Different Types Of Households Research Articles

Measuring heterogeneous preferences for the preservation of prime farmland with and without agrivoltaics

This study addresses a gap in cultural ecosystem service (CES) assessment of prime farmland located in peri-urban areas by presenting results from a choice experiment recently conducted in Utah’s Wasatch Front region. The choice experiment was designed to account for heterogeneous effects associated with a wide array of socio-demographic and attitudinal characteristics on household preferences for farmland preservation, including farmland used for the joint production of solar power and agricultural products. We apply a mixed-logit model to our data that controls for preference heterogeneity among Wasatch Front households along two dimensions – at the individual household level and according to different household types. We find that the typical household is willing to pay a non-trivial annual fee to preserve the region’s existing peri-urban farmland, and to a lesser extent is willing to pay for agrivoltaics on that land. We also find some evidence of preference heterogeneity among different types of households for farmland preservation and agrivoltaics; heterogeneity based upon traditional socio-demographic characteristics such as household income and location, as well as unique attitudinal differences related to how households view themselves in relation to agriculture, farmland preservation, and the extent to which taxation is an appropriate mechanism to fund local public goods. These findings can serve as crucial components of broader land-use studies designed to account for the full range of agri-environmental ecosystem services.

Efficient IoT-Assisted Waste Collection for Urban Smart Cities.

Waste management is one of the many major challenges faced by all urban cities around the world. With the increase in population, the current mechanisms for waste collection and disposal are under strain. The waste management problem is a global challenge that requires a collaborative effort from different stakeholders. Moreover, there is a need to develop technology-based solutions besides engaging the communities and establishing novel policies. While there are several challenges in waste management, the collection of waste using the current infrastructure is among the top challenges. Waste management suffers from issues such as a limited number of collection trucks, different types of household and industrial waste, and a low number of dumping points. The focus of this paper is on utilizing the available waste collection transportation capacity to efficiently dispose of the waste in a time-efficient manner while maximizing toxic waste disposal. A novel knapsack-based technique is proposed that fills the collection trucks with waste bins from different geographic locations by taking into account the amount of waste and toxicity in the bins using IoT sensors. Using the Knapsack technique, the collection trucks are loaded with waste bins up to their carrying capacity while maximizing their toxicity. The proposed model was implemented in MATLAB, and detailed simulation results show that the proposed technique outperforms other waste collection approaches. In particular, the amount of high-priority toxic waste collection was improved up to 47% using the proposed technique. Furthermore, the number of waste collection visits is reduced in the proposed scheme as compared to the conventional method, resulting in the recovery of the equipment cost in less than a year.

Assessing the household burdens of infrastructure disruptions in Texas during Winter Storm Uri

In February 2021, severe winter weather conditions associated with Winter Storm Uri triggered an energy infrastructure failure in Texas. Most Texans lost electricity, some lost potable water, natural gas, and suffered other infrastructure-related service disruptions that had profound household consequences. Although several studies have documented the disparities in terms of the types and extent of disruptions Texans experienced during Uri, there is little information about the impact of these disruptions in terms of their burdens on households. Guided by the Capabilities Approach framework, a survey of Texan households was conducted to identify the outage characteristics and capability losses for different household types, as well as the burdens that those disruptions posed to households using both objective and subjective measures. Our results indicate that households that endured longer and constant electricity outages suffered more severe impacts across all measures, including more disrupted household capabilities, increased time, and financial costs to cope during the outages, as well as greater declines in reported life satisfaction. We found that low-income households, households with children, and households with disability challenges suffered more severe objective burdens during the storm, although subjective results for these households were mixed. Households with members over the age of 65 fared better in terms of objective measures, yet suffered more in terms of subjective well-being. Moreover, households that had prior experience with a prolonged outage reported significantly smaller reductions in well-being during the storm than other households, despite not showing any difference in objective measures. Ultimately, our results offer context-specific, post-event information about the impacts and needs of different types of households during Uri that are important for informing emergency management and community resilience planning.

