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National levels of personal health-care access and quality can be approximated by measuring mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care (ie, amenable mortality). Previous analyses of mortality amenable to health care only focused on high-income countries and faced several methodological challenges. In the present analysis, we use the highly standardised cause of death and risk factor estimates generated through the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) to improve and expand the quantification of personal health-care access and quality for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. We mapped the most widely used list of causes amenable to personal health care developed by Nolte and McKee to 32 GBD causes. We accounted for variations in cause of death certification and misclassifications through the extensive data standardisation processes and redistribution algorithms developed for GBD. To isolate the effects of personal health-care access and quality, we risk-standardised cause-specific mortality rates for each geography-year by removing the joint effects of local environmental and behavioural risks, and adding back the global levels of risk exposure as estimated for GBD 2015. We employed principal component analysis to create a single, interpretable summary measure–the Healthcare Quality and Access (HAQ) Index–on a scale of 0 to 100. The HAQ Index showed strong convergence validity as compared with other health-system indicators, including health expenditure per capita (r=0·88), an index of 11 universal health coverage interventions (r=0·83), and human resources for health per 1000 (r=0·77). We used free disposal hull analysis with bootstrapping to produce a frontier based on the relationship between the HAQ Index and the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a measure of overall development consisting of income per capita, average years of education, and total fertility rates. This frontier allowed us to better quantify the maximum levels of personal health-care access and quality achieved across the development spectrum, and pinpoint geographies where gaps between observed and potential levels have narrowed or widened over time. Between 1990 and 2015, nearly all countries and territories saw their HAQ Index values improve; nonetheless, the difference between the highest and lowest observed HAQ Index was larger in 2015 than in 1990, ranging from 28·6 to 94·6. Of 195 geographies, 167 had statistically significant increases in HAQ Index levels since 1990, with South Korea, Turkey, Peru, China, and the Maldives recording among the largest gains by 2015. Performance on the HAQ Index and individual causes showed distinct patterns by region and level of development, yet substantial heterogeneities emerged for several causes, including cancers in highest-SDI countries; chronic kidney disease, diabetes, diarrhoeal diseases, and lower respiratory infections among middle-SDI countries; and measles and tetanus among lowest-SDI countries. While the global HAQ Index average rose from 40·7 (95% uncertainty interval, 39·0–42·8) in 1990 to 53·7 (52·2–55·4) in 2015, far less progress occurred in narrowing the gap between observed HAQ Index values and maximum levels achieved; at the global level, the difference between the observed and frontier HAQ Index only decreased from 21·2 in 1990 to 20·1 in 2015. If every country and territory had achieved the highest observed HAQ Index by their corresponding level of SDI, the global average would have been 73·8 in 2015. Several countries, particularly in eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa, reached HAQ Index values similar to or beyond their development levels, whereas others, namely in southern sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and south Asia, lagged behind what geographies of similar development attained between 1990 and 2015. This novel extension of the GBD Study shows the untapped potential for personal health-care access and quality improvement across the development spectrum. Amid substantive advances in personal health care at the national level, heterogeneous patterns for individual causes in given countries or territories suggest that few places have consistently achieved optimal health-care access and quality across health-system functions and therapeutic areas. This is especially evident in middle-SDI countries, many of which have recently undergone or are currently experiencing epidemiological transitions. The HAQ Index, if paired with other measures of health-system characteristics such as intervention coverage, could provide a robust avenue for tracking progress on universal health coverage and identifying local priorities for strengthening personal health-care quality and access throughout the world. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The causes of land subsidence in Kawajima, Japan, have been investigated through data compilation and numerical modeling. Land subsidence has progressed despite a gradual increase in the hydraulic head in the long term. Taking into account the temporal changes and depth distribution of groundwater abstractions, the contraction of formations, and the complexity of the hydrogeological structures, it is proposed that agricultural groundwater use is one of the main triggers for land subsidence. A one-dimensional numerical simulator for coupled groundwater flow and soil deformation was developed with an evolutionary algorithm for model calibration. The calculated spatiotemporal changes in the past-maximum effective stress showed that plastic consolidation in the clayey layers progressed part by part every summer season resulting in long-term and gradual land subsidence under the same range of groundwater level fluctuations. The results also showed that the plastic deformation occurred in both the Holocene and Pleistocene sediments in the drought years, leading to significant subsidence. The model’s predictive performance showed good potential except for a structural prediction error after the Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. The scenario analysis indicated that management of the groundwater level in summer is one of the effective countermeasures in suppressing land subsidence caused by seasonal groundwater level fluctuations. These methodologies and findings can be used for groundwater management in similar cases around the world. Additional investigation is necessary on the influence of large earthquakes in deformation conditions in order to further improve the developed model.

