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Purpose: Proteomic profiling of patients undergoing intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for prostate cancer can identify unique biomarkers that reflect acute toxicity in normal tissues. Our objectives were to measure inflammatory cytokine proteins during IMRT and assess the variability of individual proteomic signatures.Experimental Design: Forty-two patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer were recruited as follows: group 1, definitive IMRT (78 Gy in 39 fractions, n = 22), and group 2, IMRT postprostatectomy (66 Gy in 33 fractions, n = 20). Blood/urine samples were collected at baseline and weekly during IMRT. Acute toxicity was graded weekly during radiotherapy using CTC-AE v3.0 criteria. Multiplexed immunoassays were used to quantify cytokines including granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor, IFN-γ, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-1α, IL-2, IL6, IL-8, IL-10, and IL-12p70.Results: We observed positive correlations between cytokine expression between serum and plasma, but not between serum/plasma and urine. The Mann-Whitney test showed a significant increase in IFN-γ and IL-6 during IMRT (P = 0.0077, 0.0035). Increasing IL-2 and IL-1 expression were associated with increased probability of acute gastrointestinal and genitourinary toxicity, respectively.Conclusions: Determination of radiation-response signatures is feasible using multiplexed immunoassays and is a promising predictive early biomarker of toxicity outcomes. (Clin Cancer Res 2009;15(17):5576–83)

Supplementary Data from Longitudinal Cytokine Expression during IMRT for Prostate Cancer and Acute Treatment Toxicity

The current study draws upon socialization theory to investigate both antecedents and outcomes of support service utilization within a sales employee context. Research indicates high performing, in...

Mutual gaze (i.e., eye contact) is linked to both positive outcomes such as trust and liking, and negative outcomes such as dominance and hostility. When selling to multiple people, salespeople must decide how to divide mutual gaze between customers. Too much or little time spent looking at a particular customer could reduce rapport. This research addresses two research questions: (1) Are salespeople more inclined to share mutual gaze with certain customers? And (2) What is the effect of mutual gaze focused primarily on one particular customer compared to sharing mutual gaze with both customers more equitably? Real sales encounters were analyzed and two follow-up experimental studies were conducted. The results show that salespeople tend to share mutual gaze with customers who are similar when first meeting, and those who speak more. Sharing mutual gaze equitably between customers when first meeting is typically more beneficial than focusing on a particular customer.

We explore the mediating role of moral disengagement in counterproductive behavior by professional sellers. Moral disengagement is a cognitive state in which moral standards are deactivated from one's actions. We theorize that the effect of job-related complexity on salesperson counterproductive behavior is better explained when this relationship is mediated by salesperson moral disengagement. Our empirical findings support the explanation that complexity influences salesperson's moral disengagement. In turn, this influences counterproductive salesperson behavior. Ethical role modeling is found to play a strong mitigating role. Overall, our results indicate how counterproductive salesperson behavior develops, why salespeople engage in such behavior, and how sales managers can project themselves as ethical mentors to lessen unfavorable behaviors by salespeople.

