One billion of the poorest people in the world today do not have access to improved drinking water. Without treatment, fecal contamination results in an overwhelming disease burden. A long term best practice solution will take decades to implement. In the meantime, approximately 5 million children under five die each year from gastrointestinal diseases. This tragedy can be alleviated by household water treatment. Household Water Treatment and safe Storage systems (HWTS) provide an interim solution. While many low cost and simple technologies exist, none of them are effective against high suspended solids concentrations (>50 NTU). Previous short-term field research by others has considered modifying a BioSand water Filter (BSF), to include pretreatment through an upper sand layer in order to extend the run cycle of the primary filter, enabling complete ripening to occur. In this research program, one control and twelve configurations of modified filters were setup in the laboratory. Water was chemically conditioned to provide worst case scenario treatment by adjusting pH, TDS, and particle dispersion. Sample water was passed through each filter daily, and monitored for DO, turbidity, flow rate, and E. coli concentrations. The results indicate that pretreatment is not necessarily beneficial under all water quality conditions. Recommendations include a description of conditions under which the modification may be beneficial, and optimized pretreatment design criteria. Regardless of water quality conditions, it was found that changing the operational guidelines for filter use can significantly improve treatment efficiency, without complicating the filter design. Design guidelines for an unmodified filter coupled with operational guidelines are provided, in order to obtain sufficient quantities of the best possible water quality under high turbidity conditions. This will enable the BSF to be used in high turbidity conditions and still significantly improve the drinking water quality. It is hoped that this will decrease the disease burden and loss of life in many of the world's poorest communities.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography: leaves 110-113. / by John W. Schmits. / M.S.

The thesis addresses the research question of how and why ‘prosuming' solar electricity evolves over time among social housing tenants with prepayment electricity meters. Prosuming is defined here as deliberately and simultaneously producing and consuming electricity. Using a Social Practice Theory framework, but also drawing on Time Geography, the thesis analyses prosuming as a ‘project'. This sees practitioners actively mobilising elements (meanings, skills and materials), as well as orchestrating everyday practices (i.e. laundering) and projects (i.e. 'Feeding-the-Meter') to the fulfilment of the 'Prosuming Project'. The overarching research question is ‘How and why does prosuming evolve for social housing tenants?' It is broken down into four subsidiary questions that firstly explore the period before solar panels, and then the three stages of the conceptual framework – adopting, establishing and committing to the Prosuming Project. The first question addresses how householders use electricity prior to the installation of solar panels and the role of two dominant, institutional projects: 'Feeding-the-Meter' and 'Maintaining-Family-Routines'. The second examines the features of households adopting the Prosuming Project and the need to mobilise a set of elements from within a disadvantaged community. The third question explores how the establishing phase is marked by a complex relationship between prosuming as a secondary, voluntary project, and dominant, institutional projects. This is further complicated by the role of synchronicity, finances and the changing seasons. The final subsidiary question addresses how a new vocabulary of elements emerged as practitioners committed to the Prosuming Project. It also explores how a transformative process took place both for practitioner and the project itself. In particular it highlights the potential in the future for an Energy Shifting, Storing, Saving & Sharing Project that could support disadvantaged communities, if they are able to mobilise the elements they need to perform it. This case study adopts an in-depth qualitative methodology, using serial interviews with seven households over ten months. The interviewees live in an area that in 2010 was ranked as within the ten percent most deprived in England, according to English Indices of Deprivation (DCLG). The research explores their lived experiences of the Prosuming Project. The thesis focuses on UK social housing tenants, who appear not to have been researched before for a prosuming-focused, social practice study. This enables the research to contribute to topical debates about future sustainability ‘winners and losers'. It also offers methodological insights into undertaking a social practice case study that explored lived experiences within a disadvantaged community. The research provides insights into how prosuming solar power is embedded in everyday life: how it can be supported or challenged by dominant projects, and how householders may develop new skills, understandings, and ways of using materials as their performances evolve.

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This thesis deals with the fiscal behavior of households within the Czech Republic. The main areas of interest are the appropriate management of personal or family finance and the importance of household budgeting. It shows that the awareness of ones income and expenses are the basis of a financial literacy, which is still at an insufficient level. Such households are thus regarded as a weaker market article, which have to be protected either by means of education, awareness raising or modifying legislation in their favor. Specific elements in the protection of clients are intertwined throughout the work. The thesis also deals with the relationship of Czech households to consumption, savings and debt. It records the specific period of changing attitudes to the way we deal with money and establishes that households that are no longer thrifty, consume more and loans become a common part of life for them. The thesis also concentrates on the most used financial products, specifying the reason for their popularity. Also, the consequences of poor household management are described and international comparisons are included as well.

Student Number : 9510358Y - PhD thesis - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities

There is a substantial body of literature establishing relationship satisfaction as a significant predictor of an individual’s psychological and physical wellbeing. This study expands that literature by studying an individual’s intention to strengthen and sustain the physical well-being of his/her residence as a function of his/her relationship satisfaction. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model provides the overarching framework for this study. Fundamental to the ecological theory is the interaction between an individual and its surrounding environments. Based on this, the study aims in exploring the interactions between an individual’s internal (relationship satisfaction) and external (residential well-being) environments. The study has two primary research questions: Can “relationship” be used as a predictor of individual’s intentions to maintain and improve the physical well-being of his/her residence? Does the type of family structures affect this association? The study intends to answer these questions by studying the relationship satisfaction of 1395 homeowners in Florida and their intentions to prepare their homes for hurricanes and improve their residential energy-efficiency. Here, hurricane preparedness and residential energy-efficiency are used as indicators for improving residential well-being. The motivation behind conducting this study is to understand the larger range of impact relationship satisfaction can have in an individual’s life.