Underground developments such as subways and shopping facilities have been increasing in number and magnitude in the relatively shallow subsurface of many urban areas where the earth materials commonly are composed of marine sediments. Marine sediments can contain significant amounts of toxic trace elements such as arsenic, boron, and lead. Changes in the subsurface environment caused by excavation and construction in underground developments could potentially cause these toxic elements to be dissolved into pore water of the sediments, which might lead to groundwater pollution. The purpose of this study is to investigate correlations among chemical properties of marine sediments, such as pH and electrical conductivity (EC), concentrations of toxic trace elements, and stratigraphic characteristics of the sediments. We selected three sites with different stratigraphic settings in the southern Kanto Plain around the Tokyo Metropolis. We collected core samples from shallow strata at a site in the Arakawa Lowland, southern Saitama, and at two sites in the Musashino Upland, Middle Tokyo. All sites have both marine and non-marine sediments up to 50–60 m in thickness. We determined trace element concentrations in the pore water, pH, EC, and loss on ignition. The results show that (1) the marine sediments tend to have low pH, high EC, and high sulfur concentration compared to the non-marine sediments (2) the concentration of most of the soluble heavy metals vary depending on the concentration of sulfate, the pH, and the formation processes of the strata, (3) the arsenic concentration is not related to sulfur concentration but apparently to Fe and Al concentrations, (4) the boron concentration is not related to any other properties implying that the boron level is independent of and cannot be predicted by common chemical properties, and (5) for all three sites, concentrations of most of the trace elements, EC, pH, and sulfate concentration were correlated with each other. This study shows that the concentration and potential mobilization of many toxic trace elements in marine sediments could be predicted by easily measurable pore water chemical properties such as pH and EC. This could be useful for predicting and avoiding the risk of groundwater pollution during underground development projects.

