Humanitarian welfare values in a changing social environment: A survey of social work undergraduate students in Beijing and Shanghai

• Summary: Internationally accepted social work values are based on ideas about rights, social justice and equitable resource distribution. Does social work education in China embody similar values? Are these values influenced by culture and the current political/economic environment? The research posed three questions. Do social work students studying in metropolitan China support humanitarian welfare values? Are values affected by demographic backgrounds? Does social work education enhance humanitarian values? A self-administered, standardized questionnaire was distributed in 26 classes of social work students studying in seven universities in Beijing and Shanghai (n = 1328).• Findings: Students do not support humanitarian welfare values strongly; and a decrease in these values was observed in senior students. Significant differences in values were found based on gender and on rural/urban origins. Female students were more likely to agree with humanitarian value statements; rural and urban students tended to agree more with values from which they had potential to benefit.• Applications: Social work knowledge and skills rather than values maybe more immediately relevant to Chinese society. However, independent professional practitioners need a solid foundation of professional values to inform practice and standardize the social work role. There needs to be an ongoing debate in China involving social work educators and practitioners about values and their relation to Chinese society, the ways in which they are influenced by non-Chinese cultures; and how to infuse these consistently into social work curricula in Chinese universities. © The Author(s) 2010.postprin

Iron-catalysed propylene epoxidation by nitrous oxide: dramatic shift of allylic oxidation to epoxidation by the modification with alkali metal salts

A dramatic shift of allylic oxidation to epoxidation has been observed during the oxidation of propylene by N2O when the FeOx/SBA-15 catalyst is modified with alkali metal salts, and the roles of alkali metal salts are to suppress the reactivity of lattice oxygen and to induce an iron coordination structure effective for epoxidation with N2O

Cancer stem-like cells from head and neck cancers are chemosensitized by the Wnt antagonist, sFRP4, by inducing apoptosis, decreasing stemness, drug resistance and epithelial to mesenchymal transition

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are defined by high self-renewal and drug refractory potential. Involvement of Wnt/ß-catenin signaling has been implicated in rapidly cycling cells such as CSCs, and inhibition of the Wnt/ß-catenin pathway is a novel approach to target CSCs from HNSCC. In this study, we found that an antagonist of FrzB/Wnt, the secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (sFRP4), inhibited the growth of CSCs from two HNSCC cell lines, Hep2 and KB. We enriched the CD44+ CSC population, and grew them in spheroid cultures. sFRP4 decreased the proliferation and increased the sensitivity of spheroids to a commonly used drug in HNSCC, namely cisplatin. Self-renewal in sphere formation assays decreased upon sFRP4 treatment, and the effect was reverted by the addition of Wnt3a. sFRP4 treatment of spheroids also decreased ß-catenin, confirming its action through the Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway. Quantitative PCR demonstrated a clear decrease of the stemness markers CD44 and ALDH, and an increase in CD24 and drug-resistance markers ABCG2 and ABCC4. Furthermore, we found that after sFRP4 treatment, there was a reversal in the expression of epithelial to mesenchymal (EMT) markers with the restoration of the epithelial marker E-cadherin, and depletion of EMT-specific markers twist, snail and N-cadherin. This is the first report demonstrating that the naturally occurring Wnt inhibitor, sFRP4, can be a potential drug to destroy CSC-enriched spheroids from HNSCCs. The repression of EMT and the decrease in stemness profile further strengthen the use of sFRP4 as a potent therapeutic against CSC

Mediator of DNA Damage Checkpoint 1 (MDC1) Contributes to High NaCl-Induced Activation of the Osmoprotective Transcription Factor TonEBP/OREBP

