Thursday, October 31, 2019

Interview Summary with Xiaochu of BenMo PR Essay

Interview Summary with Xiaochu of BenMo PR - Essay Example She denied the college life keeping her eye on the future needs which demanded her to â€Å"get her life started and going as soon as possible†. Her finance needs led her to the modeling area and bartending but soon her creativity persuaded her on starting her own blogs on the internet and she captured the attention of huge followings quickly. Xiaoxhu maintained her double identity i.e. her real-life identity and her virtual identity in all this time period. However, she was quite successful in maintaining her reputation under both identities. In the virtual world, she was named as the best blogger in four of the prevailing web networks, Sina, Sohu, Xici, and Tianya. She was voted as the Beauty Blogger in both Tianya and Sohu and was elected to be the â€Å"basketball babe† for the 2008 Beijing Olympics website. On the other hand, her real life activities involved her service as an editor for a local Shanghai magazine and she was also on the organizing committee for the 57th World Beauty Pagent. This illuminates her ambition of not accepting the life and circumstances as they are but to develop her career and achieve her ultimate aim of being a successful person. The goal of such hardworking and ambitious people is sometimes to achieve comforts of life, wealth or some other kind of financial benefit. However, Xiaoxhu â€Å"never saw money as the main goal.† She further illuminates this idea by asserting that â€Å"even at the beginning money was just something to put food in my mouth and a roof over my head.† This clearly shows that her aims were not limited to grabbing money and leaving this world without being seen or noticed by others. Her aim was to capture the general public and make her name known to them in good words. Her success was accompanied by the achievement of her goals in her own distinct way of attracting public, specifically general public. In support of her

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Sound of Thunder Essay Example for Free

Sound of Thunder Essay The story is about traveling in the time. It takes place in 2055; a Time safari INC company provides a time traveling machine to its customer, so they can travel in time and go to million years ago. Eckles, who was the first character of the story, decided to go to million years ago to hunt gigantic animal. He believed he can be the first person who has hunted the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The most important point of the story is how the slight occurrence could change the future and affect the earth and people who live in the future in long term. The company sent Eckles to the past with Mr. Travis who was the safari guide in to the past and Lesperance who was Mr.travis assistant. They told Eckles that he must not go out of the path. Moreover, he couldn’t shoot any other animals except those that had been marked. Some animals had been observed by the guides of traveling in to the past and they realized that they will die soon by nature accident. By the time Eckles saw the dinosaur he got scared so much and panicked; therefore, he went out of the path on accident. Travis was so mad at Eckles because he disobeyed him and stepped out of the path. He threatened Eckles that he either will take out the bullet from Tyrannosaurus’ body, or he will shoot Eckles. Travis explained them they can’t leave anything in the past because they don’t know how it will affect the future. He believed that killing even a mouse or destroying a plant could ruin nature circle and influence next fauna’s generations. When they came back to their own time they realized slight differences. Spelling was different; the reception looked slightly different. Also the result of the recent election had changed. And a guy, whom they believe is dictator, won the election. Eckles looked at his boot and saw the mud on it. When he looked more closely he noticed that he stepped on a butterfly. Travis became so furious when he saw the dead butterfly and figured out it caused all the changes; therefore, he shoot Eckles.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Anticancer Efficacy of Curcumin Analysis