It is unclear why customers perceive some salespeople to be helpful and others to be threatening. Salesperson stereotypes are often considered negative and threatening; however, salesperson stereotypes may also be positive and professional. Based on the concepts of stereotype threat and compound stereotyping, this research proposes that customers form opinions about the threat posed by specific salespeople based on: (1) the extent to which they feel threatened by stereotypical salespeople in an industry, (i.e., stereotype threat), and then (2) the degree to which the salesperson's appearance matches customer stereotypes about salespeople for that industry. Salesperson stereotypes are viewed negatively when they elicit a stereotype threat in customers and viewed positively when they do not. This research investigates an alterable appearance characteristic, salesperson attire, and a fixed demographic characteristic, salesperson gender, using three experimental studies and a field study. When salespeople belong to a demographic that is considered threatening to a particular customer, they can wear less formal attire to avoid stereotype threat. When salespeople are not considered threatening, they should conform to salesperson stereotypes of professionalism.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a complex disorder with many pathways known to contribute to its pathogenesis, such as apoptotic signaling, with antidepressants having been shown to target these pathways. In this study, we explored microRNAs as predictive markers of drug response to duloxetine, a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibiter, using peripheral blood samples from 3 independent clinical trials (NCT00635219; NCT0059991; NCT01140906) comparing 6-8 weeks of treatment with duloxetine to placebo treatment in patients with MDD. Plasma microRNA was extracted and sequenced using the Ion Proton Sequencer. Rank feature selection analysis was used to identify microRNAs in the top 10th percentile for their differentiating ability between patients who remitted and did not remit with duloxetine treatment. The results were then compared between the 3 trials to see their replicability. To further validate our findings, we reasoned that the pathways targeted by these microRNAs would be those shown to be altered in MDD in pathway enrichment analysis. Hsa-miR-23a-3p, hsa-miR-16-5p, hsa-miR-146a-5p and hsa-miR-21-5p were identified in 2 or more trials as being able to differentiate patients who would remit with duloxetine treatment using samples collected before treatment initiation, suggesting that they may be good candidates for identification of predictive biomarkers of duloxetine response. Pathway enrichment analysis further showed that microRNAs identified as differentiating for duloxetine response target the apoptosis signaling pathway. Future studies examining these microRNAs outside of a clinical trial setting and exploring their role in MDD may further our understanding of MDD and antidepressant response.

There is a great desire to relate the patterns of endogenous peptides in blood to human disease and drug response. The best practices for the preparation of blood fluids for analysis are not clear and also relatively few of the peptides in blood have been identified by tandem mass spectrometry. We compared a number of sample preparation methods to extract endogenous peptides including C18 reversed phase, precipitation, and ultrafiltration. We examined the results of these sample preparation methods by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) using MALDI-TOF/TOF and electrospray ionization-ion trap. Peptides from solid-phase extraction with C18 in the range of hundreds of femtomoles per spot were detected from the equivalent of 1 μL of serum by MALDI-TOF. We observed endogenous serum peptides from fibrinogen α- and β-chain, complement C3, α-2-HS-glycoprotein, albumin, serine (or cysteine) proteinase inhibitor, factor VIII, plasminogen, immunoglobulin, and other abundant blood proteins. However, we also recorded significant MS/MS spectra from tumor necrosis factor-α-, major histocompatibility complex-, and angiotensin-related peptides, as well as peptides from collagens and other low-abundance proteins. Amino acid substitutions were detected and a phosphorylated peptide was also observed. This is the first time the endogenous peptides of fetal serum have been examined by MS and where peptides from low-abundance proteins, phosphopeptides, and amino acid substitutions were detected.

During the last decade, a tremendous amount of work has been published on using surface measurement of mechanical specific energy (MSE) for enhancing drilling efficiency and maximizing rate of penetration (ROP). With an increase in directional drilling, surface measurement of MSE doesn't correlate with downhole conditions due to frictional losses along the drill string and bottom hole assembly (BHA). Attempts to measure weight on bit (WOB) and torque on bit (TOB) downhole typically involve expensive tools that are deployed 50-100 feet behind the bit. The authors present a novel in-bit strain sensor that measures WOB and TOB in the bit while drilling. This new approach is completely non-invasive and does not change the BHA. Field testing has shown that in many circumstances only 50% of the surface indicated weight reaches the bit and drilling performance suffers including low ROP and higher vibration levels. This highlights the importance of managing the directional plan and using methods to improve weight transfer. This new in-bit measurement tool has been used to drill over 100,000ft in applications around the world and provides useful insights into drilling performance.

Using a novel approach with video-recordings of sales interactions, this study focuses on a dynamic analysis of salesperson effectiveness in handling customer queries. We conceptualize salesperson behaviors, namely, resolving, relating, and emoting, as separate elements of customer query handling and empirically identify the distinct verbal and nonverbal cues that salespeople use to display these behaviors during sales interactions. We draw from compensation effects in social cognition theory to propose that customers’ perceptions of a salesperson’s effectiveness are prone to trade-offs between competence (resolving behaviors) and warmth (relating and emoting behaviors). Results, robust to endogeneity corrections, support the proposed tradeoffs such that the effectiveness of salesperson’s resolving behavior is significantly curtailed, even neutralized, by the salesperson’s relating and emoting behaviors. We situate these counterintuitive results within the extant theory and research on sales interactions, and outline implications for practice.

