The development of endophyte inoculants for agricultural crops has been bedevilled by the twin problems of a lack of reliability and consistency, with a consequent lack of belief among end users in the efficacy of such treatments. We have developed a successful research pipeline for the production of a reliable, consistent and environmentally targeted fungal endophyte seed-delivered inoculant f...

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, ...

Fisheries work is one of the occupations at highest risk for occupational accidents in many countries. It is necessary to understand the injuries in order to prevent them. This study of occupational injury claims by fisheries workers in Norway made to insurance companies from 1991 to 1996 analysed the workers’ age, time of injury, injury type, part of the body involved, injury event and cost. T...

Objective: This study retrospectively investigates causes of death among workers of a hard-metal plant in Austria. Methods: A retrospective cohort was formed of 1965 workers still employed in or after 1970. Followup was until end of 2014 based on national data bases. Cobalt exposure was assessed through industrial hygiene data and urine analyses. Cox proportional hazards models were calculated ...