Reducing Energy Use and Carbon Emissions: A Critical Assessment of Small-Group Interventions

Motivating individuals to decrease the environmental impact of their lifestyles could play an important role in reducing energy use and meeting carbon reduction commitments in developed countries. Few approaches which encourage voluntary changes in behaviour result in substantial reductions in energy use, however, particularly over the longer term. An exception to this general trend is small-group interventions which use group participation and which target collections of behaviours including energy use. Through a critical examination of published data this paper considers the energy and carbon emission reductions achieved by such initiatives, the durability of those reductions, and the common elements which may contribute to their success. Participants in small-group interventions reduced their energy use and carbon emissions by approximately 20% within a year. There is also some evidence that these reductions were lasting and that participants continued to make changes to their lifestyles after the end of the intervention. The reasonable person model (RPM) is proposed as a useful framework for understanding the success of these small-group interventions. Examination of small-group interventions suggests that they provide settings which are supportive of informational needs, and that this may be important to their success in promoting substantial and durable decreases in energy use

Enhancing Small Group Teaching in Plant Sciences: A Research and Development Project in Higher Education

The Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge uses a range of learning and teaching environments including lectures, practical laboratories and small group tutorials'. Under the auspices of the Cambridge-MIT Institute's Pedagogy Programme, a two-year research and development project concerned with the development of small-group teaching is being undertaken. The research element of this project endeavours to illuminate current practice and identify areas in which evidence-based development might take place. The development element will include professional development activities and the production of curriculum resources including appropriate online material. This is a multi-method study including a series of student questionnaires; focus groups of students; semi-structured interviews with staff members; and the collection of video of small group teaching. In this paper we report selected findings from the 'student data' of the first year of this project.The questionnaire, conducted with two cohorts of students (2nd and 3rd year Undergraduates), used a double-scale questionnaire in which students were asked to report both on the prevalence of a range of teaching and learning practices and on how valuable these were in supporting their learning. This type of questionnaire instrument is particularly appropriate because the data it generates is suggestive of areas for changes in practice. The gaps between 'practices' and 'values' (across both cohorts) suggested that students valued activities which improved their understanding of how elements of the course were interrelated; which related course content to 'authentic' examples; and those in which teachers made explicit the characteristics of 'high quality' student work. Small group teaching, in the view of most students, was best used to extend and explore concepts introduced in lectures rather than simply reinforcing them or assessing student understanding.Data gathered through focus group activities illuminated the questionnaire data, providing detailed accounts of how students managed their own learning, and the roles played in this by lectures, small group teaching and other resources. Students identified the processes of planning and writing essays as key learning activities during which they integrated diverse course content and reflected on problematic knowledge. Questionnaire and focus group data suggested that students had less clear views regarding the value of collaborative learning, peer-assessment or activities such as making presentations to other students. When students talked in positive terms about these activities, they often referred to the learning benefits of preparation for the tasks rather than of the collaborative activities themselves. These views may provide indications of potential barriers to changes in learning and teaching environments, and suggest that any such changes may have to be carefully justified to students in terms of benefits to their own learning. Many of our findings are broadly in accord with other work on teaching and learning in Higher Education settings (such as the 'Oxford Learning Context Project' and the 'Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses' Project) in that 'deep learning' and 'authenticity' in learning activities are valued by students, and that the introduction of specific formative practices (such as sharing notions of 'quality') would be welcomed. At the same time, amongst the students in our sample, a view of learning as an individual process of 'learning-as-acquisition' predominates over a view that it is a social process of 'learning-as-participation', and this will inform the planning of the 'development' aspect of the project. We conclude with a discussion of how the approach we have used might be more widely applied both within and beyond the Cambridge-MIT partnership. We also identify potential affordances of, and barriers to, the development of research-informed teaching in Higher Education

Understanding energy behaviours and transitions through the lens of a smart grid Agent Based Model