Anticancer Efficacy of Curcumin Analysis Nuclear factor-ÃŽ ºB (NF-ÃŽ ºB) is a transcription factor that is essential in the regulation of immune and inflammatory responses.1 It influences a diverse target of gene expressions that regulate apoptosis, facilitate cell survival, proliferation, and differentiation.1,2 Before cell stimulation, NF-ÃŽ ºB dimers that are located in the cytoplasm are inactive.3 Prior to activation, NF-ÃŽ ºB dimers consisting of RelA, c-REL, and p50 are held in the cytoplasm by inhibitory ÃŽ ºB (IÃŽ ºB) proteins.3,8 The IÃŽ ºB kinase (IKK) complex is activated by various extracellular signals such as proinflammatory cytokines and viral infections.3,4 This IKK complex phosphorylates two conserved serine residues and targets NF-ÃŽ ºB-bound IÃŽ ºBs, which results in ubiquitin-mediated dissociation of IÃŽ ºB from NF-ÃŽ ºB, thus leading to translocation of activated NF-ÃŽ ºB into the nucleus.2,7 The activation of NF-ÃŽ ºB promotes tumor invasion, metastasis, and allows malignant cells to escape apoptosis. Consequently, many chemotherapeutic drugs have been found to activate NF-ÃŽ ºB, thus contributing to chemoresistance and chemotherapy failure.3 Increasing evidence suggests that, the inhibition of NF-ÃŽ ºB activation can reduce chemoresistance and improve the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic agents.3 Among the compounds that have been reported, curcumin was found to inhibit the activation of NF-ÃŽ ºB and thus, induce apoptosis in tumor cells.6 Unfortunately, its clinical applications remains limited due to its poor bioavailability and low potency6, these prompted researchers to chemically modify curcumin in order to increase its potency against NF-ÃŽ ºB and cancerous cells.8 In this issue, Qui et al.8 reports progress in the synthesis and identification of new 4-arylidene curcumin analogues as a potential chemotherapeutic agent. Different kinds of 4-arylidene curcumin analogues were synthesized by coupling 1, 3-diketones curcumin analogues with various aromatic aldehydes in toluene with acetic acid, using piperidine as a catalyst (figure 1). The chemotherapeutic activities of the synthesized compounds were tested on the growth of A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells with curcumin used as control. The authors reported that majority of the 4-arylidene curcumin analogues exhibited potent anticancer activities against A549 growth with GI50 in the range of 0.23 – 0.93 ÃŽ ¼M, while very poor antiproliferation activities of curcumin was observed at 15.23 ÃŽ ¼M. This shows a 10- to 60-fold increase in the potency of 4-arylidene curcumin analogues over the parent compound, curcumin. Remarkably, the cytotoxic activities of these newly designed curcumin analogues were not limited to A549 cells. The growth of other carcinoma cells H1944, squamous cells H157, and large carcinoma cells H460, were effectively inhibited by selected 4-acrylidene curcumin analogues, with GI50 values at micromolar concentrations low to 0.07 ÃŽ ¼M. Likewise, in a related study, Zambre et al.9 reported that copper(II) conjugates of Knoevenagel condensates o f curcumin analogue showed inhibitory activities against human leukemic KBM-5 cells. Taken together, these two forms of curcumin analogues offer new possibilities at both ends as potential anticancer agents. One of the key curcumin targets that is important for the survival of cancer is IÃŽ ºB kinase (IKK), which regulates NF-ÃŽ ºB activation.6 Activated NF-ÃŽ ºB is situated in the nucleus to promote transcription that is triggered by tumor-necrosis factor (TNFÃŽ ±).1,5 Thus, Qiu et al.8 used nuclear translocation of NF-ÃŽ ºB in response to TNFÃŽ ± as the main indicator to examine the mode of action of curcumin in comparison to 4-arylidene curcumin analogue. A549 cells were treated in a 384-well plate format with curcumin and its new analogue respectively, before the addition of TNFÃŽ ± to trigger nuclear translocation of NF-ÃŽ ºB p65 subunit. As a result, curcumin inhibited TNFÃŽ ±-induced nuclear translocation of NF-ÃŽ ºB with a mean IC50 of 9.5 ÃŽ ¼M, which is consistent with the work of Kasinski et al.4 Interestingly, most of the synthesized 4-arylidene curcumin analogue showed improved inhibitory activities against NF-ÃŽ ºB translocation with mean IC50 values in the range of 1.0 â⠂¬â€œ 4.9 ÃŽ ¼ÃŽÅ". This finding proved the superiority of the newly designed curcumin analogue over curcumin in blocking nuclear translocation of NF-ÃŽ ºB. Consequently, in a related paper, Zambre