Revenue Management In Manufacturing: A Research Landscape

Revenue management is the science of using past history and current levels of order activity to forecast demand as accurately as possible in order to set and update pricing and product availability decisions across various sales channels to maximize profitability. In much the same way that revenue management has transformed the airline industry in selling tickets for the same flight at markedly different rates based upon product restrictions, time to departure, and the number of unsold seats, many manufacturing companies have started exploring innovative revenue management strategies in an effort to improve their operations and profitability. These strategies employ sophisticated demand forecasting and optimization models that are based on research from many areas, including management science and economics, and that can take advantage of the vast amount of data available through customer relationship management systems in order to calibrate the models. In this paper, we present an overview of revenue management systems and provide an extensive survey of published research along a landscape delineated by three fundamental dimensions of capacity management, pricing, and market segmentation

RNA Sequencing Identifies Transcriptionally Viable Gene Fusions in Esophageal Adenocarcinomas

Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is a deadly cancer with increasing incidence in the U.S., but mechanisms underlying pathogenesis are still mostly elusive. In addressing this question, we assessed gene-fusion landscapes by comprehensive RNA sequencing (RNAseq) of 55 pre-treatment EAC and 49 non-malignant biopsy tissues from patients undergoing endoscopy for Barrett’s esophagus. In this cohort, we identified 21 novel candidate EAC-associated fusions occurring in 3.33%-11.67% of EACs. Two candidate fusions were selected for validation by PCR and Sanger sequencing in an independent set of pre-treatment EAC (N=115) and non-malignant (N=183) biopsy tissues. In particular, we observed RPS6KB1–VMP1 gene fusion as a recurrent event occurring in ~10% of EAC cases. Notably, EAC cases harboring RPS6KB1–VMP1 fusions exhibited significantly poorer overall survival as compared to fusion-negative cases. Mechanistic investigations established that the RPS6KB1–VMP1 transcript coded for a fusion protein which significantly enhanced the growth rate of non-dysplastic Barrett’s esophagus cells. Compared to the wild-type VMP1 protein, which mediates normal cellular autophagy, RPS6KB1–VMP1 fusion exhibited aberrant subcellular localization and was relatively ineffective in triggering autophagy. Overall, our findings identified RPS6KB1–VMP1 as a genetic fusion that promotes EAC by modulating autophagy-related processes, offering new insights into the molecular pathogenesis of esophageal adenocarcinomas

Implementing a multisector public-private partnership to improve urban hypertension management in low-and middle- income countries

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease presents an increasing health burden to low- and middle-income countries. Although ample therapeutic options and care improvement frameworks exist to address its prime risk factor, hypertension, blood pressure control rates remain poor. We describe the results of an effectiveness study of a multisector urban population health initiative that targets hypertension in a real-world implementation setting in cities across three continents. The initiative followed the "CARDIO4Cities" approach (quality of Care, early Access, policy Reform, Data and digital technology, Intersectoral collaboration, and local Ownership). METHOD: The approach was applied in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, Dakar in Senegal, and Sao Paulo in Brazil. In each city, a portfolio of evidence-based practices was implemented, tailored to local priorities and available data. Outcomes were measured by extracting hypertension diagnosis, treatment and control rates from primary health records. Data from 18,997 patients with hypertension in primary health facilities were analyzed. RESULTS: Over one to two years of implementation, blood pressure control rates among enrolled patients receiving medication tripled in Sao Paulo (from 12.3% to 31.2%) and Dakar (from 6.7% to 19.4%) and increased six-fold in Ulaanbaatar (from 3.1% to 19.7%). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides first evidence that a multisectoral population health approach to implement known best-practices, supported by data and digital technologies, and relying on local buy-in and ownership, can improve hypertension control in high-burden urban primary care settings in low-and middle-income countries

A Qualitative Evaluation of IoT-driven eHealth: Knowledge Management, Business Models and Opportunities, Deployment and Evolution

eHealth has a major potential, and its adoption may be considered necessary to achieve increased ambulant and remote medical care, increased quality, reduced personnel needs, and reduced costs potential in healthcare. In this paper the authors try to give a reasonable, qualitative evaluation of IoT-driven eHealth from theoretical and practical viewpoints. They look at associated knowledge management issues and contributions of IoT to eHealth, along with requirements, benefits, limitations and entry barriers. Important attention is given to security and privacy issues. Finally, the conditions for business plans and accompanying value chains are realistically analyzed. The resulting implementation issues and required commitments are also discussed based on a case study analysis. The authors confirm that IoT-driven eHealth can happen and will happen; however, much more needs to be addressed to bring it back in sync with medical and general technological developments in an industrial state-of-the-art perspective and to get recognized and get timely the benefits

Regional pulse wave velocities and their cardiovascular risk factors among healthy middle-aged men: A cross-sectional population-based study

Background: Both carotid-femoral (cf) pulse wave velocity (PWV) and brachial-ankle (ba) PWV employ arterial sites that are not consistent with the path of blood flow. Few previous studies have reported the differential characteristics between cfPWV and baPWV by simultaneously comparing these with measures of pure central (aorta) and peripheral (leg) arterial stiffness, i.e., heart-femoral (hf) PWV and femoral-ankle (fa) PWV in healthy populations. We aimed to identify the degree to which these commonly used measures of cfPWV and baPWV correlate with hfPWV and faPWV, respectively, and to evaluate whether both cfPWV and baPWV are consistent with either hfPWV or faPWV in their associations with cardiovascular (CV) risk factors.Methods: A population-based sample of healthy 784 men aged 40-49 (202 white Americans, 68 African Americans, 202 Japanese-Americans, and 282 Koreans) was examined in this cross-sectional study. Four regional PWVs were simultaneously measured by an automated tonometry/plethysmography system.Results: cfPWV correlated strongly with hfPWV (r = .81, P < .001), but weakly with faPWV (r = .12, P = .001). baPWV correlated moderately with both hfPWV (r = .47, P < .001) and faPWV (r = .62, P < .001). After stepwise regression analyses with adjustments for race, cfPWV shared common significant correlates with both hfPWV and faPWV: systolic blood pressure (BP) and body mass index (BMI). However, BMI was positively associated with hfPWV and cfPWV, and negatively associated with faPWV. baPWV shared common significant correlates with hfPWV: age and systolic BP. baPWV also shared the following correlates with faPWV: systolic BP, triglycerides, and current smoking.Conclusions: Among healthy men aged 40 - 49, cfPWV correlated strongly with central PWV, and baPWV correlated with both central and peripheral PWVs. Of the CV risk factors, systolic BP was uniformly associated with all the regional PWVs. In the associations with factors other than systolic BP, cfPWV was consistent with central PWV, while baPWV was consistent with both central and peripheral PWVs. © 2014 Choo et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd