Background In 2010, overweight and obesity were estimated to cause 3.4 million deaths, 3.9% of years of life lost, and 3.8% of DALYs globally. The rise in obesity has led to widespread calls for regular monitoring of changes in overweight and obesity prevalence in all populations. Comparative, up-to-date information on levels and trends is essential both to quantify population health effects and to prompt decision-makers to prioritize action. Methods We systematically identified surveys, reports, and published studies (n = 1,769) that included information on height and weight, both through physical measurements and self-reports. Mixed effects linear regression was used to correct for the bias in self-reports. Age-sex-country-year observations (n = 19,244) on prevalence of obesity and overweight were synthesized using a spatio-temporal Gaussian Process Regression model to estimate prevalence with 95% uncertainty intervals. Findings Globally, the proportion of adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or greater increased from 28.8% (95% UI: 28.4-29.3) in 1980 to 36.9% (36.3-37.4) in 2013 for men and from 29.8% (29.3-30.2) to 38.0% (37.5-38.5) for women. Increases were observed in both developed and developing countries. There have been substantial increases in prevalence among children and adolescents in developed countries, with 23.8% (22.9-24.7) of boys and 22.6% (21.7-23.6) of girls being either overweight or obese in 2013. The prevalence of overweight and obesity is also rising among children and adolescents in developing countries as well, rising from 8.1% (7.7-8.6) to 12.9% (12.3-13.5) in 2013 for boys and from 8.4% (8.1-8.8) to 13.4% (13.0-13.9) in girls. Among adults, estimated prevalence of obesity exceeds 50% among men in Tonga and women in Kuwait, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Libya, Qatar, Tonga, and Samoa. Since 2006, the increase in adult obesity in developed countries has stabilized. Interpretation Because of the established health risks and substantial increases in prevalence, obesity has become a major global health challenge. Contrary to other major global risks, there is little evidence of successful population-level intervention strategies to reduce exposure. Not only is obesity increasing, but there are no national success stories over the past 33 years. Urgent global action and leadership is required to assist countries to more effectively intervene.

The airway surface is an important host defense against pulmonary infection. Secretion of proteins with antimicrobial activity from epithelial cells onto the airway surface represents an important component of this innate immune system. Defensins are the best characterized epithelial-derived peptide antibiotics. A member of another family of peptide antibiotics called cathelicidins recently was identified from human bone marrow. We show in this paper that this human peptide named LL-37͞hCAP-18 also may play a role in innate immunity of the human lung. In situ hybridization localized high levels of LL-37͞hCAP-18 RNA to surface epithelial cells of the conducting airway as well as serous and mucous cells of the submucosal glands. LL-37͞hCAP-18 peptide with antimicrobial activity was partially purified from airway surface f luid from human lung and a human bronchial xenograft model. The synthetic peptide LL-37 demonstrated antibiotic activity against a number of Gram-negative and Gram-positive organisms including Pseudomonas aeruginosa; bacterial killing of LL-37 was sensitive to NaCl and was synergistic with lactoferrin and lysozyme. In summary, we show that LL-37͞hCAP-18 is a peptide with broad antimicrobial activity that is secreted onto the airway surface from epithelial cells of the human lung.

Previous studies have implicated the novel peptide antibiotic human ␤ -defensin 1 (hBD-1) in the pathogenesis of cystic fibrosis. We describe in this report the isolation and characterization of the second member of this defensin family, human ␤ -defensin 2 (hBD-2). A cDNA for hBD-2 was identified by homology to hBD-1. hBD-2 is expressed diffusely throughout epithelia of many organs, including the lung, where it is found in the surface epithelia and serous cells of the submucosal glands. A specific antibody made of recombinant peptide detected hBD-2 in airway surface fluid of human lung. The fully processed peptide has broad antibacterial activity against many organisms, which is salt sensitive and synergistic with lysozyme and lactoferrin. These data suggest the existence of a family of ␤ -defensin molecules on mucosal surfaces that in the aggregate contributes to normal host defense. ( J. Clin. Invest. 1998. 102:874-880.)

Influenza is a serious threat to health in all parts of the world. The control and treatment of influenza depends mainly on chemical or biochemical agents and, to date, some anti-influenza agents have been isolated from plants as a result of chemical and pharmacological studies. These agents include a variety of polyphenols, flavonoids, saponins, glucosides and alkaloids. Traditional medicine focuses on the use of herbs and traditional Chinese medicine has performed well in clinical practice and shows a potential in the therapy of influenza and its symptoms. The present paper reviews some constituents and extracts from plants and traditional Chinese medicine with anti-influenza activity.

Minimum quench energy and normal zone propagation velocity are measured on short YBa2Cu3O7−δ coated conductors in self-field at temperatures ranging from 40to77K. The sample is cooled via a cryocooler with a cryostat pressure of ∼10−4Pa, creating a nearly adiabatic environment. A normal zone is created by pulsing a heater that is attached to the sample surface with a thin layer of alumina-filled epoxy. The minimum quench energy is determined by identifying the minimum heater energy that creates a propagating normal zone, and the propagation velocity is determined from the time delay between voltage signals in voltage taps distributed along the length of the conductor. It is found that the minimum quench energy is on the order of 1J and the normal zone propagation velocity ranges from 1–40mm∕s. These results are compared to similar measurements on other coated conductor architectures and geometries and to the classical adiabatic quench propagation model.

REBCO coated conductors maintain high engineering current density above 16 T at 4.2 K. That fact will significantly impact markets of various magnet applications including high-field magnets for high-energy physics and fusion reactors. One of the main challenges for the high-field accelerator magnet is the use of multitape REBCO cables with high engineering current density in magnet development. Several approaches developing high-field accelerator magnets using REBCO cables are demonstrated. In this paper, we introduce an alternative concept based on the canted cos θ (CCT) magnet design using Conductor on Round Core (CORC R) wires that are wound from multiple REBCO tapes with a Cu core. We report the development and test of double-layer three-turn CCT dipole magnets using CORC R wires at 77 K and 4.2 K. The scalability of the CCT design allowed us to effectively develop and demonstrate important magnet technology features such as coil design, winding, joints and testing with minimum conductor lengths. The test results showed that the CCT dipole magnet using CORC R wires was a viable option in developing REBCO accelerator magnet. One of the critical development needs is to increase the engineering current density of the 3.7 mm diameter CORC R wire to 540 A mm −2 at 21 T, 4.2 K and to reduce the bending radius to 15 mm. This would enable a compact REBCO dipole insert magnet to generate a 5 T field in a background field of 16 T at 4.2 K.

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Engineering current density over 5 kA mm −2 at 4.2 K, 14 T in thick film REBCO tapes To cite this article: Goran Majkic et al 2018 Supercond. Sci. Technol. 31 10LT01 View the article online for updates and enhancements. Related content Critical current density above 15 MA cm2 at 30 K, 3 T in 2.2 m thick heavily-doped (Gd,Y)Ba2Cu3Ox superconductor tapes V Selvamanickam, M Heydari Gharahcheshmeh, A Xu et al.-Sample and length-dependent variability of 77 and 4.2 K properties in nominally identical RE123 coated conductors L Rossi, X Hu, F Kametani et al.-Requirements to achieve high in-field critical current density at 30 K in heavilydoped (Gd,Y)Ba2Cu3Ox superconductor tapes V Selvamanickam, M Heydari Gharahcheshmeh, A Xu et al.-Recent citations Goran Majkic-Correlation of In-Field Performance of Thick REBCO Films Between 0-14 T and 4.2-77 K Goran Majkic et al-Effect of Deposition Temperature on Microstructure and Critical Current Properties of Zr-Doped GdYBCO Superconducting Tapes Made by MOCVD Ziming Fan et al