et al.9 developed novel curcumin analogues that were synthesized using Knoevenagel condensation to convert enolic diketones of curcumin into non-enolizable ones. The synthesized compounds were examined for their potential in blocking TNFÃŽ ±-induced NF-ÃŽ ºB activation. It was reported that copper(II) conjugates of Knoevenagel condensates of curcumin showed greater potentials in blocking TNFÃŽ ±-induced NF-ÃŽ ºB activation than curcumin, confirming the potency superiority of curcumin analogues over the parental curcumin. NF-ÃŽ ºB is principally activated by IKKÃŽ ² in its well organized signaling pathways.2,7 As a result, Qiu et al.8 choose three potent newly synthesized 4-arylidene curcumin analogues A, B and C to directly investigate their effect on IKK enzymatic activity, with curcumin used as control. Report was given that upon stimulation of A549 cells with TNFÃŽ ±, TNFÃŽ ± induced considerable IÃŽ ºB phosphorylation followed by degradation of the phosphorylated IÃŽ ºB. However, following the treatment of the cells with curcumin and its newly designed analogue, respectively, curcumin inhibited IÃŽ ºB phosphorylation and degradation at high concentrations, while the selected potent newly synthesized curcumin analogues significantly inhibited IÃŽ ºB phosphorylation and degradation at a lower concentration with IC50 values in micromolar range of 2.2 5.0 ÃŽ ¼ÃŽÅ". Again, this showed that the 4-arylidene curcumin analogues exhibited greater inhibitory activities against IÃŽ ºB than curcumin. In anot her study, Kasinski et al.4 proposed that the inhibitory activities of curcumin and its analogues may be a result of direct inhibition of IKKÃŽ ² kinase. To examine this model, the authors performed a reconstituted IKK inhibition assay with recombinant IKKÃŽ ², report showed that the addition of curcumin in various tested concentrations had no significant effect in inhibiting IKKÃŽ ².4 However, in this issue8, the selected newly synthesized curcumin analogues induced a dose dependent inhibition of IKKÃŽ ². Thus, the structural modification of these curcumin analogues results to improved inhibitory activities over curcumin in the in vitro IKK kinase assay. Furthermore, they compared the anticancer efficacy of curcumin and its newly designed analogues. The authors reported that the synthesized 4-arylidene curcumin analogues inhibited colony formation of lung cancer cells at low concentrations in the micromolar range of less than 0.2 0.4 ÃŽ ¼M.8 However, curcumin also inhibited colony formation of cancer cells at higher concentration (4 ÃŽ ¼M). Again, this finding showed the superiority in potency of 4-arylidene curcumin analogues over the parent compound as an anticancer agent. Thus, the chemical modification of the parental curcumin has led to identification of new 4-arylidene curcumin analogues as potential anticancer agents targeting NF-ÃŽ ºB signaling pathway. REFERENCES 1 Baud V, Karin M. (2009) Is NF-kB a good target for cancer therapy? Hopes and pitfalls. Nature reviews drug discovery. 8, 33-40 2 Bonizzi G, Karin M. (2004) The two NF-ÃŽ ºB activation pathways and their role in innate and adaptive immunity. Trends in immunology. 25(6), 280 – 288 3 Karin M. (2006) Nuclear factor-kappaB in cancer development and progression. Nature. 441, 431 – 436 4 Kasinski A, Du Y, Thomas S, Zhao J, Sun S, Khuri F, Wang C, Shoji M, Sun A, Snyder J, Liotta D, Fu H. (2008) Inhibition of IÃŽ ºB kinase-nuclear factor-ÃŽ ºB signaling pathway by 3,5-bis(2-flurobenzylidene)piperidine-4-one (EF24), a novel monoketone analog of curcumin. Molecular Pharmacology. 74(3), 654-661 5 Lee C, Jeon Y, Kim S, Song Y. (2007) NF-kappaB as a potential molecular target for cancer therapy. Biofactors. 29 (1), 19 -35 6 Leu T, Maa M. (2002) The molecular mechanisms for the antitumorigenic effect of curcumin. Current medical chemistry. 2(3), 357 – 370 7 Perkins N. (2007) Integrating cell-signalling pathways with NF-ÃŽ ºB and IKK function. Nature reviews molecular cell biology. 8, 49 62. 8 Qiu X, Du Y, Lou B, Zuo Y, Shao W, Huo Y, Huang J, Yu Y, Zhou B, Du J, Fu H, Bu X. (2010) Synthesis and identification of new 4-arylidene curcumin analogues as potential anticancer agents targeting nuclear factor-ÃŽ ºB signaling pathway. Journal of medicinal chemistry. 53, 8260 – 8273 9 Zambre A, Kulkarni V, Padhye S, Sandur S, Aggarwal B. (2006) Novel curcumin analogs targeting TNF-induced NF-kB activation and proliferation in human leukemic KBM-5 cells. Bioorganic and medicinal chemistry. 14, 7196 – 7204