Rewarding top performers is of strategic importance to the sales organization. Top-performing salespeople not only contribute significantly to the success of their firm but may also motivate the sk...

Subsequent to global initiatives in mapping the human brain and investigations of neurobiological markers for brain disorders, the number of multi-site studies involving the collection and sharing of large volumes of brain data, including electroencephalography (EEG), has been increasing. Among the complexities of conducting multi-site studies and increasing the shelf life of biological data beyond the original study are timely standardization and documentation of relevant study parameters. We present the insights gained and guidelines established within the EEG working group of the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression (CAN-BIND). CAN-BIND is a multi-site, multi-investigator, and multi-project network supported by the Ontario Brain Institute with access to Brain-CODE, an informatics platform that hosts a multitude of biological data across a growing list of brain pathologies. We describe our approaches and insights on documenting and standardizing parameters across the study design, data collection, monitoring, analysis, integration, knowledge-translation, and data archiving phases of CAN-BIND projects. We introduce a custom-built EEG toolbox to track data preprocessing with open-access for the scientific community. We also evaluate the impact of variation in equipment setup on the accuracy of acquired data. Collectively, this work is intended to inspire establishing comprehensive and standardized guidelines for multi-site studies.

OBJECTIVE To report the symptomatic and functional outcomes in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) during a 2-phase treatment trial and to estimate the value of early improvement after 2 weeks in predicting clinical response to escitalopram and subsequently to adjunctive treatment with aripiprazole. METHODS Participants with MDD (N = 211) identified with the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and confirmed with the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview were recruited from 6 outpatient centers across Canada (August 2013 through December 2016) and treated with open-label escitalopram (10-20 mg) for 8 weeks (Phase 1). Clinical and functional outcomes were evaluated using the MADRS, Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self-Rated (QIDS-SR), Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS), and Lam Employment Absence and Productivity Scale (LEAPS). Participants were evaluated at 8 and 16 weeks for clinical and functional response and remission. Phase 1 responders continued escitalopram while nonresponders received adjunctive aripiprazole (2-10 mg) for a further 8 weeks (Phase 2). RESULTS After Phase 1, MADRS response (≥ 50% decrease from baseline) and remission (score ≤ 10) were, respectively, 47% and 31%, and SDS response (score ≤ 12) and remission (score ≤ 6) were, respectively, 53% and 24%. Response to escitalopram was maintained in 91% of participants at week 16, while 61% of the adjunctive aripiprazole group achieved MADRS response during Phase 2. Response and remission rates with the QIDS-SR were lower than with the MADRS. The LEAPS demonstrated significant occupational improvement (P < .05). Early symptomatic improvement predicted outcomes with modest accuracy. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates comparable symptomatic and functional outcomes to those of other large practical-design studies. There was a high response rate with the adjunctive use of aripiprazole in escitalopram nonresponders. Given the limited value of early clinical improvement to predict outcome, integration of clinical and biological markers deserves further exploration. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01655706.

Purpose This paper aims to examine how external marketing messages, which are generally used to convey company and product information to external target audiences, influence job attitudes and behaviors of salespeople. Design/methodology/approach The study is conducted based on survey data on 348 salespeople working at regional banks in the Midwestern USA. The relationships among salespeople’s perceptions of marketing messages (i.e. in terms of value incongruence and claim inaccuracy), organizational cynicism, job attitudes (i.e. organizational commitment and job satisfaction) and behaviors (i.e. extra-role performance) are empirically tested. Findings Salespeople’s perceptions of value incongruence and claim inaccuracy of marketing messages heighten organizational cynicism, which in turn negatively impacts on organizational commitment, job satisfaction and extra-role performance. Also, inaccurate claim directly decreases job attitudes and behaviors. Research limitations/implications The results are limited to salespeople in financial institutions, and future research should investigate perceptions of non-customer contact employees in other industry contexts. Future investigation may also include objective performance metrics and consumer satisfaction ratings. Practical implications Service firms should strive to align salespeople’s perceptions of marketing messages with firms’ intended goals from those messages. Originality/value Drawing on attitude theory and perspectives from sales literature, social psychology and organizational behavior literature, in the first of such investigations, the authors studied the impact of external marketing messages on salespeople’s cynicism, job attitudes and behaviors.

