Erratum: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Interpretation: By quantifying levels and trends in exposures to risk factors and the resulting disease burden, this assessment offers insight into where past policy and programme efforts might have been successful and highlights current priorities for public health action. Decreases in behavioural, environmental, and occupational risks have largely offset the effects of population growth and ageing, in relation to trends in absolute burden. Conversely, the combination of increasing metabolic risks and population ageing will probably continue to drive the increasing trends in non-communicable diseases at the global level, which presents both a public health challenge and opportunity. We see considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in levels of risk exposure and risk-attributable burden. Although levels of development underlie some of this heterogeneity, O/E ratios show risks for which countries are overperforming or underperforming relative to their level of development. As such, these ratios provide a benchmarking tool to help to focus local decision making. Our findings reinforce the importance of both risk exposure monitoring and epidemiological research to assess causal connections between risks and health outcomes, and they highlight the usefulness of the GBD study in synthesising data to draw comprehensive and robust conclusions that help to inform good policy and strategic health planning

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality and life expectancy, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

BACKGROUND: Assessments of age-specific mortality and life expectancy have been done by the UN Population Division, Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNPOP), the United States Census Bureau, WHO, and as part of previous iterations of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Previous iterations of the GBD used population estimates from UNPOP, which were not derived in a way that was internally consistent with the estimates of the numbers of deaths in the GBD. The present iteration of the GBD, GBD 2017, improves on previous assessments and provides timely estimates of the mortality experience of populations globally. METHODS: The GBD uses all available data to produce estimates of mortality rates between 1950 and 2017 for 23 age groups, both sexes, and 918 locations, including 195 countries and territories and subnational locations for 16 countries. Data used include vital registration systems, sample registration systems, household surveys (complete birth histories, summary birth histories, sibling histories), censuses (summary birth histories, household deaths), and Demographic Surveillance Sites. In total, this analysis used 8259 data sources. Estimates of the probability of death between birth and the age of 5 years and between ages 15 and 60 years are generated and then input into a model life table system to produce complete life tables for all locations and years. Fatal discontinuities and mortality due to HIV/AIDS are analysed separately and then incorporated into the estimation. We analyse the relationship between age-specific mortality and development status using the Socio-demographic Index, a composite measure based on fertility under the age of 25 years, education, and income. There are four main methodological improvements in GBD 2017 compared with GBD 2016: 622 additional data sources have been incorporated; new estimates of population, generated by the GBD study, are used; statistical methods used in different components of the analysis have been further standardised and improved; and the analysis has been extended backwards in time by two decades to start in 1950. FINDINGS: Globally, 18·7% (95% uncertainty interval 18·4–19·0) of deaths were registered in 1950 and that proportion has been steadily increasing since, with 58·8% (58·2–59·3) of all deaths being registered in 2015. At the global level, between 1950 and 2017, life expectancy increased from 48·1 years (46·5–49·6) to 70·5 years (70·1–70·8) for men and from 52·9 years (51·7–54·0) to 75·6 years (75·3–75·9) for women. Despite this overall progress, there remains substantial variation in life expectancy at birth in 2017, which ranges from 49·1 years (46·5–51·7) for men in the Central African Republic to 87·6 years (86·9–88·1) among women in Singapore. The greatest progress across age groups was for children younger than 5 years; under-5 mortality dropped from 216·0 deaths (196·3–238·1) per 1000 livebirths in 1950 to 38·9 deaths (35·6–42·83) per 1000 livebirths in 2017, with huge reductions across countries. Nevertheless, there were still 5·4 million (5·2–5·6) deaths among children younger than 5 years in the world in 2017. Progress has been less pronounced and more variable for adults, especially for adult males, who had stagnant or increasing mortality rates in several countries. The gap between male and female life expectancy between 1950 and 2017, while relatively stable at the global level, shows distinctive patterns across super-regions and has consistently been the largest in central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia, and smallest in south Asia. Performance was also variable across countries and time in observed mortality rates compared with those expected on the basis of development. INTERPRETATION: This analysis of age-sex-specific mortality shows that there are remarkably complex patterns in population mortality across countries. The findings of this study highlight global successes, such as the large decline in under-5 mortality, which reflects significant local, national, and global commitment and investment over several decades. However, they also bring attention to mortality patterns that are a cause for concern, particularly among adult men and, to a lesser extent, women, whose mortality rates have stagnated in many countries over the time period of this study, and in some cases are increasing

Measured and estimated crop ET and Kc for wheat and barley in central Saudi Arabia.