Friday, October 25, 2019

Macbeth: Appearance vs Reality :: Macbeth essays

Macbeth: Appearance vs Reality The way people act on the outside and who they really are on the inside may be two totally different things. Some may change because they feel they don't fit in. Others pretend to be something they truly aren't. No matter which way you look at it, if you try to act like someone your not, the truth will always appear in the end. That is exactly what happened in William Shakespeare's play, MacBeth. Banquo, MacBeth, and Lady MacBeth each project an image, but as time passes. The realities of their true personalities begin to emerge. As an honorable man, Banqou tends to hold back his true feelings in order not to offend others around him. At one point in the play, Banqou and MacBeth find themselves in the presence of three weird sisters who make three absurd predictions. MacBeth leans toward believing them while Banqou says, "And oftentimes, to win us to do our harm, the instruments of darkness tells us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray's in deepest consequence". (Act I, Scene 3) A thoughtful yet skeptical Banquo speaks his words here very carefully to MacBeth in order to remain honorable. He doesn't want to come right out and tell MacBeth to be cautious in his actions, so he tries to soften his words so that MacBeth might contemplate his future movements. However, MacBeth does not take heed of Banquo's warnings. Because of the witch's predictions and his impatience, MacBeth kills in order to get what he expects is coming to him. When Banquo takes time to contemplate what has been going on, he turns his thoughts to MacBeth. He expresses his feelings about the situation in Act II, Scene 1. Banqou feels that MacBeth might have something to do with the murders, but he never stands up for his thoughts or listens to his conscience until MacBeth comes to him one day. When MacBeth asks to talk privately to Banquo, Banquo states; " So I lose none in seeking to augment it, but still keep my bosom franchised and allegiances clear, I shall be counseled." (Act III, Scene 1) Banquo means that he will talk to MacBeth, just as long as MacBeth knows that he is loyal to the King. This is the only time that Banquo sets his foot down against others to stand up for his morals. Just like Banquo, MacBeth's appearance differs from his true self. MacBeth portrays himself to be strong and wise, but inside he is truly weak. When he first faces the witch's predictions, he says; " Come what come may, time

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Are Too Many People Going to College Essay

Too Many People Indeed In America higher education has become an expectation of high school teachers, advisors, and parents for students to obtain a successful life and prosper in their field of study, no matter the conditions, after graduating high school. In this article, â€Å"Are Too Many People Going to College,† written by Charles Murray, he feels that not everyone is meant to earn a college degree, even though society thinks otherwise. Charles Murray believes that the elementary years are the prime years for learning the core knowledge, and that â€Å"starting early is partly a matter part of necessity† (Murray 224). The reason for this occurrence is, because most young children enjoy learning more than adult students. The classes in high school are assumed to prepare you for college, but they teach this curriculum â€Å"at a level below college course demands,† so Murray believes that it can either prepare the interested ones for this post secondary transition, or be more work for what it is worth, according to what their future has in store for them (Murray 224). Students who realize they want to attend a post secondary school are offered two and four year degrees. Four-year degrees have become standard for people who have the will power and resources to achieve the diploma at the end, but not many people are willing to finish through. â€Å"†¦In 1995, only 58 percent had gotten their B.A. five academic years later. Another 14 percent were still enrolled,† so now their four-year plan has now ended up being five years, six years, and eventually a degree for some. Finding a job that absolutely requires a Bachelors Degree is rare these days. So obtaining this extra two-year degree may be a waste of time and money for most students. Not everyone wants to be a lawyer or doctor anyways, there are some people that want â€Å"to become a good hotel manager, software designer, accountant, hospital administrator†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and going to a college that offers a two year  program or technical college would be the most proficient way abou t dealing with this (Murray 230). When someone is not in the top percentile in their class they should not focus on earning a B.A. and becoming an â€Å"average Joe† in their field of study, e.g., business manager; but to focus on becoming an engineer, e.g., electrician, in a line of work that they would enjoy. The world will always need people who will love to work with their hands, and mentally require a technical college education. Murray is saying in â€Å"Are Too Many People Going to College† you can go learn what you need to, to become an electrician, or whatever specialty you enjoy, in two years, get out, and make money, and then watch the business guy still be studying for two more years. Society is what tells us who is better than whom, and most of it depends on our education. Murray states in this article that many people do not need to attend college, but that everyone deserves and needs the opportunity to learn all that they can from whatever source it may be, just do not go sign up for a B.A. program if you do not think you will be interested in it, or complete it. â€Å"There must be a better way† (Murray 242). Works Cited Murray, Charles. â€Å"Are Too Many Going to College.† They Say, I Say with Readings. 2nd Edition. Eds. Graff, Birkenstein, Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 222-242. Print.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Understanding Financial Reporting

