Marketing Planning free essay sample

Assessment 3: individual reflective essay Introduction The purpose of this article is to analyze and explore the characteristics of the marketing plan. Firstly, it will identify the role and nature of marketing plan. Secondly, it will outlines the structure of the marketing plan. Moreover, the paper will determines the each elements in the marketing plan and the linkage between these elements. Additionally, the two misconceptions will be examined. Last, it will conclude the marketing plan is indispensable to the organizations. Role and Nature of Marketing Plan Marketing plan is a business document that describes the marketing environment, outlines the marketing objectives, analysis current position of business and organize its marketing strategy, details actions of business to achieve the organizations goals. A business plan is the document that provide description of business structure and model, used to detail plans for business, identify goals and strategies, help organizations achieve the result and measure organizations performance. We will write a custom essay sample on Marketing Planning or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Moreover, It can help company determines the development of business in the future, and prepared for the problems and opportunities, also required for the business financing and written to target potential investors. Since the business continuing change with macro environment and customer demand, marketing plan is a key section which involved in the overall business plan. The marketing plan and business plan are interdependent, and complement each other, both of them are essential parts of successful business. According to Abrams (1993), business plan provide a blueprint to marketing plan. The business plan describes the business goals and the reason for formed the organization. Meanwhile, the marketing plan guide the implementation by organizations marketing department, explains how organization will achieve the goals. If the business plans changes, the actions for the new plans, which included in marketing plans also make changes. Therefore, the set of marketing plans always need meet the business objectives. Normally, there are two types of marketing plan, strategical planning and tactical planning. Strategical planning can define as the organizations resource and capabilities matched by upper managerial decision process to its market opportunities for long-term goals. On the other hand, tactical planning is the execution of lower management of marketing plan to achieve the short-term goals. Both of them must incorporated in the marketing plan to ensure the successful of the companies. In tactically, marketing plan set the expectation of activities of various functional areas of the organization, such as marketing, finance, plant facilities and personnel, and provide the actual actions and information for the activities to ensure achieve the objectives. For example, company advertising goods for particular market and improve the brand image. The tactical marketing plan emphasize on guide the current operation of functional parts of the firm in short range. In strategically, marketing plan used for set the overall goals for organization in long term. The marketing plan provide the information, to assist company target the markets, define the organizational objectives, and clarify the specific performance goals in the future. For instance, the companies can clearly understand what important to their customers, and then set the strategies to meet objectives. Furthermore, It also outlines the weaknesses, strengthens and the competitors within the organizations, such as customer feedback information, competitive Intelligence. Additionally, the marketing plan can facilitate the top management decision making, lower the risks for taking next steps of business, and make the decisions more effective. Structure of Marketing Plan The typically structure of Marketing Plan consist of four stages, which are perform the situation analysis, set up marketing objectives, develop marketing strategies and implementation and control of marketing plan. The first stage is organization perform a situation analysis of marketing environment. The situation analysis will outline the specific organizations oal, and define the potential customers, competitors and distributors. In addition, It also identifies the factors of internal and external environment that support or hinder the organizations objectives, and ensures the market planning effectively. Moreover, the SWOT analysis applied to the situation analysis process, which can identifies strength, weakness, opportunity and threats of the company. The second stage of develop a marketing plan is set marketing objectives. The management will set the market objectives after understanding the market environment, business weakness and strength. The marketing objectives indicate what marketing function must accomplish on behalf of the organization(Solomon, 2012). Marketing objective is different from the organization objective planned in first step, as the marketing objectives are more specific focus on the brand image, sizes, sales, products. Meanwhile, the organization objectives state overall operations of organization. Once define the marketing objectives, the marketing strategies can be develop. Therefore, the third stage is develop marketing strategies. In this marketing planning process, managers must choose the target markets and positioning their products in the markets at first, and then they will develop the marketing mix strategies to support the expectation position of theirs products in the market. In this view, market strategy is different from the marketing plan, because the market strategy set the entire direction and objectives for marketing, but marketing plan outlines the specific actions for the implementation of the market strategy to achieve the marketing objectives. The last stage is implement and control the marketing plan. To implement the marketing strategies, management must decide what level of marketing expenditures is necessary to actually achieve the marketing objectives(Solomon, 2012). The projected budget for marketing need to distribute reasonable among the marketing activities and tools in the marketing mix (Kotler, 1988). Furthermore, the companies need control tools to catch the poorly implementation or bias marketing mix to making sure that activities are not fall off the goals. Elements of the Marketing Plan As the marketing plan structure consists of four parts, there are several elements in each part make up the marketing plan. In the process of perform situation analysis, The organization should analysis both internal and external environment by adopt SWOT analysis. The analysis of internal and external environment are relative independence but cannot deal separately, both of them have pervasive effect on the organizations decisions. and managers will use SWOT analysis to identify the internal and external factors that influence the marketing strategy. Internal environment refers to the controllable elements existing within the organization that affect its performance either positively or negatively, which including facilities, employees,financial stability, organizational cultures,missions, technologies and many other factors. The purpose of internal analysis is conducted based the resources, capability of the organization, understand the organization in depth. The resources