Human behavior in the context of water scarcity

2017 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation in comprised of three chapters which use microeconomic principles and empirics to examine human behavior in the face of water scarcity. Chapter one uses an experiment to investigate the effect of threshold uncertainty on common pool resource (CPR) consumption decisions. Chapter two uses latent class analysis to endogenously identify unique household classes with respect to their water use decisions under various price and weather scenarios. Chapter three directly compares the residential water consumption decisions of households motivated primarily by social and environmental outcomes with households primarily motivated by cost and convenience. The overall goal of my work is to elucidate the behavior and motivation that leads to particular consumption decisions in the presence of water scarcity. Chapter one explicitly models a CPR in which uncertainty around a tipping point—stock level below which the resource is destroyed—can engender two distinct Nash Equilibria (NE), both of which lead to a Tragedy of the Commons. We theoretically and empirically test how differing levels of uncertainty around the location of this tipping point affects individual and group consumption choices. Our results suggest that the presence of uncertainty increases the likelihood that individuals choose the NE consistent with resource destruction (even though it is an inferior NE) and to ignore potential impacts on resource stocks. However, conditional on choosing the superior NE, increased uncertainty does not affect consumption rates in the experiment. In addition, we introduce tax and fine policies and find that they reduce overall consumption rates and the probability that individuals choose to destroy the resource. Chapter 2 and 3, do not explicitly model scarcity, but they examine household water consumption in the arid southwest where water scarcity is a pervasive concern. Both chapters two and three use data from Fort Collins Utilities to investigate household heterogeneity and water consumption decisions. Chapter 2 uses a finite mixture model to endogenously identify distinct water use patterns. Estimated price elasticities are consistent with previous literature and range from -0.1 in the spring for the unresponsive class to -0.8 in the summer for the responsive class. We find significant evidence that households classes exist and can generally be broken into high responsive and low responsive classes. Our results also suggest that changes in precipitation will have little effect on demand, but a 2 degree temperature increase will increase residential water demand throughout the city by approximately 5%. Lastly, chapter two investigates the burden of price increases and weather shocks across household class and income level. We find that the vast majority of water reductions due to price increases come from middle and high income homes. Chapter three is similar to chapter two in motivation, but distinct in methodology. Chapter 3 poses and attempts to answer a simple question: do households primarily motivated by environmental and social (E&S) consideration consume water differently than households motivated primarily by cost and convenience (C&C)? Results strongly indicate that E&S consumers use less water than (C&C) consumers. Results also suggest that E&S motivated households consume significantly more water as temperatures rise. However, there is no statistical difference between E&S and C&C consumers in their responses to changing price and precipitation

Living Storytelling as an Impetus for Organizational Change: Towards Connective Observing and Writing

This paper examines how to use storytelling as impetus for organizational change. A saying goes that “lasting change starts with me, not with someone else.” The problem of many change processes is that a change agent writes a change report but the actual implementation by actors in the organization fails. The question becomes how a researcher can relate to participants in an organization in such a way that the change process becomes their process. For many change agents, storytelling is a powerful way for exploring an organizational setting and for putting ideas into an organization. In this paper, I elaborate some aspects of a relational inquiry stand (McNamee & Hosking, 2012), in which I use storytelling as an intervention method. As a consequence, participants are activated; “connective observing” and “connective writing” emerge. It opens the possibility for multi-layeredness and “living storytelling.” Will the researcher and active participants in the change process exchange positions

Modeling of Chemical Reaction Systems with Detailed Balance Using Gradient Structures

We consider various modeling levels for spatially homogeneous chemical reaction systems, namely the chemical master equation, the chemical Langevin dynamics, and the reaction-rate equation. Throughout we restrict our study to the case where the microscopic system satisfies the detailed-balance condition. The latter allows us to enrich the systems with a gradient structure, i.e. the evolution is given by a gradient-flow equation. We present the arising links between the associated gradient structures that are driven by the relative entropy of the detailed-balance steady state. The limit of large volumes is studied in the sense of evolutionary Γ-convergence of gradient flows. Moreover, we use the gradient structures to derive hybrid models for coupling different modeling levels

Modeling of chemical reaction systems with detailed balance using gradient structures

