327 research outputs found
Performance of <sup>18</sup>F-fluciclovine PET/MR in the evaluation of osseous metastases from castration-resistant prostate cancer
No full textRadiomics in esophageal and gastric cancer.
No full textEsophageal, esophago-gastric, and gastric cancers are major causes of cancer morbidity and cancer death. For patients with potentially resectable disease, multi-modality treatment is recommended as it provides the best chance of survival. However, quality of life may be adversely affected by therapy, and with a wide variation in outcome despite multi-modality therapy, there is a clear need to improve patient stratification. Radiomic approaches provide an opportunity to improve tumor phenotyping. In this review we assess the evidence to date and discuss how these approaches could improve outcome in esophageal, esophago-gastric, and gastric cancer
Role of 68Ga and 18F PSMA PET/CT and PET/MRI in biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer: a systematic review of prospective studies
No full textOBJECTIVE: To systematically review the prospective literature on the role of 68Ga and 18F PSMA PET/CT and PET/MRI as a tool for functional imaging in prostate cancer biochemical recurrence (BCR), particularly with respect to detection efficacy and impact on management. METHODS: We performed a systematic literature search using PubMed in July 2021, focusing on original prospective studies looking at PSMA PET/CT and PET/MRI in BCR. RESULTS: We included 20 prospective studies reporting on 68Ga and 18F PSMA PET/CT and PET/MRI. Pooled PSMA PET positivity was 66.6% out of 2110 patients. The only factor consistently reported as associated with PSMA PET positivity was PSA level at the time of the study. Analysis of PSMA PET positivity rates in differing PSA ranges confirmed increasing positivity with increasing PSA levels. No significant adverse reactions were reported in the 20 studies, but only 6 studies mentioned safety or adverse reactions. A major change of management occurred in 42.7% of all patients scanned with PSMA PET/CT and more specifically 63.2% of those patients positive on PSMA PET/CT. There are no long-term studies that prove a survival benefit from these changes in management. CONCLUSION: There is prospective evidence for efficacy of PSMA PET/CT and PET/MRI in localizing disease recurrence in BCR, which increases with increasing PSA level at the time of scanning. There are no reported significant adverse effects related to the PSMA PET ligands. There is evidence of major change in management but no evidence for whether this achieves any improvement in outcome.</p
Barriers & Niche Strategies for Scaling-Up Technology Firms at the Base of Pyramid
No full textThere are 4 billion people with income less than $3000 per year, which belong to the Base of Pyramid (BoP) market segment. These people share similar characteristics such as experiencing health problems, lack of education and poor living conditions. This state is realized by several entrepreneurs as potential business opportunities, which come in form of technology solutions such as solar lanterns, drinking-water purifiers, and biomass cook stoves. Through the provision of these technologies, entrepreneurs focusing on the BoP aim at getting profit, while at the same time consciously provide technologies that can solve the aforementioned issues. On the other hand, even though there is an increasing trend and influx of investment by these social enterprises, many companies still find it difficult to scale their solution to the poor. For example, many technologies are only sold in constrained geographic markets and unable to be replicated to other markets or regions to achieve an appropriate scale of business. Thus, the research aims to understand on how technology firms focusing on BoP can solve the barriers of scaling and implementing niche strategies to grow their business. To understand the matter, the research will identify and analyze barriers, strategies and also the linkage between them. In addition, the research also establishes the relative importance of each barrier and strategy that is relevant in the BoP market. From the research, it is understood that the issue of scaling from these BoP companies can be approached by using niche concept. Niche is defined as an application of technology to small number of people that precedes the diffusion of these products to a mass-market. The approach is known to be used for analyzing technology introduction in the western market. This research aims to extend the application of the niche concept in the new field at the BoP. The research is conducted in three steps; the first phase is the theoretical gap identification from the previous studies of strategic niche management, high-technology diffusion and BoP literatures. Second phase is the identification on barriers and strategies, in which a draft list of barriers and strategies is identified and validated by conducting interviews with BoP experts and desk research of secondary case studies. The last phase is the validation of barriers and strategies & identification of their relative importance. In this last phase, six primary case studies are conducted through interviews with companies that sell three kinds of products: solar lantern, drinking water purifier and biomass cook stove. The final outcome of the research is a total of identified 21 barriers, which are grouped into three categories: market, consumer and company barriers. Out of 21 barriers that have been identified, 9 barriers are categorized as essential barriers at the BoP: Financial Capital, Affordability, Consumer’s Awareness, Institutional aspects, Knowledge of Application, Production system, Consumer's Demand, Natural Resources Labor & Employee and Infrastructure. From the aforementioned barriers, the financial capital is found to be the most important barrier as companies require funding for working capital in the form of credit for their partners, material for their products and also marketing funding for promotion to