can classified as tangible resources, intangible resources and human resource. The tangible resources are easy to identify and evaluate, such as physical facilities and financial resource. Secondly, the intangible resources which can become the competitive advantages over periods, like brand image and technologies. And the human resources refers to the skills, ability and knowledge of the employees that contribute to the organization. Furthermore, the information of organizational capabilities is used to refer to the firm’s capacity for undertaking specific productive activities. Additionally, the SWOT analysis applied to the internal environment identify the key strength and weakness of organization. It ties the strength and weakness of organization to customer requirement, reminding management customer satisfaction are always the most important, and assist the firm to make adjustment to meeting needs of its target market. On the other hand, external environment made of factors outside the organization that positive or negative affect the organizations performance. In this section, managers can conduct four type of analysis, which are customer analysis, competitive analysis, market analysis and environmental analysis. Those analysis can identify all the external factors that have effect on the organization. For example, customer analysis can investigate the customer need and buy motivation; Competitive analysis can identify competitors strategies, objectives and performance; Market analysis state the profitability, entry barriers of the target market; Environmental analysis evaluate the technology, sociological trends and demographic. These external environmental factors are uncontrollable, but managers can respond to them by planning. In this section, the SWOT analysis also applied to this section, which examines the opportunity and threats of the organization. The opportunities may caught by managers and lead the company benefit from them, make the company growth. While, the identified threats which negatively affect the organization may avoided by managers planning. Next, the process of set the marketing objectives is the important segment in marketing plan. The objectives can be established must behind the managers have thorough understanding of the marketing environment. Once the organization builded up the marketing objectives, then organization can development the marketing strategies to achieve the marketing objectives. In the process of develop marketing strategies, it consist of select the target markets and develop marketing mix strategies. The company select the best suitable markets that have greatest possibility to achieve the market objectives. And then, managers make the decisions about activities towards objectives by using the marketing mix tools, and the elements of marketing mix are product, price, promotion and place. All of four elements cannot separately, must be viewed as whole and support each other in the marketing structure; Otherwise marketing strategies for organization will be disorder and uncoordinated. Furthermore, the four elements have sequence for decision making ,the product strategies determined by market objectives, because the products features must designed to satisfy the target customers. In addition, the pricing of product have many conditions, the basic rule is the ricing must expensive than the cost, and the different goods have different prices in different places, thus pricing strategy determined by product strategy and supply chain strategy. Moreover, pricing strategy determine promotion strategy, like managers use pricing strategy that deliver the message to the specific target customers in the promotional strategy. And the supply chain strategies may depend on all of others strategies. As the product is the fundamental part for company making profit, organization should develop product strategies carefully. Product mix strategy is determine what product features and designs will appeal to the organizations target market. The product strategies including the product attribute decisions, branding strategies, packaging, labeling, and services. Moreover, The product life cycle is applied to the managers, which indicates the change of markets response to the products over its life, and product life cycle can assists mangers develop product strategies effectively. Secondly, the pricing strategy decides how much for the products that provide for the customers. Since price is the only element in marketing strategy that create revenue for organization, all the others elements are cost, its clearly a important determinant of achieving objectives(Woof, 2011). In this section, organization need the information that may influence the pricing form the prior analysis, such as economy, customer demand, competition. Then, company choose different pricing strategy for depends on these factors and the result of both product and distribution strategy. Such as cost based, retailer and wholesaler demand based, competition based,customer needs based. The marketing mix pricing can help managers setting the price strategy as a market tool, like wholesale prices, retail price, price skimming. Next, the organization develop promotional strategy after complete the pricing strategy. Promotional strategies state how managers communicate the value of the product with the target market. The purpose of promotional strategy is encourage customers buy products or raise awareness of the product to achieve marketing objectives. In this section, organization required develop the products message and use three models of marketing ommunication to deliver message to the customers, which are one to one, one to many and many to many models, such as personal selling, direct marketing and so on. For example, advertising is type of one-to-many model, and its the most common way that organization communication with customers. However, there are many bias and cheated information existing in the advertising, and the customer perceive of the advertising is commonly untruthful and deceptive, which may have negatively effect on the organizational promotion. Last, as the place is the only element that may give organization long-term competitive advantages, managers should have patience on deal the supply chain strategies. The supply chain strategies refers to when and where to make the product available to the customers, and the purpose of supply chain strategy is lower the operational cost and maximizing the efficiencies of the organization, a good supply chain strategy can create value for the organization. Meanwhile, it can establish the relationship between the organization and customers, For example, Ikea delegate the distribution function to the customers, offer them the choice which is picking up the items in the store, that may save shipping charge for the customer. Furthermore, as the globalization, more and more organization choose to sell the products through the retailers, and become the global brand can make more profit. If the organization choose sell the products through retailers and wholesalers, the managers need consider the product, pricing, and promotion decisions for choosing the retailers. Although the supply chain strategy make organization more competitive, Nonetheless, there still have ethical dilemma issue, which is slotting allowance, a fee force charged by the manufactures to large retailers( Solomon, 2012). The last stage for marketing plan is implement and control. In this stage, implementation