Metropolitan Tokyo area in Japan suffered from a strong Asian dust event which was lasted for 3 days from May 6 to May 8 in 2017. Asian dust particles are usually originated from the deserts of Mongolia and Kazakhstan and could be absorbed air pollutants contained the metals, water-soluble and organic matters during transport process. In this research, two sampling sites called 10F (30m height above ground level) and roadside in Saitama were selected to collect five different size particles (PM1.1, PM1.1–2.0, PM2.0–3.3, PM3.3–7.0 and the coarse particles (>7.0 μm) of three different events: (1) before Asian dust event (B.A.), (2) during Asian dust event (D.A.) and (3) after Asian dust event (A.A.). Eight watersoluble ionic and 23 elemental species in D.A. event were higher than other periods. In D.A. event, the ionic contents in 10F were high to 10.3 μg/m3 and the elemental contents in roadside were 6.50 μg/m3 which were higher than those in roadside. Ionic contents were mainly distributed in PM1.1 with the high contents of secondary particles (NH4 +, NO3− and SO42−). Ca2+, Cl− and Na+ were more enriched in the coarse particles. Ion balance in D.A. event was more basic in 10F and more acidic in roadside. The higher ratios of NO3−/SO42− in PM1.1 were also occurred in D.A. event. Total elements were high (6,050 ng/m3) in 10F with the several times increasing in PM3.3–7.0 and the coarse particles, and the great contribution form the crustal elements (Al, Fe, Na, Mg and K). Enrichment factors (EFs) of trace elements in PM1.1 indicating the anthropogenic sources might be the main sources of those ions. EFs in the coarse particles indicating high concentrations of crustal elements might be affected by the Asian dust event. The analysis of air masses backward trajectories showed that the deserts of Mongolia and Kazakhstan and the northern part of China were the important air pollutant origins in Asian dust events with long-distance transport.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or Drones, have recently begun to appear frequently in the television, newspapers and social media for their applicability in various fields of science. Although UAVs have been used in a wide range of atmospheric science, there are few reports of using UAVs for lower layer atmospheric observation available. In my laboratory, harmful black carbon (BC) in ambient particulates was determined based on the observation results of harmful chemicals in the lower boundary layer and atmospheric conditions using UAVs. The ambient particulates in the lower layer atmosphere based on heights can be measured by UAVs at the optional location. In this paper, I want to report the lower layer atmospheric observation of ambient particulates with their chemical species for the first time in Japan. The data transfer devices were loaded into UAVs for the transformation of the results measured at different heights during 2018 in order to develop real-time observations of PM2.5 and PM10 in the lower layer atmosphere of the suburban and urban areas of Saitama city, Japan. Air pollutants transported from the urban areas of metropolitan Tokyo were determined from the real-time results of measurements in the vanity in the morning, noon and afternoon. High concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 were observed around noon in the rural area of Yorii-machi, Saitama prefecture on December 5, 2017 which might be influenced by the polluted air mass from the urban atmosphere. It is clear that different air pollution phenomena can be observed easily by using UAVs real-time atmospheric monitoring.

A report by Maria Shevtsova on the 2016 edition of the biennial Craiova International Shake speare Festival, continuing her coverage of the event in NTQ 112. She pays special attention here to the pièce de résistance of the latest festival – Richard II with the Saitama Arts Theatre, directed by Yukio Ninagawa, whose death occurred barely a month later: this article is also a tribute to a world-renowned man of the theatre. Maria Shevtsova is co-editor of New Theatre Quarterly and Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts in the Department of Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of London.

The leaching behavior of arsenic (As), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), iron (Fe), and manganese (Mn) was investigated from subsurface core sediment of marine and nonmarine depositional environments in central Kanto Plain, Japan. A four-step sequential extraction technique was adopted to determine the chemical speciation, potential mobility, and bioavailability of metals under natural conditions in variable depositional environments. In addition, a correlation of these properties with pore water and total metal content was carried out. The concentration of As in pore water was found to be 2–3 times higher than the permissible limit (10 µg/L) for drinking water and leachate in fluvial, transitional, and marine environments. The trend of potential mobile fractions of As, Pb, and Ni showed Fe–Mn oxide bound > carbonate bound > ion exchangeable bound > water soluble in the fluvial environment. However, in the marine environment, it showed Fe–Mn oxide bound > water soluble > carbonate bound > ion exchangeable bound for As. The leaching of As in this fluvial environment is due to the organic matter-mediated, reductive dissolution of Fe–Mn oxide bound, where Mn is the scavenger. The amount of total content of As and sulfur (S) in transitional sediment reflects an elevated level of leachate in pore water, which is controlled by S reduction. However, the leaching of As in marine sediment is controlled by pH and organic matter content.