consumers. Moreover, 15 niche strategies are also identified, with 8 of them are considered to be essential niche strategies: partner network strategy, access to finance, education approach, demo experiment and develop, explore multiple markets, geographic approach, technology complementary strategy and upper-income BoP market segment approach. ? From the aforementioned strategies, partner network strategy is identified as the most important strategy. Partners can come in different forms such as distributors, resellers, NGOs and local organizations. Partners are required due to the need for the company to access local market. For example, several companies require cooperation with local entrepreneurs or informal organizations to help promote and sell their product to local society. Partners also provide flexibility, as one region may require different approaches in relation to the condition or consumer preference. In this research, the linkage between barriers and strategy is obtained. In most situations, it is found that a strategy can solve more than one barrier. For example, partner network strategy is found to be relevant to help solve the essential barrier of financial capital and affordability. These linkages also indicate geographic approach as an important strategy as its implementation can solve several barriers of government policy, consumer’s demand and natural resources & labor. In addition, from the six study cases, the notion of context-specific barriers & strategies is known. The notion indicates that barriers and strategies can be affected by the context of company, region, products and time. Those factors give the notion of dynamic barriers, which means that barriers are changing over time depending on the condition of the company and market. This revelation thus can affect the kind of strategies that company needs to develop overtime. The research extends this notion by identifying several possible stages that companies need to go through in their quest to pursue a large-scale market. The implication of findings is important for both managers and academic society. From managerial perspective, the findings of the research are important as tools to help managers identify a solution for specific barrier that companies encounter in the BoP market. From an academic perspective, this research enriches the application of strategic niche management theory by applying it in the new domain of the Base of Pyramid market. In addition, it is found that the notion of the dynamic barriers, which is still not quite covered in this research, will be an important step for further research. Understanding and predicting the stages and development of barriers that a company encounters can shed light for many companies to scale their product in this market. Next, the need of universal product design that may be relevant for different markets can be crucial in company’s attempt to achieve a large-scale market. Lastly, the understanding of the current BoP firms operation extends the idea for the companies to implement global scale niche market strategy, in which firms operate by selling small number of products in number of countries to develop their product and market.Management of Technology 2012-14Economics of Technology and InnovationTechnology, Policy and Managemen
Management Production Systems and Timing Strategies for Cull Cows
No full textReplaced with revised version of paper 06/04/09.Cattle, cull cows, management, marketing, production systems, timing, Farm Management, Marketing,
An analysis of foreign language lesson discourse : with special reference to the teaching of English in Tunisian secondary schools.
No full textIn this thesis a new model for the analysis of foreign language
lesson discourse has been developed. It draws on existing models but
provides flexibility by focusing on three levels: Frame, Move, Act.
An attempt has been made in this thesis to clarify further the domain
of pragmatics by looking at the various fields that have contributed to it.
This has led the author to (i) differentiate between foreign language
lesson discourse and other discourses and (ii) locate the new model in
relation to other approaches to discourse analysis. The foregoing
discussion has revealed to the author that many researchers and
theoreticians have misunderstood many key terms in pragmatics which have
contributed to unwarranted positions concerning the role of the teacher and
the importance of textbooks in the classroom.
A detailed analysis of discourse in eight English lessons in Tunisian
secondary schools (two in each of the four years) has been undertaken. The
results of the analysis reflect the influence of the textbooks and suggest
different degrees of benefit for the learner.
There are seven chapters in the thesis. Chapter One reviews the
theoretical foundations of the audiolingual method. Chapter Two discusses
Chomskyan theory and its influence on approaches to L2 learning and
teaching. Chapter Three deals with pragmatics, particularly its relevance
to second language learning studies and its importance for the analysis of
second language classroom discourse. Chapter Four looks at the
communicative approach to second language teaching and related developments
in second language acquisition studies. It also discusses Tunisian
learners' communication strategies. Chapter Five gives the reader a general
background about the Tunisian linguistic community and the educational
system there. It also discusses the textbooks used for the teaching of
English in Tunisian secondary schools. Chapter Six gives an account of the
procedure adopted for data collection and presents in detail the model for
the analysis of Tunisian foreign language lesson discourse. Chapter Seven
discusses the results of the quantitative analysis of the Tunisian foreign
language lesson discourses, and proposes some reforms.
The thesis contains a short introduction and conclusion, as well as
eight appendices where the orthographic transcription and analysis of each
lesson discourse is given.
Habib Abdesslem
- …
