A new scenario framework for climate change research: background, process, and future directions

The scientific community is developing new global, regional, and sectoral scenarios to facilitate interdisciplinary research and assessment to explore the range of possible future climates and related physical changes that could pose risks to human and natural systems; how these changes could interact with social, economic, and environmental development pathways; the degree to which mitigation and adaptation policies can avoid and reduce risks; the costs and benefits of various policy mixes; residual impacts under alternative pathways; and the relationship of future climate change and adaptation and mitigation policy responses with sustainable development. This paper provides the background to and process of developing the conceptual framework for these scenarios, as described in the three subsequent papers in this Special Issue (Van Vuuren et al.; O’Neill et al.; Kriegler et al.). The paper also discusses research needs to further develop and apply this framework. A key goal of the current framework design and its future development is to facilitate the collaboration of climate change researchers from a broad range of perspectives and disciplines to develop policy- and decision-relevant scenarios and explore the challenges and opportunities human and natural systems could face with additional climate change.

Road Design for Future Maintenance : Life-cycle Cost Analyses for Road Barriers

The cost of a road construction over its service life is a function of design, quality of construction as well as maintenance strategies and operations. An optimal life-cycle cost for a road requires evaluations of the above mentioned components. Unfortunately, road designers often neglect a very important aspect, namely, the possibility to perform future maintenance activities. Focus is mainly directed towards other aspects such as investment costs, traffic safety, aesthetic appearance, regional development and environmental effects. This doctoral thesis presents the results of a research project aimed to increase consideration of road maintenance aspects in the planning and design process. The following subgoals were established: Identify the obstacles that prevent adequate consideration of future maintenance during the road planning and design process; and Examine optimisation of life-cycle costs as an approach towards increased efficiency during the road planning and design process. The research project started with a literature review aimed at evaluating the extent to which maintenance aspects are considered during road planning and design as an improvement potential for maintenance efficiency. Efforts made by road authorities to increase efficiency, especially maintenance efficiency, were evaluated. The results indicated that all the evaluated efforts had one thing in common, namely ignorance of the interrelationship between geometrical road design and maintenance as an effective tool to increase maintenance efficiency. Focus has mainly been on improving operating practises and maintenance procedures. This fact might also explain why some efforts to increase maintenance efficiency have been less successful. An investigation was conducted to identify the problems and difficulties, which obstruct due consideration of maintainability during the road planning and design process. A method called “Change Analysis” was used to analyse data collected during interviews with experts in road design and maintenance. The study indicated a complex combination of problems which result in inadequate consideration of maintenance aspects when planning and designing roads. The identified problems were classified into six categories: insufficient consulting, insufficient knowledge, regulations and specifications without consideration of maintenance aspects, insufficient planning and design activities, inadequate organisation and demands from other authorities. Several urgent needs for changes to eliminate these problems were identified. One of the problems identified in the above mentioned study as an obstacle for due consideration of maintenance aspects during road design was the absence of a model for calculating life-cycle costs for roads. Because of this lack of knowledge, the research project focused on implementing a new approach for calculating and analysing life-cycle costs for roads with emphasis on the relationship between road design and road maintainability. Road barriers were chosen as an example. The ambition is to develop this approach to cover other road components at a later stage. A study was conducted to quantify repair rates for barriers and associated repair costs as one of the major maintenance costs for road barriers. A method called “Case Study Research Method” was used to analyse the effect of several factors on barrier repairs costs, such as barrier type, road type, posted speed and seasonal effect. The analyses were based on documented data associated with 1625 repairs conducted in four different geographical regions in Sweden during 2006. A model for calculation of average repair costs per vehicle kilometres was created. Significant differences in the barrier repair costs were found between the studied barrier types. In another study, the injuries associated with road barrier collisions and the corresponding influencing factors were analysed. The analyses in this study were based on documented data from actual barrier collisions between 2005 and 2008 in Sweden. The result was used to calculate the cost for injuries associated with barrier collisions as a part of the socio-economic cost for road barriers. The results showed significant differences in the number of injuries associated with collisions with different barrier types. To calculate and analyse life-cycle costs for road barriers a new approach was developed based on a method called “Activity-based Life-cycle Costing”. By modelling uncertainties, the presented approach gives a possibility to identify and analyse factors crucial for optimising life-cycle costs. The study showed a great potential to increase road maintenance efficiency through road design. It also showed that road components with low investment costs might not be the best choice when including maintenance and socio-economic aspects. The difficulties and problems faced during the collection of data for calculating life-cycle costs for road barriers indicated a great need for improving current data collecting and archiving procedures. The research focused on Swedish road planning and design. However, the conclusions can be applied to other Nordic countries, where weather conditions and road design practices are similar. The general methodological approaches used in this research project may be applied also to other studies.

