Impact of adoption in Ghana of an improved fish processing technology on household income,health and nutrition

Surveys were conducted in three fishing communities in Ghana, where an improved fish smoking technology (the Chorkor smoker) had been introduced previously, to assess the impact of adopting the improved technology on household income, health and nutritional status. Fifty‐one fish processors (all women), who had adopted the improved fish processing technology, were selected for the study, in which the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) technique, nutritional survey methods and structured questionnaires were used to obtain both qualitative and quantitative data. The results revealed that there was an improvement in economic activities. This resulted in a positive impact on household income and food consumption patterns of the processors. Improvement in household income resulted from increases in the quality and quantity of output, price per unit output and profits. Improvement in food consumption pattern was mostly in respect of quality and quantity of food intake, but the types of food consumed remained the same. The nutrient intake of the respondents was good on average, with a majority exceeding the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of protein, vitamin B1 and calcium. The average body mass index (BMI) of the processors was also within the ideal range of 20–25. Adoption of the new technology also improved the health status of the respondents. Lessening of eye problems and headaches as a result of reduced exposure to smoke and heat was reported by 52% of the women. However, preschool children were undernourished as a result of poor child feeding practices. In any technology transfer process, apparently unrelated nutritional factors need to be considered.     

Child–mother nutrition and health status in rural Kenya: the role of intra‐household resource allocation and education

There exists gender bias in resource ownership in many parts of Kenya with women being more disadvantaged. Resource ownership and control within the household has differential impacts on the health and overall well‐being of male and female members. This paper examines intra‐household resource ownership and how it affects nutrition and health status of household members. Data from a household survey containing detailed gender‐disaggregated information on resource ownership as well as food and anthropometry were collected from a rural Kenyan district and used in the analysis. Results showed that male members of the household had more access to education, income and land than the females. Mothers’ education, household income, frequency of illness and nutrient intake were the most important factors that contributed to the nutritional status of children. The education and household’s economic status were important determinants of child morbidity. Malnutrition and poor health of children and women is linked to the existing poverty in the study region, therefore emphasis needs to be put on eradication of discrimination against women in accessing education and accessing land, which will contribute to an increase in household incomes. Government policies need to focus on promotion of nutrition education through adult education programmes and incorporating it in the school curricula. Improvement of health‐care facilities in rural areas is also paramount to improving health and nutrition in these areas.     

Consumer voices: adoption of residential energy‐efficient practices

The purpose of this research is to identify constraining variables that may impinge on adopting energy‐efficient practices, materials, equipment and technology in households. The intent is to uncover relationships of attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and other resource constraints to: (1) existing housing adaptations and adjustments for energy efficiency; and (2) more efficient use of energy in homes. A second objective is to identify existing practices used to reduce energy use and the adaptations made to the existing structure, materials, equipment and technology for energy efficiency as well as their intentions to make future adaptations. Constraint variables include knowledge of existing energy‐efficient practices and technology; economic constraints (household income, cost as a problem, financial need and existing energy costs); obstacles to making changes (lack of information, assistance, time, cooperation, trained persons and the condition of home); and demographic variables (age, education level and urban/rural). Attitude and belief constraints include measures of felt responsibility for energy use‐related actions that impact the natural resources and environment, and measures of concern. These constraints may impinge on or contribute to making energy‐efficient changes in residential households. Questionnaires were mailed to a random stratified sample of 800 households in Nebraska (US state) in April and May of 2008, resulting in a 29% return rate. The analysis indicates that the research produced information about constraining factors that impact the existing energy‐efficiency levels of households. The use of energy‐efficient equipment and technology, and behaviour practices that reduce energy use are related to those barriers. However, residential energy use and behaviour change result from a range of psychological and contextual influences on behaviour. Behaviour is often inconsistent with attitudes because of the presence of various constraining factors that preclude consistency with behaviour. Educational programmes have a challenging task if they are to alter attitudes and norms to overcome situational constraints. It may be more fruitful to educate and to remove the constraints impinging on those who already have a positive attitude about the need to increase energy efficiency for whatever reason.     

