Energy poverty intertwines with the issues of energy inequality and energy justice, presenting a particular challenge for low-income households (LIHs). This study explores energy justice in the U.S. ...through the lens of several interconnected questions: Do energy assistance programs have adequate participation rates? How accessible are energy efficiency (EE) appliances? Are there different energy practices across income groups? How does time schedule of energy practices differ across income groups, and how is it connected to energy demand flexibility? Based on two representative data sets, this study finds that affordability and accessibility remain serious problems for LIHs. LIHs have lower participation rates in many EE programs and own fewer EE appliances and smart grid technologies. Additionally, thermostat control strategies are different across income levels. LIHs tend to set one fixed temperature, even when they own a programmable thermostat, which is less energy efficient. LIHs engage in more energy practices throughout the daytime than their counterparts and show the least pronounced morning and evening peaks, indicating a relatively inflexible schedule and barriers to accepting demand response programs. This study concludes with policy implications for making energy more affordable, accessible, flexible, and better for the environment, while being fair to those often underserved.
•Investigated energy affordability, efficiency and demand response potential.•Low-income households and renters have fewer energy efficiency appliances.•Programmable thermostats are underused, especially among low-income households.•Low-income households have insufficient access to smart grid technologies.•Low-income households need tailored assistance and demand response programs.
This study investigated a set of social-psychological predictors affecting smart meter support and adoption intention based on the Technology Acceptance and Sustainable Energy Technology Acceptance ...Models among 711 U.S. residents. Despite low levels of adoption in the U.S., this study suggested that the majority of our participants supported smart meter technology and were willing to adopt this technology. Two perceived technology attributes – usefulness and risk to privacy – had direct effects on support for smart meter installation and adoption intention, while the other technology attribute, perceived cost, had no impact. Individual differences in trust in one’s utility company and problem perception related to energy issues affected support and adoption intention through the mediators of perceived usefulness and privacy risk. Problem perception also had direct effects on support and adoption intention. Democrats reported higher levels of trust in utility companies and problem perception than non-Democrats. This study provides useful insights for utility managers, researchers and policy makers.
Low-income households comprise an important, but often-neglected, target population for energy reduction in the U.S. residential sector. Previous research of this population tends to emphasize ...demographic and economic factors with little consideration of social-psychological variables. This paper utilized the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to investigate how demographics, climate zones, and a set of social-psychological variables, including energy concern, bill consciousness, frugality attitude, and thermal comfort (needs for coolness and warmness) influenced energy conservation intentions among 248 low-income households across the U.S. Results indicated that the three TPB variables alone (attitudes toward energy- conservation, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) had positive effects on energy conservation intentions. Attitudes toward energy-conservation and perceived behavioral control remained as the strongest predictors after accounting for other variables. Meanwhile, bill consciousness positively predicted energy conservation intentions, whereas needs for warmness and coolness negatively predicted intentions. Gender and climate zones predicted intentions when other variables were not included in the model. This study provides important insights on low-income households’ energy-conservation intentions, as well as the antecedents and potential barriers, which provide useful recommendations for future energy policy initiatives.
The goal of this work is to study the Boussinesq equations for an incompressible fluid in
R
2
, with diffusion modeled by fractional Laplacian. The existence, the uniqueness and the regularity of ...solution has been proved.
Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is a circulating metabolite that has been implicated in the development of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD). In this paper, we identify blood markers, ...metabolites, proteins, gut microbiota patterns, and diets that are significantly associated with levels of plasma TMAO. We find that kidney markers are strongly associated with TMAO and identify CVD-related proteins that are positively correlated with TMAO. We show that metabolites derived by the gut microbiota are strongly correlated with TMAO and that the magnitude of this correlation varies with kidney function. Moreover, we identify diet-associated patterns in the microbiome that are correlated with TMAO. These findings suggest that both the process of TMAO accumulation and the mechanism by which TMAO promotes atherosclerosis are a complex interplay between diet and the microbiome on one hand and other system-level factors such as circulating proteins, metabolites, and kidney function.
Display omitted
•TMAO is independently associated with demographic factors and kidney function•Gut microbiota-derived metabolites are significantly associated with TMAO•Diet- and disease-associated metabolites are significantly associated with TMAO•Proteins linked to cardiovascular and kidney disease are correlated with TMAO
Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is a circulating metabolite that has been implicated in the development of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. Manor et al. identify blood markers, metabolites, proteins, gut microbiota patterns, and diets that are significantly associated with levels of plasma TMAO.
Renewable energy technologies, such as solar water heaters (SWHs) and alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), have been widely adopted in China. Using an extended model of the Theory of Planned Behavior, ...we investigated how social–psychological factors (environmental attitudes, perceived behavioral control (PBC), subjective and descriptive norms, and renewable energy knowledge) affect individuals’ intention to adopt SWHs and AFVs and support renewable energy policies for a sample of 655 Chinese university students. Results of structural equation models indicate that environmental attitudes have strong positive effects on the intention to adopt SWHs and AFVs and support renewable energy policies. Renewable energy knowledge has a positive impact on these two dependent variables. In addition, subjective and descriptive norms and PBC positively influence the intention to adopt renewable energy technologies, but have no significant effect on support for renewable energy policies. Implications of the results are discussed.