Endogenous transactions costs in multi-seller model

vVe examine the problem of a buyer who wishes to purehase and eombine ti. objeets owned by n individual owners to realize a higher V'illue. The owners are able to delay their entry into the sale proeess: They ean either seU now 01' seU later. Among other assumptions, the simple assumptions of compef'if'irnl, · .. that the presenee of more owners at point of sale reduees their surplus .. · and di..,(Jyun,fúl,g lead to interesting results: There is eostly delay in equilibdum. rvIoreover, with suffidently strong eompetition, the probability of delay inereases with n. Thus, buyers who diseount the future \\i11 faee inereased eosts as the number of owners inereases. The souree of transaetions eosts is the owners' desire to dis-eoordinate in the presenee of eompetition. These eosts are unrelated to transaetions eosts eurrently identified in the literature, spedfieally those due to asymmetrie information, 01' publie goods problems where players impose negative externalities on eaeh other by under-eontributing.

Future cenario planning in Brazilian logistics and transportation sector

Nas últimas décadas o setor de logística passou por grandes transformações pelo mundo. Assim, a eficiência do sistema logístico é importante para o crescimento econômico, a diversificação, redução dos custos operacionais e da pobreza. Segundo o Banco Mundial, o Brasil tornou-se uma das maiores economias do mundo, mas os custos logísticos elevados colocam em risco esse crescimento. Estes custos são em grande parte o resultado de diferenças em infraestrutura de cada região, juntamente com os encargos do setor rodoviário, que corresponde por 60% do total do transporte de carga do país. Entretanto, a logística brasileira está às portas de uma nova revolução, em práticas de negócios e eficiência, e também na qualidade e disponibilidade da infraestrutura de transportes e comunicações, e novos projetos e práticas para superar a situação. O objetivo deste estudo não é analisar o presente e as atuais tendências de logística do Brasil e do setor de transporte, mas sim modelar possíveis cenários futuros para os próximos anos. Em outras palavras, este trabalho mostra diferentes possibilidades de como o setor de logística e transporte poderá ser no futuro. Para isso, este trabalho irá utilizar a metodologia de cenários prospectivos e entrevistas com especialistas relacionados da área.

Information asymmetry and transaction costs in a cross-cultural business transaction

The intent of this paper is to provide a practitioners insight into the present and foreseeable future of problem of transaction cost economics related to culture and business etiquette that may increase the of complexity of business communication. We will also explore whether it impacts participant's mindsets regarding opportunistic or passive aggressive behavior. We will study the role of culture, ethics, information asymmetry, and legal systems regarding their importance towards the business contracts and lack of knowledge in local environments. We will make connections to contract theory strategies and objectives and recommend business practices. Furthermore, economic theory explores the role of the impossibility of the perfect contract. Historical and present day operational factors are examined for the determination of forward-looking contract law indications worldwide. This paper is intended provide a practitioners view with a global perspective of a multinational, mid-sized and small corporations giving consideration in a non-partisan and non-nationalistic view, yet examines the individual characteristics of the operational necessities and obligations of any corporation. The study will be general, yet cite specific articles to each argument and give adequate consideration to the intricacies of the global asymmetry of information. This paper defends that corporations of any kind and size should be aware of the risk of international business etiquette and cultural barriers that might jeopardize the savings you could obtain from engaging international suppliers.

An analysis of maritime transport and its costs for the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Using ecological thresholds to evaluate the costs and benefits of set-asides in a biodiversity hotspot

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Costs and benefits of temporary brood desertion in a Neotropical harvestman (Arachnida: Opiliones)

Brood desertion is a life history strategy that allows parents to minimize costs related to parental care and increase their future fecundity. The harvestman Neosadocus maximus is an interesting model organism to study costs and benefits of temporary brood desertion because females abandon their clutches periodically and keep adding eggs to their clutches for some weeks. In this study, we tested if temporary brood desertion (a) imposes a cost to caring females by increasing the risk of egg predation and (b) offers a benefit to caring females by increasing fecundity as a result of increased foraging opportunities. With intensive field observations followed by a model selection approach, we showed that the proportion of consumed eggs was very low during the day and it was not influenced by the frequency of brood desertion. The proportion of consumed eggs was higher at night and it was negatively related to the frequency of brood desertion. However, frequent brood desertion did not result in higher fecundity, measured both as the number of eggs added to the current clutch and the probability of laying a second clutch over the course of the reproductive season. Considering that harvestmen are sensitive to dehydration, brood desertion during the day may attenuate the physiological stress of remaining exposed on the vegetation. Moreover, since brood desertion is higher during the day, when egg predation pressure is lower, caring females could be adjusting their maternal effort to the temporal variation in predation risk, which is regarded as the main cost of brood desertion in ectotherms.