Income Variability of Agricultural Households in Poland: A Descriptive Study

Among the different types of households, agricultural ones are perceived as the most exposed to the problem of income instability. Income fluctuations pose a threat not only to the financial stability of farming families but also to the sustainable development of the agriculture sector. Investigating the scale and factors of the variability of farmers’ household incomes is important in designing and monitoring agricultural policy measures that aim to stabilize farmers’ incomes. In this context, the main objective of this article is to assess the income variability of agricultural households in Poland and to identify the main correlates of farmers’ income fluctuations in the period 1996–2022. To emphasize the significance of the problem of income instability for agricultural households, a comparative assessment of income variability was performed (relative to non-agriculture households). Furthermore, two research subperiods (1996–2003; 2004–2022; before and after EU accession) were distinguished to capture the association between the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and the stability of agricultural income. The study focusses on associations between variables (regression and correlation analyses were used). The income of agricultural households was shown to exhibit greater variability (year-on-year) than the income of households of workers and of self-employed people, with a lower scale of fluctuations after 2004. Furthermore, the study reveals a group of factors that could be correlated with the variability of the income of agricultural households: income structure (share of income from agriculture), natural and climatic conditions (variability of the yields and agricultural production), and changes in prices of the means of agricultural production. The findings raise, however, a question about the effectiveness of CAP instruments in stabilizing agricultural income.

Exploring factors affecting household energy consumption in the internet era: Empirical evidence from Chinese households

Household sector is the second largest energy consumption sector after industrial sector. With the increasing popularity of the Internet, empirical studies based on large-scale households to study factors affecting household energy consumption are quite rare. This paper integrates Internet behaviors into structural equation model based on the data of Chinese household energy consumption survey in an effort to find out the factors affecting household energy consumption and explore the relationship between these factors. According to the findings of this study, the increased frequency of using Internet has mitigated the positive effect of income on household energy consumption to a certain extent. This paper also comes to some interesting conclusions. For example, the understanding of energy conservation policies has significantly increased the energy consumption of Chinese households. Moreover, different regions and different types of households are faced with different factors affecting energy consumption. With reference to the characteristics of Chinese households, this paper discusses the possible underlying cause of these conclusions, which is of great significance for Chinese government to formulate targeted energy conservation policies and provides a reference for other countries.

Can TODs Include Affordable Housing?

Problem, research strategy, and findings Inclusion of affordable housing in transit-oriented developments (TODs) is necessary for addressing the mobility and shelter needs of transit-dependent and low-income populations. Affordable housing in TODs, however, remains scarce despite state-level policies, interest group advocacy, and developer enthusiasm. We used a multiple case study method and focused on TOD areas in communities with disadvantaged populations in Southern California to examine barriers to and opportunities for affordable housing. We examined the contents of specific plans adopted by local governments to facilitate TODs around 10 selected transit stations in Los Angeles and Orange counties and conducted interviews with planners, policymakers, and developers involved in achieving affordable housing. Our findings indicated that although TOD specific plans permitted higher-density developments, they neither prioritized affordable housing nor presented a coherent vision for an inclusive transit community that would address the needs of different types of households. Moreover, onerous requirements for securing subsidies, patchwork financing, uncertainties in the approval process, and competition from market-rate housing inhibited affordable housing development. Although we did not analyze community opposition to TODs, it was hinted at by our interviewees. Takeaway for practice Targeting affordable housing in TODs, providing incentives, and strengthening the institutional framework are critical to achieving inclusive transit communities. The development of TODs in a politically fragmented region like Southern California necessitates a lead organization to procure affordable housing investments and strengthen the housing–transportation nexus. We note broader implications of the findings beyond California.

The heterogeneous relationship between public health expenditures and household medical expenditures: evidence from relative poverty households in China.