Worldwide, diarrhea is the second leading cause of death in children aged under 5, yet it is both preventable and treatable. Several studies have established the effects of exposure to inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) on diarrhea prevalence, but little was known on how the interactions of socioeconomic status and WASH influence the economic cost of treatment of diarrhea. This retrospective cross-sectional survey study was focused on assessing the correlation between socioeconomic status, WASH, and household cost of treatment of diarrhea among children aged under 5 in Uganda using the multiple exposure-multiple effect model. Secondary data from the 2015/16 Uganda National Panel Survey were used. At bivariate level of analysis, 5 of 6 independent variables (education level of mother, household expenditure, residence type, source of drinking water, and type of toilet facility) had statistically significant associations with household cost of treatment of diarrhea (p value < .05). The multivariate-hierarchical multiple linear regression indicated that only 3 of the 6 variables significantly predicated household cost of treatment of diarrhea. These were highest education level of mother (p = 0.001), source of drinking water (p = 0.022), and type of toilet facility (p = 0.012). At p value < .05, about 67% of the variation in the cost of treatment was explained by the independent variables. Households with a higher socioeconomic status incurred higher costs of treatment, although those with a lower status experienced the highest prevalence rates. Therefore, policy makers and practitioners could use these findings to employ multiple interventions to address the disease burden and cause behavior change.

Consumer credit has become an area of major importance i n the financial planning of most , if not all, families in the Uni ted States. In absolute amount s, total consumer credit extended had increased more than 11 times, from $5,665 million to $63,164 million, since the end of World War II to 1962 ; and total installment credit had increased more than 19 times. During the same period disposable personal income had grown only about 2.5 times (15).

There was growing concern in New Zealand in the 1990�s that Food Security: access by all people at all times to enough food for an active healthy life, was not being achieved, despite an abundant food supply. A study of a convenience sample of 40 families with children (58 adults and 92 children) whose sole income was a government welfare benefit was undertaken. Two-thirds of these households regularly relied on a limited variety of food; one-half did not have a sufficient amount of food because of lack of money and outstanding debts. Over the previous year two-thirds had sourced food from a food bank and one-third had been gifted food from friends or relatives. Women�s intakes were compromised regularly but not children�s. All of the women experienced worry about feeding their household. One-fifth were overweight and over 40% obese despite low reported daily energy intakes (median (SE) 5.7 (0.5) MJ) compared to national data. Six repeated 24-hour diet recalls collected randomly over a two-week period enabled calculation of usual daily intake and the prevalence of inadequate intake for eight micronutrients which were disturbingly high. The children�s growth patterns compared favourably with US population percentiles. The National Nutrition Survey (NNS97) allowed the adaption of eight questions--developed by Reid using qualitative methods--to eight indicator statements about food security to be addressed by each participant on behalf of them or their household. Prevalence was significantly higher (p<0.05) for females compared to males for the majority of indicator statements among New Zealand European and Others (NZEO) and Maori. NZEO reported the most food security; Pacific people reported the least and Maori fell between the two. There was a significant increasing linear trend of food security with age (p<0.001) after adjusting for gender. Rasch analysis was performed on 1868 households where participants reported some food insecurity. The responses were ranked according to the proportion and ordering of their positive responses to eight indices of food security, achieving reliability (Cronbach�s Alpha) close to the conventionally accepted level of 0.7. The eight indices were ranked on the same scale; the minimum score -1.66 was achieved by the index �use special food grants/banks� (the index least reported and most severe) and the maximum score 1.86 was achieved by the index �variety of foods eaten limited� (the index most reported and least severe). Categories of food security were assigned using scale cut points: �fully/almost fully food secure�; �moderate food security�; �low food security�. Category status was associated with consumption of recommended number of daily serves of fruit, vegetables, fruits and vegetables, consumption of leaner meats, fatty meats and daily serves of bread. By ANOVA and controlling for sex, ethnicity, Index of Deprivation, urban/rural location, age, level of education, income, and household size, category of household food security was associated with the level of daily intake of total fat, saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat, cholesterol, glucose, fructose, lactose, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and vitamin C. Dietary data were from the primary 24-hour diet recall of respondents. Participants in the fully/almost fully food secure category of households had a mean BMI of 28.7 compared to those moderately secure (29.2) and of low food security (29.5) (p=0.015 for difference among categories). In the Children�s Nutrition Survey 2002 (CNS02) data set, the same eight indices were used and food insecurity was experienced significantly more often by children in the largest households, those in the most deprived areas of residence (NZDep01 Quintile) and those of Pacific and Maori ethnicity compared to NZEO children. Rasch analysis was performed on responses for 1561 households with children which reported some food insecurity. Subject reliability was close to 0.7 (the conventionally acceptable level). The distribution of the eight indices on the Rasch scale was similar to that observed among the NNS97 households and almost identical to the sub-set of households with children, from that dataset. Categories of food security status were assigned as in the NN5S97 and they predicted daily nutrient intake levels of children: total sugars, lactose, vitamm A, β-carotene, vitamin B12 and calcium. A more rigorous assigning of categories at the low/moderate scale cut-off, resulted in a further association with level of intake of glucose, fructose and folate. Mean BMI across categories of food security did not differ. Collectively these data provide unequivocal evidence that food insecurity exists in New Zealand, that it can be quantified and associated with nutrition outcomes. It has a negative impact on the nutrient intakes of both adults and children and a negative impact on the body weight status of adults. These data have implications for nutrition and health professionals and policy makers in New Zealand. They also add to the world-wide body of knowledge of the experience of, and the measurement and predictive potential of food security in populations where the food supply appears plentiful.