Market-Driven Management as Entrepreneurial Approach

Entrepreneurship is traditionally considered as an 'outward-looking' phenomenon. Entrepreneurs initiate change by identifying and starting new trading opportunities, related to improved versions of existing commodities or new product or service concepts, which have been until then unknown to other agents. Market-driven management is not posited to be an alternative to entrepreneurial management, a surrogate or even a better substitute to entrepreneurship. They are, rather, two different theoretical constructs that can be fully integrated. Value creation and appropriation within the market is the node of the relationship between entrepreneurship and market-driven management.Globalisation; Market-Driven Management; Entrepreneurial Management; Theories of the Firm; Market-Driven Intensity; Market-Space Competition; Competitive Customer Value; Value Creation

Approccio strategico alla produzione

The strategic value of operations is the leitmotif that runs through the entire book. Based on this, in the first chapter the author proposes a reading of production strategy that goes beyond a content and category approach to include aspects of positioning (strategic groups of manufacturers), goals, perspectives, strategic ploys, patterns and plans as well as resources and skills. Chapter two then addresses world class manufacturing, conceived as a system of basic principles, guidelines and general criteria for the design and management of the production system that appears to characterise outstanding enterprises. Onto this three fundamental approaches of streamlined production can be effectively grafted: Just-In-Time, Total Quality Management and employee empowerment. Finally chapter three represents an initial attempt at verification of the formulated theories

Business Model Reporting: Why the Perception of Preparers and Users Matters

The aim of this work is to investigate the alignment of preparers’ and users’ perceptions of the BM and its constitutive elements. Results show that, while both categories assign great importance to this concept, different conceptions of the purpose and the components of a BM emerge

Associations between trabecular bone score and biochemistry in surgically vs conservatively treated outpatients with primary hyperparathyroidism:A retrospective cohort study

Purpose: Trabecular Bone Score (TBS) is a software-based method for indirect assessment of trabecular bone structure of the spine, based on analysis of pixels in dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) images. Few studies describe the use of TBS in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT). This study aimed at further describing this relationship, investigating possible correlations between biochemistry, body mass index (BMI), fracture incidence and TBS. Methods: Cross-sectional study of 195 patients with verified PHPT, surgically (27) or conservatively (168) treated at the Department of Endocrinology, Aalborg University Hospital. TBS was acquired by reanalyzing DXA-images of the included subjects from the outpatient clinic. Biochemical variables were obtained from clinical routine blood samples taken in relation to the DXA-scans. History of fractures and medical history was obtained from radiology reports and medical charts. Results: Patients with active PHPT had a TBS-score signifying a partly degraded bone structure, whereas surgically treated patients had a normal bone structure as judged by TBS, though the difference in TBS-score was not statistically significant. Use of antiresorptive treatment was negatively associated with BMD but not TBS. No correlations between the biochemical variables and TBS were found. A negative correlation between TBS and BMI in patients with PHPT was present. Patients experiencing a fragility fracture had a significantly lowered TBS, BMD and T-Score. Conclusion: Biochemistry does not seem to predict bone status in terms of TBS in patients with PHPT. TBS is negatively correlated to BMI, which is also seen in patients not suffering from PHPT. The lack of a predictive value for antiresorptive treatment for TBS may raise concern. TBS appears to have a predictive value when assessing risk of fracture in patients with PHPT. Mini abstract: This cross-sectional study investigates possible correlations between biochemical variables, body mass index (BMI) and trabecular bone score (TBS) in 195 patients with primary hyperparathyroidism. It finds no correlation between biochemical variables and TBS, but finds a negative correlation between TBS and BMI and a clear association between fracture incidence and low TBS-score. Keywords: Primary hyperparathyroidism, Trabecular bone score, Body mass index, Osteoporosis, Osteopenia, Biochemical variable

Multitarget drug design strategy in Alzheimer’s disease: focus on cholinergic transmission and amyloid-β aggregation

Background: Alzheimer pathogenesis has been associated with a network of processes working simultaneously and synergistically. Over time, much interest has been focused on cholinergic transmission and its mutual interconnections with other active players of the disease. Besides the cholinesterase mainstay, the multifaceted interplay between nicotinic receptors and amyloid is actually considered to have a central role in neuroprotection. Thus, the multitarget drug-design strategy has emerged as a chance to face the disease network. Results: By exploiting the multitarget approach, the present study provides new molecules able to target the cholinergic pathway, by joining direct nicotinic receptor stimulation to acetylcholinesterase inhibition, and to inhibit Aβ aggregation. Conclusions: These new compounds emerged as a suitable starting point for a further optimization process

Structure fonctionnelle du territoire wallon : hiérarchie urbaine et aires d’influence

editorial reviewedEn vue de l’actualisation du SDER, la CPDT a reçu en 2010-2011 la mission de dresser le diagnostic territorial de la Wallonie. Cette publication présente ce diagnostic et s’articule en trois grandes parties. La première partie aborde six défis majeurs pour l'avenir et envisage dans une approche prospective comment le territoire sera impacté par ces changements. La seconde partie du diagnostic vise à estimer les besoins spatiaux des grands secteurs occupant et dynamisant le territoire. Dans la troisième partie, le diagnostic se penche sur l’intégration des besoins sectoriels à l’espace wallon. L’examen des dimensions spatiales permet de conclure le diagnostic de manière transversale et territoriale. Dans ce cadre, une dimension a pour objet la structure spatiale interne de la Wallonie et interroge ses pôles et ses aires d'influence des pôles urbains tant internes qu'externes à la Wallonie.Recherche CPDT 2010-2011 Diagnostic territorial de la Wallonie7. Affordable and clean energy8. Decent work and economic growth11. Sustainable cities and communities12. Responsible consumption and production13. Climate actio

Range margin reduction in carbon ion therapy: potential benefits of using radioactive ion beams

Radiotherapy with heavy ions, in particular, 12C beams, is one of the most advanced forms of cancer treatment. Sharp dose gradients and high biological effectiveness in the target region make them an ideal tool to treat deep-seated and radioresistant tumors, however, at the same time, sensitive to small errors in the range prediction. Safety margins are added to the tumor volume to mitigate these uncertainties and ensure its uniform coverage, but during the irradiation they lead to unavoidable damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. To fully exploit the benefits of a sharp Bragg peak, a large effort is put into establishing precise range verification methods for the so-called image-guided radiotherapy. Despite positron emission tomography being widely in use for this purpose in 12C ion therapy, the low count rates, biological washout, and broad shape of the activity distribution still limit its precision to a few millimeters. Instead, radioactive beams used directly for treatment would yield an improved signal and a closer match with the dose fall-off, potentially enabling precise in vivo beam range monitoring. We have performed a treatment planning study to estimate the possible impact of the reduced range uncertainties, enabled by radioactive 11C beams treatments, on sparing critical organs in the tumor proximity. We demonstrate that (i) annihilation maps for 11C ions can in principle reflect even millimeter shifts in dose distributions in the patient, (ii) outcomes of treatment planning with 11C beams are significantly improved in terms of meeting the constraints for the organs at risk compared to 12C plans, and (iii) less severe toxicities for serial and parallel critical organs can be expected following 11C treatment with reduced range uncertainties, compared to 12C treatments