Exploring the heterogeneous relationship between public health expenditures and household medical expenditures from the perspective of relative poverty has positive significance for improving the ability of relative poverty households to cope with the risk of large rigid expenditures and optimizing the public health resource allocation. This paper uses the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2016 to 2020 to identify relative poverty standard from the perspective of medical needs, analyzes the impact of public health expenditures on medical expenditures of different household types, and evaluates the effect of public health expenditures on ensuring the medical needs of relative poverty households. The panel threshold regression result shows that 19.36% of the provinces per capita disposable where the household is located is the identification standard of relative poverty households. Public health expenditures have a crowding-in effect on household medical expenditures and have a stronger impact on relative poverty households, an effect that is also confirmed by two-stage least squares regression. In addition, ensuring household medical needs through public health expenditures focuses on the level of basic medical needs, and the role of household healthcare expenditures that reflects high-level medical needs is not obvious. In the future, the government should establish a monitoring mechanism for relative poverty households, ensure the basic medical needs of relative poverty households, and clarify the heterogeneity among different types of households, provide targeted public health services.

Methods for improving participation rates in national self-administered web/mail surveys: Evidence from the United States.

In the United States, increasing access to the internet, the increasing costs of large-scale face-to-face data collections, and the general reluctance of the public to participate in intrusive in-person data collections all mean that new approaches to nationally representative surveys are urgently needed. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for faster, higher-quality alternatives to face-to-face data collection. These trends place a high priority on the evaluation of innovative web-based data collection methods that are convenient for the U.S. public and yield scientific information of high quality. The web mode is particularly appealing because it is relatively inexpensive, it is logistically flexible to implement, and it affords a high level of privacy and confidentiality when correctly implemented. With this study, we aimed to conduct a methodological evaluation of a sequential mixed-mode web/mail data collection protocol, including modular survey design concepts, which was implemented on a national probability sample in the U.S. in 2020-2021. We implemented randomized experiments to test theoretically-informed hypotheses that 1) the use of mail and increased incentives to follow up with households that did not respond to an invitation to complete a household screening questionnaire online would help to recruit different types of households; and 2) the use of modular survey design, which involves splitting a lengthy self-administered survey up into multiple parts that can be completed at a respondent's convenience, would improve survey completion rates. We find support for the use of mail and increased incentives to follow up with households that have not responded to a web-based screening questionnaire. We did not find support for the use of modular design in this context. Simple descriptive analyses also suggest that attempted telephone reminders may be helpful for the main survey.

Separability, spillovers, and segmented markets : Evidence from dairy in India

AbstractA long history of empirical research has focused on testing whether and when household consumption and production decisions are separable. If markets were perfect, household consumption would be independent of production. In this article, we propose that market channel choice complicates this relationship. Our analysis of household panel data from rural India, focusing on dairy, leads us to four key conclusions. First, milk consumption is correlated with production, and markets are not a complete substitute for household production. Second, a large presence of formal milk buyers in a village is associated with lower milk consumption in dairy households, overturning the positive association of participation in formal value chains with household milk consumption. Third, contrary to expectations, for households that do not own dairy animals and net buyers, the presence of formal value chains remains uncorrelated with milk consumption. Fourth, we infer, test for and find suggestive evidence of segmented milk markets, that is, different types of households participate in different markets for milk that do not seem to interact with each other. Policymakers focused on market development or production‐based strategies need to factor in the possibility of market segmentation based on market channels while designing interventions.

