A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities 1,2 . This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity 3�6 . Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55 of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017�and more than 80 in some low- and middle-income regions�was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing�and in some countries reversal�of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories. © 2019, The Author(s)

Observed received signal level of RazakSAT S-band space to earth satellite transmission during nighttime

In order to guarantee effective satellite service, the link budget for all conditions is important. From the path loss and attenuation statistics, the appropriate fade margin value calculated from the link budget for the specific desired quality of service (QoS) can be determined from outage statistics. In the case of a clear sky, the value depends significantly on the distance and conditions of the atmospheric layers and their composition. The signal loss depends only on distance and frequency in the absolute Free Space case. The results of distance in the investigation of determining the most suitable clear sky attenuation values at night time were explored in this report. The received signal levels of the Malaysian Low Earth Orbit (LEO) RazakSAT satellite were recorded according to the distances between the satellite and the Earth station. Using the S-band (Terminal Doppler Weather Radar) TDWR, the clear sky state where no water precipitation was reported. With established attenuation values, the satellite operator may determine whether it is appropriate to operate the power uplink and mitigation technique. The Malaysian National Space Agency (ANGKASA) provided the RazakSAT S-band (2,232 GHz) transmission signal data and received radar data from the Malaysian Department of Meteorology (MMD). As the distance varies along each flight route, the results provide understanding of observed path loss

Food foreign body injuries

Rationale and aim: The purpose of this study is to acquire a better understanding of Food Foreign Bodies (FFB) injuries in children characterizing the risk of complications and prolonged hospitalization due to food items according to patients' characteristics, circumstances of the accident, Foreign Body (FB) features and FB location, as emerging from the SUSY Safe Web-Registry. Methods: The present study uses data provided by the SUSY Safe Project, a DG SANCO co-funded project started in February 2005, which was aimed at establishing an international registry of cases of Foreign Bodies (FB) injuries in children aged 0-14 years. The analysis was carried out on injuries due to a food item.FB location was reported according to ICD9-CM code: ears (ICD931), nose (ICD932), pharynx and larynx (ICD933) trachea, bronchi and lungs (ICD934), mouth, esophagus and stomach (ICD935).Age and gender injury distributions were assessed. Data regarding adult supervision and activity before injury were also evaluated. FBs which most frequently cause complications were identified. The association between children age, adult presence, object characteristics and hospitalization/complications was computed using unweighted odds ratios and the related 95% confidence intervals. Results: 16,878 FB injuries occurred in children aged 0-14 years have been recorded in the SUSY Safe databases. FB type was specified in 10,564 cases; among them 2744 (26%) were due to a food item. FB site was recorded in 1344 cases: FB was located in the ears in 99 patients, while 1140 occurred in the upper and lower respiratory tract; finally, 105 food items were removed from mouth, esophagus and stomach. Complications occurred in 176 cases and the most documented was pulmonary or bronchial infections (23%) followed emphysema or atelectasis and by and asthma (7%). Bones were the commonest retrieved FFB encountered in this study, while nuts seem to be the FFB most frequently associated to complications. Conclusions: On the basis of this study we make the strong recommendation that parents should be adequately educated and provide age-appropriate food to their children and be present in order to supervise them during eating especially during a critical period ranging from 2 to 3 years of age. © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Divergent seasonal patterns of influenza types A and B across latitude gradient in Tropical Asia

10.1111/irv.12372Influenza and other Respiratory Viruses103176-18

Ethnic resurgence, minority communities, and state policies in a network society: The dynamics of malay identity formation in postcolonial Singapore

10.1080/10702891003734920Identities172304-32