Lab-on-a-chip: the future in water quality detection

Interpretación realizada por las alumnas en prácticas de la Facultad de Traducción e Interpretación, Estíbaliz López-Leiton Trujillo, Danaide Rodríguez Hernández, Esther Ramírez Millares.

Knowing the future: partial foreknowledge effects on the programming of prosaccades and antisaccades

Foreknowledge about the demands of an upcoming trial may be exploited to optimize behavioural responses. In the current study we systematically investigated the benefits of partial foreknowledge--that is, when some but not all aspects of a future trial are known in advance. For this we used an ocular motor paradigm with horizontal prosaccades and antisaccades. Predictable sequences were used to create three partial foreknowledge conditions: one with foreknowledge about the stimulus location only, one with foreknowledge about the task set only, and one with foreknowledge about the direction of the required response only. These were contrasted with a condition of no-foreknowledge and a condition of complete foreknowledge about all three parameters. The results showed that the three types of foreknowledge affected saccadic efficiency differently. While foreknowledge about stimulus-location had no effect on efficiency, task foreknowledge had some effect and response-foreknowledge was as effective as complete foreknowledge. Foreknowledge effects on switch costs followed a similar pattern in general, but were not specific for switching of the trial attribute for which foreknowledge was available. We conclude that partial foreknowledge has a differential effect on efficiency, most consistent with preparatory activation of a motor schema in advance of the stimulus, with consequent benefits for both switched and repeated trials.

Temporomandibular disorders/myoarthropathy of the masticatory system. Costs of dental treatment and reimbursement by Swiss federal insurance agencies according to the Health Care Benefits Ordinance (KLV)

The goal of the study was to calculate the direct costs of therapy for patients with MAP. This retrospective study included 242 MAP patients treated at the Department of Prosthodontics of the University of Bern between 2003 and 2006. The following parameters were collected from the clinical charts: chief complaint, diagnosis, treatment modalities, total costs, costs of the dental technician, number of appointments, average cost per appointment, length of treatment, and services reimbursed by health insurance agencies. The average age of the patients was 40.4 ± 17.3 years (76.4% women, 23.6% men). The chief complaint was pain in 91.3% of the cases, TMJ noises (61.2%) or limitation of mandibular mobility (53.3%). Tendomyopathy (22.3%), disc displacement (22.4%), or a combination of the two (37.6%) were more often diagnosed than arthropathy alone (7.4%). Furthermore, 10.3% of the MAP patients had another primary diagnosis (tumor, trauma, etc.). Patients were treated with counseling and exercises (36.0%), physiotherapy (23.6%), or occlusal splints (32.6%). The cost of treatment reached 644 Swiss francs for four appointments spread over an average of 21 weeks. In the great majority of cases, patients can be treated with inexpensive modalities. 99.9% of the MAP cases submitted to the insurance agencies were reimbursed by them, in accordance with Article 17d1-3 of the Swiss Health Care Benefits Ordinance (KLV) and Article 25 of the Federal Health Insurance Act (KVG). The costs of treatment performed by dentists remain modest. The more time-consuming services, such as providing information, counseling and instructions, are poorly remunerated. This aspect should be re-evaluated in a future revision of the tariff schedule.

Preparing Offspring for a Dangerous World: Potential Costs of Being Wrong

Adaptive maternal responses to stressful environments before young are born can follow two non-exclusive pathways: either the mother reduces current investment in favor of future investment, or influences offspring growth and development in order to fit offspring phenotype to the stressful environment. Inducing such developmental cues, however, may be risky if the environment changes meanwhile, resulting in maladapted offspring. Here we test the effects of a predator-induced maternal effect in a predator-free postnatal environment. We manipulated perceived predation-risk for breeding female great tits by exposing them to stuffed models of either a predatory bird or a non-predatory control. Offspring were raised either in an environment matching the maternal one by exchanging whole broods within a maternal treatment group, or in a mismatching environment by exchanging broods among the maternal treatments. Offspring growth depended on the matching of the two environments. While for offspring originating from control treated mothers environmental mismatch did not significantly change growth, offspring of mothers under increased perceived predation risk grew faster and larger in matching conditions. Offspring of predator treated mothers fledged about one day later when growing under mismatching conditions. This suggests costs paid by the offspring if mothers predict environmental conditions wrongly.