Indoor Levels of Volatile Organic Compounds at Households in Ulaanbaatar City

Objectives: VOCs, or Volatile Organic Compounds, are a group of organic chemicals that can easily evaporate into the air at room temperature. They are called “volatile” because they have high vapor pressure and can readily form vapors or gases at normal atmospheric conditions. To address this knowledge gap, we aimed to assess VOC exposure and its associated health risks.Method: Samples were collected through the adsorbent tube, followed by detachment from the solvent by organic solvents solvent or methanol, and analyzed by gas chromatographic equipment attached with a flame ionization detector (FID). We selected 150 households from the Chingeltei and Bayangol districts in Ulaanbaatar city, specifically sections 4, 5, 6, and 12, to examine the levels of indoor VOCs in this study. We used the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test to compare medians of VOC levels for two independent groups. Kruskal-Wallis test was carried out to determine if there was any significant difference between medians of VOC levels for more than two independent groups, including the type of paint used, wooden furniture used, and construction year.Results: We found no significant difference in benzene concentration among different types of households (p<0.8112). The highest benzene concentration (0.181 µg/m3) was measured in apartments and houses. Although there was no statistically significant difference between household room types, the kitchen had a higher benzene concentration than other rooms (p<0.8156). Factors such as household total volume, building construction year, and materials used for floors and walls did not significantly affect indoor benzene concentration. Most of the day, the benzene levels exceeded the standards set by the Indoor Air Quality Act of South Korea and the recommended levels by the Health Minister and Construction and Urban Development Minister of Mongolia. In 133 households in Ulaanbaatar city, indoor VOCs, specifically benzene concentration, exceeded the recommended level stated in Order No. A105/08 by the Health Minister and Construction and Urban Development Minister in 2017.Conclusion: Indoor benzene concentration did not vary significantly based on household type, room type, household volume, building construction year, construction wall material, construction floor material, whether new furniture was purchased or the dwelling was repaired and painted within the last two months, proximity to major roads, or indoor smoking status.

Smart home service terminal design for elderly families integrating the KANO model and perceptual engineering

In recent years, smart homes have gradually come into our lives and have brought many positive impacts to our lives. However, in specifically targeted application design planning, the designer community is not always able to consider and analyze every factor. This paper proposes an integrated nonlinear design that incorporates the KANO model as well as a mathematical model of sensible engineering coupled with design science. The application of different design solutions in different types of households is evaluated after dividing the different types of living of elderly households into specific situations. The results show that for elderly households of type 1 versus 4, scenario 2 generally has more accurate application feasibility compared to scenario 1. The maximum increase in application accuracy for Scenario 2 compared to Scenario 1 was 6.28%. However, the frequency of use decreased by 3.09%. And for elderly households of type 2 and 3, which tend to live alone, the feasibility of application of scenario 2 is similar or even worse than that of scenario 1. The improved Scenario 3 both have higher application feasibility than Scenarios 1 and 2 and has a more user-friendly visual aid to understand the design, which helps the elderly group to better use the smart home service terminal system.

The Allocation of Housework in Same- and Different-Sex Partnerships: Recent Evidence from the U.S

Research on the division of housework among same-sex partners is limited. This is because gender-cultural theories – which emphasize the significance of gender identity and motivate many studies on the topic – are implicitly assumed to be less relevant in this case. Attending to admonitions that the division of housework in same-sex households is not free from gendering processes and practices, in this study we use the high-quality data of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS; 2003-2019), to compare the association between housework and relative earnings across partnership types. Since gender-cultural theories are based on the performance of gender identity by different-sex partners, we utilize the differences between same- and different-sex partners to better understand the effect of gender-cultural determinants on the division of housework. Our comparison of the relation across partnership-types validates the power of gender-cultural mechanisms in different-sex partners, provides a better assessment of the differences in housework patterns between different types of households, and serves as a novel quantitative test of gender-cultural mechanisms in same-sex partners.

Nuclear Family Type Identification Based on Deep Forest Algorithm in Residential Power Consumption

As the fertility rate declines, it becomes increasingly necessary for governments to guide power companies in introducing preferential tariffs to encourage nuclear families to have children. However, traditional household statistics for residential households are time-consuming and insufficient for enterprises seeking to adopt intelligent marketing schemes for different types of households. To address these issues, this paper proposes a nuclear family type identification method for residential electricity consumption based on a deep forest algorithm. The method first classifies nuclear households according to the number of children in them. Then, features are selected by combining the daily 48-point load and prior knowledge of nuclear families. The Pearson correlation coefficient and random forest importance ranking are used to remove features with low correlation and low importance. Additionally, features are classified based on their importance, and the number of features is balanced by stratified sampling to optimize the multi-granularity scan results and improve the model’s generalization. Finally, the improved cascade forest with feature input replacement base learner is trained, and the model is evaluated using accuracy evaluation metrics.The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model accurately recognizes the number of children in different nuclear families and can be used in power companies to improve lean management. The results show that the improved method is effective in improving recognition com-pared to the original deep forest method, with recognition accuracy 5.1% higher than the random forest method and 0.7% higher than the deep forest method, reaching 94%.

