patients without inducing overweight or obesity. Our findings are related to a celiac population adopting a GFD based on a Mediterranean-type diet.
The Mu2e experiment (Bernstein et al., 0000) 1 at Fermilab will search for the neutrino-less coherent conversion of a muon into an electron in the field of a nucleus. Mu2e detectors comprise a straw ...tracker, an electromagnetic calorimeter and a veto for cosmic rays. The calorimeter employs 1348 Cesium Iodide crystals readout by silicon photomultipliers and fast front-end and digitization electronics. The front-end electronics consists of two discrete readout circuits (AMP-HV) for each crystal. These provide the amplification and shaping stage,linear regulation of the SiPM bias voltage and monitoring. The SiPM and front-end control electronics is implemented in a battery of mezzanine boards each equipped with an ARM processor that controls a group of 20 Amp-HV circuits, distributes the low voltage and the high-voltage reference values, sets and reads back the locally regulated voltages. The electronic is hosted in crates located on the external surface of calorimeter disks. The crates also host the waveform digitizer board (DIRAC) that performs digitization of the front end signals and transmit the digitized data to the Mu2e DAQ. Calorimeter electronic is hosted inside the cryostat and it must substain very high radiation and magnetic field so it was necessary to fully qualify it. The constraints on the calorimeter front-end and readout electronics, the design technological choices and the qualification tests will be reviewed.
The Mu2e calorimeter will employ Readout Units, each made of two Silicon Photomultipliers arrays and two Front End Electronics boards. To calibrate them, we have designed, assembled and put in ...operation an automated Quality Control (QC) station. Gain, collected charge and photon detection efficiency are evaluated for each unit. In this paper, the QC Station is presented, in its hardware and software aspects, summarizing also the tests performed on the ROUs and the first measurement results.
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