• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.529-532
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• 2013

Cholangiocarcinoma, though very rare in Western countries, is one of the commonest liver malignancies in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand. More than half of the patients present with advanced stage disease. Given the poor treatment outcomes of adjuvant therapeutic options, many patients undergo only biliary drainage for palliative treatment. Clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes after biliary stenting were here analyzed for a total of 224 uresectable cholangiocarcinoma cases, 58.9% in men. The mean age was 61.5 years. Hilar involvement was the most common location. The patients underwent biliary drainage using plastic and metallic stents equally, early stent occlusion being encountered in 21.4% and 10.7%, respectively. The median survival time was 4.93 months for patients who received plastic and 5.87 months for patients who received metallic stents.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.268-272
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• 2015

The current study was carried out to determine the influence of different resting surfaces and stall types on milk yield and animal health. Study was carried out in Bursa that is one of the most important cities of Turkey in terms of dairy production. Effects of resting surfaces and stall types on milk yield were found to be important. Also influence of different resting surfaces and stall types on lactation length was examined and found that rubber mats were different from the two other options. Relationships between different resting surfaces or stall types and health problems were examined and connection between stall type and repeat breeding (RB), dystocia, retained placenta and a connection between resting surface types and RB and clinical mastitis were found to be important. Considering their economic reflections, it can be said that results are quite important to the Turkish dairy industry.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1885-1887
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• 2014

Skin metastases of breast cancer are usually late events in the course of tumor progression and signify a poor prognosis. They may remain as a therapeutic challenge especially after failure of standard treatments. Topical interventions, together with or without radiotherapy, may only palliate the symptoms temporarily. However, there may be alternative treatment modalities for unresectable breast cancer skin metastases resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. There are various genetic alterations in tumors and therapeutic potential of expression patterns for factors like epidermal growth factor receptor may have important clinical implications in case of disease refractory to the conventional treatments. Here, we clarified the therapeutic options and genetic alterations in skin metastatic breast cancer patients refractory to standard chemotherapeutics.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.453-460
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• 2007

An overview of developments important in the future of animal breeding is discussed. Examples from the application of quantitative genetic principles to selection in chickens and mice are given. Lessons to be learned from these species are that selection for production traits in livestock must also consider selection for reproduction and other fitness-related traits and inbreeding should be minimized. Short-term selection benefits of best linear unbiased predictor methodology must be weighed against long-term risks of increased rate of inbreeding. Different options have been developed to minimize inbreeding rates while maximizing selection response. Development of molecular genetic methods to search for quantitative trait loci provides the opportunity for incorporating marker-assisted selection and introgression as new tools for increasing efficiency of genetic improvement. Theoretical and computer simulation studies indicate that these methods hold great promise once genotyping costs are reduced to make the technology economically feasible. Cloning and transgenesis are not likely to contribute significantly to genetic improvement of livestock production in the near future.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.197-207
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• 2016

This paper seeks to measure the monetary value of technical development in the deep seabed manganese nodule mining by applying the compound option model (COM). The COM is appropriate for the project in terms of its decision-making structure and embedded uncertainty. The estimation results show that the deep seabed mining project has more economic potential than shown by the previously obtained results from the discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis. In addition, it is reasonable to invest in the project taking the various uncertainty factors into consideration, because the ratio of the value to the cost of the project is far higher than one. This information can be utilized in national ocean policy decision-making.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.178-189
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• 2018

In this paper, we present a case study of a new emerging business startup involved in smart house appliances. The irreversible investment concept and real-option theory are introduced as the fundamentals of the model. By using games theory we show that the startup's actions can trigger reactions from other firms. The first part covers initial the research and development stage, while the second part covers production and commercialization. The findings of this study suggest that, given a certain amount of initial investment, an open and shared innovation may lead to hurting a firm's investment while strengthening the competitors' position in the market. However, given the sensitivity analysis, when volatility and demand grow favorably, sharing R&D investment is not a bad option for a new player to adjust its position in the market while still maintaining positive returns.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.169-202
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• 2019

