Evaluation of the Clinical Response and tolerance of Low dose metronomic Chemotherapy and Quality of Life assessment in advanced Carcinoma Ovary, Breast and Lymphomas

BACKGROUND: Metronomic chemotherapy (MCT) refers to the regular administration of a chemotherapeutic agent at non Toxic low doses, over prolonged periods, with short or no drug-free periods. In comparison to the conventional Maximum Tolerated Dose (MTD) schedules, the MCT schedules have shown reduced acute toxicities such as high grade myelosuppression, vomiting, nausea, mucositis and frequently, surprisingly good anti-tumor activity has been observed even when used in drug resistant tumors. Indian Data on metronomic chemotherapy in any malignancy is very limited. This study was done with the aim of exploring the scope of such a metronomic schedule in three very common malignancies that we come across in clinical practice; Carcinoma Breast, Carcinoma Ovary and Lymphomas, with a special emphasis on the Response Rates, Toxicities and the Quality of Life. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was a single centre, non randomised, prospective study done on patients of Carcinoma Ovary, Carcinoma Breast and Lymphomas (Both Non Hodgkin and Hodgkin Lymphomas), who had progressive disease on therapy or recurrence and were not considered for Intravenous chemotherapy. All the cases were treated at Adyar Cancer Institute, Chennai between May 2011and November 2012. The MCT schedule in Carcinoma Breast and Ovary consisted of Oral Etoposide and Cyclophosphamide in a 3 week on, 1 week off schedule given till progression. In Lymphomas, it was a continuous daily schedule of Oral Etoposide, Cyclophosphamide and Prednisolone. RESULTS: A total of 75 patients [35 cases of Carcinoma Breast, 18 cases of Carcinoma Ovary, 22 case of Lymphomas were enrolled into the study. The Overall clinical benefit rate in Carcinoma Breast was 48%, the Overall Response Rate in Carcinoma Ovary was 10% and the Overall Response rate in Lymphomas was 37%. The schedule was tolerated well with few Grade 3 / 4 toxicities. The Quality of Life (QOL) data showed Improved QOL scores in the 2nd and 4th months of therapy in Carcinoma Breast and Lymphomas and in tallying with the response rates, the QOL score among Ovarian Carcinoma patients showed a worsening trend in the 2nd and 4th months of therapy. CONCLUSIONS: We found that the novel metronomic schedule of Oral Etoposide and Cyclophosphamide is a reasonable option in relapsed or metastatic Breast Cancer patients, with good Clinical Benefit. Although the response rates to metronomic schedule in patients with Ovarian Carcinoma was low, the progression free survival at 1 year was comparable with most other studies. In Lymphomas, the results of the metronomic chemotherapy schedule have been encouraging. Mantle cell Lymphoma was one histological subtype where the response was significantly better. The Metronomic schedule was well tolerated by all the three groups of patients in the study, with hardly any Grade 3 / 4 toxicities. The QOL analysis, among Carcinoma Breast and Lymphoma patients revealed better QOL scores in the 2nd and 4th months of the metronomic schedule indicative of the good response to therapy. The Ovarian cancer Subset seems to have had lower QOL scores at 2 and 4 months into treatment. This novel metronomic chemotherapy schedule seems to be a good option in recurrent Breast and Ovarian Cancer and Lymphomas. Although the sample size of the study is small and the follow up short, this could serve as a benchmark for future studies

Cloud Computing: New Business Opportunities for Telecommunications Companies?

Cloud computing has recently shifted into the center of attention of Telecommuications Companies. Deutsche Telekom, for example, just announced the importance of cloud computing as one of their leading growth sectors (Deutsche Telekom Press Release, 2010). Also other important telecommunication players such as AT&T, Vodafone and Telefónica are expanding their cloud computing business. Clearly, these developments indicate that telcos believe that cloud computing provides significant business opportunities, particularly by further driving the convergence of telecommunications and information technology. Some researchers, however (cf. Greelan, 2009) state that cloud computing is nothing more than a marketing buzzword. On the other hand, Weiss (2007) mentions that although cloud computing "is a buzzword almost designed to be vague, [it] is more than just a lot of fog". In an effort to shed more light on this debate, we investigate the business opportunities of cloud computing for telecommunication companies in more detail. Thereby, we focus especially on the factors that might especially qualify telcos in becoming a significant player in this emerging domain. More specifically, our contribution is twofold: First, we indentify technical and economic factors that are relevant for the telcos' competitive position in the cloud computing market. Second, we identify future scenarios on how telcos position themselves in this market. --Cloud Computing,Telecommunications,Conjoint Analysis