Available from: .Investigating the dynamics of consumption is crucial for understanding the wider socio-technical transitions needed to achieve carbon reduction goals in the energy sector. Such insight is particularly necessary when considering Smart Grids and current debates about potential transition pathways (and contingent benefits) for the electricity system and coupled gas and transport systems. The electricity grid is a complex adaptive system comprising physical networks, economic markets and multiple, heterogeneous, interacting agents. Fundamental to innovation studies is that social practices and technological artefacts shape and are shaped by one another. Different trajectories of socio-technical systems’ transition are intrinsically linked to the behavioural and cognitive norms of individuals, businesses, communities, sectors, and governance institutions. Therefore the transition to smart(er) grids inevitably requires a knowledge transition and behaviour change among such actor groups. To date, these effects have not been modelled. We present a prototype Agent Based Model (ABM) as a means to examine the effect of individual behaviour and social learning on energy use patterns, from the perspectives of adoption of energy saving behaviours, energy saving technologies and individual or community based energy use practices. We draw on the Energy Cultures framework to understand real-world observations and incorporate representative energy use behaviours into the model and discuss the model’s relation to case studies, e.g. energy use in island communities. Such models enable examination of how far we can learn and scale up lessons from case studies to similar Socio-Technical Systems with bigger scale and greater interconnectivity such as the UK national grid.EPSRC - grant EP/G059969/

Perfectionism, anxiety, and depressive distress: Evidence for the mediating role of negative automatic thoughts and anxiety sensitivity

This study assessed a mediational model in which negative automatic thoughts and anxiety sensitivity were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between perfectionism cognitions and depressive and anxiety symptoms.Participants: Participants were undergraduate students from an urban Canadian university. The data were collected from July 2009 to August 2010.Methods: In a cross-sectional evaluation, 992 undergraduate participants completed questionnaires that assessed perfectionism cognitions, negative automatic thinking, anxiety sensitivity, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. Mediational analysis confirmed the role of anxiety sensitivity and negative automatic thoughts in mediating the association between perfectionistic cognitions, anxiety symptoms, and depressive distress. Furthermore, in line with previous studies, nearly a third of students displayed an elevated prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms. This study further clarified the associations and mediating relationships among mood states associated with perfectionism.Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC

The Cooperative Participatory Evaluation of Renewable Technologies on Ecosystem Services (CORPORATES)

Publisher PD

Projected free energies for polydisperse phase equilibria

A `polydisperse' system has an infinite number of conserved densities. We give a rational procedure for projecting its infinite-dimensional free energy surface onto a subspace comprising a finite number of linear combinations of densities (`moments'), in which the phase behavior is then found as usual. If the excess free energy of the system depends only on the moments used, exact cloud, shadow and spinodal curves result; two- and multi-phase regions are approximate, but refinable indefinitely by adding extra moments. The approach is computationally robust and gives new geometrical insights into the thermodynamics of polydispersity.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX, uses multicol.sty and epsf.sty, 1 postscript figure include

Mass Dependence of M3Y-Type Interactions and the Effects of Tensor Correlations

The mass dependence of the M3Y-type effective interactions and the effects of tensor correlations are examined. Two-body nuclear matrix elements are obtained by the lowest order constrained variational (LOCV) technique with and without tensor correlations. We have found that the tensor correlations are important especially in the triplet-even (TE) and tensor-even (TNE) channels in order to reproduce the G-matrix elements obtained previously. Then M3Y-type potentials for inelastic scattering are obtained by fitting our two-body matrix elements to those of a sum of Yukawa functions for the mass numbers A=24, A=40 and A=90.Comment: 13 pages, 6 table

SDRC 9.6: An assessment of the public acceptance of Demand Side Response of EV charging using Esprit