To determine whether current seismicity continues to be affected by large historical earthquakes, we investigated the correlation between current seismicity in Japan and the static stress changes in the Coulomb Failure Function (ΔCFF) due to eight large historical earthquakes (since 1923, magnitude ≥ 6.5) with a strike-slip mechanism. The ΔCFF was calculated for two types of receiver faults: the mainshock and the focal mechanisms of recent moderate earthquakes. We found that recent seismicity for the mainshock receiver faults is concentrated in the positive ΔCFF regions of four earthquakes (the 1927 Tango, 1943 Tottori, 1948 Fukui, and 2000 Tottori-Ken Seibu earthquakes), while no such correlations are recognizable for the other four earthquakes (the 1931 Nishi-Saitama, 1963 Wakasa Bay, 1969 Gifu-Ken Chubu, and 1984 Nagano-Ken Seibu earthquakes). The probability distribution of the ΔCFF calculated for the recent focal mechanisms clearly indicates that recent earthquakes concentrate in positive ΔCFF regions, suggesting that the current seismicity may be affected by a number of large historical earthquakes. The proposed correlation between the ΔCFF and recent seismicity may be affected by multiple factors controlling aftershock activity or decay time.

Today, countries around the world are continuing to advance economically, putting a great strain on the ability of the natural environment to process the high level of pollutants being created. In recent years, the increase in fossil fuel consumption, especially in China, is significant, due to advancing economic development. Air pollution, such as suspended particle matter emitted from anthropogenic sources, has already become a serious regional problem for the urban environment, and could be an important inhibitory factor for sustainable development. In this paper, the atmospheric inorganic compositions of three urban areas – Saitama city in the Tokyo metropolitan area, Nagasaki city in Japan and Shanghai metropolitan area in China – were determined during the winter of 2015. The results showed that water-soluble components such as sulfate ion (SO42–), nitrate ion (NO3–) and potassium ion (K+), as secondary particles of anthropogenic combustion sources, increase in the order of Shanghai > Nagasaki > Saitama, and are several times higher in Shanghai compared with those of the other sampling sites. It was confirmed that serious air pollution events create nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides are caused by fossil fuel consumption. It might be possible that the urban air pollutants of fossil-fuel-burning sources were transported to Japan by “long-range transportation”. As we can see from the analytical results from the Shanghai urban area, the main source of anthropogenic pollution is commonly the exhaust emitted from motor vehicles. However, trace elements such as arsenic (As), selenium (Se), vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) of coal and petroleum oil combustion were higher in the Nagasaki urban area than in the Saitama urban area. It was indicated that the urban air pollution in Shanghai, due to the presence of inorganic components caused by seasonal energy consumption, were much higher than in Japan during the winter sampling periods. It could be considered that the air pollutants were transported to Japan via long-range transportation. According to these experimental findings, it is evident that China’s energy structure requires improvement if progress is to be made in sustainable development.

Soil‐water‐characteristic‐dependent (SWC‐dependent) models to predict the gas diffusion coefficient, D P , in undisturbed soil have only been tested within limited ranges of pore‐size distribution and total porosity. Andisols (volcanic ash soils) exhibit unusually high porosities and water retention properties. The Campbell SWC model and two Campbell SWC‐based models for predicting D P in undisturbed soil were tested against SWC and D P data for 18 Andisols and four Gray‐lowland (paddy field) soils from Japan. The Campbell model accurately described SWC data for all 22 soils within the matric potential range from ≈ −10 to −15000 cm H 2 O. The SWC‐dependent Buckingham‐Burdine‐Campbell (BBC) gas diffusivity model predicted D P data well within the same matric potential range for the 18 Andisols. The BBC model showed a minor but systematic underprediction of D P for three out of the four Gray‐lowland soils, likely due to a blocky soil structure with internal fissures. A recent D P model that also takes into account macroporosity performed nearly as well as the BBC model. However, D P in the macropore region (air‐filled pores >30 μm) was consistently underpredicted, likely due to high continuity of the macropore system in both Andisols and Gray‐lowland soils. In agreement with previous model tests for 21 European soils (representing lower porosities and water retention properties), both SWC‐dependent D P models gave better predictions for the 22 Japanese soils than soil‐type independent models. Combining D P and SWC data, a so‐called gas diffusion fingerprint (GDF) plot to describe soil aeration potential is proposed.