links the developed marketing strategies with marketing performance, and summarize the budget and timelines for the activities from the previous section. In the process of implementation, it consist of four elements. The action plans detail how the marketing strategies will be implemented by the managers, including responsibility of individuals, scheduled activities, total budget, and measurement and control to ensure the objectives actually achieved. To implement the plans, all the information of marketing objectives and strategies are needed, also the organizations should clarify the tasks and performance of each management ,in order to avoid the confusing on individual responsible. Besides, the timeline allocate the reasonable time to each activities for achieve the objectives. The timeline can help managers understand if tactics driving any sales(William, 1978). Furthermore, organization should check the budgets usually, a effectively schedule and monitor make the activities progress easy to monitor, once the time line not matched, and the budget cost overrun, the managers can adjust the plan immediately. Finally, managers must ensure the effectively measurement and control to determine what level that the organization actually meet the marketing goals, and acting flexible, adjustment the strategies or objectives on the basis of this analysis if necessary. Nevertheless, the marketing plan may be not reliable due to the many reasons, such as the mix up of tactics and strategies, poor implementation, not widely accepted marketing plan structure and so on. If organization faced those problems, may be need find out the problem and fix it or redo the marketing plan. The research and trend analysis may applied to the control process. The research refers to the organization conduct continuous market research to understand their brand position among target markets, and trend analysis can examine sales by geographic area,distributor, chain and reseller type. Obviously, these techniques help management more effective on decision making and ensure the quality of decisions. Assumptions There have many misconceptions made in relation to the market plan in the market. According to the Andereck (2005), The most common one is managers always think they know what theirs customers want . Many managers never conduct the customer analysis to research what is customers truly want and demands in the internal environment, because they think they understand customers, but actually is not. always. However, In the marketing plan, the SWOT analysis used to identify the organizations weakness and strengths , and make adjustment to meet the customers needs and requirement, which indicate how important the customers demands to the rganizations. Therefore, its crucial to managers understand the customers, and research the customers demands should be the first task for managers job. Additionally, some managers think if they advertising, its mean they have a marketing plan( Ali, 2001). Which thought is totally wrong. Advertising activity is one of the marketing promotional strategies, its one to many model, and can spread to the market quickly, give positively effec t on organizational promotion. However, it’s only a tactic, which is one of the many ways that deliver the product messages to the target customers. Organization must have an integrated plan that enable produce many tactics and conduct the situation analysis to understand the customers needs, then complete the marketing product, pricing and supply chain strategies. Finally, managers can use these tactics corporate the previous information to implement the promotional strategies to achieve the marketing objectives. Conclusion This report has analyzed the role, nature, structure, elements of marketing plan, and the links exist between each elements of a marketing plan. Moreover, the article also provide the common misconception made relate to the marketing plan. In overall, the marketing plan is a essential tool for the managers, and provided detailed direction for the organizations. If the marketing plan planned by managers or marketers step by step, carefully evaluated and researched, it will assist the organization to achieve the marketing objectives, and help them make decisions effectiveness. Reference list Abrams, Rhonda M. (1993). The Successful Business Plan: Secrets Strategies. Oasis Press. Ali,Moi. (2001). Marketing Effectively. New York. Dorling Kindersley. Andereck, Ph. D. ,Kathleen. (2005). Marketing Plan Outlineprovidedto AOT. Unpublished. Cohen, William A. (1991). The Practice of Marketing Management. New York: Macmillan. Kotler, (1988) Marketing Management analysis, planning, implementation, and control. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey. Mullins, J. , Walker, O. and Harper Boyd Jr. , H. 2009), Marketing Management: A Strategic Decision-Making Approach, 7th Edition, McGraw Hill, Australia and New Zealand. Solomon, M. R. Marshall, G. W. Stuart, E. W. (2012). Marketing: Real People Real Choices (7th edn), Pearson Education Inc. , Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA. William H. Brannen. (1978). Small business marketing: a selected and annotated bibliography. American Marketing Association Woof, M. B. (2011) The Marketing Plan Handbook, (4th edn), Pearson Education Inc. , Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA.

Free Essays on Sally Hemings

Roderick Jackson African American Studies Sally Hemings Life with Thomas Jefferson The documentary on Sally Hemings was interesting. Sally’s life and the relation ship with Thomas Jefferson was even intriguing and interesting life. Some may say she was lucky and some may say she was not treated fair enough. Sally was not a normal slave she had benefits that a normal slave wouldn’t have. Sally also had a relationship with Thomas Jefferson. Sally also had kids in which they had a better chance at life than she did. Sally was not a normal slave. It is true that she was owned by Thomas Jefferson who gave Sally certain privileges that normal slaves didn’t have. When Sally was younger she had a chance to go to London. Sally was more of a servant than a slave; she did more work around the house than out in a field. Even though Sally had been freed but did not leave Virginia, instead she stayed and took care of her children and the law at that time stated that once a slave is freed then they must leave within a year.... Free Essays on Sally Hemings Free Essays on Sally Hemings Roderick Jackson African American Studies Sally Hemings Life with Thomas Jefferson The documentary on Sally Hemings was interesting. Sally’s life and the relation ship with Thomas Jefferson was even intriguing and interesting life. Some may say she was lucky and some may say she was not treated fair enough. Sally was not a normal slave she had benefits that a normal slave wouldn’t have. Sally also had a relationship with Thomas Jefferson. Sally also had kids in which they had a better chance at life than she did. Sally was not a normal slave. It is true that she was owned by Thomas Jefferson who gave Sally certain privileges that normal slaves didn’t have. When Sally was younger she had a chance to go to London. Sally was more of a servant than a slave; she did more work around the house than out in a field. Even though Sally had been freed but did not leave Virginia, instead she stayed and took care of her children and the law at that time stated that once a slave is freed then they must leave within a year....

