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Oral corticosteroids (OCS) are frequently used for asthma treatment. This medication is highly effective for both acute and chronic diseases, but evidence indicates that indiscriminate OCS use is common, posing a risk of serious side effects and irreversible harm. There is now an urgent need to introduce OCS stewardship approaches, akin to successful initiatives that optimized appropriate antibiotic usage. The aim of this TSANZ (Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand) position paper is to review current knowledge pertaining to OCS use in asthma and then delineate principles of OCS stewardship. Recent evidence indicates overuse and over-reliance on OCS for asthma and that doses >1000 mg prednisolone-equivalent cumulatively are likely to have serious side effects and adverse outcomes. Patient perspectives emphasize the detrimental impacts of OCS-related side effects such as weight gain, insomnia, mood disturbances and skin changes. Improvements in asthma control and prevention of exacerbations can be achieved by improved inhaler technique, adherence to therapy, asthma education, smoking cessation, multidisciplinary review, optimized medications and other strategies. Recently, add-on therapies including novel biological agents and macrolide antibiotics have demonstrated reductions in OCS requirements. Harm reduction may also be achieved through identification and mitigation of predictable adverse effects. OCS stewardship should entail greater awareness of appropriate indications for OCS prescription, risk–benefits of OCS medications, side effects, effective add-on therapies and multidisciplinary review. If implemented, OCS stewardship can ensure that clinicians and patients with asthma are aware that OCS should not be used lightly, while providing reassurance that asthma can be controlled in most people without frequent use of OCS.

The technical activities of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) are organized under four Strategy Themes: On Farm, Systems, Basin, and Knowledge. Strategy Theme Basin deals with the basin level environmental aspects that affect agricultural water management and their impact on the environment. This review of Strategy Theme Basin and its six Working Groups (WG) examines its unique multi-disciplinary role in delivering ICID's contribution to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), its effectiveness in meeting that role, and its future needs toward fulfilling that role. A formal set of objectives, of mechanisms to meet those objectives, and of suitable outputs for Strategy Theme Basin are proposed. Recommendations for future activities of the WG are made to improve multi-disciplinary collaborations with relevant outside organizations, to facilitate greater participation by ICID members, to improve WG functionality, and to effectively disseminate knowledge to IWRM professionals. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper draws on theories of nodal governance and discursive framing to investigate the rhetorical strategies adopted by campaigners in the ongoing contest over access to medicines and the protection of intellectual property rights in Kenya. It focuses specifically on debates surrounding the implementation of the WTO's TRIPs Agreement in 2001 and the passage of anti-counterfeit legislation in 2008. A survey of parliamentary debates and media sources, as well as interviews conducted with key participants, indicates that “the nation” provided a common overarching frame for arguments made by opposing sides to these debates. The salience of specifically national considerations confirms our view that studies of framing and health governance need to extend their focus beyond developments in international and developed country fora. It also highlights the continued purchase of the national interest as a means of mobilizing the key state institutions needed to implement global legal regimes in Africa.

Due to the extremely corrosive environments inside many exhaust ducts fabricated from combustible materials, the mechanical integrity of fire sprinkler system components is often prematurely compromised, leaving the system unable to protect against fires originating within these ducts [FM Global Loss Prevention Data Sheet, 7–78, Industrial Exhaust System, 2011; Understanding the Hazard, Fire in Industrial Exhaust Systems, FM Global, Johnston, RI, 2006]. Pilot testing of a new fire sprinkler system was conducted to protect the fiber-reinforced plastic duct at a nitric/hydrofluoric (HF/HNO3) mixed acid pickling operation. Based on previous laboratory and field tests [Su and Doerr, Process Saf Prog 29 (2010) 70–78], this fire sprinkler system was composed of corrosion resistant sprinkler nozzles, a linear heat detector, flexible mounting connections, sprinkler piping, and controls. Pilot testing results have led to development and recommendation of a new fire protection system capable of protecting combustible exhaust ducts from fire in extremely corrosive environments. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 32: 277–282, 2013

Summary All biological tissues are three dimensional and contain structures that span a range of length scales from nanometres through to hundreds of millimetres. These are not ideally suited to current three-dimensional characterization techniques such as X-ray or transmission electron tomography. Such detailed morphological analysis is critical to understanding the structural features relevant to tissue function and designing therapeutic strategies intended to address structural deficiencies encountered in pathological states. We show that use of focused ion beam milling combined with scanning electron microscopy can provide three-dimensional information at nanometre resolution from biologically relevant volumes of material, in this case dentine.

