The Everyday Life Context of Increasing Energy Demands: Time Use Survey Data in a Decomposition Analysis

Industrial ecologists have modeled with precision the material foundations of industrial systems, but given less attention to the demand for products and the drivers of structural changes in these systems. This article suggests that time use data complement data on monetary expenditure and can be used to elucidate the everyday life context in which the changes in the economy take place. It builds upon the claim that goods are not direct sources of utility, but enter specific household activities as inputs. A second argument for the proposed approach is that it can be used to introduce and foster human agency in analyses of production systems. The article uses Finnish time use survey data, consumption expenditure data, and data on the sectoral energy intensities of financial output in the Finnish economy. First, a measure of the energy intensity of activities is derived by relating consumer time use and the required direct and indirect energy requirements. Second, the results include a decomposition of changes in the energy requirements of private consumption in Finland during the 1990s. It is shown that although the same activities on average require increasing energy inputs per unit of time, Finns have simultaneously changed the structure of their everyday life toward less energy-intensive activities.     

Methods for rapid screening and isolation of bacteria producing acidic lipase: feasibility studies and novel activity assay protocols

Acidic lipase finds its commercial values in medical applications and bioremediation of food wastes. In this work, approaches for rapid screening of lipase-producing bacteria were developed and the feasibility assessment of the screening methods was performed. From food waste samples, the proposed screening procedures allowed isolation of sixteen pure bacterial strains expressing higher lipase activity at acidic pH (pH 6.0) than at alkaline pH (pH 9.0). To enhance the accuracy of lipase activity determination under acidic conditions, a novel assay procedure was also developed by deactivating lipase activity by microwave treatment prior to back titration. This additional step could minimize interferences arising from residual lipase activity during conventional direct back-titration methods in measuring lipase activity at acidic pH. Using the four strategies proposed in this work, the best acidic-lipase-producing isolate was obtained by strategy C (SSC) and was identified as Aeromonas sp. C14, displaying an optimal lipase activity of 0.7 U/ml at an acidic pH of 6.0.     

Alcohol consumption by youth: Peers,parents, or prices?

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health, we estimate the effect of peers’ alcohol consumption and alcohol prices on the drinking habits of high-school-age youth. We use the two-stage residual inclusion method to account for the endogeneity of peer drinking in nonlinear models. For our sample of high school students, we find that peer effects are statistically and economically significant regarding the choice to participate in drinking but are not significant for the frequency of drinking, including binge drinking. Regarding alcohol prices, even though we have good price variation in our sample, alcohol prices are not found to be significant. The results are important for policymakers who are considering policies to reduce underage drinking, as we conclude that no significant impact on underage drinking will result from low-tax states’ increasing excise taxes on alcohol so they are similar to those of high-tax states. Policymakers may choose to focus instead on the influence of peers and changing the social norm behavior.     

Low-volume application by mist-blower compared with conventional compression sprayer treatment of houses with residual pyrethroid to control the malaria vector Anopheles albimanus in Mexico

Abstract. Village-scale trials were carried out in southern Mexico to compare the efficacy of indoor-spraying of the pyrethroid insecticide lambda-cyhalothrin applied either as low-volume (LV) aqueous emulsion or as wettable-powder (WP) aqueous suspension for residual control of the principal coastal malaria vector Anopheles albimanus. Three indoor spray rounds were conducted at 3-month intervals using back-pack mist-blowers to apply lambda-cyhalothrin 12.5 mg a.i./m² by LV, whereas the WP was applied by conventional compression sprayer at a mean rate of 26.5 mg a.i./m².
Both treatments caused mosquito mortality indoors and outdoors (collected inside house curtains) as a result of contact with treated surfaces before and after feeding, but had no significant impact on overall population density of An. albimanus resting indoors or assessed by human bait collections. Contact bioassays showed that WP and LV treatments with lambda-cyhalothrin were effective for 12–20 weeks (>75% mortality) without causing excito-repellency.
Compared to the WP treatment (8 houses/man/day), LV treatment (25 houses/man/day) was more than 3 times quicker per house, potentially saving 68% of labour costs. This is offset, however, by the much lower unit price of a compression sprayer (e.g. Hudson 'X-pert' at US120) than a mist-blower (e.g. 'Super Jolly' at US350), and higher running costs for LV applications. It was calculated, therefore, that LV becomes more economical than WP after 18.8 treatments/100 houses/10 men at equivalent rates of application, or after 7.6 spray rounds with half-rate LV applications.     