This report describes the research conducted by De Montfort University as part of the My Electric Avenue project to investigate public acceptance of the Esprit system for control of electric vehicle (EV) charging. Esprit provides ‘demand side response’ (DSR) for local electricity network protection by intervening in the charging of electric vehicles (EVs) when demands on the local electricity network reach a certain threshold. The aim of the research was to provide a response to SDRC 9.6 set out in the Project Direction: And to address the additional learnings: T.1.1.1 - How does a trial encourage the uptake of low carbon technology? T.1.1.2 - What social factors have an impact on the use of the Technology? T.1.1.3 - How can a trial be used to educate customers about the electricity network and low carbon technologies? Acceptability of Esprit Research findings suggest that the Esprit system for control of EV charging was acceptable to the majority of participants in the My Electric Avenue Technical Trial. The degree of acceptability of Esprit was not related to whether or not participants experienced curtailment of charging by Esprit Most of the participants in the Domestic Clusters whose charging was curtailed were either not aware of the curtailment, or were not impacted by it. In face-to-face data collection, only one participant reported a significant issue with curtailment where changes to plans were required due to insufficient charge in the vehicle. Curtailment of charging by Esprit was more of an issue for participants in the Workplace Cluster of the Technical Trial. The majority of participants opted not to charge at the workplace after curtailment began due to the uncertainty of receiving sufficient charge. This uncertainty may result from the interaction of Esprit and the load profile for the Workplace Cluster which caused Esprit to operate in an impractical way. In face-to-face data collection with Workplace Cluster participants those individuals who needed to charge at the workplace reported being very unhappy with the technology. Acceptability of Esprit by the Workplace Cluster participants as a whole, however, was comparable to the acceptance by Domestic Cluster participants. This may be due to the majority of the Workplace cluster participants choosing to charge at home rather than at work and therefore not being impacted by curtailment. 9.6 An assessment of the public acceptance (or otherwise) to Demand Side Response of EVs using this sort of technology. SDRC 9.6: Public Acceptance of Esprit My Electric Avenue (I²EV) – SSET205 4 The control of charging by Esprit was more acceptable to participantsin the Technical Trial who viewed EVs more positively (as measured by Experience of and Attitude towards EVs). This greater degree of acceptance was the case whether or not participants had experienced curtailment by Esprit during the course of the trial. The relationship between the acceptability of Esprit and a positive view of EVs suggests that the concept and reality of curtailment are more acceptable to drivers with a more positive view of EVs. Acceptability of Esprit was also found to be greater among participants who were more comfortable with a lower level of charge in their battery. Additionally, participants with greater confidence in finding alternative charging locations to their home charger had a higher level of acceptance of Esprit. The types of journeys (e.g. commuting, shopping, transporting others) for which EVs were used over the trial period did not appear to affect participants’ view of Esprit. However, with regard to trip length, drivers who had a higher proportion of journeys between 11 and 30 miles at the end of the trial were more likely to find Esprit acceptable; acceptability was also higher amongst those drivers who took more unplanned trips. Overall there were few changes in either charging patterns or travel patterns following the introduction of curtailment. This lack of change suggests that Esprit control of charging had little impact on the use of EVs or attitudes towards them. Uptake of Low Carbon Technology Findings suggest that the My Electric Avenue Trial encouraged the uptake of low carbon technology with some participants installing or intending to install PV, adopting energy efficiency measures, and/or intending to acquire EVs after the trial. By allowing direct experience of a low carbon technology, such as EVs, in a supportive social and economic environment, participants were able to familiarise themselves with the technology, which encouraged them to consider investing in EVs after the trial. A few participants also felt that being involved with the trial had raised their awareness of low carbon technology more generally. Social Factors Social factors did not appear to be related to the use of the technology (Esprit). However, the trial participants were not representative of the UK population as a whole in terms of socio-demographics or household composition. Knowledge of the Electricity Network and Low Carbon Technologies Pre-trial involvement with the My Electric Avenue trial increased participants’ awareness and understanding of both the electricity network and low carbon technologies. Awareness and understanding of low carbon technologies continued to increase during the course of the trial, with actual experience of the technology being the most important factor in increasing both awareness and understanding. The trial also appeared to be successful in educating both participants and the wider community about EVs

PPARγ-coactivator-1α gene transfer reduces neuronal loss and amyloid-β generation by reducing β-secretase in an Alzheimer’s disease model

Current therapies for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are symptomatic and do not target the underlying Aβ pathology and other important hallmarks including neuronal loss. PPARγ-coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) is a cofactor for transcription factors including the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPARγ), and it is involved in the regulation of metabolic genes, oxidative phosphorylation, and mitochondrial biogenesis. We previously reported that PGC-1α also regulates the transcription of β-APP cleaving enzyme (BACE1), the main enzyme involved in Aβ generation, and its expression is decreased in AD patients. We aimed to explore the potential therapeutic effect of PGC-1α by generating a lentiviral vector to express human PGC-1α and target it by stereotaxic delivery to hippocampus and cortex of APP23 transgenic mice at the preclinical stage of the disease. Four months after injection, APP23 mice treated with hPGC-1α showed improved spatial and recognition memory concomitant with a significant reduction in Aβ deposition, associated with a decrease in BACE1 expression. hPGC-1α overexpression attenuated the levels of proinflammatory cytokines and microglial activation. This effect was accompanied by a marked preservation of pyramidal neurons in the CA3 area and increased expression of neurotrophic factors. The neuroprotective effects were secondary to a reduction in Aβ pathology and neuroinflammation, because wild-type mice receiving the same treatment were unaffected. These results suggest that the selective induction of PGC-1α gene in specific areas of the brain is effective in targeting AD-related neurodegeneration and holds potential as therapeutic intervention for this disease