Exploring private consumers’ willingness to adopt Smart Grid technology

The goal of radically increasing the proportion of electricity generated from renewable sources puts the current electrical grid under pressure and one of the solutions is to turn the grid into a ‘Smart Grid’. One of the key elements of the Smart Grid is that electricity consumers make some of their consumption available as flexible capacity to balance the grid. Consumers’ flexible capacity is only available to the grid if the consumers adopt Smart Grid technology (SGT) that establishes the link between the electric system and the consumer. This technology is new to private consumers and using it involves behavioural changes. There is a need to get more insight into who are willing to adopt SGT and why. This study draws on innovation adoption theory as a framework for understanding consumer adoption of this new technology. We explore whether consumers who have already adopted other types of new energy technology, such as a geothermal heat pump, are more favourably disposed towards SGT than other consumers. Also, we explore how consumers who have signed up to let their heat pump be used as flexible capacity in a test trial differ from other heat pump owners, if at all. We used semi‐structured interviews with household members as well as a questionnaire to explore differences between three groups: households with (1) a heat pump with SGT (n = 11), (2) a heat pump‐only (n = 7), or (3) an oil‐fired boiler (n = 6). We find that the families in the three groups perceive the technology characteristics differently and those who have trial experience with SGT are most in favour of the technology.     

中国户籍制度：基本价值、异化功能与改革取向

户籍管理本质上属于民事登记和人口动态统计的一部分。新中国的户籍制度以严格限制公民自由迁移和设置城市准入资格为鲜明特征,是政府发展经济和调控社会的政策手段。改革开放以后,户籍制度在限制人口迁移方面有所松动,但户口归属仍然是城市外来人群的隐痛,并成为影响社会分层的隐性力量。新中国的户籍制度一直与社会公共产品的分享体制有紧密的联系。户籍改革与社会公共产品分配是"牵一发而动全身"的关系。户籍改革不可能一蹴而就,而应有相应的远期、中期和近期目标。     

住户统计信息系统的构建

住户统计信息系统的建立是解决统计信息效率的重要手段,是提高数据处理系统性、准确性和及时性的关键环节。通过对现有的住户统计信息系统的分析,发现其存在着信息不能共享、可公开数据少、上下级重复性工作以及使效率低下等问题,应大力实施网络版住户调查信息处理系统,加快构建设计程序框架,力争创新性的将基层的统计指标由全国统一的数据库自动生成。从而解决现居民住户统计信息系统存在的问题。     

Education and the empowerment of women in household decision‐making in Spain

It was analysed whether investment in the education of both women and men serves to empower wives resulting in more balanced household decisions being taken on matters related to consumption and financial management. They considered that household decision‐making could be made by mainly the wife, mainly the husband or the couple acting jointly. They then applied multinomial probit models to the Spanish Living Conditions Survey of 2010. Results show that, when controlling for demographic, family and labour market characteristics, the level of education of both the husband and wife has a positive effect in terms of a more egalitarian decision‐making process in relation to three areas of expenditure: daily shopping, expensive purchases of consumer durables and significant expenditure on children. However, only women's education has a positive effect on borrowing money and no effect of education is observed with regard to the use of savings. Results are less conclusive for households where decisions are taken primarily by the wife or husband, since men's education increases the role of husbands in the household making‐decision process whereas no effect of wives' education is observed.     

Understanding bottled water consumption in a high‐poverty context: empirical evidence from a small town in Guatemala

This research investigated the determinants of bottled water consumption using household survey data from a small, poor town in Guatemala. Hurdle (two‐part) models were estimated to account for 73.3% of sampled households that did not consume bottled water. Findings indicated that the vast majority of respondents perceived minimal health risks from drinking bottled water. In contrast, few respondents (3.2%) believed that tap water is totally safe to drink. Estimation results indicated that bottled water consumption was positively associated to health risk perceptions, household income, education and market access. Household size had a negative effect on the likelihood of consuming bottled water. However, once the household had decided to consume bottled water, its consumption increased with each additional household member.     

Enlargement and the European Geography of the Information Technology Sector

The information technology sector in Europe, comprising the production of computer hardware and software, is disproportionately located on the continent's western periphery. The vast bulk of computers sold in Europe in the 1990s were assembled either in Ireland or Scotland, while Ireland also accounted for over 40 per cent of all packaged software and 60 per cent of all business software sold in Europe. As the sector in both these locations is largely foreign owned, the question arises as to whether EU enlargement might impact on the geography of the sector by diverting information technology FDI from the western to the new eastern periphery. This issue is explored in the present paper by analysis of five individual sub‐segments: computer assembly and electronic components, R&D, mass‐market packaged software and the remainder of the software sector. The paper deems it likely that computer assembly operations will continue the shift seen in recent years from Ireland and Scotland to Central and Eastern Europe. The production of electronic components such as microchips represents a growing share of activity in most EU locations as well as in the CEE countries. Analysis suggests that this pattern of geographically‐dispersed growth will resume once the consequences of the collapse of the high‐tech bubble are played out. The distribution of R&D activity across Europe and globally is also considered unlikely to be much affected by enlargement. As for software, as long as localisation activities remain important, Ireland – the EU location in which most of this activity is carried out – seems set to be able to compete strongly, given the attractiveness of its English‐language environment and other attributes to the young continental Europeans upon which this activity relies. Most software services remain largely non‐tradable however. This sector will grow in the accession states as computer penetration rates converge on the EU average, but without displacing activity from the incumbent EU member states. For firms already competing in the tradable niche software segment, on the other hand, enlargement cannot but be beneficial because of its impact on the size of the market into which they sell.     