Loneliness and social isolation among the elderly: Are we doing enough?

Loneliness and social isolation among the elderly: Are we doing enough?

Sugyvenimas ir meilė. Jokūbo Nagurskio šeimos pavyzdys

Concordance and Love. The Case of Jacob Nagórsky’s Family From the second half of the twentieth century, studies into family history in the Western historiography were particularly intensified. The biggest attention was paid to the structure and type of the household and the family, the distribution and prevalence of different types of households in different European regions, the functioning of the household, changes, strategies, and so on. On the other hand, numerous studies of this kind have been written that can be attributed to the psychoanalytic and emotional direction in family history research. The history of the family in the former Republic of the Two Nations has also already attracted the attention of its researchers. The article highlights the story of one provincial feudal family ( Jacob and Marianna Nagórsky) from the second half of the eighteenth century in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and attempts to trace its emotional climate. There is a quite large base of sources about it, such as personal letters, wills, economic letters, etc. Unfortunately, Jacob Nagórsky’s letters to his wife are missing, which makes it difficult to trace his emotional relationship with his spouse. The study is influenced by the English historian Lawrence Stone who wrote about the “rise of the nuclear family” in the eighteenth century, which gradually pushed out the “open lineage family”. The historian perceived this concept of the nuclear family as a social and psychological unit based on the emotional connection and closed kinship ties. Both spouses came from wealthy families and were educated. They married quite young, had at least six children, and this number was slightly higher than in typical aristocratic families of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The surviving correspondence of Jacob Nagórsky and other sources show his rather cold and unemotional attitude towards his wife, but he was constantly concerned about the well-being of his family. Meanwhile, Marianna’s surviving letters reflect more expressions of love. Children were the main binding tie of the family. They were given the mutual care and love of their parents. Both Nagórsky attended to the children’s daily well-being and education. Although much less often than her husband, Marianna engaged herself in the running of the estate; she was active in family concerns. The emotional ties between the spouses can already be attributed to the “nuclear family” model. Keywords: Jacob and Marianna Nagórsky, family, wife, husband, children, Kurtuvėnai.

The effects of household automation and dynamic electricity pricing on consumers and suppliers

Empowering the end-users to change their passive behaviour and to provide flexibility is one of the key elements of Directive 2019/944 from the EU Clean Energy of all Europeans legislative package. This change does not come only from the technological advancements but needs to be driven by dynamic electricity pricing for retail consumers, reflecting the needs of the system. These incentives for consumers to change their consumption patterns should be beneficial for multiple power system entities, from system operators to suppliers and RES owners. The goal of this paper is to investigate the benefits for different types of households of increased automation, selecting different electricity pricing options, and exploiting the opportunities of participating in an explicit demand response program. Also worth investigating is the impact this will have on the suppliers, from changing approach to operating their portfolio to financial aspects and market positions. To address these problems, we created a mixed-integer linear programming model of a household including common appliances, as well as behind-the-meter electricity generation, energy storage and electric vehicle charger. The results show that automated households have lower electricity bills already by adopting time-of-use (TOU) pricing, but the savings increase with real time pricing (RTP). On the other hand, the suppliers’ revenue is mostly impacted by the households’ local production and its profit is impacted by both electricity injections and imbalance settlements faced due to households’ unscheduled deviations. The results indicate that the suppliers with large shares of passive consumers have no incentive to offer dynamic tariffs as their revenue changes very little until high shares of flexible technologies are reached. PV emerges as the technology with the highest impact which can be observed already when its share surpasses 50% of installations on previously passive households. Interestingly, when an aggregator takes on the role of dynamic price provider to exploit the opportunities in different markets, in our case the mFRR, the supplier will see a decrease in profit in most cases. The exception here are the subcases when PV and EV are a dominant retail customer flexible technology. • We built a MILP model of a household participating in the retail electricity market and a reserve market. • We include the activation of reserves in the reserve market model. • Suppliers with large shares of passive consumers are not motivated to offer dynamic pricing tariffs. • Suppliers with discernible shares of battery-owning households are better protected from revenue and profit drops in the face of households’ consumption pattern deviations.

