Switching on electricity demand response: Evidence for German households

Empirical evidence on the response of German households to electricity price changes is sparse. Using panel data originating from Germany’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey (GRECS), we fill this void by employing an instrumental variable approach to cope with the endogeneity of the consumers’ tariff choice. By additionally exploiting our information on the households’ knowledge about power prices, we also employ an Endogenous Switching Regression Model to estimate price elasticities for two groups of households, finding that only those households that are informed about prices are sensitive to price changes, whereas the electricity demand of uninformed households is entirely price-inelastic

Bodenschutz in der Landwirtschaft: Einfache Bodenbeurteilung für Praxis, Beratung und Forschung

Nach einer kurzen Einführung zur aktuellen Gefährdung der Böden in den durch eine industrielle Landwirtschaft geprägten Ländern folgt ein methodischer Teil. In diesem wird nach einer kurzen bodenkundlichen Grundlageneinführung erklärt, wie verschiedene Merkmale des Bodens mit jeweils sowohl einfachsten Schätzmethoden als auch auswertbaren Boniturmethoden zur Beurteilung des ökologischen Zustands herangezogen und ausgewertet werden können. Die Spatendiagnose spielt dabei eine besondere Rolle. Die Vorgehensweise wird genau erklärt und durch Beispiele veranschaulicht. Für die Einordnung der Ergebnisse werden Interpretationshilfen gegeben. Der Interessierte findet Empfehlungen zur weiterführenden Literatur. In einem dritten Teil finden sich Forschungsbeispiele und Erfahrensberichte aus der Beratung und der Praxis

The price response of residential electricity demand in Germany: A dynamic approach

Due to growing concerns about climate change, policy-makers from all around the world establish measures, such as carbon taxes, to lower electricity demand and energy consumption in general. Drawing on household panel data from the German Residential Energy Consumption Survey (GRECS) that span over nine years (2006-2014) and employing the sum of regulated price components as an instrument for the likely endogenous electricity price, we gauge the response of residential electricity demand to price increases on the basis of the dynamic Blundell-Bond estimator to account for potential simultaneity and endogeneity problems, as well as the Nickell bias. Estimating short- and long-run price elasticities of -0.44 and -0.66, respectively, our results indicate that price measures may be effective in dampening residential electricity consumption, particularly in the long run. Yet, we also find that responses to price changes are very heterogeneous across household groups

Climate policy in times of the corona pandemic: Empirical evidence from Germany

Given the dramatic changes triggered by the Corona pandemic, the question arises whether it has displaced people’s concerns about climate change and whether Corona-related financial losses among affected households can influence their assessment of climate change. Based on a survey among more than 6,000 German household heads conducted in the period spanning from May 18 to June 14, 2020, this paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of the pandemic on perceptions of climate change and climate policy, as well as the extent to which respondents are affected in terms of health and finances. Although the majority of almost 77% of the respondents is concerned about their own health and that of their families, according to our descriptive results, climate change appears to remain an important issue: only six percent of the respondents feel that climate change has become less important since the beginning of 2020, while about 70% of the respondents see no change in the importance of the issue. Yet, employing discrete-choice models, our estimation results indicate that households that suffered from Coronarelated financial losses consider climate change to be less important than households that remained unaffected in this respect. In accord with Engler et al. (2020), we thus conclude that lowering individual financial losses is not only relevant from a social perspective, but it is also critical for the acceptance of climate policy measures

