Executive SummarySustainably managing limited resources, such as productive land areas and available freshwater, will be one of the world's most pressing challenges in the coming years. Population ...increases and economic growth will significantly influence humanity's future demand for land and water for different uses. In particular, changes in food and energy use will have substantial environmental impacts. They will also influence each other in many ways. At the same time, the production of food and energy, and the water resources they require, will be affected by global climate change. Sustainability issues arising from competition and synergies between future production of bioenergy and food, and related water use, are highly important in this context.Population growth is one of the factors contributing to increased demand for land and water. While the world's population has approximately doubled since the 1960s, global economic activity has increased approximately 40 fold. Since growth in incomes is strongly correlated with increased consumption of animal-derived food (meat, milk, eggs), the combination of population increases and economic growth will likely result in increased feed and food production. This will drive up pressures on land and water resources if not counteracted by innovations that reduce land and water use. Social inequities are increasing as well, with both very rich and very poor populations often practicing ‘inefficient’ methods of using land and water.
In an ecological study, we investigated differences in dental health among children attending elementary schools in Stuttgart.
We used a classification of 67 socially homogeneous districts into seven ...clusters with comparable socio-economic structures. Public health service dentists data of the school year 1999/2000 on 16755 children were assigned to the seven clusters.
81.7% of children had healthy natural permanent teeth (variation among the clusters: 74.6-88.0%). Not children in the poorest areas had the worst results but children living in inner-city areas. They were twice as likely not to have healthy natural teeth and three times as likely to be in need of dental treatment than children living in affluent areas.
Efforts in prevention of dental health should be strengthened in nurseries and schools in socially deprived areas.
Environmentally extended multiregional input-output (EE MRIO) tables have emerged as a key framework to provide a comprehensive description of the global economy and analyze its effects on the ...environment. Of the available EE MRIO databases, EXIOBASE stands out as a database compatible with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) with a high sectorial detail matched with multiple social and environmental satellite accounts. In this paper, we present the latest developments realized with EXIOBASE 3-a time series of EE MRIO tables ranging from 1995 to 2011 for 44 countries (28 EU member plus 16 major economies) and five rest of the world regions. EXIOBASE 3 builds upon the previous versions of EXIOBASE by using rectangular supply-use tables (SUTs) in a 163 industry by 200 products classification as the main building locks. In order to capture structural changes, economic developments, as reported by national statistical agencies, were imposed on the available, disaggregated SUTs from EXIOBASE 2. These initial estimates were further refined by incorporating detailed data on energy, agricultural production, resource extraction, and bilateral trade. EXIOBASE 3 inherits the high level of environmental stressor detail from
its precursor, with further improvement in the level of detail for resource xtraction. To account for the expansion of the European Union (EU), EXIOBASE 3 was developed with the full EU28 country set (including the new member state Croatia). EXIOBASE 3 provides a unique tool for analyzing the dynamics of environmental pressures of economic activities over time.
The enhancement of brain choline levels is a possible therapeutic option in neurodegenerative diseases; however, brain choline levels are held within narrow limits by homeostatic mechanisms including ...the rapid clearance of excess choline from the brain. The present study tests whether
N-methylnicotinamide (NMN), an inhibitor of the outward transport of choline from the brain, can elevate brain choline levels
in vivo. As NMN does not cross the blood–brain barrier, we synthesized and administered the brain-permeable prodrug, 1,4-dihydro-
N-methyl-nicotinamide (DNMN), and tested its effect on the levels of NMN and choline in brain extracellular fluid, using the microdialysis procedure. Administration of DNMN (1 mmol/kg s.c.) caused a 4- and 9-fold increase in plasma and liver NMN levels, respectively, as determined by HPLC. Concomitantly, the brain tissue levels of NMN were increased by a factor of twenty. In brain extracellular fluid, the injection of DNMN (1–3 mmol/kg s.c.) elevated NMN levels by 3- to 10-fold to maximum levels of >10 μM. In spite of these enhanced NMN levels, the choline concentrations in the brain extracellular fluid and in the cerebrospinal fluid (4.7 μM) remained unchanged or were even slightly decreased. Microsomal incubations of DNMN indicated that cytochrome P-450 3A isoforms may be involved in NMN formation in the liver, but not in the brain. We conclude that DNMN, a brain-permeable prodrug of NMN, is efficiently oxidized to NMN in the brain, but a 10-fold increase in extracellular NMN levels is not sufficient to reduce the clearance of choline from the brain.
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