Business law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 6

Business law - Essay Example by Chemie Grunenthal GmbH in the 1950s and it was an anti-convulsive drug that made users sleepy and relaxed and was seen as a substitute for tranquilisers (Kelsey, 2012). During the testing, there were no issues identified, it was tested on animals and it became apparent that the drug could be used as a means of expanding the portfolio of the company that developed it (Jacoby and Youngson, 2004). The drug eventually became available to the members of the public and it became popular with pregnant women. This is because it had the ability to suppress morning sickness during pregnancy. So more and more pregnant women used it during pregnancy. In May 1961, a baby was born in a hospital in Australia and the baby died shortly (Jacoby and Youngson, 2004). In a space of three weeks, two other babies were born in the hospital and they all died. The obstetrician managed to identify the commonality in the deaths was Thalidomide (Jacoby and Youngson, 2004). However, Nobel Laureate, Sir Ernest Chain stated that â€Å"of course, it was a tragedy... it could not be foreseen... no one was to blame... even if you do all these things (drug tests)... there is still a risk factor... you cannot guarantee safety in any case – safety is an illusion† (Kalter, 2003, p172). In the United States, the Thalidomide case formed the basis for the authorities to place a strict liability rule framework for the design, bystander and workforce risk issues (Stapleton, 1994). In English law though, the Law Commission report showed a strong support for placing a strict liability on companies and producers and this called for claimants burden of proving fault to be eliminated (Giesen, 2009). After much debate in the United Kingdom, the European Commission Council Directive 85/324/EEC was released to member states and they were required to introduce strict liability on manufacturers (Giesen, 2009). Based on this, the UK implemented Part 1 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (Roach, 2012). Prior

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Managing Human Resources-Phase 2 DB - Essay Example For the individual, we should not make the assumption that everyone’s motivation is the same. While someone just starting out in his/her career may have long-term goals, a professional with 20 years under his/her belt will bring a different set of needs and desires to the position. It is helpful to understand each team member’s background when determining what motivates them. For the team, we should consider what kind of a sales and support structure we would like to create. At NL&S, we already have an exciting message of growth. We can supplement that message with customer service and follow-through. We have had some issues at NL&S related to customer service. It may make sense to tie the customer service people to our sales team—there will be more on this in the recommendations (Levine, 2004). Finally, we need to motivate not just the top performers, but the mid-level performers as well. It’s easy to give the top sellers great bonuses, but they were motivated to sell (or talented enough) anyway. By reaching to the middle level of our organization, we can pull them up with the proper motivation to exceed our expectations (Clive, 2007). The first thing we should do is interview the salespeople one-on-one. I would suggest that I sit in on each interview, in order to provide additional input and to listen from a different perspective. The primary reasons for this interview will be To determine what motivates the individual sales reps: talk about their top three items. I would expect, from a survey of literature, that they want to belong to a winning team, look good to their friends, family and fellow workers, and be well-compensated for good performance. To determine if there are any barriers to their better performance. We will concentrate on product and sales knowledge, problems that they may be encountering with our organization, our products, or our customer service. Since sales reps are

New Owner and Existing Business Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

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Non Hodgkins Lymphoma: Types, Causes and Symptoms

Non Hodgkins Lymphoma: Types, Causes and Symptoms Lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system. Lymphoma is divided into two types called Hodgkins lymphoma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Non-Hodgkins lymphomas (NHL) are a range of diseases emerging from clonal proliferation of lymphocytes which is a type of white blood cells resulting in cancer or tumour formation of lymphatic system.1 An estimated 8,000 new cases of NHL has been diagnosed annually in the United Kingdom at the end of the 20th century.2 NHL is a common hematologic malignancy and ranked eighth as the most common malignancy.2 Male has 1.5 times likelihood than female from being diagnosed with NHL. From the early seventies, cases of NHL have increased by threefold for both male and female throughout many countries beside United Kingdom.2 In 2007, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) caused 4,533 deaths in United Kingdom. Males and females share almost similar number of deaths but males has higher age standardized mortality rate. However, not all patients die from NHL as infections may be one of the causes. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma has 53% overall 5-year relative survival in an analysis3 conducted over 22 European countries with age adjusted figures 48% in men and 54% in womean. In Scotland, the total number of diagnosed non-Hodgkins lymphoma cases from 1990-1994 were 1,598 for men and 1,708 in women. The percentage of age standardized survival rate for patients diagnosed after one year and five years with 95% confidence interval were 63.5 (61.1-66.1) and 41.0 (38.2-44.0) respectively.3 NHL has no established cause factor and people diagnosed with NHL have no known risk factors. However, NHL can be associated with chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, coeliac disease, and Sjà ¶gren syndrome.4 Study by Lens and Newton-Bishop show association between NHL and cutaneous melanoma.5 Besides that, the risk of developing NHL increases with chronic infection from viruses and bacteria such as Epstein-Barr virus, human T-lymphotropic virus 1(HTLV-1) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).2 There was a strong link between Burkitt lymphoma and Epstein-Barr virus6 while adult T-cell lymphoma can be caused by HTLV-1.7 It has been noted that prevalence of NHL was higher in people with HIV infections compared to healthy adults.8 One study conducted by Stolte et al9 showed that there was association between Helicobacter pylori infection and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphomas. It has also been noted that primary effusion lymphomas can be associat ed with human herpes virus while ocular adenexal lymphomas can be associated with Chlamydia psittaci.10 Moreover, evidence has shown association between splenic or large cell lymphomas and hepatitis C infections.11 The risk of developing NHL increases when a person was immunocompromised such as undergoing organ transplant12 or patients with AIDS and autoimmune diseases. Certain chemotherapy drugs and radiotherapy may increase the risk of developing NHL within 10 to 15 years after treatment.4 Solvents, pesticides and other chemical factors have also been associated with causes of NHL.2 Diagnosis In this case, a male patient has been recently diagnosed with NHL but the type of NHL and pathology were unconfirmed. Lymphoma can be divided into two types: indolent and aggressive. Indolent lymphomas such as follicular, marginal zone and lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma13 are commonly accompanied by slow, progressing and painless peripheral lymphadenopathy. There might be history of patients with enlarged lymph nodes before regressing without diagnosis made. These spontaneous regressions of lymph nodes may occur, preventing biopsy diagnostic test from being done and patient was treated for an assumed infection. It is uncommon to see primary extranodal lymphoma or systemic symptoms occurring at early stages but can be encountered as disease progresses. Examples of systemic B-symptoms are fever, weight loss, and night sweats. Indolent lymphoma can undergo histologic transformation or changes to a different, more aggressive usually large-cell lymphoma type. Indolent lymphomas are usually sl ow growing and it may respond to treatment but relapse tend to occur frequently.14 Aggressive lymphomas such as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma are different from indolent with most patients presenting with lymphadenopathy or involvement of extranodal sites. Common extranodal sites affliated are gastrointestinal tract, skin, bone marrow, sinuses, thyroid, or central nervous system. It is usual to see presence of systemic B-symptoms in a third of patients with aggressive lymphomas. Aggressive lymphomas are fast growing and are treatable than indolent lymphomas.14 NHL has been hard to diagnose and recognizing people that has high risk of NHL is difficult. Patient can only be identified correctly after development of lymphadenopathy or other symptoms related to NHL. Even though with the advancement in imaging techniques, histology is mandatory to confirm diagnosis of NHL type before progressing to treatment. It is common to use surgical biopsy either by incisional or excisional with latter being recommended to provide biopsy specimens to be reviewed by hematopathologists. The morphologic appearance obtained with additional information from immunophenotype, genetics and clinical features were then used to classify NHL with definite clinical unit. These were the basis for World Health Organization (WHO) (Table 1) classification of neoplastic diseases arising from hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues. Fine-needle aspiration or large bore-needle biopsies can also be used to diagnose NHL but was discourage for initial diagnosis due to difficulty in co nfirming a specific diagnosis.15 Table 1. World Health Organization (WHO) Classification of non-Hodgkins lymphomas.15 B-cell neoplasms Precursor B-cell neoplasm Precursor B-lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma (precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia) Mature (peripheral) B-cell neoplasms B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma B-cell prolymphocytic leukemia Lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma Splenic marginal zone lymphoma Hairy cell leukemia Plasma cell myeloma/plasmacytoma Extranodal marginal zone B-cell lymphoma of MALT Nodal marginal zone lymphoma Follicular lymphoma Mantle cell lymphoma Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma Mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma Primary effusion lymphoma Burkitts lymphoma/Burkitt cell leukemia T-Cell and NK-Cell Neoplasms Precursor T-cell neoplasm Precursor T-lymphoblastic lymphoma/leukemia Mature (peripheral) T-cell neoplasms T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia T-cell granular lymphocytic leukemia Aggressive NK-cell leukemia Adult T-cell lymphoma/leukemia (HTLV-1) Extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type Enteropathy-type T-cell lymphoma Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma Subcutaneous panniculitis-like T-cell lymphoma Mycosis fungoides and Sà ©zary syndrome Anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, T/null cell, primary cutaneous type Peripheral T-cell lymphoma, unspecified Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma Anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, T/null cell, primary systemic type MALT, mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue; NK, natural killer. Source: Data from Zelenetz and Horwitz Lymphoma has been categorized into stages following modified Ann Arbor Staging System (Table 2) originally developed for Hodgkin disease. This system as shown in table 2 was based on area of involvement, presence or absence of extranodal involvement and B symptoms such as weight loss more than 10% of body weight, fever, and drenching night sweats.15 Histology and morphology of lymphoma largely determined the treatment outcome and prognosis. Due to different outcomes of patients with lymphoma and limitation of clinical staging, International Prognostic Index (IPI) (Table 3) was developed from 2,031 patients with 5 independent, easily obtained clinical features such as patient age, Ann Arbor stage, serum lactate dehydrogenase level, number of extranodal sites and performance status to predict survival. The IPI (Table 3) served as a guide for clinical management, clinical trial design and interpretation. However, this IPI was designed for aggressive lymphoma. Thus, the Follicular Lymphoma International Prognostic Index (FLIPI) (Table 4) was developed from 4,167 patients for indolent lymphoma with clinical features such as patients age, Ann Arbor stage, haemoglobin level, number of nodal areas and serum lactacte dehydrogenase level. Examples of nodal areas are cervical, para-aortic, inguinocrural, celiac and other ancillary nodal si tes. FLIPI can help determine significantly different mortality risk of patients with indolent lymphomas and improve decision on different aggressive therapy options that may benefit certain patient groups.15 Treatment Non-Hodgkins lymphoma can be treated by a range of treatments available such as radiation therapy / radiotherapy, surgery, stem cell transplant, single-agent or combination chemotherapy, immunotherapy or radioimmunconjugate therapy. Treatments can consist of one or a combination of the options available with different treatments having different duration and doses. In this case scenario, the patient was recently diagnosed with NHL. Due to the lack of information, NHL diagnosed can be assumed to be either indolent lymphoma or aggressive lymphoma. Being 28 year old, patient was eligible for more aggressive treatment compared to patients aged 60 and above.16 Indolent Lymphoma Indolent lymphomas such as follicular lymphoma and MALT lymphoma were not treated at early stages if there were no symptoms present with doctors adopting watch-and-wait approach. In a study conducted by Division of Oncology, Stanford University Medical Center, 43 patients with follicular lymphoma stage I or stage II were observed after deferment of radiation due to a variety of reasons. After a median of 86 months of follow-up, 63% had not been treated and survival was almost the same to the patients that has undergo radiation.17 In this situation, toxic side effects of treatments should be considered against the advantages of undergoing treatments. Patients with low grade, stage I-II NHL lymphoma with localized disease can be treated either with surgery18 or radiation therapy. Radiation therapy as shown in a study conducted by Stanford University can be used to treat limited stage, low grade lymphomas of 177 patients with good remission rate.19 Another study conducted on 103 patient s with stage I and II MALT lymphoma showed 77% disease-free survival rate with radiotherapy.20 Surgery can be done in situations where low grade MALT lymphoma is localized and there is a risk of perforation but if the lymphoma