We consider various modeling levels for spatially homogeneous chemical reaction systems, namely the chemical master equation, the chemical Langevin dynamics, and the reaction-rate equation. Throughout we restrict our study to the case where the microscopic system satisfies the detailed-balance condition. The latter allows us to enrich the systems with a gradient structure, i.e. the evolution is given by a gradient-flow equation. We present the arising links between the associated gradient structures that are driven by the relative entropy of the detailed-balance steady state. The limit of large volumes is studied in the sense of evolutionary Γ-convergence of gradient flows. Moreover, we use the gradient structures to derive hybrid models for coupling different modeling levels

Modeling of chemical reaction systems with detailed balance using gradient structures

We consider various modeling levels for spatially homogeneous chemical reaction systems, namely the chemical master equation, the chemical Langevin dynamics, and the reaction-rate equation. Throughout we restrict our study to the case where the microscopic system satisfies the detailed-balance condition. The latter allows us to enrich the systems with a gradient structure, i.e. the evolution is given by a gradient-flow equation. We present the arising links between the associated gradient structures that are driven by the relative entropy of the detailed-balance steady state. The limit of large volumes is studied in the sense of evolutionary Γ-convergence of gradient flows. Moreover, we use the gradient structures to derive hybrid models for coupling different modeling levels

Widespread A-to-I RNA Editing of Alu-Containing mRNAs in the Human Transcriptome

RNA editing by adenosine deamination generates RNA and protein diversity through the posttranscriptional modification of single nucleotides in RNA sequences. Few mammalian A-to-I edited genes have been identified despite evidence that many more should exist. Here we identify intramolecular pairs of Alu elements as a major target for editing in the human transcriptome. An experimental demonstration in 43 genes was extended by a broader computational analysis of more than 100,000 human mRNAs. We find that 1,445 human mRNAs (1.4%) are subject to RNA editing at more than 14,500 sites, and our data further suggest that the vast majority of pre-mRNAs (greater than 85%) are targeted in introns by the editing machinery. The editing levels of Alu-containing mRNAs correlate with distance and homology between inverted repeats and vary in different tissues. Alu-mediated RNA duplexes targeted by RNA editing are formed intramolecularly, whereas editing due to intermolecular base-pairing appears to be negligible. We present evidence that these editing events can lead to the posttranscriptional creation or elimination of splice signals affecting alternatively spliced Alu-derived exons. The analysis suggests that modification of repetitive elements is a predominant activity for RNA editing with significant implications for cellular gene expression

Modular spin characters of symmetric groups

The dissertation is concerned with concrete computations of modular spin characters of symmetric and alternating groups. We calculate all irreducible p-modular spin characters of the symmetric group Sym(n) and the alternating group Alt(n) for n=14,..,18 and p=3,5,7. Hence we obtain the p-modular decomposition numbers of projective representations of Sym(n) and Alt(n) for the specified values of n and p

Sixty-Five Years of European Governance

The key achievement of European integration in the realm of policymaking is a radical transformation in governance which transcends simple notions of hierarchy and may take the form of direct intervention or the establishment of guidelines or norms, in which governance is shared by multiple institutional actors across multiple levels. The articles in this special issue demonstrate the creative and often fragile solutions found to address the challenges facing Europe by analysing changes in governance over time, at various points since the origins of the European integration project, in a range of institutions and policy areas. European governance has evolved from a simple state interventionist model to a complex system of ‘governance of governance’, employing both hierarchical and non-hierarchical governance modes combined in innovative ways

Whole-field density measurements by digital image correlation

A novel application of Synthetic Schlieren in a laboratory set-up yields a quantitative measurement of the density field of two-dimensional, stratified or homogeneous, transparent fluids in a laboratory set-up using a single camera. This application obtains local values of the density without the need for tomographic reconstruction algorithms that require images taken from different directions through the fluid nor does the application require regularization. This is achieved by placing the camera at a large oblique angle with respect to the experimental set-up. This step is motivated by a fallacy observed when applying ray tracing in a classical configuration, in which the camera’s optical axis is perpendicular to the flat surface of a fluid container. The application is illustrated by the optical determination of static density fields of linearly and nonlinearly stratified fluids, as well as of multi-layered fluids. The application is validated by comparing with density profiles obtained from probe measurements of conductivity and temperature. Our application yields similar density and density gradient profiles as the probe while also providing a whole-field measurement without disturbing the fluid, and allowing the determination of dynamical density fields