Parental phenols exposure and spontaneous abortion in Chinese population residing in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River

Widespread use of phenols has led to ubiquitous exposure to phenols. In experimental animals, phenols increased resorptions, reduced live litter size and fetal body weights. However, there are limited epidemiological evidences of the relationships between exposure to phenols and pregnancy outcomes. We evaluated the associations between parental urinary levels of various phenols and spontaneous abortion in a Chinese population residing in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. A case-control study was conducted that included 70 case couples with medically unexplained spontaneous abortion and 180 control couples who did not have a history of spontaneous abortion and had at least one living child. Both parental urinary phenols were measured by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry including bisphenol A (BPA), benzophenone-3 (BP-3), 2,3,4-trichlorophenol (2,3,4-TCP), pentachlorophenol (PCP), 4-n-octylphenol (4-n-OP) and 4-n-nonylphenol (4-n-NP). Compared with the low exposure group, there was an increased risk of spontaneous abortion with high paternal urinary PCP concentration [odds ratio (OR) = 2.09, 95% Confidence Interval (CI), 1.05–4.14], and maternal exposure to 4-n-OP and alkylphenol(s) also significantly increased the risk of spontaneous abortion (OR = 2.21, 95% CI, 1.02–4.80; OR = 2.81, 95% CI, 1.39–5.65, respectively). Our study firstly provides the evidence that paternal PCP exposure, maternal 4-n-OP and alkylphenol(s) exposure are associated with spontaneous abortion in humans.     

Development and application of LC–APCI–MS method for biomonitoring of animal and human exposure to imidacloprid

Imidacloprid (IMI) is a relatively new neuro-active neonicotinoid insecticide and nowadays one of the largest selling insecticides worldwide. In the present study a LC–APCI–MS based method was developed and validated for the quantification of imidacloprid and its main metabolite 6-chloronicotinic acid (6-CINA) in urine and hair specimens. The method was tested in biomonitoring of intentionally exposed animals and subsequently applied for biomonitoring of Cretan urban and rural population.     

Household size and composition and implications for housing need in Kumasi,Ghana: a research note

A simple method of calculating the scale of housing need for Kumasi, Ghana, uses two likely variations in household size distribution and an overcrowding threshold of 3 p.p.r., and a measure of preference. The two household size distributions take account both of trends and of changes which may occur if and when new housing is provided. At that time, released from the current constraints, household formation along traditional lines may again be possible. The preferred supply equates households’ perceived need to their ability to pay at current rents. The resulting range of rooms required is wide but even the lowest need is so far in excess of supply that conventional approaches are self‐evidently inadequate and greater client involvement must be encouraged.     

The grassroot development planning process: the role of physical planning in the rural environment

The concern of this paper is with the spatial consequences of development in a given rural setting and the way in which physical planning fits into the revival of a dying rural area, particularly in Third World Countries. It is based on experience derived from Dekinal in Benue State, Nigeria and endeavours to define a rural area by briefly discussing its characteristics and highlighting its problems. It proposes a comprehensive development planning process to induce development based on available resources.     

Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development

The prominent place of the chapter on poverty in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPI) is totally in keeping with the priority given to poverty reduction in the development thinking of the international community of today. The Johannesburg process did not lead to any new insights or new commitments in the fight against poverty. Section one sets out a factual comparison of the poverty chapters in Rio's Agenda 21 (AG21) and in the JPI. Section two reviews the conceptual links between poverty reduction and sustainable development, since poverty is used both as a dependent and as an independent variable. This analysis shows a shift in the function of growth as related to environmental protection. Section three explores the naturalization of development thinking in its economic and social dimensions and shows how this affects the policy options for social protection. I also explain how social and environmental sustainability have become elements of risk management and how are both aimed at conflict prevention and enhanced growth. Finally, in section four three lines of action are suggested to enhance the emergence of a socially meaningful sustainable development agenda that, ideally, would make poverty reduction strategies redundant.     

