Key signalling nodes in mammary gland development and cancer. The Snail1-Twist1 conspiracy in malignant breast cancer progression

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, and despite significant advances in diagnosing and treating it, metastatic spread of cancer cells results in a high mortality rate. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an embryonic program in which epithelial cells lose their characteristics and gain mesenchymal features. Therefore, EMT might play a very important role during malignant tumour progression. In this review we summarise recent advances in breast cancer research with a particular focus on the transcription factors Snail1 and Twist1. Besides discussing the role of EMT in normal mammary gland development, we describe regulatory mechanisms involving newly discovered upstream regulators and microRNAs, the association of EMT with breast cancer stem cells, and the involvement of the tumour microenvironment in breast cancer progression

Product bundling : Theory and application

For more than three decades, microeconomists have been studying the conditions under which product bundling is a remunerative sales strategy. Only recently, bundling aroused the interest of marketing academics. Until now, no serious attempts have been made to integrate the existing research streams in the bundling literature. A first merit of this paper is the integration of the existing microeconomic and marketing literature on product bundling in a comprehensive framework, which allows us to point out the lacunas. It turns out that little has been said about the actual implementation of a bundling strategy. One of the hardly addressed issues is the derivation of bundle reservation prices, which are indispensable when determining the optimal bundle composition and price. Therefore, as a second merit, we present a new method to compute bundle reservation prices on the basis of paired comparison choice data and the latent class binomial logit methodology. We then apply our method to the case of multiple textbook bundles and use an existing LP bundling procedure to compute the optimal bundle compositions and prices.Product bundling, Optimal bundle composition, Pricing, Linear programming, Reservation prices, Conjoint analysis, Logit analysis, Latent class estimation

Please or Squeeze? Brand performance implications of constrained and unconstrained multi-item promotions

Existing research on price promotions typically investigates the effects of single-product promotions. However, brand managers often promote multiple items simultaneously to bolster the performance of a complete brand line. This paper investigates the brand performance implications of such multi-item promotions. We distinguish between two types of multi-item promotions: traditional, unconstrained multi-item promotions that grant a discount irrespective of the size or composition of the purchase set, and constrained multi-item promotions that require consumers to purchase specific quantities (self-bundling) or even predetermined combinations (fixed bundling) of promoted items. Using a normative consumer decision model, the authors analyze the relative effectiveness of these promotions in terms of unit sales and revenue impact and show that promotion performance is moderated by consumers' preference for variety. The authors find that unconstrained multi-item promotions outperform single-item promotions, especially in markets without variety-seeking. In markets with variety seeking, unconstrained multi-item promotions are not as effective in stealing extra sales from competition because consumers prefer to spread their purchases across all items, including competitive ones. However, in those markets, self-bundling promotions are particularly effective because they force consumers to adopt larger amounts of the promoted items at the expense of competitors. Finally, in neither type of market does fixed bundling substantially improve promotion performance.Marketing Price promotion Retailing Nonlinear programming