Sectoral Trends and Driving Forces of Global Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Disaggregation of sectoral energy use and greenhouse gas emissions trends reveals striking differences between sectors and regions of the world. Understanding key driving forces in the energy end-use sectors provides insights for development of projections of future greenhouse gas emissions. This paper examines global and regional historical trends in energy use and carbon emissions in the industrial, buildings, transport, and agriculture sectors. Activity and economic drivers as well as trends in energy and carbon intensity are evaluated. We show that macro-economic indicators, such as GDP, are insufficient for comprehending trends and driving forces at the sectoral level. These indicators need to be supplemented with sector-specific information for a more complete understanding of future energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.     

Neue Erkenntnisse auf dem Gebiete der Parasitologie und der parasitären Erkrankungen des Menschen

The increasing interest in the parasites of man in the Federal Republic of Germany is connected with the unbounded keenness of German people to travel. They favor southern regions with warm climates which are usually infested with parasites. Thus the general practitioner is nowadays confronted in his daily routine with “imported” pathogenic organisms and diseases as yet unknown to him or with which he need not have reckoned in the past. Furthermore, new information now exists on the development of well-known parasites of our regions, which can be pathogenic to man. Fortunately, new reliable drugs have come on the market, rendering some parasitic diseases harmless.     

Easurements of placental,decidual, and fetal proteins before and after chorionic villus sampling

Circulating placental [human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), Schwangerschafts protein 1 (SP1), pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A), decidual (pregnancy protein) 12 (PP12), and fetal alphafetoprotein (AFP)] proteins were measured immediately before and within 1 h in 18 women undergoing diagnostic chorionic villus sampling (CVS) in the first trimester. An elevation of serum AFP levels was consistently seen, while fluctuations in excess of 10 per cent of the pre-CVS levels of SP1 and PP12 were seen in the majority of patients. Fluctuations in hCG and PAPP-A were consistently less than 10 per cent of pre-CVS values. Post-CVS changes in levels were not apparently associated with any feature of the technique, the pregnancy, or its outcome (one missed abortion). As feto-maternal haemorrhage is a common event, anti-D should be offered to rhesus-negative women undergoing CVS. In the prediction of subsequent miscarriage, only hCG and PAPP-A measurements should be considered.