Engel curves and the unitary theory of the household

Previously unutilized household budget data are used to fit Engel curves to test Gary Becker's unitary theory of the household. If resources are fungible and are allocated to maximize a household utility function, the pattern of outlay should be invariant to control over and sources of income. The earnings of wives and Engel curves for food, rent, clothing, light and fuel, insurance and sundries are estimated using the two‐step method of Murphy and Topel. Although working wives contributed an average of 20% of household income, the coefficient of their earnings is not significant in every Engel curve estimated. It appears that Becker's altruist head of the household is the housewife/financial manager, at least in New York City in the early twentieth century.     

计算机信息安全技术管理下的应用探讨

随着计算机广泛应用以及技术提升程度不断升级,网络信息资源成为当前经济社会发展的重要保证。网络信息涉及的领域也越来越广泛,以及牵涉到国家的政治机密、军事发展和尖端技术等,尤其是对信息的存储、传输,包括在经济领域如商业银行、股票证券、能源资源数据、科研成果及数据等多方面牵涉到计算机的网络信息运用,不处理好安全方面的问题,将会带来更大后果。本文首先分析了安全信息危险的具体方面;其次分析了信息资源如何与计算机应用结合起来;最后对信息安全技术下的计算机．应用进行了分析。     

Agri‐environmental Relationships and Multi‐functionality: Further Considerations

Multi‐functionality is a currently fashionable argument, especially within the EU, for continued support of the farming sector. However, there is a substantial danger that this will be used, and be seen to being used, as a façade for continued traditional support and protection. If so, the current trend towards liberalised agricultural markets, on which much of the developing world depends, will be frustrated. Nevertheless, farming does matter to many communities, over and above its marketable surplus and the incomes so generated. It follows that any negotiations aimed at liberalising agricultural trade have to take these arguments seriously. To do so requires that the critical elements of the debate be widely understood. This paper outlines these critical elements, in the light of a previous contribution from Hodge (2000) . It argues that there are ways in which quasi‐market systems can be used to correct market failures implicit in the notion of multi‐functionality. It also argues that proper compensation to existing supported farmers is a necessary and separate condition for sensible policy reform. Much of the commentary on farm trade liberalisation confuses the two separate conditions for reform: multi‐functionality and compensation. This confusion threatens progress towards agricultural trade liberalisation, without generating any reliable benefits of a more multifunctional agriculture.     

Do discounted food products end up in the bin? An investigation into the link between deal‐prone shopping behaviour and quantities of household food waste

Household food waste is considered to be the largest share of food waste along the food supply chain. Given that its recoverability is also more challenging compared to food waste in other stages of the chain, most studies on household food waste adopt a pre‐emptive approach by aiming to identify and address consumer beliefs, attitudes and actions that are linked to food waste. In scientific literature, household food waste has often been studied in relation to the habit of purchasing discounted food products (DFP). However, findings have been contradictory. Specifically, while some authors found that deal‐prone consumers are usually of lower income and therefore display a wiser and more attentive attitude towards grocery shopping, other authors reported that the purchase of discounted products was usually linked to compulsive shopping, hence resulting in higher food waste quantities at home. Due to these discrepant findings, a definitive answer on the impact of DFP on household food waste does not currently exist in the literature. This paper analyses the correlation between the purchase of DFP and weekly household food waste quantities. To do so, we examine (a) the results of a food waste diary experiment carried out on a representative sample of 385 households in Italy in February 2017, and (b) the results of a 23‐items Computer Assisted Web Interview survey administered to the same householders, in which shopping habits were investigated. Results revealed no evidence of either a positive or negative relationship between the purchase of DFP and household food waste quantities. Frequency of grocery shopping was the only variable found to have a significant impact on household food waste quantities.     

