A number of chronic respiratory diseases including chronic bronchitis, asthma, cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis are characterized by mucus hypersecretion. Following damage to the airway epithelium, a repair process of dedifferentiation, regenerative proliferation and redifferentiation takes place that is invariably accompanied by mucus hypersecretion as a key element in the host defence mechanism. In chronic respiratory diseases, however, excessive mucus production leads to a pathological state with increased risk of infection, hospitalization and morbidity. An understanding of the mechanisms that underlie and maintain this hypersecretory phenotype is therefore crucial for the development of rational approaches to therapy.

Despite a high and increasing prevalence and cost to healthcare services and society, mucus hypersecretion in chronic respiratory disease has received little attention until recently, probably because of the difficulties inherent in studying this pathology. Only in the last few years have some of the genes involved in mucus secretion been characterized. The recent availability of genomic sequence information and specific antibodies has led to an explosion of interest in this area making this publication particularly timely.

This book draws together contributions from an international and interdisciplinary group of experts, whose work is focused on both basic and clinical aspects of the problem. Coverage includes epidemiology, airways infection and mucus hypersecretion, the genetics and regulation of mucus production, models of mucus hypersecretion, and the implications of new knowledge for the development of novel therapies.

Environmental toxicology is the study of the action of chemicals upon ecosystems. Understanding the effects of exogenous chemicals upon the inhabitants of an ecosystem may enable us to predict and possibly prevent their deleterious effects. This textbook provides a good general introduction to all the major areas of environmental toxicology, including the fate of chemicals in the environment, environmental toxicity testing, risk assessment, radioactivity in the environment, legislation, environmental monitoring and the future impact of industrial development on the environment. It is written in an informal, accessible style with many examples of environmental issues taken from the author's personal experience and will provide students and other interested individuals with a broad overview of the science of environmental toxicology.

Social and medical developments during the past century have led to a dramatic increase in life expectancy and hence populations in countries of the developed world in which up to half of adults are in the age range of 60-100. This has encouraged the study of organismic changes associated with healthy ageing, of which an early example is the erosion of homeostatic capabilities in multiple endocrine systems.

This book reviews and discusses the most recent advances in the understanding of the endocrine facets of ageing, drawing together findings from both basic and clinical research. The questions addressed include the following: what are the relative magnitudes and time courses of different endocrine adaptations in the ageing human and experimental animal? How do external factors influence the rates of progression of endocrine sequelae of ageing? What mechanisms underlie the disarray of endocrine axes in ageing? And what are the implications of therapeutic reconstitution with hormones in ageing? By bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of experts, the book reviews much new and exciting work in this area and serves to identify promising new research directions.

Conflict is at the heart of life. It impacts relationships of the heart, the home, the community, and at work. Most flee from it, some embrace it, but few learn how to master conflict and productively transform it into a consensus. Author Robert Chadwick is one of those few. For over forty years, he has been helping individuals and communities experience and learn how to best address their personal, interpersonal, and intergroup conflicts. In Finding New Ground, he shares his insights and a process from his storied career as a conflict resolution manager. He shows readers how to apply these insights and the process in their own life situations, finding new ground in their relationships, creating a path to a way of being that changes everyone around them. The author's purpose is to help you experience, learn, and understand a process for addressing and resolving conflicts and building consensus with 100 percent agreement. The book informs readers on how people define conflict, their feelings about it, what causes it, the arenas in which it occurs, and why conflict must always be confronted. It demonstrates why people avoid resolving their conflicts. It demonstrates what a true consensus is and why it is always possible. A central section of the book explores an intergroup conflict that erupts over the use of a fictional river basin in the American West. This fictional account is based on Chadwick's real-life experience, providing a context for learning about the process in a real way. You are part of the story as a co-facilitator with the author. Throughout this story the actual words and statements of previous workshop participants are used to create a sense of reality. Through this story, the reader will vicariously experience and understand the complexity of this simple consensus building process and learn how to apply the skills and tools for finding new ground. These include the use of the circle, listening with respect, empowering yourself and others, creating a sense of equity, and fostering a sense of community. This real life situation shows how a conflict-riddled group moved from divisiveness and animosity to consensus while they crafted a short term purpose, a long term vision, articulated shared beliefs, and developed a common strategic plan. His model of consensus building has worked across different cultures. It has been deployed in countries like India, Thailand, Canada, Hong Kong, Russia, and Belgium. His workshop participants cut a wide swath through contemporary society, ranging from loggers and librarians to police officers, educators, and professional managers. His methods have been used by people from a range of ages, from kindergarten students to senior citizens in their ninth decade of life. Chadwick's book presents a proven transformative model for addressing contemporary conflicts and building consensus. Individuals, families, community, churches, and businesses all stand to learn a lot from his unique approach to finding new ground. His method is grounded in reality, and through building consensus allows participants to move beyond the hostility of conflict to fostering the creation of civility and community.

The heart beats an estimated three billion times during the lifespan of the average person. Each of these cycles of contraction depends on specialized cardiac tissues involved in the rhythmic generation and coordinated spread of electrical excitation. Collectively, these tissues are known as the pacemaking and conduction system—the PCS.

Since the PCS is vital for generating and synchronizing the heartbeat, its dysfunction can be a direct cause of cardiac conduction disturbance, arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Recent advances have meant that the cellular and molecular mechanisms governing the development of the PCS in tissues are now starting to be understood. This book brings together a group of leading researchers to discuss emerging concepts in this exciting field. In particular, the new understanding of the cellular origin and the molecular induction of PCS tissues during embryogenesis, together with the burgeoning technology of stem cell manipulation, provides the foundation for tissue engineering, replacement and repair of PCS tissues in humans. The book also identifies therapeutic targets arising from basic discoveries in the developmental biology of cardiac pacemaking and conduction tissues.

The origins of Western medicine and the ideal of ethical practice, as well as the origin of the scientific method are revealed in these writings by Hippocrates and other medical pioneers.

Two years of intense and often dramatic negotiations culminated in the signing of a Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This compelling book reconstructs the dynamics of those negotiations, based on eye-witness accounts. The main contributors, each a principal player in the drama, have been selected to reflect the perspectives of the most important interest groups and institutions involved in the negotiations, including the OECD, oil-importing developing nations, private industry and non-governmental organisations. These individual accounts are integrated into an edited volume that provides a multi-dimensional assessment of the negotiating process, focusing on the competitive and co-operative interactions among nations, regional alliances, international institutions, corporations and non-governmental organisations.