progresses to a more advance stage, then surgery no longer present as first line treatment.21 As lymphoma mainly affects systemic system, surgery is normally used to establish diagnosis. Besides that, stem cell transplant can be used to treat NHL but was limited to younger patients and difficulty in determination of the time to treat patients. A study on autologous stem cell transplant after high dose therapy showed higher response rate compared to immunochemotherapy.22 Chemotherapy options for indolent lymphomas ranged from single-agents such as cyclophosphamide, chlorambucil or doxorubicin to combinations such as cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisone (CVP)23 chemotherapy. More aggressive combination of chemotherapy that combines cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) can also be use. In a study conducted in 228 stage III or IV follicular lymphoma patients that were treated randomly either with cyclophosphamide, a less toxic single agent or combination of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone and bleomycin (CHOP-B) showed no initial advantage to combination treatment eventhough in an unplanned subgroup analysis showed improved disease control and survival.24 Cyclophosphamide is a nitrogen mustard alkylating agent that acts by causing DNA damage and interfere with cell replication. Besides fatigue, nausea, vomiting, bone marrow suppression and alopecia that were normally associated with anticancer treatment, prolonged use of cyclophosphamide might result in severely affected gametogenesis.25 Chlorambucil has similar mechanism of action to cyclophosphamide with lesser side effects but development of widespread rashes may occur.25 Doxorubicin is a cytotoxic, anthracyclines antibiotic that acts by intercalating DNA. Common side effects are present with additional potential cardiomyopathy and severe tissue necrosis due to extravasation when administering doxorubicin. Vincristine is a vinca alkaloids and act by depolymerising microtubules and thus inhibiting mitosis. It may not have significant myelosuppression along with other common side effects but may cause neurotoxicity and severe tissue necrosis due to extravasation.25 Prednisone is a pr odrug that is converted in liver to prednisolone that has a marked antitumour effect in NHL. However, it may cause immunosuppression, adrenal suppression, mood and behaviour changes, gastro-intestinal effects with mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid side effects. Bleomycin is a cytotoxic antibiotic that is metabolized to produce superoxide and hydroxyl free radicals which results in DNA damage. However it can cause skin pigmentation and dose related pulmonary fibrosis.26 In addition to chemotherapy, immunotherapy is becoming a standard treatment for indolent lymphoma. Rituximab is a recombinant chimeric monoclonal antibody that targets protein CD20 which is primarily found on the surface of malignant and normal human B cells involved with B-cell proliferation and differentiation. It is said to induce apoptosis of CD20 cells.25,26 Rituximab was generally well tolerated when used compared to other conventional chemotherapy with distinct reduction of haemotological events like severe neutropenia and associated infections.27 Studies28,29,30 conducted on the usage of rituximab for recently diagnosed follicular NHL as single first line therapy showed good response rates around 52% to 73% and a 12-month progression free survival. Rituximab can be combined with chemotherapy such as CHOP as CHOP-R to treat indolent B-cell lymphoma. The trial of CHOP vs CHOP-R31 conducted in 1999 showed 95% overall response rate for CHOP-R with 55% achieving complete remission and 40% in partial remission. Addition of cytokines such as interferon ÃŽÂ ±32, interleukin 233, and interleukin 1234 to rituximab therapy conducted in studies shown that good efficacy profile can be obtained but further studies need to be conducted to confirm. Interferon ÃŽÂ ± has antitumour therapeutic effect but is not side effect free with additional myelosuppression, ocular side effects, cardiovascular problems, hypersensitivity on top of common anticancer side effects. Interferon-ÃŽÂ ± can be incorporated into chemotherapy as a new approach in treating NHL. Incorporation of interferon-ÃŽÂ ± into anthracycline-containing has been demonstrated to increase the remission rate and remission duration. However the data has not been conclusive and further information must be obtained before making it as standard treatment. German Low Grade Lymphoma Study Group has been conducting trial with continuous higher dose interferon maintenance therapy yield 45% relapse-free patie nts.35 Besides rituximab, Food Drug Administration in United States has approved two anti-CD20 radioimmunotherapy agents: iodine I 131 tositumomab36 and yttrium Y 90 ibritumomab tiuxetan37 for treatment of lymphoma. Both agents contain murine antibodies that target CD20 with ÃŽÂ ²-emitting radioisotopes but iodine I 131 tositumomab can also emit gamma radiation. Both still cause side effects although milder with significant one being myelosuppression. University of Michigan conducted a phase II trial where 76 patients were given treatment of iodine I 131 tositumomab as initial treatment for follicular lymphoma and resulted in 75% of complete response and 95% of overall response.38 Yttrium Y 90 ibritumomab tiuxetan has been shown to be effective when used in consolidation therapy after rituximab39 or in relapsed/refractory B-cell NHL.40 Radioimmunotherapy was deemed better than radiotherapy due to prevention of normal tissues from being exposed to radiation and systemic radiation can be a chieved to known and unknown tumour cells. There is another emerging strategy to counter low-grade NHL by administering vaccine to boost patients immune system which leads to tumour rejection by patients body. Trials conducted showed promising results among relapsed patients following chemotherapy with prolonged disease free progression and overall survival. This strategy has not been approved by FDA but personalized vaccine therapy has been received positively in its effectiveness as first line in countering slow progressing NHL. Vaccine therapy was deemed too slow for aggressive NHL but trials were ongoing to determine its efficacy.41 The management of indolent NHL have to depend on considerations such as symptoms, age, comorbidities, extent of disease, prior therapy and others. Most decisions on management of indolent NHL depend on physicians trying to optimize the treatment options to treat this chronic illness.15 Aggressive Lymphoma Aggressive NHL consist mainly of diffuse large B cells demands almost similar treatments to indolent lymphoma. As explained above, radiotherapy is one of the options available. The early treatment for early stage aggressive NHL was radiotherapy alone with relative cure rates of 50% for stage I and decreases to 20% for stage II. Therefore, combination of radiotherapy and a chemotherapy regimen were used to improve the chances of survival for aggressive NHL patients. A study conducted among 400 patients with localized immediate or high grade NHL compared the results of one group receiving 8 cycles of CHOP alone and another receiving 3 cycles of CHOP and radiotherapy. The study showed patients under combined CHOP and radiotherapy has statistically significant overall survival rate than patients receiving CHOP alone. Life-threatening side effects that were encountered by both groups were statistically significant in comparison with fewer patients under combined CHOP and radiotherapy suff ering from adverse effects. Therefore, combination of CHOP and radiotherapy are better for