Productivity in agriculture or services has long been understood as playing an important role in the growth of manufacturing. In this paper we present a general equilibrium model in which manufacturing growth is stimulated by non-manufacturing sectors that provides goods used in both research and final consumption. The model permits the evaluation of two policy options for stimulating manufacturing growth: (1) a country imports more non-manufacturing goods from a foreign country with higher productivity and (2) a country increases productivity of domestic non-manufacturing. We find that both policies improve welfare of the economy, but depending on the policy the manufacturing sector responses differently. Specifically, employment and value-added in manufacturing increase with policy (1), but contract with policy (2). Therefore, specialization of the import non-manufactured goods helps explain why some Asian economies experience rapid growth in the manufacturing sector without progress in other sectors.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.625-645
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• 2018

This paper's objective is to draw a decision guideline to continue research and development (R&D) investments in biotech start-ups facing the "Valley of Death" syndrome - a long negative profit period during a financial crisis. The data include financial indices as Net income, Revenues, Total stockholders' equity, Cash & equivalents, and R&D expenses of 18 major biotech companies (nine in negative profit and nine positive, in FY2008) and 15 major pharmaceutical corporations as benchmarks both in FY2008 and in FY2016 derived from the US SEC Database, EDGAR. A first methodology dealing with real options analysis assumes Total stockholders' equity as a growth option. And a second methodology, Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis, is applied to test the probability relationship between the Total stockholders' equity and the R&D expenses in these three groups. This study confirms that Total stockholders' equity can play the role of a call option to support continuing R&D investments even in negative profits.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.267-274
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• 2013

The impact of income and education level on the clinical and pathologic characteristics, implementation of clinical breast examination (CBE), and treatment patterns of a small population of Chinese female breast cancer patients was studeied in order to provide a theoretical basis and statistical reference for further nationwide research. We included 484 pathologically confirmed female primary breast cancer inpatients of the First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College of Xi'an Jiaotong University from February 2003 to January 2004. All cases were reviewed and relevant information was collected using a designed case report form (CRF). Chisquare tests, rank-sum tests, and Fisher's exact tests were used in the analysis. Our analysis showed that: (1) women in different occupation groups had significant differences in tumor size, pre-operative mammography, surgical options, post-operative estrogen receptor (ER), progestin receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her2) status, and post-operative radiotherapy and chemotherapy (P < 0.05); and (2) women with different education levels had statistically significant differences in tumor size, post-operative ER, PR and Her2 status, and post-operative chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and endocrine therapy (P < 0.05). In Xi'an, China, women in low-income occupations or with low education levels are more likely to have advanced tumor stages at presentation, lower implementation rate of clinical breast examination, and less treatment.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.3363-3368
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• 2013

Background: The burden due to cancers is an emerging public health concern especially in resource-limited countries like Nigeria. The WHO estimates that cancer kills more people than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. As people in Nigeria and other developing countries are beginning to survive infectious diseases, there is an observed epidemiologic transition to chronic diseases, such as cancers. In 2008, 75 out of 1,000 Nigerians died of cancer. Despite the rising incidence and public health importance, Nigeria lacks an organized and comprehensive strategy to deal with cancers. Materials and Methods: This article reviewed 30 peer-reviewed manuscripts on cancer care in four countries. It highlights the limitations to cancer care in Nigeria; due to lack of awareness, low health literacy, absence of organized screening programs, inadequate manpower (in terms of quality and quantity) as well as limited treatment options. Results: This review led to the formulation of a proposal for Nigerian National Cancer Policy, mainly drawn from effective strategies used in Canada, Brazil and Kenya. This is a vertical cancer program that is patient-centered with an emphasis on tobacco control and cancer disease screening (similar to Canada and Brazil). Additionally, it emphasizes primary cancer prevention (similar to Kenya). Its horizontal integration with other disease programs like HIV/AIDS will improve affordability in a poor resourced country like Nigeria. Capacity building for health professionals, hub-and-spoke implementation of screening services, as well as investment in effective treatment options and increased research in cancer care are essential. International 'twinning collaborations' between institutions in richer countries and Nigeria will enhance effective knowledge translation and improve the quality of patient care. Conclusions: A national cancer policy must be developed and implemented in Nigeria in order to overcome the present limitations which help contribute to the observed increases in cancer morbidity and mortality rates. Cancer control is feasible in Nigeria if the nation was to consider and employ some of the cost-effective strategies proposed here.