This Executive Summary of the Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of COPD (GOLD) 2017 Report focuses primarily on the revised and novel parts of the document. The most significant changes include: 1) the assessment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has been refined to separate the spirometric assessment from symptom evaluation. ABCD groups are now proposed to be derived exclusively from patient symptoms and their history of exacerbations; 2) for each of the groups A to D, escalation strategies for pharmacological treatments are proposed; 3) the concept of de-escalation of therapy is introduced in the treatment assessment scheme; 4) nonpharmacologic therapies are comprehensively presented and; 5) the importance of comorbid conditions in managing COPD is reviewed.

Inflammatory lung diseases are characterised by increased expression of multiple inflammatory genes that are regulated by proinflammatory transcription factors, such as nuclear factor-kB. Gene expression is regulated by acetylation of core histones through the action of coactivators, such as CREB-binding protein, with intrinsic histone acetyltransferase (HAT) activity.Conversely, gene repression is mediated via histone deacetylases (HDACs) and other corepressors. In asthma, there is an increase in HAT activity and some reduction in HDAC activity, which is restored by corticosteroid therapy. Corticosteroids switch off inflammatory genes in asthma through the inhibition of HAT activity and by the recruitment of HDAC2 to the activated inflammatory gene complex. In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, there is a reduction in HDAC2 activity and expression, which may account for the amplified inflammation and resistance to the actions of corticosteroids. The reduction in HDAC2 may be secondary to oxidative and nitrative stress as a result of cigarette smoking and severe inflammation, and may also occur in severe asthma, smoking asthmatic patients and cystic fibrosis.Similar mechanisms may also account for the steroid resistance seen with latent adenovirus infections. The reduction in histone deacetylase activity can be restored by theophylline, which may be able to reverse steroid resistance in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other inflammatory diseases.

We carried out an unbiased survey for massive dense cores in the giant molecular cloud associated with η Carinae with the NANTEN telescope in 12 CO, 13 CO, and C 18 O J = 1-0 emission lines. We identified 15 C 18 O cores, whose typical line width ∆V comp , radius r, mass M , column density N (H 2 ), and average number density n(H 2 ) were 3.3 km s −1 , 2.2 pc, 2.6×10 3 M ⊙ , 1.3×10 22 cm −2 , and 1.2×10 3 cm −3 , respectively. Two of the 15 cores are associated with IRAS point sources whose luminosities are larger than 10 4 L ⊙ , which indicates that massive star formation is occuring within these cores. Five cores including the two with IRAS sources are associated with MSX point sources. We detected H 13 CO + (J = 1-0) emission toward 4 C 18 O cores, two of which are associated with IRAS and MSX point sources, another one is associated only with an MSX point source, and the other is associated with neither IRAS nor MSX point sources. The core with neither IRAS nor MSX point sources shows the presence of a bipolar molecular outflow in 12 CO (J = 2-1), which indicates that star formation is also occuring in the core, and the other three of the four H 13 CO + detections show wing-like emission. In total, six C 18 O cores out of 15 (= 40%) are experienced star formation, and at least 2 of 15 (= 13 %) are massive-star forming cores in the η Car GMC. We found that massive star formation occurs preferentially in cores with larger N (H 2 ), M , n(H 2 ), and smaller ratio of M vir /M . We also found that the cores in the η Car GMC are characterized by large ∆V and M vir /M on average compared to the cores in other GMCs observed with the same telescope. These properties of the cores may account for the fact that as much as 60-87 % of the cores do not show any signs of massive star formation. We investigated the origin of a large amount of turbulence in the η Car GMC. We found that turbulence injection from stellar winds, molecular outflows, and supernova remnants which originated from stars formed within the GMC, are not enough to explain the existing turbulence. We propose the possibility that the large turbulence was pre-existing when the GMC was formed, and is now dissipating. Mechanisms such as multiple supernova explosions in the Carina flare supershell may have contributed to form a GMC with a large amount of turbulence.

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ALMA will revolutionize our understanding of star formation within our galaxy, but before we can use ALMA we need to know where to look. The Millimeter Astronomy Legacy Team 90 GHz (MALT90) Survey is a large international project to map the molecular line emission of over 2,000 dense clumps in the Galactic plane. MALT90 serves as a pathfinder mission for ALMA, providing a large public database of dense molecular clumps associated with high-mass star formation. In this proceedings, we describe the survey parameters and share early science highlights from the survey, including (1) a comparison between galactic and extragalactic star formation relations, (2) chemical trends in MALT90 clumps, (3) the distribution of high-mass star formation in the Milky Way, and (4) a discussion of the "Brick", the target of successful ALMA Cycle 0 and Cycle 1 proposals.

We describe a new mm-wave molecular-line mapping survey of the southern Galactic Plane and its first data releases. The Three-mm Ultimate Mopra Milky Way Survey (ThrUMMS) maps a 60 • ×2 • sector of our Galaxy's fourth quadrant, using a combination of fast mapping techniques with the Mopra radio telescope, simultaneously in the J=1→0 lines of 12 CO, 13 CO, C 18 O, and CN near 112 GHz at ∼arcminute and ∼0.3 km s −1 resolution, with ∼2 K channel −1 sensitivity for 12 CO and ∼1 K channel −1 for the other transitions. The calibrated data cubes from these observations are made available to the community after processing through our pipeline. Here, we describe the motivation for ThrUMMS, the development of new observing techniques for Mopra, and how these techniques were optimised to the objectives of the survey. We showcase some sample data products and describe the first science results on CO-isotopologue line ratios. These vary dramatically across the Galactic Plane, indicating a very wide range of optical depth and excitation conditions, from warm and translucent to cold and opaque. The population of cold clouds in particular have optical depths for 12 CO easily exceeding 100. We derive a new, nonlinear conversion law from 12 CO integrated intensity to column density, which suggests that the molecular mass traced by CO in the Galactic disk may have been substantially underestimated. This further suggests that some global relationships in disk galaxies, such as star formation laws, may need to be recalibrated. The large ThrUMMS team is proceeding with several other science investigations.

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