A field experiment was conducted at the educational farm, King Saud University (central region of Saudi Arabia) to measure crop evapotranspiration (ETC) for wheat and barley crops. The measurements of alfalfa reference ET were coupled with the measured crop ET (ETC) to obtain the crop coefficients (Kc\ Also, three models for estimation of reference ET (ETref) were examined to assess their suitability for prediction of ,ETC under local climate conditions. The measurements were accomplished using nine non-weighting lysimeters constructed with reinforced concrete. The lysimeters were randomly and evenly planted with the selected crops, wheat and barley, and with alfalfa reference crop. The research outputs revealed that the seasonal 'ETC for wheat and barley are 898 and 930 mm, respectively. The maximum daily ETC rates never exceeded 11 mm/day for both crops. The average maximum daily ETC was 10.34 and 10.21 mm/day for wheat and barley, respectively. For wheat crop, the Kc values for initial, mid-season, and late-season stages have been found to equal 0.63,1.38, and 0.41 for the three stages, respectively. On the other hand, the Kc values for barley were 0.60,1.39, and 0.29, for the initial, mid and late-season stages, respectively. The tested models for predicting ETC gave almost identical estimates. The standard errors of estimates (SEE) for the three models were in the vicinity of 1.7 mm/day

Spatial Variability of some Soil Physical Properties. II. Kriging and Cokriging

A filed experiment was designed to investigate the spatial variability of some soil physical properties of calcareous soils using geostatistical techniques, at the field of Agricultural Research and Experimental Station, King Saud University at Deirab. One transect was sampled from south to north every 5 m for 500 m long. Measurements were made for infiltration rate, bulk density. Variograms for 100 observatrions of both infiltration rate and bulk density was used to krige those parameters at athe samde locations (jacknife kriging), and used the same variograms to krige for observations at distence of 50 meters instead of 5 meters. A cross-variogram for 100 observations of infiltration rate and bulk density was used to krige the infiltration rate aty the same locations. The large number of measured values along the transact of infiltration rate made it possible to calculate a variogram to produce a minimum number of observations. As a result, it could be concluded that a minimum of 11 observations, which means observations at distance of 50 meters rather than 5 meters, were enough to obtain almost the same information as with 100 observations along the transect tested. An additional advantage of kriging and cokriging is to construct the contour maps for the field if enough information was provided at different areas of the field

Chemical composition of irrigation ground water used in some agricultural regions of Saudi Arabia

More than 400 samples of irrigation ground water were collected from eight intensive agricultural regions in Saudi Arabia. Parameters of the chemical analysis such as pH, major cations and anions, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved salts (TDS), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), adjusted sodium adsorption ratio (adj SAR), adjusted sodium adsorption (adj R NB), soluble sodium percentage (SSF) and residual sodium carbonate (RSC) were used to classify the ground waters quality for irrigation. Sodium was found to be the dominant cation in most studied water samples followed by calcium. Chloride was the abundant anion, followed by sulfate. The salinity and sodicity hazard of most water samples were classified as a very high salinity and medium to low sodicity problems. High salinity and probably medium sodicity problems could be expected from prolonged use of these waters. Management practice such as leaching, adequate drainage, maintaining adequate available soil-water and application of certain amendments and organic matter should be considered

Spatial variability for some properties of the wastewater irrigated soils

Composite surface soil samples (236 samples) were collected from three fodder farms irrigated for a long period with the treated sewage effluents or well water through a center pivot system. The soil of the 1st farm was loamy sand in texture while it was sandy loam for the other two farms, all were calcareous containing more than 10% of (CaCO3). The average values of EC for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd farms showed to be 3.48, 2.20 and 2.21 dS m−1, respectively. The concentration of Zn was found to be 28.87 mg kg−1 in the 1st farm, while it was 45.96 and 19.51 mg kg−1 in the 2nd and 3rd farms, respectively. The Zn, Cu, Fe and Ni concentrations were higher in the farms irrigated with the treated sewage effluent than their concentrations in those irrigated with well water. The values were 28.87, 16.95, 4225, and 72.26 mg kg−1 for Zn, Cu, Fe & Ni in 1st farm and 42.4, 60.5, 11215, and 180 mg kg−1 for the 2nd farm. The Pb in the soil of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd farms reached 63.01, 37.10 and 27.69 mg kg−1, respectively. It can be concluded that all soil properties except pH had high coefficients of variation, indicating strong variability over space. The data of geo-statistical analysis showed that only TDS and ESP in the 1st farm as well as OM in the 2nd farm had weak spatial dependency while other properties had moderate or strong spatial dependency. Moreover, the TDS and CaCO3 parameters of the 1st and 2nd farms had stronger nugget effects

Bonding evolution of composites fabricated via electrically assisted press bonding

Reducing fuel consumption and increasing efficiency is one of the solutions that humanity has adopted to reduce costs caused by fuel consumption in all industries, including the transportation industry. An effective solution to improve practical fuel consumption is to reduce weight. In principle, press bonding (PB), which is done using a press and is a solid-state welding process, can create a bond between parts with different materials and produce materials with lighter weight and more strength. But it should also be noted that the plasticity of some materials is very low, and these materials are incapable of machinability. Electrical assistance is a potential solution that can solve this problem by increasing the flow tension and reducing the forming force. In this study, aluminum alloy 1060 bars were electrically press bonded at electricity current levels 0 Å up to 300 Å. The effect of pressing parameters on the bonding strength, such as amount of electricity current level and plastic strain, was investigated using a peeling test. Results show that more adhesive among the layers (bonding strength) was attained by growing current and reducing thickness. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was investigated the peeling surface of samples versus the different thickness reduction ratios and electric currents. The Joule heating effect in the electrically-assisted in press bonding (EAPB) process decreases the forming strength of bars and increases the bond strength of bonded bars by about three times. Using SEM, the peeling surface of samples and the fracture surface around the interface after the tensile test were studied to investigate the bonding quality