While academics and practitioners are increasingly aware of the value of including the customer in new product development (NPD), processes for doing so effectively remain unclear. Therefore, this study explores the process through which a firm's interaction orientation (the ability to effectively interact with customers) influences product development performance. Drawing on the resource-based view, this study develops a research model in which two market-relating capabilities—market-linking and marketing capabilities—mediate the effect of interaction orientation on product development performance. The validity of this model is examined by analyzing primary data gathered from 167 Taiwanese electronics companies. The model results provide support for a process link between interaction orientation, market-relating capabilities, and product development performance, such that a firm's capabilities enable the conversion of customer-based resources into productive new product outcomes. More specifically, the interaction orientation–product development speed relationship is mediated by both marketing and market-linking capabilities, while the interaction orientation–product innovativeness relationship is partially mediated by marketing capability. That is, interaction orientation has indirect effects on product innovativeness and product development speed by strengthening both marketing and market-linking capabilities that in turn improve product development performance. In addition, the results suggest that a firm's interactive rationality moderates the relationship between interaction orientation and marketing capability. Overall, this study enhances our understanding of how firms achieve superior product development performance by developing effective customer interaction. The findings of this study provide important strategic insights into NPD.

This article focuses on the locus of recovery (LOR) when failures occur in coproduced services. LOR refers to who contributes to the recovery. Based on the LOR effort, recovery can be classified into three types: firm recovery, joint recovery, and customer recovery. The authors develop a conceptual framework to examine the antecedents, consequences, and moderators of LOR and test the framework using three experiments. They find that the positive effect of customers’ self-efficacy on their expectancy to participate in recovery is stronger when they blame themselves for the failure than when they blame the service provider. Joint recovery is most effective in generating favorable service outcomes of satisfaction with recovery and intention for future coproduction. Furthermore, recovery urgency strengthens the effect of LOR; however, when a customer’s preferred recovery strategy is offered, such matching offsets the impact of recovery urgency. Our findings suggest several managerial implications for devising recovery strategies for service failures. Although having customers do the recovery may appear to be cost-effective, when customers are under time pressure, pushing them toward customer recovery against their preferences is likely to backfire. If a firm’s only available option is customer recovery, they should consider increasing customers’ sense of autonomy under resource constraints by aligning available recovery options with customer preferences. In contrast, joint recovery can be a win-win strategy—the customer is satisfied and the firm uses only moderate resources. It is also a more robust strategy that works particularly well under resource constraints and regardless of preference matching.

Sunitinib is a multitargeting tyrosine kinase inhibitor used for metastatic renal cancer. There are no biomarkers that can predict sunitinib response. Such markers are needed to avoid administration of costly medication with side effects to patients who would not benefit from it. We compared global miRNA expression between patients with a short (≤12 months) versus prolonged (>12 months) progression-free survival (PFS) under sunitinib as first-line therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma. We identified a number of differentially expressed miRNAs and developed miRNA statistical models that can accurately distinguish between the two groups. We validated our models in the discovery set and an independent set of 57 patients. Target prediction and pathway analysis showed that these miRNAs are involved in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), TGFβ, and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)-mediated signaling and cell–cell communication. We tested the effect of these miRNAs on cellular proliferation and angiogenesis. We validated the negative correlation between miR-221 and its target, VEGFR2.miR-221 overexpression was associated with a poor PFS while its target, VEGFR2 was associated with longer survival. Gain of function experiments showed that miR-221 and miR-222 decreased angiogenesis and cellular proliferation in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) while increasing cellular proliferation in ACHN cells. miRNAs represent potential predictive markers for sunitinib response.

Salespersons represent an important and challenging set of employees for organizational management. Given frequently high autonomy levels and varied job roles, boundary spanning agents have ample opportunity and motivation to modify/ignore organizational directives. Based on a multi-theoretical perspective, this research sets forth a three-dimensional conceptualization of directive modification intentions and develops and empirically tests a scale designed to better explain this phenomenon while empirically validating its occurrence. Results indicate that boundary spanners have three distinct and relatively stable motivations for modifying/ignoring organizational directives, including customer-, organization-, and self-focused motivations, and that each motivation may potentially relate differently to important antecedent and outcome variables. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed.