SPIKE: Secure and Private Investigation of the Kidney Exchange problem

Background: The kidney exchange problem (KEP) addresses the matching of patients in need for a replacement organ with compatible living donors. Ideally many medical institutions should participate in a matching program to increase the chance for successful matches. However, to fulfill legal requirements current systems use complicated policy-based data protection mechanisms that effectively exclude smaller medical facilities to participate. Employing secure multi-party computation (MPC) techniques provides a technical way to satisfy data protection requirements for highly sensitive personal health information while simultaneously reducing the regulatory burdens. Results: We have designed, implemented, and benchmarked SPIKE, a secure MPC-based privacy-preserving KEP which computes a solution by finding matching donor-recipient pairs in a graph structure. SPIKE matches 40 pairs in cycles of length 2 in less than 4 minutes and outperforms the previous state-of-the-art protocol by a factor of 400x in runtime while providing medically more robust solutions. Conclusions: We show how to solve the KEP in a robust and privacy-preserving manner achieving practical performance. The usage of MPC techniques fulfills many data protection requirements on a technical level, allowing smaller health care providers to directly participate in a kidney exchange with reduced legal processes.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure

Klimapolitik während der Corona-Pandemie: Ergebnisse einer Haushaltserhebung

Dieser Beitrag liefert erste umfassende empirische Evidenz darüber, welchen Einfluss die Pandemie auf die Wahrnehmung von Klimawandel und Klimapolitik hat, inwieweit die Befragten gesundheitlich und finanziell betroffen sind sowie zur Einschätzung von klimapolitischen Aspekten bei wirtschaftspolitischen Maßnahmen, die zur Überwindung der Folgen der Corona-Krise ergriffen werden. Die wesentlichen Ergebnisse lauten wie folgt: Obwohl bislang nur wenige der Befragten direkt vom Coronavirus betroffen waren, macht sich eine Mehrheit Sorgen um die Auswirkungen der Pandemie. Knapp 77 % der Befragten sorgen sich zumindest „mäßig“ um die eigene Gesundheit und die der Familie. Gut 86 % sind mindestens „mäßig besorgt“ über die Folgen für den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt. Dennoch bleibt auch der Klimawandel ein wichtiges Thema: Nur sechs Prozent der Befragten finden, dass der Klimawandel seit Jahresbeginn an Bedeutung verloren habe. 70 % sehen keine Veränderung in der Wichtigkeit des Themas. 23 % sind sogar der Meinung, der Klimawandel habe in den vergangenen Monaten an Bedeutung gewonnen. Gleichwohl weisen erste Korrelations- und Regressionsanalysen darauf hin, dass Haushalte mit Corona-bedingten finanziellen Einbußen den Klimawandel als weniger bedeutsam einschätzen als nicht betroffene Haushalte

Time fluctuations in a population model of adaptive dynamics

International audienceWe study the dynamics of phenotypically structured populations in environments with fluctuations. In particular, using novel arguments from the theories of Hamilton-Jacobi equations with constraints and homogenization, we obtain results about the evolution of populations in environments with time oscillations, the development of concentrations in the form of Dirac masses, the location of the dominant traits and their evolution in time. Such questions have already been studied in time homogeneous environments. More precisely we consider the dynamics of a phenotypically structured population in a changing environment under mutations and competition for a single resource. The mathematical model is a non-local parabolic equation with a periodic in time reaction term. We study the asymptotic behavior of the solutions in the limit of small diffusion and fast reaction. Under concavity assumptions on the reaction term, we prove that the solution converges to a Dirac mass whose evolution in time is driven by a Hamilton-Jacobi equation with constraint and an effective growth/death rate which is derived as a homogenization limit. We also prove that, after long-time, the population concentrates on a trait where the maximum of an effective growth rate is attained. Finally we provide an example showing that the time oscillations may lead to a strict increase of the asymptotic population size