Sensitive bioassays for determining residues of sulfonylurea herbicides in soil and their availability to crop plants

Sulfonylurea herbicides are potent inhibitors of plant growth and are extremely active against a wide spectrum of weeds. They are used at very low rates (10–50 g ai/ha) and cause rapid inhibition of root and shoot growth of young plants. Routine chemical assays for detecting low levels of these compounds are difficult and there is need to develop sensitive bioassay methods for detecting their extremely low residue levels in the soil.This paper describes a simple pot bioassay method with a self watering system using turnip (Brassica rapa) seedlings as test plants for quantitative determination of sulfonylurea herbicides. Results are presented with six of these compounds whose activity was investigated in widely differing substrates. The potential availability to plants was calculated from the dose-response curves in different substrates. The dose-response relationship has been described by a specifically developed computer model. Details are also given of a direct seeded bioassay method with controlled watering system using several test species for detection of sulfonylurea herbicides. The potential uses and practical applications of both techniques are discussed.     

Use of an electrostatic sprayer for control of anopheline mosquitoes

The Electrodyn sprayer was compared with a compression sprayer (Hudson X-pert) for residual application of cypermethrin, a pyrethroid insecticide, to control the malaria vectors Anopheles arabiensis Patton and An. funestus Giles in experimental huts at Magugu in Tanzania. The time taken for hut spraying, 2-2.5 min per hut, was similar for both types of sprayer. Two or three huts were treated internally with cypermethrin at 40 or 80 mg a.i./m2 using Electrodyn formulation for comparison with 80 mg a.i./m2 using wettable powder formulation. Each of the twelve huts (including five untreated controls) was fitted with window exit traps and either louvre or verandah traps for mosquito sampling. The Electrodyn sprayer was fitted with a pair of elbowed deflectrodes to direct the positively charged spray droplets onto walls and ceiling. All treatments gave 94-100% mortality-rates of indoor-resting anophelines throughout the evaluation period of 11 weeks post-spray. Reductions of An.arabiensis and An.funestus females by 10-42% and 62-91%, respectively, in rooms and by 72% and 51% in exit traps indicated that cypermethrin deterred mosquitoes from entering the huts. Overall mortality-rates of mosquitoes were 66% of both species in huts treated with 40 mg/m2 Electrodyn, 43% An.funestus and 71% An.arabiensis due to 80 mg/m2 Electrodyn formulation and 49% An.funestus and 64% An.arabiensis due to 80 mg/m2 WP formulation (no significant differences). It is concluded that the Electrodyn sprayer with deflectrodes is a convenient and effective means of residual house-spraying with pyrethroid insecticide for malaria vector control.     

Family organization and the wage labor transition in a Tamang community of Nepal

This paper explores familial contexts of transition to a wage labor economy using ethnographic and survey data from Tamang communities at the northern edge of Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. Historically agro-pastoralist, the Tamang of this area have experienced social watersheds drawing them into ever closer relationships with Kathmandu. The earliest was their nineteenth century induction into corvée labor for national elites; more recent has been the accelerating monetization of the twentieth century. This analysis demonstrates trends and frames hypotheses about the social structuring of this latest process, testing them at the individual level with combined ethnographic and survey data from 1028 respondents. Multivariate analyses explore the effects of birth cohort, education, domestic group status, and settlement location on participation in non-family organized wage work. Substantive findings are related to the broader historical literature on household and family with special attention to varieties of subsistence to monetized transition.     

Modeling rendille household herd composition

Previous analysis of Rendille household herd composition revealed a transition from camel to cattle ownership for sedentary impoverished Rendille pastoralists of northern Kenya. In an attempt to delineate determinants of livestock holdings, logistic regression analysis of 112 household herds from the Rendille settlement of Korr, Marsabit District, Kenya was undertaken. Results indicated that household wealth, measured in present livestock holdings, past drought losses, and livestock sales, formed better predictors of cattle ownership than did household characteristics pertaining to labor supply, wage earners, age-set membership, and birth order of household head. These results are discussed in light of pastoral strategies designed to minimize risk.     

Settler agriculture and the dynamics of resource allocation in frontier environments

This article attempts to conceptualize the dynamics of resource allocation by colonist farmers under the unique conditions of land abundance and labor scarcity which characterize frontier environments, such as the smallholder agricultural settlement areas in the Amazon basin. In contrast, most previous theoretical literature on household agricultural decision making and land-use change in rural areas considers conditions of high population density and land scarcity, and is not, therefore, adequate for understanding critical land-use changes which may be occurring in frontier regions. This article first discusses the appropriateness and inadequacies of the analytical frameworks commonly used to explain the expansion of settler agriculture into remote forest regions and the unsustainable land-use practices observed in these areas. This review serves as the basis for characterizing resource allocation under the particular conditions of frontier environments. A conceptual advance in the analysis is its consideration of the way institutional/policy factors and farm-level characteristics can interact to produce land-use outcomes. This knowledge is essential to understand not only the social and economic factors affecting present land use and choice of technology, but also those factors influencing farmers' demand for more optimal systems of land use which are consistent with varying agro-ecological potentials, demographic situations, and their own management capacity.