treatment of localized NHL compared to CHOP alone.42 There was another alternative treatment available for patients with aggressive NHL called high-dose therapy with autologous stem cell transplant (HDT ASCT). A number of trials among intermediate and high risk patients have been conducted to determine its efficacy following initial chemotherapy but there were conflicting results resulting in this treatment for not being first-line.43 Combination therapy has been known to be better than single therapy and used to increase the percentage of patients entering complete remission. In 1976 and 1980, CHOP regimen44 as explained above and COMLA regimen45 which includes cyclophosphamide, vincristine, methotrexate with leucovorin rescue, and cytarabine were published respectively. Both regimens have been shown to present a possible cure rate of approximately 30% for patients with aggressive lymphoma achieving long-term remission. In the ensuing years, new second and third generation of aggressive NHL regimens showed 55% to 65% patients being cured. An example of second regimen treatment was m-BACOD consisting of methotrexate, bleomycin, doxorubicin, cyclophosphasmide, vincristine, and dexamethasone.46 Third generation regimens were such as MACOP-B made up of methotrexate, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisone and bleomycin47 and ProMACE-CytaBOM compromising prednisone, methotrexate, cyclophosphamide, etopo side, cytarabine, bleomycin, vincristine and methotrexate.48 The effectiveness of all these regimens were not known as many of these studies were conducted with relatively small number of patients until 1993, a trial called national high priority intergroup Phase III was held to do a comparison between CHOP, MACOP-B, ProMACE-CytaBOM and m-BACOD regarding effectiveness and side effects.49 The four regimens demonstrate equivalent outcomes but CHOP showed the lowest side effects. Based on this trial, CHOP regimen became the standard treatment for NHL in the United States. Another regimen called ACVBP consisting of doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vindesine, bleomycin, and prednisone has been developed by Groupe dEtude des Lymphomes de LAdulte (GELA) in Europe which were compared in poor risk patients against CHOP and results favour ACVBP.50 In another trial, etoposide and CHOP termed CHOEP was shown to increase complete remission rate and survival rate in 18 to 60 year-old patient in a t rial that compared 3 week CHOP-21, 2 week CHOP-14 with CHOEP-21, CHOEP-14. CHOEP was recommended in the conclusion of this trial if the patient is young with good prognostic feature of aggressive lymphoma.51 Etoposide is a synthetic analogue to vinca alkaloids and binds to DNA and topoisomerase II complex in phase G2 to prevent DNA replication and causes strand to break.26 Etoposide is still associated with toxic effects such as alopecia, myelosuppression, nausea and vomiting.25 Immunotherapy also played a part in treatment of aggressive lymphoma with rituximab as a single agent. GELA has shown that the overall response of rituximab as a single agent was 37% with patients suffering from relapsed and refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.52 A randomized controlled trial has been conducted by Mab Thera International Trial (MInT) Group to investigate CHOP-like chemotherapy against CHOP-like chemotherapy with rituximab. The result showed that rituximab combined with cheomotherapy increased overall survival and with no significant increase in side effects.53 Rituximab and CHOP regimen is the most common chemotherapy regimen for diffuse large B-cell NHL. British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) implemented a new policy on 1 March 2001 recommending all patients newly diagnosed with advanced stage diffuse large B-cell lymphoma to be treated with CHOP and rituximab based on evidences from trials conducted by GELA and MInT Group.54 Treatment recommendation. As stated earlier, limited information was available for this case scenario. Patient is only known as 28 year old male recently diagnosed with NHL. An appropriate treatment that could be given as first line is CHOP regimen with addition of rituximab (CHOP-R) based on evidences given above. CHOP-R has significant better results compared to CHOP alone and addition of rituximab does not increase side effects. CHOP-R can also be used for both indolent and aggressive lymphoma with positive outcomes as stated above although symptomless indolent lymphoma may require watch-and wait strategy. However in terms of cost-effectiveness, CHOP-R is more expensive than CHOP alone but CHOP-R is preferred due to its increased efficacy profile and similar side effects. In conclusion, CHOP-R can be given every 14 or 21 days with the course of treatment ranging from 3 to 8 cycles. CHOP-R cycle started with the first day drug administration consisting of rituximab, cyclophosphamide, vincristine and doxorub icin through injection into a vein or through drip and prednisone was taken orally from day 1 to day 5. Conflict: Newton Vs Leibniz Conflict: Newton Vs Leibniz Mathematicians everywhere contributed to the development of Calculus. However, the two most known founders of calculus are Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Nowadays, the credit is handed over to both men. Nevertheless, a controversy took place over which of them deserved the recognition. The controversy was both intense and widespread. Isaac Newton: Isaac Newton is known as one of the greatest scientists who have ever lived; in addition, he is recognized as one of the most accomplished mathematicians that England has ever seen. Newton became fascinated in mathematics at an early age. Later in life, he created Calculus. However, he did not publish it until later. This was an enormous mistake. His life: In 1643, Newton was born. Later, in 1655, Newton began the discovery of calculus with the general binomial series which led to him discovering integration, differentiation, and infinite processes. Thirty two years later, 1687, Newton published his work in a book called The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. At the age of eighty four, in 1727, Newton died. Gottfried Leibniz: Gottfried Leibniz is known as a worldwide scientist. He became a leading international philosopher as well as, a worldwide known comprehensive thinker. He studied forces and weight. He wrote about economics, theology, biology, geology, law, politics, metaphysics, and mathematics. He claims that he invented Calculus independently from Newton, but is it true? His life: In 1646, Leibniz was born in Germany. When Leibniz was 27 years old, in 1673, he moved to England. In 1675, Leibniz began using the integral symbol, which no one ever used before. In 1676, Leibniz developed the Leibniz Calculus. 