Financial reports allow the organization to communicate information about their performance to the â€Å"outside world†. So, financial reports provide summarized information about an organization†s transactions for external decision makers. (e. g. Investors). Financial reports can be used by employees and trade unions, government, creditors and lenders, customers, shareholders and investment analysts. All these users may need different statements of financial accounts but the most important statements which they need is the balance sheet, profit and loss account, cash flow account and the income statement. The two main regulatory bodies of financial reporting are the â€Å"Law† and the â€Å"Accounting Profession† with the Accounting Standards Board usually known as ASB. In UK, most of the legislation related to the publishing of accounts is embodied in the Companies Act 1985 and 1989 which are concerned with the accounts of the limited liability companies only. The Companies Act 1989 is the main frame which the companies and accountants have to follow. All the financial statement drawn up under the act 1989 must present a true and fair view and its function is to protect all the users of the financial reports and statements. The second and the most important regulatory body is the accounting profession. The standard setters should be aware of the information needed by all users of financial reports and should know the impact and the outcome of a different accounting method on the needs of those users. The standard setters should also be able to resolve the conflicts which exist between the needs of different users. So, they have to find an alternative way which best satisfy user needs and this could be achieved by choosing the improvement of the â€Å"social welfare† instead of welfare of individuals. We know that Accounting Standards Board is the main accounting standard setter. Because the ASB is composed of professional accountants, they may be unfamiliar with the user needs. So , when there is a need for a change in accounting standard the ASB prepare and publish a draft standard called the FRED (Financial Reporting Exposure Draft). After the publishing of these drafts the comments from the public is invited and in the light of these comments the FRED is changed (or unchanged). Now the FREDs are issued as FRS (Financial Reporting Standard). The main disadvantage of this system is the ASB members are unfamiliar with the different user needs and the comments from the general public may not be equally represented. There are four things that standards in financial reporting supply people using it. The first one is â€Å"Comparability†; financial statements must allow people to compare one company with another one and evaluate the management†s performance without spending time and money adjusting them to a common format and common accounting treatments. It is essential that users of financial reports or investment decision makers be supplied with relevant and standard financial reports which have been regulated and hence standardized. The second thing that standards and regulations supply is called â€Å"Credibility†. Because all this standards and regulations exist accountants have to treat every company in the same way. If the accountancy profession permitted companies experiencing similar events to produce financial reports that disclosed markedly different results simply because of a freedom to select different accounting policies they would lose all of their credibility. So, the standards should be composed of rigid rules and should not be broken. The third thing is â€Å"Influence† that means, setting up the standards has encouraged a constructive appraisal of the policies being proposed for individual reporting problems and has been a stimulus for the development of a conceptual framework. The last thing that the standards have to supply is â€Å"discipline†. Companies left to their own devises without the need to obey standards will eventually be disciplined by the financial markets. But in the short run investors in such companies may suffer loss. The Financial Reporting Council is aware of the need to impose discipline because most of the company failures in recent years are because of obscure financial reporting. Why should the Accounting Standards set? As we argued before, an important role of the regulations is to increase the comparability of accounts by limiting the choice of alternative accounting methods and to supply standardized accounts. This standardization can be achieved only by uniform accounting practice. If all accounting methods were standardized, two organizations which began the year with same balance sheets and which made the same transactions during the year, they would report the same balance sheets and the same profit and loss account at the end of the year. In addition to these advantages of regulations in financial reporting, there are also some more useful functions. Regulations can help to reduce the influence of personal biases and political pressures on accounting judgments. They can increase the level of user confidence in, and understanding of, financial reporting by clarifying the basis on which all accounts are prepared and presented. Finally, they can provide a frame of reference for resolving accounting problems which are not mentioned in legislation or accounting standards. As we argued earlier although the regulations in financial reports have very advantages it has many disadvantages too: One if these disadvantages is the â€Å"Adverse Allocative Effects†, this could occur if the ASB did not take into account of the economic consequences of the new standard or regulation they have issued. For example, additional costs could be imposed on preparers of accounts and suboptimal managerial decisions might be taken to avoid any reduction in earning or net assets. â€Å"Consensus-seeking† can be another disadvantage and this means the issuing of standards that are over-influenced by those with easiest access to the standard-setters. Most of the time this could happen with complex subjects.