Global factors shaping the future of food aid: the implications for WFP

Food aid is a key component of a humanitarian response but its use in other programming contexts is subject to numerous criticisms. Even in humanitarian emergencies food aid is often late, unreliable and out of proportion to other elements of the response. Three major factors will shape the future of food aid. First, mechanisms of food aid governance are being reviewed and may undergo major changes—particularly the Food Aid Convention now that hopes have diminished for an Agreement on Agriculture at the World Trade Organisation. The second significant factor is donor agency trends. Overall levels of food aid have dropped fairly steadily in recent decades and there are several discernible trends in resource allocation, procurement and the use of food aid. The third factor is an emerging body of best practice that will define acceptable standards of food aid programming in the future.     

WTO规则对西部开发的影响、风险及机遇浅析

随着中国加入WTO和西部大开发战略的实施 ,依法治国无疑是改善投资环境、促进西部开发的最有效手段之一。本文根据WTO基本原则与法制经济的相互关系和影响深入浅出地论述了WTO对西部开发的影响、风险及机遇 ,并提出了针对性的策略     

Production, Consumption and the World Summit on Sustainable Development

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), world leaders agreed that eliminating unsustainable production and consumption is one of the three overriding objectives of sustainable development. Achieving that objective should have been a major priority for the WSSD Plan of Implementation. Increases in consumption and production over the past decade were largely responsible for the worsening environmental and social trends. Unfortunately, the negotiators of the Plan paid insufficient attention to the lessons from 10 years of discussions about the concepts, the available policies and tools and their effectiveness, the impacts of those policies on developing countries, and the political commitment of countries in an era of globalization. Despite a promising proposal for a new ten-year work programme aimed at bridging the gap implementing the Agenda 21 commitments from Rio, Summit negotiators produced barely more than a muted echo of recommendations from the past which have yet to be taken seriously enough by the world's leaders in a comprehensive intergovernmental strategy. In the ten-year review of progress to achieve sustainable production and consumption (SPAC), governments quickly skipped past the critical work of examining why things are getting worse, avoiding the task of identifying the obstacles (which in some cases were themselves) and in turn avoiding the commitment to time-bound measurable targets. If nothing else, the WSSD demonstrated that a global strategy to achieve SPAC will come not from a UN consensus of world leaders but from a strategic alliance of responsible governments, civil society and others with a vision beyond the next election cycle.     

Dynamics in the global protected-area estate since 2004

Nations of the world have committed to a number of goals and targets to address global environmental challenges. Protected areas have for centuries been a key strategy in conservation and play a major role in addressing current challenges. The most important tool used to track progress on protected-area commitments is the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). Periodic assessments of the world's protected-area estate show steady growth over the last 2 decades. However, the current method, which uses the latest version of the WDPA, does not show the true dynamic nature of protected areas over time and does not provide information on sites removed from the WDPA. In reality, this method can only show growth or remain stable. We used GIS tools in an approach to assess protected-area change over time based on 12 temporally distinct versions of the WDPA that quantify area added and removed from the WDPA annually from 2004 to 2016. Both the narrative of continual growth of protected area and the counter-narrative of protected area removal were overly simplistic. The former because growth was almost entirely in the marine realm and the latter because some areas removed were reprotected in later years. On average 2.5 million km² was added to the WDPA annually and 1.1 million km² was removed. Reasons for the inclusion and removal of protected areas in the WDPA database were in part due to data-quality issues but also to on-the-ground changes. To meet the 17% protected-area component of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 by 2020, which stood at 14.7% in 2016, either the rate of protected-area removal must decrease or the rate of protected-area designation and addition to the WDPA must increase.     

Suspected flunixin poisoning of a wild Eurasian Griffon Vulture from Spain

Exposure to residues of the nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac present in livestock carcasses has caused extensive declines in 3 Gyps vulture species across Asia. The carcass of a wild Eurasian Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) was found in 2012 on an Andalucian (Spain) game hunting reserve and examined forensically. The bird had severe visceral gout, a finding consistent with Gyps vultures from Asia that have been poisoned by diclofenac. Liver and kidney samples from this Eurasian Griffon Vulture contained elevated flunixin (an NSAID) levels (median = 2.70 and 6.50 mg/kg, respectively). This is the first reported case of a wild vulture being exposed to and apparently killed by an NSAID outside Asia. It is also the first reported instance of mortality in the wild resulting from environmental exposure to an NSAID other than diclofenac. Caso de Sospecha de Envenenamiento por Flunixin de un Buitre Leonado en España