Background: Hypertonicity, such as induced by high NaCl, increases the activity of the transcription factor TonEBP/OREBP whose target genes increase osmoprotective organic osmolytes and heat shock proteins. Methodology: We used mass spectrometry to analyze proteins that coimmunoprecipitate with TonEBP/OREBP in order to identify ones that might contribute to its high NaCl-induced activation. Principal Findings: We identified 20 unique peptides from Mediator of DNA Damage Checkpoint 1 (MDC1) with high probability. The identification was confirmed by Western analysis. We used small interfering RNA knockdown of MDC1 to characterize its osmotic function. Knocking down MDC1 reduces high NaCl-induced increases in TonEBP/OREBP transcriptional and transactivating activity, but has no significant effect on its nuclear localization. We confirm six previously known phosphorylation sites in MDC1, but do not find evidence that high NaCl increases phosphorylation of MDC1. It is suggestive that MDC1 acts as a DNA damage response protein since hypertonicity reversibly increases DNA breaks, and other DNA damage response proteins, like ATM, also associate with TonEBP/OREBP and contribute to its activation by hypertonicity. Conclusions/Significance: MDC1 associates with TonEBP/OREBP and contributes to high NaCl-induced increase of tha

Diffractive Dijet Production at sqrt(s)=630 and 1800 GeV at the Fermilab Tevatron

We report a measurement of the diffractive structure function $F_{jj}^D$ of the antiproton obtained from a study of dijet events produced in association with a leading antiproton in $\bar pp$ collisions at $\sqrt s=630$ GeV at the Fermilab Tevatron. The ratio of $F_{jj}^D$ at $\sqrt s=630$ GeV to $F_{jj}^D$ obtained from a similar measurement at $\sqrt s=1800$ GeV is compared with expectations from QCD factorization and with theoretical predictions. We also report a measurement of the $\xi$ ($x$-Pomeron) and $\beta$ ($x$ of parton in Pomeron) dependence of $F_{jj}^D$ at $\sqrt s=1800$ GeV. In the region $0.035<\xi<0.095$, $|t|<1$ GeV$^2$ and $\beta<0.5$, $F_{jj}^D(\beta,\xi)$ is found to be of the form $\beta^{-1.0\pm 0.1} \xi^{-0.9\pm 0.1}$, which obeys $\beta$-$\xi$ factorization.Comment: LaTeX, 9 pages, Submitted to Phys. Rev. Letter

A Study of B0 -> J/psi K(*)0 pi+ pi- Decays with the Collider Detector at Fermilab

We report a study of the decays B0 -> J/psi K(*)0 pi+ pi-, which involve the creation of a u u-bar or d d-bar quark pair in addition to a b-bar -> c-bar(c s-bar) decay. The data sample consists of 110 1/pb of p p-bar collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV collected by the CDF detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider during 1992-1995. We measure the branching ratios to be BR(B0 -> J/psi K*0 pi+ pi-) = (8.0 +- 2.2 +- 1.5) * 10^{-4} and BR(B0 -> J/psi K0 pi+ pi-) = (1.1 +- 0.4 +- 0.2) * 10^{-3}. Contributions to these decays are seen from psi(2S) K(*)0, J/psi K0 rho0, J/psi K*+ pi-, and J/psi K1(1270)

Measurement of CP-violation asymmetries in D0 to Ks pi+ pi-

We report a measurement of time-integrated CP-violation asymmetries in the resonant substructure of the three-body decay D0 to Ks pi+ pi- using CDF II data corresponding to 6.0 invfb of integrated luminosity from Tevatron ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The charm mesons used in this analysis come from D*+(2010) to D0 pi+ and D*-(2010) to D0bar pi-, where the production flavor of the charm meson is determined by the charge of the accompanying pion. We apply a Dalitz-amplitude analysis for the description of the dynamic decay structure and use two complementary approaches, namely a full Dalitz-plot fit employing the isobar model for the contributing resonances and a model-independent bin-by-bin comparison of the D0 and D0bar Dalitz plots. We find no CP-violation effects and measure an asymmetry of ACP = (-0.05 +- 0.57 (stat) +- 0.54 (syst))% for the overall integrated CP-violation asymmetry, consistent with the standard model prediction.Comment: 15 page

