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Modern organizations acknowledge the fact that their survival and development largely depend on proficient management, which integrates innovation, quality and modern technology performances. This series of articles targets operations management and quality perception and level of understanding and appliance within Romanian companies in several areas of activity. The articles see the analysis of quality management and operations management impact as a source of competitive advantage. They will explore the way companies in Romania approach the field of operational excellence by adopting quality standards and showing constant and consistent care for that. The art of leading a quality organization stands as a large scale and very complex activity, where each business segment should use all the tools it has in order to improve the daily routine of the business. The new emerging technologies, as well as the globalization process and the economic crisis stand as important engines for changes within companies and organizations. This means companies and organizations need to continuously adapt and improve business and operational models, sometimes gradually, but sometimes abruptly. The main research theme here is: which management tools the companies in Romania use in order to improve their processes and increase their innovation capacity related to the operational performance of the organization? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses several key performance indicators of profitability among entrepreneurs. She mentions controlling as being related planning actions, defining objectives, and making decisions based on defined indicators. The author adds that entrepreneurs could achieve better business results if they understood the importance of the use of controlling indicators and methods.

Despite the limits imposed by the computer's impossibility to perfectly duplicate the human reasoning, the information systems that assist decision making and the business intelligence components are considered nowadays compulsory instruments of the modern manager; most of the daily decision procedures, the information required by the decision making process together with the information search and retrieval techniques are taken over completely by these systems. Furthermore, their continuous development, doubled the improvement of computers'performances, offer increased possibilities to take over major parts of some of the most intense reasoning activities performed by humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consolidating the IT field of the company represents a target for most IT responsible, nowadays. At the same time, organizations expect their IT expenditure to increase in the next decade. This paper aims to underline the new generation of information technology and how to use them to make better business decisions in managing enterprise resources and improve customer relationships. The alternative goal is to place the focus not only on developing new software but also on achieving business results, placing particular emphasis on customer relationship management. The purpose of technology is to solve practical business problems, and one of them is the necessity to understand and maintain relationships with the customers. The paper will reveal the companies' responses to the latest dramatic changes in the informational technologies, in order to cope with the persistence of the global economic crisis and to assure increase of organizational efficiency and profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the mechanisms that affect consumers' interest in luxury clothing innovations. The actual research aims to investigate the effect of status quo and clothing involvement on consumer brand loyalty. More, it was intended to quantify the influence of the level of engagement concerning clothing acquisition and the status quo tendency on the consumers' level of interest toward innovative luxury fashion products. The models were analyzed through the partial-least square-path modeling method. The results revealed that status quo bias and consumers' involvement in fashion influence their loyalty to brands and level of innovativeness. The novelty of the present research comes from the analysis of the impact of the status quo manifest variables on consumers' innovative tendencies. Moreover, it was found that status consumption fully mediates the relationships among the investigated predictors and considered outcome variables. The mediator manifests the highest effect size of all investigated predictors. The actual paper advances research in a direction that was not sufficiently addressed in the past, introducing the status quo construct as the main predictor of peoples' inclination to be loyal to a brand or to manifest a tendency toward innovativeness. Moreover, the article emphasizes the essential role manifested by social status in foreseeing a behavioral response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including economic loss due to burnout syndrome among prison personnel in Bulgaria, psychological trauma to understand chemical, cognitive, and social consequences and telemedicine in Romania.