8 years later, 1684, Leibniz published a superior system of calculus about notation which was easier to use. At the age of 70, 1716, Leibniz died in his home country, Germany. What is Calculus? Calculus is the branch of mathematics that deals with limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. Calculus has two branches: Differential Calculus: Differential calculus is the study of the derivative of a function. It is the study of how a function changes when its input changes. Differentiation is the process of finding the derivative. The derivative at any point equals to the slope of the tangent line of the functions graph. Basically, the derivative of a function determines the best linear approximation. Integral Calculus: Integral Calculus is the study of the properties, definitions, and applications of both, the indefinite integral and the definite integral. Integration is the method of finding the value of an integral. Integral Calculus is related to two linear operations. Indefinite Integral: The anti-derivative, inverse of derivative Definite integral: When you input a function in the definite integral, it outputs a number. This gives you the area between the graph and the x-axis. The Calculus Controversy: The conflict was an argument between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz over who first invented calculus. Newton claims that he began working on a form of calculus in 1666, but he did not publish. Gottfried Leibniz began to work on his calculus in 1674, and he published his work in a paper in 1684. Newton created his clumsy method of fluxions, in 1655. However, he feared condemnation. Therefore, he did not publish his work until 1704. The fact that he fought with Leibniz before publishing anything raises the question: Was it Newton who invented Calculus? Leibniz developed his calculus in 1673; he used many symbols that we still use today- derivatives as dy/dx and many more. Leibniz published his work in 1684, 20 years before Newton. The last years of Leibnizs life were poisoned by a controversy with Newton over whether he discovered calculus separately, or whether he had invented another form of ideas that were Newtons. Newton influenced the quarrel. In 1673, Leibniz travelled to England. He met some of the leading scientists, like Robert Hookes and showed them his unfinished calculating machine. He did not meet Newton, but he was shown Newtons unpublished work. After Leibniz came back from England his two miraculous yeasr began. After these two years he was considered a creative genius. One of his inventions was calculus. Leibniz needed to contact a broader scientific community, so he became in contact with Christian Huygens, a Danish scientist, and Collins and Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society. Leibniz sent his ideas to Collin. In return, Collin sent Leibniz the latest ideas circulating the Royal Society. In Leibnizs defense, however, some documents sent did not reach Leibniz until after he developed his own way. It was clear that he had developed his own ideas on differentiation and integration. Both Newton and Leibniz had partners who helped them develop calculus. Johann Bernoulli, who used Leibniz calculus to maximize function, motivated Leibniz to fight with Newton. Newton was surrounded by people who Leibniz called enfants perdus, the lost children. Newton led the attack, and they continued to carry the battle. Leibniz was accused of plagiarism, a charge that doesnt carry on when you look at the evidence: 1. He published his method years before Newton published anything on Fluxions. 2. He always referred to his discovery as his own invention. 3. The way he developed his ideas of calculus were different than the way Newton developed his ideas. 4. Leibniz came up with ideas of differential and integral calculus before and of Newtons work was published. In June 1676, Newton wrote to Oldenburg, describing the binomial theory. He also stated that all curves can be reduced to infinite series. Moreover, he stated that areas, lengths of curves, and volumes can be obtained through series. Afterwards, Leibniz sent Newton a letter to clarify series. Newton replied by talking about finding the maxima and minima, differentials, and many other topics. However, he did not mention anything about fluxions. Later, Leibniz published his calculus in 1684. When Newton published his work, Newton found out that Leibnizs calculus was very similar to his. Newton also came to know later on that Leibniz has learnt ideas from Collins and Oldenburg; these ideas came from Newton and Gregory. In 1672, Leibniz learnt mathematics and got letters from Collins. What was unusual was that Newton sent Collins similar letters at the same time describing fluxions. Newton then accused Leibniz of copying his work. However, the case leaned towards Leibniz. In defense to the accusation, Leibniz said that when he was shown the works of Newton, but he did not learn anything useful because he did not know much mathematics at the time. Leibniz also said that Collins notes were irrelevant to the subject of calculus. Leibniz died dishonored; on the other hand, Newton was given a state funeral. However, History does authenticate Leibniz. As time goes on, the strength of the controversy decreases. And, Leibniz slowly finds his place as one of the best scientists of all time. All in all, Newton was known to be the first inventor of calculus because there is proof that he developed his theory of fluxions first. He also created differentials, and they were later explained by Leibniz. On the other hand, Leibniz also created calculus independently from Newton. Leibniz described his calculus in a different way than Newton. I personally think that Newton made a mistake by not publishing his work as soon as he created it. This is what led to the controversy. I also think that both men deserve the title of calculus inventors just as equally.

The Rivalry Between Boeing and Airbus Essay -- Economics Airlines Airc

The Rivalry Between Boeing and Airbus The rivalry between Boeing and Airbus goes back a long way, when Boeing was by far the dominant supplier of commercial airplanes. Up until 1997, Boeing was the clear market leader on the passenger airplane market. Now the situation is less certain, as Airbus has overtaken its American competitor[1] not only in the domestic market but also in the world market, with its introduction of new models of passenger aircrafts. The main issue addressed in this article is that a 1992 U.S.-EU civilian aircraft pact allows too much European government support for Airbus, helping it sell more jetliners than Boeing, which had an 80% share in the market a decade ago. Thus the U.S. government wants the E.U. to put an end to any new subsidies provided by their government, which are aimed at protecting their aerospace industry. The market structure for the aerospace sector is oligopolistic i.e. there are few enough firms to enable barriers to entry to new firms because of various reasons such as huge capital investments and high technology. Hence, Boeing and Airbus, which are the two giants in the aerospace industry, have virtually split the market. When Airbus was first set up, it faced a lot of competition from Boeing. This civilian aircraft pact allowed the European government to take protectionist measures by providing various government subsidies to its developing high –technology industry (i.e. Airbus) so that it could compete with Boeing in the international market. The diagram below illustrates the impact of the subsidies on the quantity supplied by Airbus in the domestic market. In the diagram we assume that the world supply is perfectly elastic at Pw. Under conditions o... ... disputes and worsen trade realtionships between the U.S. and the E.U. The E.U. government was justified in providing subsidies to Airbus earlier. This is because Boeing were the clear market leaders and had established a monopoly power (i.e. Boeing was the only major industry in the aerospace sector) not only in the world market, but also in the local European market. Hence, this posed as a big threat to Airbus, since they were not able to compete in the world and local market and this could have lead to the decline of the aerospace industry of Airbus. But now, since Airbus has established itself as one of the main producers in the aerospace sector, future subsidies are not desirable for free trade. References: Essential of Economics – John Sloman http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/125726.stm [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/125726.stm