Factors in assessing effectiveness of orientation programs for public welfare caseworkers; a group project

A study done in 1968-1969 by students at Portland State University School of Social Work at the request of the Oregon State Public Welfare Commission Staff Development Division sought to devise an instrument for assessing the effectiveness of teaching the casework principles of Felix P. Biestek to casework trainees :in the public welfare\u27s orientation program. The test instrument developed was found to have low, but acceptable, internal reliability. Building en the previous year\u27s work, this 1969-1970 study sought to determine the validity of the test instrument by relating test scores to two measures of job performance, namely the latest supervisory civil service rating and a self-rating. Data was collected on thirty of the original test group. The test instrument was determined to be invalid on the basis of these assessments which used measures of total job performance as validating criteria. The study group concluded that the instrument should not be used by itself to determine the effectiveness of teaching casework principles to caseworkers in a public welfare orientation program. While the instrument was being tested, it was recognized that orientation training covers more than just Biestek’s casework principles. Other types of knowledge are also needed for caseworkers to perform effectively on their jobs. Consequently, the scope of the project was enlarged to include an exploration of other factors in caseworker development during orientation. To explore other factors, two instruments were used. One was a questionnaire developed by the group to obtain background information and to measure some attitudes of the caseworker toward his job and the welfare agency. The second was an instrument borrowed from the Oregon State Fish Commission for determining job satisfaction attitudes. The findings of the questionnaire indicated that informal training and supervision were important in caseworker development. The importance of supervision was reinforced by responses given to the survey of job satisfaction attitudes. The survey elicited complaints about bureaucratic agencies, i.e., the red tape, little use or trying of innovative methods, and poor communications within the agency and to the public. In view of the findings, the study group made six recommendations to the Oregon State Public Welfare Division regarding their orientation and staff development program. The study conclusions state that further research is needed (1) to define the casework job and then develop a test to measure a worker’s competency; (2) to develop tools to determine the social work attitudes, knowledge, and skills of the bachelor level service worker; and (3) to investigate use of the structured versus unstructured situation for teaching new caseworkers

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Reaction of carbon disulfide with azide ion

Carbon disulfide reacts with azide ion to form the 1,2,3,4-thiatriazolinethionate ion and not the acyclic azido dithiocarbonate ion as previously reported. A series of salts of thiatriazoline have been prepared and none shows evidence for the presence of the azido group. Esters of thiatriazolinethione prepared by the reaction of the sodium salt with alkyl or acyl halides have been found to be either 5-(substituted) mercapto-1,2,3,4-thiatriazoles or 4-substituted 1,2,3,4-thiatriazoline-5-thiones. These structures have been assigned on the basis of degradative and spectroscopic evidence. The chemistry of the so-called azidodithiocarbonates has been reinterpreted in terms of the thiatriazole structure

Synthesis and absorption spectra of 5-(substituted) amino-1,2,3-thiadiazoles

This article does not have an abstract

Improved procedure for condensation of alkyl azides with phenylacetonitrile to form vic-triazoles

This article does not have an abstract