Limonium sinuatum, a member of Plumbaginaceae commonly known as sea lavender, is widely used as dried flower. Five L. sinuatum varieties with different flower colors (White, Blue, Pink, Yellow, and ...Purple) are found in saline regions and are widely cultivated in gardens. In the current study, we evaluated the salt tolerance of these varieties under 250 mmol/L NaCl (salt-tolerance threshold) treatment to identify the optimal variety suitable for planting in saline lands. After the measurement of the fresh weight (FW), dry weight (DW), contents of Na
, K
, Ca
, Cl
, malondialdehyde (MDA), proline, soluble sugars, hydrogen peroxide (H
O
), relative water content, chlorophyll contents, net photosynthetic rate, and osmotic potential of whole plants, the salt-tolerance ability from strongest to weakest is identified as Pink, Yellow, Purple, White, and Blue. Photosynthetic rate was the most reliable and positive indicator of salt tolerance. The density of salt glands showed the greatest increase in Pink under NaCl treatment, indicating that Pink adapts to high-salt levels by enhancing salt gland formation. These results provide a theoretical basis for the large-scale planting of L. sinuatum in saline soils in the future.
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have shown great potential for the treatment of liver injuries, and the therapeutic efficacy greatly depends on their homing to the site of injury. In the present study, ...we detected significant upregulation of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) in the serum and liver in mice with acute or chronic liver injury. In vitro study revealed that upregulation of miR-9-5p or miR-221-3p promoted the migration of human MSCs (hMSCs) toward HGF. Moreover, overexpression of miR-9-5p or miR-221-3p promoted hMSC homing to the injured liver and resulted in significantly higher engraftment upon peripheral infusion. hMSCs reduced hepatic necrosis and inflammatory infiltration but showed little effect on extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition. By contrast, hMSCs overexpressing miR-9-5p or miR-221-3p resulted in not only less centrilobular necrosis and venous congestion but also a significant reduction of ECM deposition, leading to obvious improvement of hepatocyte morphology and alleviation of fibrosis around central vein and portal triads. Further studies showed that hMSCs inhibited the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) but could not decrease the expression of TIMP-1 upon acute injury and the expression of MCP-1 and TIMP-1 upon chronic injury, while hMSCs overexpressing miR-9-5p or miR-221-3p led to further inactivation of HSCs and downregulation of all three fibrogenic and proinflammatory factors TGF-β, MCP-1, and TIMP-1 upon both acute and chronic injuries. Overexpression of miR-9-5p or miR-221-3p significantly downregulated the expression of α-SMA and Col-1α1 in activated human hepatic stellate cell line LX-2, suggesting that miR-9-5p and miR-221-3p may partially contribute to the alleviation of liver injury by preventing HSC activation and collagen expression, shedding light on improving the therapeutic efficacy of hMSCs via microRNA modification.
We examined whether the effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on birthweight of the offspring was mediated by smoking-induced changes to DNA methylation in cord blood.
First, we used cord blood ...of 129 Dutch children exposed to maternal smoking vs 126 unexposed to maternal and paternal smoking (53% male) participating in the GECKO Drenthe birth cohort. DNA methylation was measured using the Illumina HumanMethylation450 Beadchip. We performed an epigenome-wide association study for the association between maternal smoking and methylation followed by a mediation analysis of the top signals false-discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05. We adjusted both analyses for maternal age, education, pre-pregnancy BMI, offspring's sex, gestational age and white blood cell composition. Secondly, in 175 exposed and 1248 unexposed newborns from two independent birth cohorts, we replicated and meta-analysed results of eight cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites in the GFI1 gene, which showed the most robust mediation. Finally, we performed functional network and enrichment analysis.
We found 35 differentially methylated CpGs (FDR < 0.05) in newborns exposed vs unexposed to smoking, of which 23 survived Bonferroni correction (P < 1 × 10(-7)). These 23 CpGs mapped to eight genes: AHRR, GFI1, MYO1G, CYP1A1, NEUROG1, CNTNAP2, FRMD4A and LRP5. We observed partial confirmation as three of the eight CpGs in GFI1 replicated. These CpGs partly mediated the effect of maternal smoking on birthweight (Sobel P < 0.05) in meta-analysis of GECKO and the two replication cohorts. Differential methylation of these three GFI1 CpGs explained 12-19% of the 202 g lower birthweight in smoking mothers. Functional enrichment analysis pointed towards activation of cell-mediated immunity.
Maternal smoking during pregnancy was associated with cord blood methylation differences. We observed a potentially mediating role of methylation in the association between maternal smoking during pregnancy and birthweight of the offspring. Functional network analysis suggested a role in activating the immune system.
PDF