Parvalbumins constitute a class of calcium-binding proteins characterized by the presence of several helix-loop-helix (EF-hand) motifs. In a previous study (Revett SP, King G, Shabanowitz J, Hunt DF, Hartman KL, Laue TM, Nelson DJ, 1997, Protein Sci 7:2397-2408), we presented the sequence of the major parvalbumin isoform from the silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis) and presented spectroscopic and structural information on the excised "EF-hand" portion of the protein. In this study, the X-ray crystal structure of the silver hake major parvalbumin has been determined to high resolution, in the frozen state, using the molecular replacement method with the carp parvalbumin structure as a starting model. The crystals are orthorhombic, space group C2221, with a = 75.7 A, b = 80.7 A, and c = 42.1 A. Data were collected from a single crystal grown in 15% glycerol, which served as a cryoprotectant for flash freezing at -188 degrees C. The structure refined to a conventional R-value of 21% (free R 25%) for observed reflections in the range 8 to 1.65 A [1 > 2sigma(I)]. The refined model includes an acetylated amino terminus, 108 residues (characteristic of a beta parvalbumin lineage), 2 calcium ions, and 114 water molecules per protein molecule. The resulting structure was used in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations focused primarily on the dynamics of the ligands coordinating the Ca2+ ions in the CD and EF sites. MD simulations were performed on both the fully Ca2+ loaded protein and on a Ca2+ deficient variant, with Ca2+ only in the CD site. There was substantial agreement between the MD and X-ray results in addressing the issue of mobility of key residues in the calcium-binding sites, especially with regard to the side chain of Ser55 in the CD site and Asp92 in the EF site.

This study investigates the self-assembly of simple aliphatic diamines with a dendritic peptide. By controlling the molar ratio of this two-component system, new nanoscale morphologies were generated. In the presence of relatively long aliphatic chains (C10. C12) a transition from nanoscale fibres to platelets was observed on changing the molar ratio, whereas, for shorter spacer chains (e.g.. C9 and C8), interesting and unique morphological changes were observed by low voltage field emission gun scanning electron microscopy (SEM), with "nano-squares" or nanoscale "rosette" structures being formed. Remarkably, these discrete nanoscale structures were able to form sample-spanning networks capable of supporting a gel-phase material: whereas, most gels are usually based on fibrillar assemblies. In addition to SEM, the gels were characterised by using thermal measurements and circular dichroism spectroscopy. The length of the diamine spacer and the molar ratio of components controlled the self-assembly process by modifying the spatial organisation of the dendritic head groups at the molecular level, which is transcribed into the aspect ratio of the self-assembled state at the microscopic level. Ultimately, this led to diamine-induced control of the macroscopic material's behaviour. When present in excess, the diamine controlled the observed nanoscale morphology as a consequence of undergoing a dendritically controlled nanocrystallisation process to form a network, an unusual and significant result.

In June 2004 voters in the Republic of Ireland endorsed a constitutional amendment to deprive children born on the island of Ireland of their previously automatic right to Irish citizenship. This change came amid increasing immigration and so-called ‘baby tourism’, whereby non-national mothers were alleged to be coming to Ireland to give birth for the sole purpose of bestowing Irish citizenship on their children. This article sets the referendum in its historical and contemporary context. Along with recent jurisprudence of the Irish Supreme Court, the amendment betokens a distinctive biopolitics orchestrated according to neo-liberal themes consonant with Ireland's membership of the European Union and its foreign direct investment strategy. As such, the amendment confirms the shift in Irish constitutional history from autarkic nationalism to cosmopolitan post-nationalism embodied in the Belfast Agreement of 1998.

Lord Denning played an important role in the establishment and development of legal education and lawyers' training in Africa from the late 1950s onwards. By exploring this involvement it is possible to add to existing work on Denning's vision of the role of law and legal professionalism. In post-colonial Africa, order and stability were best assured by a cadre of lawyers imbued with the virtues characteristic of English practitioners over the centuries. These ineffable qualities could only be apprehended through direct contact with English lawyers and, to a lesser extent, law teachers. These views are born of the tension between universalism and nationalism in Denning's legal thought.

Computational support for concurrent engineering design presents a number of issues in the design of knowledge-based systems. A fundamental concern is the need to provide the life-cycle perspective in recommending design alternatives. It is argued that such a complex knowledge-based system should be distributed, due to the inherent problems with large knowledge bases and the maintenance of consistency. Inconsistent local views of a problem and different priorities on design issues are expected between different knowledge-based design perspectives. These inconsistencies and different priorities will lead inherently to conflict which has to be resolved. This paper addresses the issues and key variables in conflict resolution and presents a strategy that can be applied for managing the conflict resolution process. We propose negotiation as the method of analysing a conflict situation, applying an appropriate conflict resolution strategy and monitoring its performance. We present an overview of the nature of conflict and some conflict resolution strategies, and see in what situations certain strategies are appropriate.