Healthcare and patient costs of a proactive chlamydia screening programme: the Chlamydia Screening Studies project

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Most economic evaluations of chlamydia screening do not include costs incurred by patients. The objective of this study was to estimate both the health service and private costs of patients who participated in proactive chlamydia screening, using mailed home-collected specimens as part of the Chlamydia Screening Studies project. METHODS: Data were collected on the administrative costs of the screening study, laboratory time and motion studies and patient-cost questionnaire surveys were conducted. The cost for each screening invitation and for each accepted offer was estimated. One-way sensitivity analysis was conducted to explore the effects of variations in patient costs and the number of patients accepting the screening offer. RESULTS: The time and costs of processing urine specimens and vulvo-vaginal swabs from women using two nucleic acid amplification tests were similar. The total cost per screening invitation was 20.37 pounds (95% CI 18.94 pounds to 24.83). This included the National Health Service cost per individual screening invitation 13.55 pounds (95% CI 13.15 pounds to 14.33) and average patient costs of 6.82 pounds (95% CI 5.48 pounds to 10.22). Administrative costs accounted for 50% of the overall cost. CONCLUSIONS: The cost of proactive chlamydia screening is comparable to those of opportunistic screening. Results from this study, which is the first to collect private patient costs associated with a chlamydia screening programme, could be used to inform future policy recommendations and provide unique primary cost data for economic evaluations.

Acute Stroke: Present and Future of Catheter-Based Interventions

Acute ischemic stroke is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in industrialized nations. The sequel of stroke ranges from mild to severe disability and even death. Since the impairment may be permanent, the costs to society from work incapacity and the need for long-term care can be high. Additionally, the burden of suffering associated with the disease may have devastating effects on individuals and families.Following the occlusion of a cerebral vessel, the full extent of the infarction may not become clinically and radiologically apparent until days after. By then, the surrounding watershed zone, or penumbra, either survives or succumbs to necrosis over time. The natural history of this "tissue at risk" is determined by two factors: the collateralization from other vascular territories and the possible occurrence of spontaneous recanalization of the occluded vessel. The current treatment options for acute ischemic stroke are aiming at an early and sustained restoration of flow to the penumbra. The effect of the treatment is therefore time-dependent and the neurologic outcome is a function of the time span between onset of symptoms and recanalization therapy as well as of the recanalization rate associated with a specific treatment.This report summarizes the results of the major trials on catheter-based interventions, either using thrombolytic drugs or novel mechanical approaches being developed to treat patients with acute ischemic stroke.

Assessing dynamics of forced livestock movements, livelihoods and future development options for pastoralists/agro-pastoralists in Ruvuma and Lindi Regions, in the Southern Tanzania

The study that aimed at understanding the dynamics of forced livestock movements and pastoral livelihood and development options was conducted in Lindi and Ruvuma regions, using both formal and informal approaches. Data were collected from 60 randomly selected Agro-pastoralists/Pastoralists and native farmers using a structured questionnaire. Four villages were involved; two in Lindi region (Matandu and Mkwajuni) and the other two in Ruvuma region (Gumbiro and Muhuwesi). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of SPSS to generate means and frequencies. The results indicate that a large number of animals moved into the study area following the eviction order of the government in Ihefu wetlands in 2006/2007. Lindi region was earmarked by the government to receive all the evicted pastoralists. However, by 2008 only 30% of the total cattle that were expected to move into the region had been received. Deaths of many animals on transit, selling of the animals to pay for transportation and other costs while on transit and many pastoralists settling in Coastal and Ruvuma regions before reaching their destinations were reported to be the reasons for the discrepancy observed. To mitigate anticipated conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, Participatory Land Use Management (PLUM) plans were developed in all the study villages in order to demarcate village land area into different uses, including grazing, cropping, settlement and forests. Land units for grazing were supposed to be provided with all necessary livestock infrastructures (dips, charcoal dams, livestock markets and stock routes). However, the land use plans were not able to prevent the anticipated conflicts because most of the livestock infrastructures were lacking, the land use boundaries were not clearly demarcated and there was limited enforcement of village by-laws, since most had not been enacted by the respective district councils. Similarly, the areas allocated for grazing were inadequate for the number of livestock available and thus the carrying capacity exceeded. Thus, land resource-based conflicts between farmers and pastoralists were emerging in the study areas for the reason that most of the important components in the PLUM plans were not in place. Nevertheless, the arrival of pastoralists in the study areas had positive effects on food security and growth of social interactions between pastoralists and farmers including marriages between them. Environmental degradations due to the arrival of livestock were also not evident. Thus, there is a need for the government to purposely set aside enough grazing land with all necessary infrastructures in place for the agro-pastoral/pastoral communities in the country.