The far-reaching institutional change and societal transformation occurring in former state-socialist societies have attracted new social science interest in transition economies. This chapter reviews recent research on China, highlighting the theoretical arguments and findings of general interest to social scientists. The paper argues that a paradigm shift is taking place within research on China, from state-centered analysis to a theoretical approach that locates causal forces within a macrosocietal framework. Within a macrosocietal framework, state socialism is viewed as a distinctive institutional arrangement in which society, economy, and the state are integrated through society-wide redistributive arrangements. Forces in economic and political change emanate not only from political actors but from economic and social actors as well. The chapter reviews work in which a macrosocietal approach is used to address stratification, societal transformation, and marketization in reforming Chinese state socialism.

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Healthy Ager, an interprofessional service-learning clinical experience for health professions students, is a semester-long program of wellness and falls prevention for community-dwelling older adults. It provides a foundation for competency in geriatrics for students in nursing, physical therapy, social work, and communications disorders. Such interprofessional education is recommended by the Institute of Medicine.

The absence of reliable, robust, and non-invasive biomarkers for anti- Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immunotherapy is an urgent unmet medical need for the treatment of cancer patients. No predictive biomarkers have been established based on the direct assessment of T cell functions, the primary mechanism of action of anti-PD-1 therapy. In this study, we established a model system to test T cell functions modulated by Nivolumab using anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody (mAb)-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), and characterized T cell functions primarily based on the knowledge gained from retrospective observations of patients treated with anti-PD-1 immunotherapy. During a comprehensive cytokine profile assessment to identify potential biomarkers, we found that Nivolumab increases expression of T helper type 1 (Th1) associated cytokines such as interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) in a subset of donors. Furthermore, Nivolumab increases production of Th2, Th9, and Th17 associated cytokines, as well as many proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-6 in a subset of donors. Conversely, Nivolumab treatment has no impact on T cell proliferation, expression of CD25, CD69, or Granzyme B, and only modestly increases in the expansion of regulatory T cells. Our results suggest that assessment of cytokine production using a simple PBMC-based T cell functional assay could be used as a potential predictive marker for anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.