Antidepressants (ADs) are the most common treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD). However, only ∼30% of patients experience adequate response after a single AD trial, and this variability remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated microRNAs (miRNAs) as biomarkers of AD response using small RNA-sequencing in paired samples from MDD patients enrolled in a large, randomized placebo-controlled trial of duloxetine collected before and 8 weeks after treatment. Our results revealed differential expression of miR-146a-5p, miR-146b-5p, miR-425-3p and miR-24-3p according to treatment response. These results were replicated in two independent clinical trials of MDD, a well-characterized animal model of depression, and post-mortem human brains. Furthermore, using a combination of bioinformatics, mRNA studies and functional in vitro experiments, we showed significant dysregulation of genes involved in MAPK/Wnt signalling pathways. Together, our results indicate that these miRNAs are consistent markers of treatment response and regulators of the MAPK/Wnt systems., Antidepressant drugs are the most common treatment for depressive episodes but only a fraction of patients experience adequate response. Here the authors find dysregulation of miRNAs in peripheral blood samples from depressed patients after antidepressant treatment, and show that the miRNAs are regulators of psychiatrically relevant signalling pathways.

Prior empirical evidence on the role of customer participation (CP) on service outcomes is limited and inconsistent. The authors add new insights by investigating the boundary conditions of the CP-service outcome link. Using two experiments, the article examines the moderating effect of three CP readiness factors: ability, perceived benefits of participation, and role identification. The results show that when CP readiness is high, increasing CP enhances service outcomes including customer satisfaction and perceived service quality; however, when CP readiness is low, the effect of CP on service outcomes tapers off or becomes negative. The results highlight the contingent nature of CP’s effect, demonstrate that CP could indeed be a double-edged sword, and provide managerial guidelines to enhance CP’s benefits through appropriate targeting and service design.

This research examines the interactive effects on industrial salespeople's intrinsic and extrinsic (I/E) motivation of outcome control, activity control, and capability control above and beyond their main effects. I/E motivation are disaggregated into their cognitive and affective dimensions. Moderated regressions using a sample of industrial salespeople find that (1) outcome control and capability control have positive interactive effects on task enjoyment and recognition seeking, (2) outcome control and activity control have a positive interactive effect on compensation seeking but a negative interactive effect on task enjoyment, and (3) activity control and capability control have a negative interactive effect on recognition seeking. Moreover, we find that compensation seeking has a stronger positive effect on sales performance when salespeople deal with more new customers whereas the opposite is true for challenge seeking; compensation seeking appears to elevate job satisfaction only when there is a lower percentage of new customers but the positive effect of recognition seeking on job satisfaction is enhanced when salespeople handle a higher number of new accounts. These findings offer important theoretical and managerial implications by providing compelling evidence that sales control interactive effects should be considered when studying relationships among sales control systems, salesperson motivation, and job outcomes.

Salespeople frequently attempt to build credibility on their first encounter with a customer. Because customers actively evaluate persuasive messages, it is important to understand their reactions to credibility-building tactics and how these reactions shape the sales interaction. Accordingly, this study investigates customers' reactions to two types of credibility-building statements – benevolence and expertise – using a multistep qualitative analysis of sales transactions in the life insurance industry, along with surveys before and after the sales encounter. Empirical results show that customers are more likely to react positively to credibility-building statements that match their buying style expectations. Furthermore, when customers react positively to a credibility-building tactic, salespeople are more likely to continue using that tactic when addressing customer objections. However, whereas benevolence tactics for addressing customer objections lead to stronger relational outcomes, the findings in...

