Long-term macrolide maintenance therapy in non-CF bronchiectasis: Evidence and questions

Striking a Balance:Christianity and the Challenges of Long-Term Human Security in Zimbabwe

African evangelical/Pentecostal/charismatic (EPC) Christians-previously dismissed by scholars as apolitical-are becoming increasingly active socially and politically. This chapter presents a case study of an EPC congregation in Harare. It demonstrates how the congregation provides short-term human security by responding to the needs of the poor, while at the same time creating space where people can develop the "self-expression values" necessary for long-term human security. The case study also demonstrates that even under authoritarian states, religious actors can actively choose to balance the immediate demands of short-term human security with the sometimes competing demands of long-term human security. Policymakers can benefit from a greater understanding of how religious actors strike this balance and from a greater appreciation of the variability, flexibility, and religious resources of EPC Christians in such contexts.

Evolution of microstructure and changes of mechanical properties of CLAM steel after long-term aging

The China Low Activation Martensitic (CLAM) steel has been developed as a candidate structural material for future fusion reactors. It is essential to investigate the evolution of microstructure and changes of mechanical properties of CLAM steel during thermal exposure. In this study, the long-term thermal aging of the CLAM steel has been carried out in air at 600 °C and 650 °C for 1100 h, 3000 h and 5000 h. The microstructural evolution with aging time was studied, including characteristics of the growth of M23C6 carbides and the formation of Laves-phase precipitates as well as the evolved subgrains. The microstructural evolution leads to the changes of mechanical properties of the CLAM steel. The Ductile–Brittle Transition Temperature (DBTT) increases significantly during the thermal aging, which is related to the formation of Laves-phase in the steel matrix. The possible mechanism of stabilizing microstructure during the thermal exposure has been analyzed based on the interaction between M23C6 carbides and subgrain boundaries.

Reviewing the Literature on the Breakdown of Foster Care Placements for Young People: Complexity and the Social Work Task

Young people in long-term foster care are at risk of experiencing poor social, emotional, behavioural and educational outcomes. Moreover, these placements have a significantly greater chance of breaking down compared to those involving children. This article critically evaluates the factors associated with this particular outcome. It was carried out through a literature review conducted by a social work practitioner in one Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland. The findings evidenced that, apart from overriding safety concerns, placement breakdown was not a one-off event but rather a complex process involving the interplay between a range of dynamic risk and protective factors over time, operating in the wider context of the young person’s history and life experiences. The significance of these findings for social work practitioners is finally considered by identifying key theories to inform understanding and intervention.

Long-Term Imprisonment in Northern Ireland:Psychological or Political Survival?

The chapter reviews the literature on the affects of long-term imprisonment with a focus on concepts of psychological survival, learned helplessness and institutionalization. It then discusses trends in imprisonment in Northern Ireland and the exceptionally high proportion of prisoners serving life sentences. Through interviews with prisoners and their relatives, a critique of the literature is made in terms of the failure to take account of cases of collective prisoner organization and strong political motivation.

Long-Term Economic Model for Allocation of FACTS Devices in Restructured Power System Integrated Wind Generation

This study proposes an approach to optimally allocate multiple types of flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices in market-based power systems with wind generation. The main objective is to maximise profit by minimising device investment cost, and the system's operating cost considering both normal conditions and possible contingencies. The proposed method accurately evaluates the long-term costs and benefits gained by FACTS devices (FDs) installation to solve a large-scale optimisation problem. The objective implies maximising social welfare as well as minimising compensations paid for generation re-scheduling and load shedding. Many technical operation constraints and uncertainties are included in problem formulation. The overall problem is solved using both particle swarm optimisations for attaining optimal FDs allocation as main problem and optimal power flow as sub-optimisation problem. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated on modified IEEE 14-bus test system and IEEE 118-bus test system.

Slug-dependent upregulation of L1CAM is responsible for the increased invasion potential of pancreatic cancer cells following long-term 5-FU treatment

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is a lethal disease with 5-year survival of less than 5%. 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is a principal first-line therapy, but treatment only extends survival modestly and is seldom curative. Drug resistance and disease recurrence is typical and there is a pressing need to overcome this. To investigate acquired 5-FU resistance in pancreatic adenocarcinoma, we established chemoresistant monoclonal cell lines from the Panc 03.27 cell line by long-term exposure to increasing doses of 5-FU.

RESULTS: 5-FU-resistant cell lines exhibited increased expression of markers associated with multidrug resistance explaining their reduced sensitivity to 5-FU. In addition, 5-FU-resistant cell lines showed alterations typical for an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), including upregulation of mesenchymal markers and increased invasiveness. Microarray analysis revealed the L1CAM pathway as one of the most upregulated pathways in the chemoresistant clones, and a significant upregulation of L1CAM was seen on the RNA and protein level. In pancreatic cancer, expression of L1CAM is associated with a chemoresistant and migratory phenotype. Using esiRNA targeting L1CAM, or by blocking the extracellular part of L1CAM with antibodies, we show that the increased invasiveness observed in the chemoresistant cells functionally depends on L1CAM. Using esiRNA targeting β-catenin and/or Slug, we demonstrate that in the chemoresistant cell lines, L1CAM expression depends on Slug rather than β-catenin.

CONCLUSION: Our findings establish Slug-induced L1CAM expression as a mediator of a chemoresistant and migratory phenotype in pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells.

Homogenization and analysis of an expanded long-term monthly rainfall network for the Island of Ireland (1850–2010)

Long-term precipitation series are critical for understanding emerging changes to the hydrological cycle. To this end we construct a homogenized Island of Ireland Precipitation (IIP) network comprising 25 stations and a composite series covering the period 1850–2010, providing the second-longest regional precipitation archive in the British-Irish Isles. We expand the existing catalogue of long-term precipitation records for the island by recovering archived data for an additional eight stations. Following bridging and updating of stations HOMogenisation softwarE in R (HOMER) homogenization software is used to detect breaks using pairwise and joint detection. A total of 25 breakpoints are detected across 14 stations, and the majority (20) are corroborated by metadata. Assessment of variability and change in homogenized and extended precipitation records reveal positive (winter) and negative (summer) trends. Trends in records covering the typical period of digitization (1941 onwards) are not always representative of longer records. Furthermore, trends in post-homogenization series change magnitude and even direction at some stations. While cautionary flags are raised for some series, confidence in the derived network is high given attention paid to metadata, coherence of behaviour across the network and consistency of findings with other long-term climatic series such as England and Wales precipitation. As far as we are aware, this work represents the first application of HOMER to a long-term precipitation network and bodes well for use in other regions. It is expected that the homogenized IIP network will find wider utility in benchmarking and supporting climate services across the Island of Ireland, a sentinel location in the North Atlantic.