Background and Aims. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and obesity are independently related to an increased risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), the primary cause of mortality in NAFLD patients. Even though many subjects with NAFLD are normal weight, it still remains uncertain whether their ASCVD risk is of major importance. The aim of this study is to assess and compare the ASCVD risk between lean and obese patients with NAFLD. Methods. Normal weight and obese patients were evaluated between January 2020 and February 2023 and their data was analyzed. NAFLD was diagnosed by vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) with controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) and the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines was used to evaluate the ASCVD risk. Results. In the obese group, 104 (63.8%) patients were diagnosed with NAFLD, compared to 32 (12.3%) in the lean population. In comparison to those with obese NAFLD, subjects with lean NAFLD had significantly higher ASCVD scores (mean 15.3% vs 22.7%, p<0.001). Moreover, subjects with lean NAFLD and significant liver fibrosis had a higher risk of ASCVD events, compared to their obese counterparts (OR, 2.51 vs 1.95, p=0.034). Regarding the presence of the components of the metabolic syndrome, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus was higher the obese group, while changes in the lipid profile and higher systolic blood pressure were more frequently found in lean subjects. Conclusions: Subjects with lean NAFLD had an ASCVD score that were significantly higher than those with obese NAFLD. In both study groups, the presence of significant liver fibrosis was an essential risk factor associated with an ASCVD event, but the effects were more pronounced in lean individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest technological progress provided significant changes in the approach of several areas of daily life, healthcare, and research. In this context, there are many solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI) that were designed to provide assistance in repetitive, ultraprecision, and high-performance data analysis tasks. While the benefits of using AI in Medicine are suggestive, they are shadowed by potential limitations based on the perception of the targeted users due to lack of awareness, mistrust, and human versus machine controversy. Thus, we aimed to find the current opinion of the medical workers and students regarding the modern applications of AI in medical care and research. Using an online specialised platform, we conducted a survey addressed to the members of academic and healthcare community. They were invited to answer specific questions evaluating their knowledge on AI, and their availability to accept and use AI-based applications in daily life and profession. Also, they were challenged to identify advantages and weaknesses of AI-based applications in healthcare and medical research. We found that the responses regarding the use of AI-based solutions in daily life and healthcare suggested several differences in awareness. Also, some of the participants identified several possible sources of inequity in receiving medical care when intelligence-based applications were used in decision making demarche. Similarly, despite that AI-based resources could offer high performance solutions to medical care and research consequent to technology progress, the participants pointed out that the main negative outcome of artificial would be the lack of empathy involved in patients' management. AI-based solutions in medical care could offer significant improvements of the medical act and in biomedical research. However, there are still many limitations that should be addressed when adapting AI resources in Medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of fetal ultrasound in prenatal care allows the diagnosis of the majority of abdominal wall defects with subsequent opportunities for parental counseling and optimal perinatal management. Outcome of a fetus with an abdominal wall defect is significantly affected by the presence of additional malformations or chromosomal defects. Appropriate management is dependent on the early identification of such anomalies in addition to accurate delineation of the abdominal wall defect itself. Cases with anterior wall defects are presented to illustrate the spectrum of appearances with 2D and 3D ultrasound. 2D combined with 3D ultrasound are very effective methods in the diagnosis of these anomalies and MRI should be reserved only for difficult and intricate cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To individualize a follow-up methodology for ASCUS Pap-tests in relationship with the viral type and age groups of patients. Materials and Methods: HPV DNA typing by PCR for women with the cervical lesions, Pap-test: conventional, LBC in last six months. From 175 cases with HPV DNA typing, 41 have been confirmed as ASCUS and 4 cases as ASC-H. We have divided patients in 3 age groups: between 20-30 years old (13 cases), between 31-40 years old (22 cases), over 40 years old (10 cases). Results: HPV DNA typing (PCR) 20 negative results, one type of HPV 15 cases, multiple viral types 10 cases: 2 types: 3 women; 3 types: 6 women; 5 types: 1 women: ASC-H4 cases: 2 cases: with HPV-16, 2 with multiple types all within the 31-40 years old segment; ASCUS-21 cases: 13 with one type, 8 cases with more viral types (including HR HPV in 5 cases), HPV DNA typing (PCR) - 25 positive results. Conclusions: The age group of 31-40 years old offers high number of ASCUS with positive HPV DNA type. No ASC-H with HPV negative. The colposcopy result helps and indicates the biopsy in the false negative HPV DNA typing. The age group of 31-40 years olds with ASCUS persistent results and HPV negative has to be followed more than 24 months and a safe attitude could be the treatment by LLETZ or conization. It is known that in postmenopausal period HPV DNA is useful and could help if cytology or colposcopy are unsatisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlabelled: Many of the risk factors for postmenopausal breast cancer are related to excess estrogen exposure. Hyperinsulinemia associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus may promote breast cancer via increased peripheral production of estrogens and direct mitogenic effect of insulin itself., Material and Methods: Our retro-prospective study compares breast cancer characteristics between two study groups consisting of 53 diabetic and 391 non-diabetic patients diagnosed and treated for breast cancer., Results: Almost 12% of the patients presenting breast cancer were diabetic and menopause occurred at 48.71 years for diabetic patients and at 49.87 years for the non-diabetic ones. Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients were treated by diet and oral agents, had greater body mass index (32.18 kg/m2), presented well differentiated (57% in G1) but greater (68% in T2) tumors and an increased incidence of lobular (13%) and mixed type (19%) carcinoma., Conclusions: Diet and physical exercises as methods for preventing type 2 diabetes mellitus together with screening strategies among diabetic patients could contribute to decreasing the incidence of breast cancer.