Genetic noise control via protein oligomerization

Gene expression in a cell entails random reaction events occurring over disparate time scales. Thus, molecular noise that often results in phenotypic and population-dynamic consequences sets a fundamental limit to biochemical signaling. While there have been numerous studies correlating the architecture of cellular reaction networks with noise tolerance, only a limited effort has been made to understand the dynamic role of protein-protein interactions. Here we have developed a fully stochastic model for the positive feedback control of a single gene, as well as a pair of genes (toggle switch), integrating quantitative results from previous in vivo and in vitro studies. We find that the overall noise-level is reduced and the frequency content of the noise is dramatically shifted to the physiologically irrelevant high-frequency regime in the presence of protein dimerization. This is independent of the choice of monomer or dimer as transcription factor and persists throughout the multiple model topologies considered. For the toggle switch, we additionally find that the presence of a protein dimer, either homodimer or heterodimer, may significantly reduce its random switching rate. Hence, the dimer promotes the robust function of bistable switches by preventing the uninduced (induced) state from randomly being induced (uninduced). The specific binding between regulatory proteins provides a buffer that may prevent the propagation of fluctuations in genetic activity. The capacity of the buffer is a non-monotonic function of association-dissociation rates. Since the protein oligomerization per se does not require extra protein components to be expressed, it provides a basis for the rapid control of intrinsic or extrinsic noise

Structural basis for the specificity of bipartite nuclear localization sequence binding by importin-α

Importin-alpha is the nuclear import receptor that recognizes cargo proteins carrying conventional basic monopartite and bipartite nuclear localization sequences (NLSs) and facilitates their transport into the nucleus. Bipartite NLSs contain two clusters of basic residues, connected by linkers of variable lengths. To determine the structural basis of the recognition of diverse bipartite NLSs by mammalian importin-alpha, we co-crystallized a non-autoinhibited mouse receptor protein with peptides corresponding to the NLSs from human retinoblastoma protein and Xenopus laevis phosphoprotein N1N2, containing diverse sequences and lengths of the linker. We show that the basic clusters interact analogously in both NLSs, but the linker sequences adopt different conformations, whereas both make specific contacts with the receptor. The available data allow us to draw general conclusions about the specificity of NLS binding by importin-alpha and facilitate an improved definition of the consensus sequence of a conventional basic/bipartite NLS (KRX10-12KRRK) that can be used to identify novel nuclear proteins

Transcriptional Activity and Nuclear Localization of Cabut, the Drosophila Ortholog of Vertebrate TGF-β-Inducible Early-Response Gene (TIEG) Proteins

BackgroundCabut (Cbt) is a C2H2-class zinc finger transcription factor involved in embryonic dorsal closure, epithelial regeneration and other developmental processes in Drosophila melanogaster. Cbt orthologs have been identified in other Drosophila species and insects as well as in vertebrates. Indeed, Cbt is the Drosophila ortholog of the group of vertebrate proteins encoded by the TGF-ß-inducible early-response genes (TIEGs), which belong to Sp1-like/Krüppel-like family of transcription factors. Several functional domains involved in transcriptional control and subcellular localization have been identified in the vertebrate TIEGs. However, little is known of whether these domains and functions are also conserved in the Cbt protein.Methodology/Principal FindingsTo determine the transcriptional regulatory activity of the Drosophila Cbt protein, we performed Gal4-based luciferase assays in S2 cells and showed that Cbt is a transcriptional repressor and able to regulate its own expression. Truncated forms of Cbt were then generated to identify its functional domains. This analysis revealed a sequence similar to the mSin3A-interacting repressor domain found in vertebrate TIEGs, although located in a different part of the Cbt protein. Using β-Galactosidase and eGFP fusion proteins, we also showed that Cbt contains the bipartite nuclear localization signal (NLS) previously identified in TIEG proteins, although it is non-functional in insect cells. Instead, a monopartite NLS, located at the amino terminus of the protein and conserved across insects, is functional in Drosophila S2 and Spodoptera exigua Sec301 cells. Last but not least, genetic interaction and immunohistochemical assays suggested that Cbt nuclear import is mediated by Importin-α2.Conclusions/SignificanceOur results constitute the first characterization of the molecular mechanisms of Cbt-mediated transcriptional control as well as of Cbt nuclear import, and demonstrate the existence of similarities and differences in both aspects of Cbt function between the insect and the vertebrate TIEG proteins