Cause-related marketing (CrM) : how does brand-cause fit influence the success of CrM campaigns?

Currently companies’ investment on Cause-Related Marketing initiatives as part of their marketing strategy and programs continues to grow. Consumers are becoming more socially concerned and are demanding more from the companies in terms of socially responsible practices. Considering the actual economic paradigm and the competitive environment in which companies are operating, the use of Cause-Related Marketing can result in several benefits for the agents involved in the process, for the company conducting such initiatives, for the cause and also for the consumers. The purpose of this research paper is to understand the how brand-cause fit affects CrM campaigns success. We will also research which other factors affect the way consumers respond to brand-cause fit. To conduct this research paper, a qualitative study was employed using a case study methodology with a sample of five campaigns, conducted in Portugal in the last ten years. The chosen brands were Worten, Zippy and Continente, these brands are part of the Portuguese multinational SONAE. The study was conducted through interviews that contained both open and closed questions in order to characterize and distinguish the features of each campaign and to obtain data regarding campaigns performance objectives and outcomes. The results suggested that CrM campaigns success cannot be directly linked to brand-cause fit. The impact of brand-cause fit on purchase intention is often moderated and influenced by other factors, which influence consumers in considering other aspects of the campaign, namely the consumer-cause involvement and the corporate image, thus diminishing the impact of their evaluations of fit. A good corporate image, positive track records in CrM initiatives engagement and caus relevance to the consumer leads to a superior level of consumers trust towards the company and also impacts CrM initiatives success.Atualmente, o investimento das empresas em iniciativas de marketing de causas, como parte das suas estratégias de marketing continua a crescer. Os consumidores demostram uma crescente consciência e preocupação social e estão mais exigentes com as empresas no que toca à aplicação de práticas socialmente responsáveis. Considerando o atual paradigma econômico e a crescente competitividade no setor económico, o uso de estratégias de marketing de causas (CrM), pode resultar em vários benefícios para as partes envolvidas no processo, nomeadamente para a empresa que conduz tais iniciativas, para a causa apoiada e também para os consumidores. O objetivo da presente dissertação é o de entender de que forma o alinhamento entre a marca e a causa (brand-cause fit) afeta o sucesso das campanhas de CrM. Iremos também identificar e analisar que outros fatores afetam a resposta dos consumidores ao brand-cause fit. Para a realização do presente trabalho de pesquisa, foi realizado um estudo qualitativo, utilizando o método estudo de caso, com uma amostra de cinco campanhas, que ocorreram em Portugal nos últimos dez anos. As marcas selecionadas foram a Worten, a Zippy e a Continente, fazendo as mesmas parte da multinacional portuguesa SONAE. A recolha de dados ocorreu sob a forma de entrevistas, com perguntas abertas e fechadas, cujo objetivo foi identificar e distinguir as características de cada campanha bem como obter dados sobre os objetivos e resultados de desempenho das mesmas. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que o sucesso das campanhas de CrM pode não estar diretamente relacionado ao nível de congruência entre a marca e a causa. O impacto do brand-cause fit na intenção de compra é frequentemente moderado por outros fatores que influenciam os consumidores a considerar outros aspetos da campanha, tais como a relevância da causa para o consumir (consumer-cause involvement) e a imagem corporativa da marca. Estes fatores diminuem o impacto da avaliação do consumidor em relação à congruência entre a marca e a causa. Uma imagem corporativa forte, um histórico de atividades na área de marketing de causas e a relevância da causa para o consumidor, levam a um nível superior de confiança dos consumidores em relação à empresa e promovem um impacto positivo no sucesso das iniciativas de CrM

CD44v6 high membranous expression is a predictive marker of therapy response in gastric cancer patients

© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).In gastric cancer (GC), biomarkers that define prognosis and predict treatment response remain scarce. We hypothesized that the extent of CD44v6 membranous tumor expression could predict prognosis and therapy response in GC patients. Two GC surgical cohorts, from Portugal and South Korea (n = 964), were characterized for the extension of CD44v6 membranous immuno-expression, clinicopathological features, patient survival, and therapy response. The value of CD44v6 expression in predicting response to treatment and its impact on prognosis was determined. High CD44v6 expression was associated with invasive features (perineural invasion and depth of invasion) in both cohorts and with worse survival in the Portuguese GC cohort (HR 1.461; 95% confidence interval 1.002-2.131). Patients with high CD44v6 tumor expression benefited from conventional chemotherapy in addition to surgery (p < 0.05), particularly those with heterogeneous CD44v6-positive and -negative populations (CD44v6_3+) (p < 0.007 and p < 0.009). Our study is the first to identify CD44v6 high membranous expression as a potential predictive marker of response to conventional treatment, but it does not clarify CD44v6 prognostic value in GC. Importantly, our data support selection of GC patients with high CD44v6-expressing tumors for conventional chemotherapy in addition to surgery. These findings will allow better stratification of GC patients for treatment, potentially improving their overall survival.This work was funded by FEDER-Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional funds through the COMPETE 2020–Operacional Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI), Portugal 2020, and by Portuguese funds through FCT–Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação in the framework of the project “Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences” (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274). This work was also financed by the projects NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000003 and NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000029, supported by the Norte Portugal Regional Programme (NORTE 2020) under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016390 and SAICTPAC/0022/2015, funded by ERDF, POCI, and FCT; project PTDC/CTM-NAN/120958/2010, from FCT; and by project PTDC/BTM-TEC/30164/2017 funded by ERDF funds through the COMPETE 2020–POCI, Portugal 2020, and by FCT. Salary support to G.M.A. by PTDC/BTM-TEC/30164/2017 project; C.P. was supported by the grant SFRH/BD/113031/2015 from FCT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Novel Convolutional Neural Network Algorithm for Histopathological Lung Cancer Detection

Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and its diagnosis must be carried out as soon as possible to increase the survival rate. The development of computer-aided diagnosis systems can improve the accuracy of lung cancer diagnosis while reducing the workload of pathologists. The purpose of this study was to develop a learning algorithm (CancerDetecNN) to evaluate the presence or absence of tumor tissue in lung whole-slide images (WSIs) while reducing the computational cost. Three existing deep neural network models, including different versions of the CancerDetecNN algorithm, were trained and tested on datasets of tumor and non-tumor tiles extracted from lung WSIs. The fifth version of CancerDetecNN (CancerDetecNN Version 5) outperformed all existing convolutional neural network (CNN) models in the provided dataset, achieving higher precision (0.972), an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.923, and an F1-score of 0.897, while requiring 1 h and 51 min less for training than the best compared CNN model (ResNet-50). The results for CancerDetecNN Version 5 surpass the results of some architectures used in the literature, but the relatively small size and limited diversity of the dataset used in this study must be considered. This paper demonstrates the potential of CancerDetecNN Version 5 for improving lung cancer diagnosis since it is a dedicated model for lung cancer that leverages domain-specific knowledge and optimized architecture to capture unique characteristics and patterns in lung WSIs, potentially outperforming generic models in this domain and reducing the computational cost.This research was funded by FCT/MCTES grant number UIDB/05549/2020

Pleomorphic adenoma of the eyelid with apocrine gland origin; an atypical location

Purpose: To describe the clinical presentation and treatment of a patient with a cutaneous pleomorphic adenoma of the eyelid. Case Report: A 73-year-old male patient presented with a nodular mass on the lateral third of his right upper eyelid, which had slowly enlarged over 10 years. Radiologic features were of an extra-conical mass, with no invasion of adjacent structures. An excisional biopsy of the lesion was performed. The histopathological examination revealed a biphasic tumor, composed of tubules with a double layer of epithelial cells arranged in a chondromyxoid stroma. The inner epithelial cells were positive for pancytokeratins AE1/AE3 and carcinoembryonic antigen. The outer epithelial cells and stromal component expressed vimentin and S100 protein. These pathologic findings were consistent with a palpebral pleomorphic adenoma, with an apocrine gland origin. Conclusion: Pleomorphic adenomas of the skin are rare tumors, and even less frequent as tumors of the ocular adnexa. These lesions should be considered in the differential diagnosis of palpebral nodular masses, and complete excision should be attempted due to the possibility of malignant transformation