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Water is absolutely essential for the normal functioning of the skin and especially the stratum corneum (SC). However, as the SC is continuously exposed to varying humidities, maintenance of water within the tissue is crucial. Under most circumstances water present within the SC will be derived from bodily water, being lost by transepidermal water loss, and is normally bound by proteins together with naturally occurring hygroscopic compounds found largely within, but also external to, the corneocytes. Small amounts of water escape through this slightly leaky barrier to hydrate the dehydrated outer layers of the SC, and this is key to maintaining SC flexibility, SC maturation and SC desquamation. The retention of water in the SC is dependent on three major mechanisms: (a) the intercellular lamellar lipids whose physical conformation, predominantly an orthorhombic gel phase, provides a tight and effective barrier to the passage of water through the tissue, (b) the presence of corneodesmosome-bound and ceramide-hydrophobed corneocytes which influence the tortuosity of the SC and thereby the diffusion path length of water and (c) the presence of both intracellular and extracellular SC natural moisturizing factors (NMF). The structure, biochemistry and function of the SC and the epidermis can however be disturbed upon environmental challenge, particularly by disruption of the SC barrier resulting in the precipitation of dry flaky skin conditions. The maintenance of barrier function and thereby SC hydration is central to the production and optimal functioning of the SC. Fluctuating atmospheric conditions (high and low dew points) influence the formation of the epidermal barrier lipids, NMF, corneocyte envelope phenotypes and the desquamatory enzymes and are thus an initiator of dry skin. At low atmospheric dew points, the reduced SC water content precipitates the dry skin phenotype. On perturbation of barrier function, a cycle of events begins initially with the superficial dehydration of the SC (leaking of extracellular lipids, disruption of lipid lamellar architecture, loss of water-soluble NMF), the release of inflammatory mediators, induction of hyperproliferation of epidermal keratinocytes resulting in disturbed epidermal differentiation leading to an inferior SC (enhanced production of sphingosine-containing ceramides relative to phytosphingosine-containing ceramides and reduced transglutaminase activity leading to retention of fragile corneocyte envelopes in the superficial layers of the SC that have reduced levels of covalently bound ceramides), together with a flaky skin condition (reduced desquamatory enzyme activities and reduced corneodesmolysis). In extreme cases when inflammation is present, increased levels of proteases are observed in the SC and reduced interleukin 1 (IL-1) levels with increased IL-1 receptor antagonist protein levels. If left untreated, these events will continuously cycle to produce an even poorer skin condition, and ultimately mechanical cracking of corneodesmosomes between the corneocytes will result in mechanical trauma to the SC.

In the article the widespread opinion concerning the exclusively negative impact of globalization on environmental situation in developing countries is disputed. But analysis of environmental consequences of trade and investment liberalization in these states proves that the role of foreign investments in deteriorating of national environmental situation is too exaggerated. On the contrary, the "export of environmentalism" is associated with TNK activities. On the one hand, globalization originates new threats. On the other hand, the integration of developing countries into the world economy favors the solution of many environmental problems by attraction of foreign private investments in industrial development and costly infrastructure projects; transfer of clean technology; promotion of international environmental cooperation and increase of environmental responsibility of national business.

This paper analyzes resource partnerships and their influence on the environmental quality in a resource-rich country by introducing incomplete contracts, imperfect property rights protection, and a lack of valuation for the environment by the government in the South. Employing numerical simulations, I determine the equilibrium extraction rate, the applied extraction technology, and the environmental quality in dependence of the state of democracy in the resource-rich country. In contrast to what one might expect, under certain circumstances it can be environmentally beneficial to have incomplete contracts that induce the utilization of a suboptimal technology for resource extraction. Further, reducing the holdup problem by shifting bargaining power to the North, is only desirable if the environmental quality increases with a better extraction technology.

"Written by a distinguished team from seven countries and multiple disciplines including petroleum engineering, ecology, and meteorology, this reference discusses biofuels within the context of the world population problem and simultaneous malnutrition problem. The book analyzes the uses and interdependencies among land, water, and fossil energy resources in food versus biofuel production, and takes a look at the environmental problems associated with such, as well as the implications of food shortages and serious destruction of vital oil resources. It includes case studies on the economic and environmental impacts of biofuel production and use from the United States, Europe, Brazil, and tropical environments"--Provided by publisher.

Enhancing of environmental awareness is not just a local aim, is a global priority that will contribute to ensuring a sustainable future. As one of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations as well as among the key areas of the FOOD2030 priorities, sustainable and healthy diets have to be promoted both locally and globally. Even the environmental aspects are not the leading elements of the Hungarian consumers' food choice (Törőcsik, 2009; Hofmeister-Tóth et al., 2011) and the rate of the most committed consumer group to sustainability is almost 8% (Lehota et al., 2014), the level of awareness is constantly rising (Dudás, 2011; Gulyás, 2017). In order to support this process identification of the intervention points is essential. Thus the aim of the present paper was to examine the appearance of the environmental factors in Hungarian consumers' food choice decisions and their relation to the level of healthy lifestyle. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In the conditions of the contemporary risk society the alternate nature and the variety of risks issue a serious challenge to the world community, which requires an urgent solution.Today the principle of sustainable development takes an increasing significance in the policies of all countries. The concept of sustainable development is based upon the balance between financial, social and ecological resources of our planet. Successful management of all these resources would ensure the sustainability.Achievement of the goals of sustainable development, in its turn, requires conjoint actions of governments, local authorities, businesses and each individual.This article is aimed at the analysis of actions taken by world-wide organisations, governments, and local authorities to provide sustainable development, including legislative, institutional, regulatory and public efforts exerted at all levels in the sphere of identification, assessment and management of environmental risks under the conditions of risk society. The volume of the article unfortunately dose not allow covering of all aspects related to this issue, as well as setting up a thorough discourse in this matter. Therefore, the article provides a brief analysis of theoretical base of the concept of the risk society and the idea of sustainable development and reviews legal, institutional, and regulatory instruments applied for identification, assessment and management of environmental risks applied both globally and in Latvia. It also stresses the significance of rising environmental risk awareness and promotion of readiness for ecological conduct, as it would facilitate meeting the goals of sustainable development by more active participation of population in the activities targeted at the environment protection in general, and preservation and restoration of the natural resources. The article also describes the current level of public awareness of environmental problems in Latvia, as well as the problems the Latvian residents consider to be of highest priority ...