Online Purchase Intentions: An Empirical Testing of a Multiple-Theory Model

Manufacturing is a complex application domain, traditionally a realm of engineers and factory workers. As we are in the information age, the manufacturing domain has become more dependent on information through the use of computers and computer‐controlled machines. In the arena of advanced manufacturing, a number of concepts such as the “virtual corporation”; and “virtual factory”; have emerged, requiring that manufacturing be highly information‐intensive and knowledge‐based.

This article examines the role of the information infrastructure and explores the use of intelligent agents in its implementation for advanced manufacturing enterprises. The information infrastructure forms a complex hierarchy of distributed, heterogeneous information systems. Intelligent agents play various roles at different levels of the hierarchy to provide interoperability, reliability, programma‐bility, and controllability.     

A model of sustainable household technology acceptance

There is an expanding range of technologies used in a residential setting to enable sustainable living, including ‘smart’ technology that uses learning and connectivity to modify household behaviours. Understanding what drives the adoption of sustainable household technology will allow product developers, marketers and policy makers to use technology to reduce the environmental impact of homes. Based on the United Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, a model that explains predictors of intention to adopt sustainable household technology was developed and tested via an online survey of 592 US consumers. The results from structural equation modelling demonstrate that product attributes of sustainable household technology including performance, compatibleness and hedonic expectancy as well as consumer characteristics, in specific, sustainable innovativeness significantly predicts adoption intent. Conversely, the model testing shows that effort expectancy as well as social pressure and environmentalism are not significant predictors of adoption intention Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Characteristics of food‐wasting consumers in the Czech Republic

This paper investigates food waste at the consumer stage of the food chain. The authors conducted a questionnaire survey with 259 respondents to identify the key characteristics of food‐wasting consumers and to suggest strategies to improve food‐wasting behaviour. The results of the survey confirmed that the rate at which food is wasted depends on the age, economic status and education of the person managing food in a household, on the household's income per person and on total household income. Younger people, students, economically active people and people from higher‐income households (both per household and per person) waste more, while pensioners waste much less than other groups. However, the sex of the food manager is not associated with food waste. These demographic characteristics should be considered when designing consumer education campaigns focussed on changing consumer motivation and behaviour. This paper also recommends other solutions tailored for specific demographic groups: Younger people and students may be influenced by the actions of opinion leaders within social networks, and technical devices enabling better food management could help them reduce waste. Supporting work‐life balance, broadening the network of food delivery services and implementing corporate initiatives that support food waste prevention could help economically active people reduce their food waste. Additionally, offers of ready‐to‐eat food should be expanded for people with higher incomes.     

户口迁移类行政案件若干法律问题研究——以上海市虹口区法院2005-2010年相关案件为研究对象

随着户籍制度改革步伐的加快与城市化进程的不断推进,由资源分配不均、利益驱动等多种原因引起的户口迁移及相关行政争议案件逐渐增多。户口迁移类行政案件具有地域性、政策相关性、影响广泛性等诸多特点,在审判中反映出一些问题,如户口迁移法律规范效力层次低,户口的工具性价值和利益性特征明显,行政机关在户口迁移审批过程中执法程序不严格等。通过提升立法层次、完善执法程序以及注重协调化解在行政审判中的侧重适用是解决户口迁移行政争议的有效路径。     

The impact of household life‐cycle stages on subjective well‐being: Considering the effect of household expenditures in Hungary

The household life‐cycle stage is a significant contributor to the perception of subjective well‐being; however, the effect of household expenditures of life‐cycles on subjective well‐being has not been thoroughly explored. The life‐course perspective, specifically the study of family/household life‐cycles, emphasizes the understanding of subjective well‐being across the entire life‐span. Accordingly, in the literature subjective well‐being is often studied at different life‐stages considering the influence of variables such as age, cohabitation and fertility. The present study evaluates the level of subjective well‐being across the various life‐cycle stages using a matching method on a Hungarian national sample. This approach is appropriate for studies using observational data because the administration of a true experimental design is usually not feasible for this type of research. The main finding of the article is that controlling for the expenditure structure significantly modifies the effect of life‐cycle on subjective well‐being, which is varied across life‐cycle stages and shown to be highly dependent on household expenditures.     

Barriers to outsourcing household services to small business

It is popularly assumed that the main barrier that prevents household services from being outsourced to the small business sector is household disposable income. This paper evaluates critically whether this is the case. Reporting survey results from 418 households in the UK city of Sheffield, the finding is that cost is the main barrier in just 38% of instances. Nearly two‐thirds of household services are undertaken in other ways either out of choice or due to the poor availability, quality and reliability of provision by small businesses. How these barriers to outsourcing household services might be tackled is then addressed.