Transformative Precision: Investigative Summary of PET/CT-Guided Radiation Therapy Simulation in Comprehensive Cancer Management

Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT)-guided radiation therapy simulation has transformed cancer treatment, ushering in enhanced precision and individualization. This discussion delves into clinical indications, applications, procedures, and limitations, providing a comprehensive overview across cancer types.  Clinical indications underscore PET/CT's role in accurate staging, target volume delineation, treatment response assessment, and post-treatment recurrence detection. Accurate staging is crucial for tailored treatment plans, while target volume delineation benefits from PET's identification of metabolic patterns. Ongoing treatment response assessment enables dynamic adjustments, and post-treatment, PET/CT aids in detecting recurrent disease.  Applications highlight PET/CT's treatment planning optimization by combining anatomical and functional information. Fusion of PET and CT images customizes radiation plans, identifying active regions for targeted delivery while sparing healthy tissues. This fusion facilitates tailored strategies, minimizing radiation exposure and enabling dynamic adaptations.  Procedural aspects detail imaging acquisition, image fusion, target delineation, treatment planning, and ongoing monitoring. Starting with radiotracer administration, typically fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), PET/CT captures functional and anatomical data. Image fusion aids in target delineation and optimizing plans. Ongoing monitoring allows real-time adjustments.  Specific clinical applications across cancers demonstrate PET/CT's versatility. In head and neck cancers, it ensures precise delineation while avoiding critical structures. In lung cancer, it improves tumor extent identification. Similar advantages apply to lymphomas, sarcomas, brain tumors, metastatic disease, and esophageal, gastrointestinal, breast, prostate, gynecological, and pediatric cancers.  Limitations include spatial resolution challenges, false positives, cumulative radiation exposure, lesion size, histology, and standardization issues. Ongoing research targets spatial resolution enhancement, radiomics and AI integration, novel tracers, hybrid imaging, patient-specific dosimetry, clinical trials, multimodal workflows, cost-effectiveness, accessibility, and education.  PET/CT-guided radiation therapy simulation is transformative. Ongoing advancements promise a more precise and individualized approach, enhancing patient outcomes in cancer management

Entrepreneurs’ age, institutions, and social value creation goals: a multi-country study

This study explores the relationship between an entrepreneur's age and his/her social value creation goals. Building on the lifespan developmental psychology literature and institutional theory, we hypothesize a U-shaped relationship between entrepreneurs’ age and their choice to create social value through their ventures, such that younger and older entrepreneurs create more social value with their businesses while middle age entrepreneurs are relatively more economically and less socially oriented with their ventures. We further hypothesize that the quality of a country’s formal institutions in terms of economic, social, and political freedom steepen the U-shaped relationship between entrepreneurs’ age and their choice to pursue social value creation as supportive institutional environments allow entrepreneurs to follow their age-based preferences. We confirm our predictions using multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions on a sample of over 15,000 entrepreneurs (aged between 18 and 64 years) in 45 countries from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data. The findings are robust to several alternative specifications. Based on our findings, we discuss implications for theory and practice, and we propose future research directions

Entrepreneurial intention among University students in Malaysia: integrating self-determination theory and the theory of planned behavior

The present study endeavors to develop a deeper understanding of the motivational processes involved in intentional entrepreneurial behavior. For this purpose, it integrates the social cognitive approach of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the organismic theory of motivation of self-determination theory (SDT). More specifically, it tests the role of basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness as defined in SDT in shaping university students’ attitudes and intentions toward entrepreneurship. The sample of this study consisted of 438 (Males = 166, Females =272) 3rd and4th year university students from four Malaysian Public Universities. The results of the study show that the model strongly explains about 71% of the variance in entrepreneurial intention. Basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness have a strong indirect impact on entrepreneurial intention via their attitudinal antecedents: attitude,subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. This indicates a full-mediational model,where the attitudinal factors operated as transmitters of effects from the distal constructs ofSDT on entrepreneurial intention. These findings confirm that both SDT and the TPB provide complementary explanations of the motivational processes of entrepreneurial behavior. The study contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a theory-based understanding of the role of motivations in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions. It opens the way for future research to analyze how alternative motivations may affect new venture creation, survival and success

Implementation intentions in the entrepreneurial process: concept, empirical findings, and research agenda

Prior studies find sizable gaps between entrepreneurial intentions and subsequent actions. We extend models of entrepreneurial intentions by drawing on action phase theory to better understand how entrepreneurial intentions translate into actions. Our study focuses on the effects of implementation intentions on taking entrepreneurial action. The analysis uses two waves of survey data on 422 individuals, from the Swedish general population, who had an explicit interest in starting a business and who reported on their actions 6 months later. We test and find support for a moderated mediation model in which implementation intentions mediate the effects of goal intentions on taking entrepreneurial action. We further find the mediated effect to be even stronger for those confirming a strong intention to start a new business. We provide an in-depth discussion of the concept of implementation intention and an extensive research agenda.Peer reviewe

Defining family business: a closer look at definitional heterogeneity

Researchers have used a myriad of different definitions in seeking to explain the heterogeneity of family firms and their unique behavior; however, no widely-accepted definition exists today. Definitional clarity in any field is essential to provide (a) the basis for the analysis of performance both spatially and temporally and (b) the foundation upon which theories, frameworks and models are developed. We provide a comprehensive analysis of prior research and identify and classify 82 definitions of family business. We then review and evaluate five key theoretical perspectives in family business to identify how these have shaped and informed the definitions employed in the field and duly explain family firm heterogeneity. Finally, we provide a conceptual diagram to inform the choice of definition in different research settings

Back to square one? comparing experts' perceptions of venture growth and profitability with financial facts

Abstract not available