Influences on Consumers\u27 Recycling Intentions of Compact Fluorescent Lamps—Mercury as a Factor

The purpose of the current study is to understand consumers’ behavioral intentions in situations involving both positive and negative potential impacts on the environment. The case of energy efficient Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) with their potential for mercury pollution is an example of this type of trade-off. Past studies have confirmed the usefulness of the Theory of Reasoned Action for identifying the antecedents influencing recycling rates, however, none have looked at situations where conflicting environmental trade-offs were involved. Stepwise regression analysis was used to develop a core model which explains R2=.561 of the intention to recycle. Significant antecedents include the peer group subjective norm of recycling CFLs (Beta=.661), the attitude towards recycling of CFLs (Beta=.417), the attitude towards the overall environmental friendliness of CFLs (Beta=-.344), and the attitude towards the number of sites available for recycling of CFLs (Beta=.212). Adding the impact of past recycling behavior increases the model’s explanatory power to .726. Important policy implications result from the finding that the number of people who would ‘always or usually’ recycle CFLs increased to 90% by enhancing the convenience of recycling. A significant managerial implication results from the contradictory findings that the attitude towards mercury is not significantly correlated with intentions to recycle, however the attitude towards the environmental friendliness of CFLs was negatively related to recycling intentions. This potentially indicates that there is a lack of understanding of the net positive impact of CFLs and there is potential confusion about the related environmental trade-offs. Recommendations for policy and marketing responses are suggested

Partitioning the Proteome: Phase Separation for Targeted Analysis of Membrane Proteins in Human Post-Mortem Brain

Neuroproteomics is a powerful platform for targeted and hypothesis driven research, providing comprehensive insights into cellular and sub-cellular disease states, Gene × Environmental effects, and cellular response to medication effects in human, animal, and cell culture models. Analysis of sub-proteomes is becoming increasingly important in clinical proteomics, enriching for otherwise undetectable proteins that are possible markers for disease. Membrane proteins are one such sub-proteome class that merit in-depth targeted analysis, particularly in psychiatric disorders. As membrane proteins are notoriously difficult to analyse using traditional proteomics methods, we evaluate a paradigm to enrich for and study membrane proteins from human post-mortem brain tissue. This is the first study to extensively characterise the integral trans-membrane spanning proteins present in human brain. Using Triton X-114 phase separation and LC-MS/MS analysis, we enriched for and identified 494 membrane proteins, with 194 trans-membrane helices present, ranging from 1 to 21 helices per protein. Isolated proteins included glutamate receptors, G proteins, voltage gated and calcium channels, synaptic proteins, and myelin proteins, all of which warrant quantitative proteomic investigation in psychiatric and neurological disorders. Overall, our sub-proteome analysis reduced sample complexity and enriched for integral membrane proteins by 2.3 fold, thus allowing for more manageable, reproducible, and targeted proteomics in case vs. control biomarker studies. This study provides a valuable reference for future neuroproteomic investigations of membrane proteins, and validates the use Triton X-114 detergent phase extraction on human post mortem brain