Progressive neuronal degeneration of childhood: prenatal diagnosis by MRI

We report two cases in the same family of progressive neuronal degeneration of childhood—Alpers syndrome—with prenatal MRI findings in one case. The first infant presented at birth with severe microcephaly, then rapidly evolved to progressive encephalopathy with refractory epilepsy, leading to death at 10 months. Biochemical investigations including liver function tests were normal. CT and MRI showed severe diffuse brain atrophy. The diagnosis of progressive neuronal degeneration of childhood was made on the clinical and imaging data. The second pregnancy was marked by gradual decrease of fetal cerebral biometry and a prenatal MRI performed at 32 weeks showed diffuse cortical atrophy, as observed in the sibling. The infant died at 5 months. Neuropathological findings were consistent with Alpers syndrome. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Third European Chemistry Congress “Resources and Environment”

Environmental Science and Pollution Research -     

Can renewable energy technologies improve the management of stressed water resources threatened by climate change? Argentine drylands case study

This work addresses increasing concerns about water management for rural productive activities in the vast dry regions of Latin America by assessing renewable energy technologies (RETs) that could be suitable for localized needs. Forecasted trends in climate change and variability make this analysis very relevant, in an area where very little published work exists. While Argentina is widely known for its fertile pampas, around 75 % of the country consists of dry lands. In addition, erosion is increasing by up to 650,000 hectares each year. The coordinated adoption of a set of actions, including land use planning and strengthening productive activities that guarantee access to water and improve water and soil management is needed. Renewable energies could help towards achieving these aims, if water is made available at affordable costs and with suitable technologies. This paper evaluates experiences with three RETs—photovoltaic pumping from deep wells, small wind turbine pumping, and high-power wind turbines, and discusses a potential role for use in rural Argentina. Although cheaper and more reliable renewable alternatives to energy sources such as diesel could be used for pumping from groundwater resources in isolated locations, limitations arise when pumping head and/or water volume requirements are large or highly seasonal. The cost increases and technical challenges of accessing this deeper water, as indicated by case studies, emphasize the importance of planning and support schemes development.     

Assessing the impacts of sustainable development projects in the Amazon: the DURAMAZ experiment

Since 1992, a boom of “sustainable development projects” has been registered in the Brazilian Amazon, turning it into a kind of open-air laboratory for sustainability. But their real impacts remain unclear, especially because of inadequate evaluation tools. A new device is therefore needed to unveil the inner mechanisms of development aid despite the difficulties linked with the diversity of contexts or the heterogeneity in the relevant parameters. Those are the challenges we met when we engaged in comparing the impacts of sustainable development programs in 13 sites throughout the Brazilian Amazon in order to identify determining factors of sustainability. To achieve our objective, we conceived an indicator system based on the results of intensive fieldwork, including social, economic, environmental, and biographical issues. Our results show that the most prominent problem of sustainability—evaluation of effectiveness—has not been tackled; life conditions and environmental preservation continue to appear antagonistic. At the same time, variability appears among outwardly coherent social groups, showing that a case-to-case approach is definitely indispensable and confirming the need to go “beyond panaceas” to find resolutions. This article successively addresses three points. First, we present the starting point of our research, or how the Amazon region was turned into a laboratory for sustainability and how our research project aimed at analyzing the consequences of this trend. Second, we discuss how available indicator systems fail to respond to the need for a multidimensional evaluation at the local level and, therefore, how we constituted our own analytical tool. Third, we focus on some results that can be derived from our system, especially in terms of identifying key factors needed to achieve sustainability in the Amazon.     

Justice in development? An analysis of water interventions in the rural South

This paper explores a fruitful convergence between the distributive and procedural dimensions of environmental justice theory and current debates in the field of development studies over capitals and capabilities, institutions, and discourse formation to shed new light on natural resource management projects in the developing world. Specifically, we document the planning and implementation of two types of water interventions in two contrasting regions: watershed development programmes in northeast India and small reservoirs in sub‐Saharan West Africa. We find that there is a contradiction between the inherently political nature of water interventions and the fact that such projects remain grounded in apolitical, technical and managerial narratives. In contrast to the new semantic of development, this depoliticization results in the near absence of attention paid to procedural (participation and empowerment) and distributive (equity) justice concerns and in local actors having to revert to covert ways to achieve their ends. A constructive dialogue between development studies and environmental justice scholars can offer a fresh look on the society‐environment nexus in the developing world.     

First approach for the identification of sardine populations <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sardina pilchardus</Emphasis> (Walbaum 1792) in the Moroccan Atlantic by allozymes

This study aimed at contributing to the identification of the sardine populations in the Moroccan Atlantic. The approach used is enzymes electrophoresis (allozymic marker analysis). The analysis was conducted in seven stations (251 individuals analysed). Two enzymes were tested (LDH* and SOD*). Only the SOD* was polymorphic and highly informative. Statistical analysis results showed heterogeneity between samples. Homogeneous population was identified in the south, from Tarfaya to Dakhla (~28°–24°N). The sampling from Safi (~32°N) seems to come from a differentiated population. The Agadir (~30°N) population would overlap the previous ones. The population identified offshore of Larache (~35°N) would be similar to the population located south of Portugal (~37°N).     

Modeling the binding of triazine herbicides to humic substances using capillary electrophoresis

The binding of 4 s-triazines herbicides and metabolites, ameline, hydroxyatrazine, atraton, and ametryn to 12 structurally different humic substances was studied by affinity capillary electrophoresis. Binding data were confronted to the structural data of humic acids obtained from spectrometric measurements (UV-Vis, FT/IR, NMR), elemental analysis and potentiometric titration. The results obtained with principal component analysis and partial least square analysis clearly show the importance of carboxylic acidity and aromaticity of the humic ligands in relation to the partial positive charge and relative hydrophobicity of the pesticides.     

Serum polychlorinated biphenyl and organochlorine insecticide concentrations in a Faroese birth cohort

A prospective birth cohort of 1022 participants was established in the Faroe Islands over a 21-month period during 1986-1987. We collected questionnaire data on potential persistent organic pollutant (POP) concentration predictors, such as duration of breastfeeding and blubber consumption. To assess the participants' exposure from in utero to 14 years of age to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the insecticide p,p'-DDT and its primary degradate p,p'-DDE, we measured 37 PCB congeners and pesticides in 316 umbilical cord samples taken from participants at birth, in 124 serum samples collected from participants at approximately 7 years of age, and in 795 serum samples collected from participants at 14 years of age. Measurements of higher chlorination PCB congeners made on individuals' serum samples collected at 7 years and 14 years were highly correlated (typically r > 0.5, p > 0.01), although their concentrations at 7 years were generally two to three times higher than at 14 years. Similarly, umbilical cord PCB concentrations were correlated with PCB concentrations in both 7- and 14-year serum samples. Sex-specific differences in higher chlorination PCB and p,p'-DDE concentrations were found at 14 years but not at 7 years, although a sex interaction with blubber consumption and nursing duration was observed at both ages. Both duration of breastfeeding and consumption of blubber were significant predictors of serum summationPCB concentrations at 7 and 14 years. Multivariate analyses showed that breastfeeding duration was the primary contributor to serum summationPCB concentrations at 7 years, and blubber consumption was the primary contributor at 14 years. These data suggest that infant exposures from breastfeeding were sufficiently large so that continued exposures to PCBs, p,p'-DDT, and p,p'-DDE through the diet have not fully diluted their contribution to the summationPCB and p,p'-DDE body burden of the children.