The more the poorer? Resource sharing and scale economies in large families

In large families, individuals must share resources with many others but may benefit from economies of scale. This paper studies individual consumption in different types of households, with a focus on family structures that are common in developing countries. Based on a collective household model, we develop a methodology to identify intra-household resource allocation and the extent of joint consumption. Unlike existing approaches, we do not require consumption data on single-person households, which are rare in low-income countries. We illustrate our methodology using data from Bangladesh and Mexico. We document intra-household consumption inequality in both countries and substantial economies of scale in consumption in Mexico but not Bangladesh. Using our estimates, we then compute poverty rates for men, women, and children. Contrary to existing poverty calculations that ignore either intra-household inequality or economies of scale in consumption, ours account for both dimensions.

How Can the Modern Chinese Family Retirement Function Be Separated and Sustainable?

In the context of hybrid changes taking place in population and family structures, it is widely perceived that the function of the family as a place where older people retire has weakened. Family support has lost its vitality and has been replaced by public support. However, since the elderly are inseparably connected to their family, it is relevant to rethink and analyze how modern families’ pension functions can be sustainable. Based on structural functionalism and the family modernization theory, we construct an analytical framework to understand how the family ageing function operates separately. Fieldwork was carried out in Nantong, a place where the population has drastically aged. We documented different types of households to explain the changes and differences in modern family ageing. The results show that it is not simply a general weakening, but that a differentiated development pattern has separated the family functions and that there is a functional alternative path to compensate for sustainable development. That is, the economic function is strengthened and compensates for the weakened service function. Based on our research, we argue that families and the government should share the responsibility of meeting the diversified and specialized needs of older people in families where economic functions have strengthened and service functions have weakened. In families where both sets of functions have weakened, the government needs to overtake those functions. Today, family retirement function has been revitalized and redeveloped.

Shell platforms and dwelling structures: spatial structure of the archaeological layer of the early Neolithic Rakushechnii Yar site

The Rakushechny Yar site is one of the key Early Neolithic sites of southern Eastern Europe. The lithological strata, which preserved the cultural layers of Neolithic- Eneolithic, reach a thickness of more than 6 m. Remains of various structures attributed to Early Neolithic were identified – platforms with Unio shells surrounded by stake pits, shell piles with numerous kitchen remains and artefacts, pits with Unio shells deposited within several horizons. Another type includes the remains of structures marked by rows of post and stake pits, some of which may relate to fishing gear. Dwelling structures are represented by the remains of buildings with clay floors. Analysis of the distribution of artifacts and ecofacts and plans of individual layers on the basis of analysis of archival materials made it possible to identify different types of household and residential structures, outline the boundaries of artifact accumulations, describe the location of objects in the cultural layer, reconstruct functional zones, identify stable complexes of different categories and material groups. Spatial analysis of the archival material, taking into account the results of recent years of field research, shows a change in the development pattern of the coastal zone from small-scale household areas, sometimes paved with shells, with pits to residential complexes.

The role of the agricultural sector in Ghanaian development: a multiregional SAM-based analysis

Ghana shows remarkable differences in employment and welfare between the southern and northern regions. The promotion of policy focus on the development of the northern regions requires the elaboration of specific databases describing the regional economies. Hence, this work outlines the construction of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Ghana for the year 2015 with a high disaggregation of sectors, household income groups and education levels across 10 administrative regions. Linear multisectoral models have been applied to this SAM to estimate socio-economic impacts of potential final demand policies down to a regional level in the Ghanaian economy. Further on, the structural path analysis is used to investigate the role played by different agriculture commodities in transmitting income to different types of households. The results allow for an identification of the most suitable sectors to be promoted due to their ability to generate the highest increases in output, employment and value added in the rest of the economy, as well as those with a significant impact on household income generation. As a result, the primary sector will play a key role in the economic and employment growth of the country. Notably, sorghum and millet, pulses, tobacco, cotton and fibres can be considered favourable crops for development in the Northern region.