Corporate dividend policy in practice: the views of Nigerian financial managers

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to provide an additional insight into the dividend puzzle by investigating the field practice of dividend policy in an emerging market such as Nigeria. It also aims to contribute to the literature on industry-related dividend effect by examining whether managerial views on dividend policy differ between financial and non-financial firms. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs semi-structured interviews with the financial managers of 21 Nigerian listed firms. The interviewees were divided into two broad groups of financial versus non-financial firms based on the industry classification of the firms. Findings – The findings suggest that, despite differences in institutional environment, the dividend setting process in Nigerian companies is similar in many extents to those in the US and other developed markets. Nigerian companies exhibit dividend conservatism and typically focus on current earnings, stability of earnings and availability of cash when determining their current dividend levels. However, unlike in prior studies, the interviewees suggest that their companies do not have a target payout ratio; instead, they target the dividend per share when determining the disbursement level. Nevertheless, views regarding these issues vary significantly between financial and non-financial firms. Originality/value – This paper adds to the extant literature that has examined the behavioural aspects of dividend policy using interviews, especially in the context of less-developed markets such as Nigeria. The study also updates and extends prior evidence on an industry-related effect on managerial views on dividend policy

DeepMasterPrints: Generating MasterPrints for Dictionary Attacks via Latent Variable Evolution

Recent research has demonstrated the vulnerability of fingerprint recognition systems to dictionary attacks based on MasterPrints. MasterPrints are real or synthetic fingerprints that can fortuitously match with a large number of fingerprints thereby undermining the security afforded by fingerprint systems. Previous work by Roy et al. generated synthetic MasterPrints at the feature-level. In this work we generate complete image-level MasterPrints known as DeepMasterPrints, whose attack accuracy is found to be much superior than that of previous methods. The proposed method, referred to as Latent Variable Evolution, is based on training a Generative Adversarial Network on a set of real fingerprint images. Stochastic search in the form of the Covariance Matrix Adaptation Evolution Strategy is then used to search for latent input variables to the generator network that can maximize the number of impostor matches as assessed by a fingerprint recognizer. Experiments convey the efficacy of the proposed method in generating DeepMasterPrints. The underlying method is likely to have broad applications in fingerprint security as well as fingerprint synthesis.Comment: 8 pages; added new verification systems and diagrams. Accepted to conference Biometrics: Theory, Applications, and Systems 201

Cloud Computing: New Business Opportunities for Telecommunications Companies?

Cloud computing has recently shifted into the center of attention of Telecommuications Companies. Deutsche Telekom, for example, just announced the importance of cloud computing as one of their leading growth sectors (Deutsche Telekom Press Release, 2010). Also other important telecommunication players such as AT&T, Vodafone and Telefónica are expanding their cloud computing business. Clearly, these developments indicate that telcos believe that cloud computing provides significant business opportunities, particularly by further driving the convergence of telecommunications and information technology. Some researchers, however (cf. Greelan, 2009) state that cloud computing is nothing more than a marketing buzzword. On the other hand, Weiss (2007) mentions that although cloud computing "is a buzzword almost designed to be vague, [it] is more than just a lot of fog". In an effort to shed more light on this debate, we investigate the business opportunities of cloud computing for telecommunication companies in more detail. Thereby, we focus especially on the factors that might especially qualify telcos in becoming a significant player in this emerging domain. More specifically, our contribution is twofold: First, we indentify technical and economic factors that are relevant for the telcos' competitive position in the cloud computing market. Second, we identify future scenarios on how telcos position themselves in this market

Usage of Financial Services in South Africa: Perceptions Matter

This study investigates the access to and usage of financial services in South Africa. Financial services are categorised in three types namely; general accounts and services, investment/savings and insurance/assurance. Taking into account the interactions between usage of different types of financial services, we use multivariate simultaneous probit specification to examine the effect of financial perception. Our results suggests that after controlling for endogeneity of choices and a range of control variables, financial perceptions are robust determinant of access to financial services. The impact of financial perception however reduces and gradually disappears as one moves up the financial access ladder towards more advanced financial products and services. In a policy context, targeting demand-side factors to increase access to and use of financial services is advisable. This targeting however can only be successful if it is tuned to specific basic financial services and products