Facile solution-phase synthesis of γ-Mn3O4 hierarchical structures

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A lot of effort has been focused on the integration of nanorods/nanowire as building blocks into three-dimensional (3D) complex superstructures. But, the development of simple and effective methods for creating novel assemblies of self-supported patterns of hierarchical architectures to designed materials using a suitable chemical method is important to technology and remains an attractive, but elusive goal.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The hierarchical structure of Mn₃O₄with radiated spherulitic nanorods was prepared via a simple solution-based coordinated route in the presence of macrocycle polyamine, hexamethyl-1,4,8,11-tetraazacyclotetradeca-4,11-diene (CT) with the assistance of thiourea as an additive.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This approach opens a new and facile route for the morphogenesis of Mn₃O₄material and it might be extended as a novel synthetic method for the synthesis of other inorganic semiconducting nanomaterials such as metal chalcogenide semiconductors with novel morphology and complex form, since it has been shown that thiourea can be used as an effective additive and the number of such water-soluble macrocyclic polyamines also makes it possible to provide various kinds of ligands for different metals in homogeneous water system.</p

Observation and study of baryonic B decays: B -> D(*) p pbar, D(*) p pbar pi, and D(*) p pbar pi pi

We present a study of ten B-meson decays to a D(*), a proton-antiproton pair, and a system of up to two pions using BaBar's data set of 455x10^6 BBbar pairs. Four of the modes (B0bar -> D0 p anti-p, B0bar -> D*0 p anti-p, B0bar -> D+ p anti-p pi-, B0bar -> D*+ p anti-p pi-) are studied with improved statistics compared to previous measurements; six of the modes (B- -> D0 p anti-p pi-, B- -> D*0 p anti-p pi-, B0bar -> D0 p anti-p pi- pi+, B0bar -> D*0 p anti-p pi- pi+, B- -> D+ p anti-p pi- pi-, B- -> D*+ p anti-p pi- pi-) are first observations. The branching fractions for 3- and 5-body decays are suppressed compared to 4-body decays. Kinematic distributions for 3-body decays show non-overlapping threshold enhancements in m(p anti-p) and m(D(*)0 p) in the Dalitz plots. For 4-body decays, m(p pi-) mass projections show a narrow peak with mass and full width of (1497.4 +- 3.0 +- 0.9) MeV/c2, and (47 +- 12 +- 4) MeV/c2, respectively, where the first (second) errors are statistical (systematic). For 5-body decays, mass projections are similar to phase space expectations. All results are preliminary.Comment: 28 pages, 90 postscript figures, submitted to LP0

Study of CP violation in Dalitz-plot analyses of B0 --> K+K-KS, B+ --> K+K-K+, and B+ --> KSKSK+

We perform amplitude analyses of the decays $B^0 \to K^+K^-K^0_S$, $B^+ \rightarrow K^+K^-K^+$, and $B^+ \to K^0_S K^0_S K^+$, and measure CP-violating parameters and partial branching fractions. The results are based on a data sample of approximately $470\times 10^6$ $B\bar{B}$ decays, collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy $B$ factory at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. For $B^+ \to K^+K^-K^+$, we find a direct CP asymmetry in $B^+ \to \phi(1020)K^+$ of $A_{CP}= (12.8\pm 4.4 \pm 1.3)$, which differs from zero by $2.8 \sigma$. For $B^0 \to K^+K^-K^0_S$, we measure the CP-violating phase $\beta_{\rm eff} (\phi(1020)K^0_S) = (21\pm 6 \pm 2)^\circ$. For $B^+ \to K^0_S K^0_S K^+$, we measure an overall direct CP asymmetry of $A_{CP} = (4 ^{+4}_{-5} \pm 2)$. We also perform an angular-moment analysis of the three channels, and determine that the $f_X(1500)$ state can be described well by the sum of the resonances $f_0(1500)$, $f_2^{\prime}(1525)$, and $f_0(1710)$.Comment: 35 pages, 68 postscript figures. v3 - minor modifications to agree with published versio