Background This study aims to compare the effectiveness of EEG frequency band activity including interhemispheric asymmetry and prefrontal theta cordance in predicting response to escitalopram therapy at 8-weeks post-treatment, in a multi-site initiative. Methods Resting state 64-channel EEG data were recorded from 44 patients with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) as part of a larger, multisite discovery study of biomarkers in antidepressant treatment response, conducted by the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression (CAN-BIND). Clinical response was measured at 8-weeks post-treatment as change from baseline Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) score of 50% or more. EEG measures were analyzed at (1) pre-treatment baseline (2) 2 weeks post-treatment and (3) as an ‘‘early change” variable defined as change in EEG from baseline to 2 weeks post-treatment. Results At baseline, treatment responders showed elevated absolute alpha power in the left hemisphere while non-responders showed the opposite. Responders further exhibited a cortical asymmetry in the parietal region. Groups also differed in pre-treatment relative delta power with responders showing greater power in the right hemisphere over the left while non-responders showed the opposite. At 2 weeks post-treatment, responders exhibited greater absolute beta power in the left hemisphere relative to the right and the opposite was noted for non-responders. A reverse pattern was noted for absolute and relative delta power at 2 weeks post-treatment. Responders exhibited early reductions in relative alpha power and early increments in relative theta power. Non-responders showed a significant early increase in prefrontal theta cordance. Conclusions Hemispheric asymmetries in the alpha and delta bands at baseline and at 2 weeks post-treatment have moderately strong predictive utility in predicting response to antidepressant treatment.

The Depression Inventory Development project is an initiative of the International Society for CNS Drug Development whose goal is to develop a comprehensive and psychometrically sound measurement tool to be utilized as a primary endpoint in clinical trials for major depressive disorder. Using an iterative process between field testing and psychometric analysis and drawing upon expertise of international researchers in depression, the Depression Inventory Development team has established an empirically driven and collaborative protocol for the creation of items to assess symptoms in major depressive disorder. Depression-relevant symptom clusters were identified based on expert clinical and patient input. In addition, as an aid for symptom identification and item construction, the psychometric properties of existing clinical scales (assessing depression and related indications) were evaluated using blinded datasets from pharmaceutical antidepressant drug trials. A series of field tests in patients with major depressive disorder provided the team with data to inform the iterative process of scale development. We report here an overview of the Depression Inventory Development initiative, including results of the third iteration of items assessing symptoms related to anhedonia, cognition, fatigue, general malaise, motivation, anxiety, negative thinking, pain and appetite. The strategies adopted from the Depression Inventory Development program, as an empirically driven and collaborative process for scale development, have provided the foundation to develop and validate measurement tools in other therapeutic areas as well.

A B S T R AC T Background Major issues in the implementation of screening for lung cancer by means of lowdose computed tomography (CT) are the definition of a positive result and the management of lung nodules detected on the scans. We conducted a populationbased prospective study to determine factors predicting the probability that lung nodules detected on the first screening low-dose CT scans are malignant or will be found to be malignant on follow-up. Methods We analyzed data from two cohorts of participants undergoing low-dose CT screening. The development data set included participants in the Pan-Canadian Early Detection of Lung Cancer Study (PanCan). The validation data set included participants involved in chemoprevention trials at the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA), sponsored by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. The final outcomes of all nodules of any size that were detected on baseline low-dose CT scans were tracked. Parsimonious and fuller multivariable logistic-regression models were prepared to estimate the probability of lung cancer. Results In the PanCan data set, 1871 persons had 7008 nodules, of which 102 were malignant, and in the BCCA data set, 1090 persons had 5021 nodules, of which 42 were malignant. Among persons with nodules, the rates of cancer in the two data sets were 5.5% and 3.7%, respectively. Predictors of cancer in the model included older age, female sex, family history of lung cancer, emphysema, larger nodule size, location of the nodule in the upper lobe, part-solid nodule type, lower nodule count, and spiculation. Our final parsimonious and full models showed excellent discrimination and calibration, with areas under the receiver-operating-characteristic curve of more than 0.90, even for nodules that were 10 mm or smaller in the validation set. Conclusions Predictive tools based on patient and nodule characteristics can be used to accurately estimate the probability that lung nodules detected on baseline screening low-dose CT scans are malignant. (Funded by the Terry Fox Research Institute and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00751660.)

Mass customized products, compared with mass marketed alternatives, offer advantages for optimizing performance outcomes, improving aesthetic appeal, and matching products' symbolic meanings with consumers' expressive desires. Despite having identified these value drivers for mass customized products, extant research has not connected those value drivers to individual differences among consumers. As a result, researchers' and practitioners' abilities to predict consumer value for mass customized products remain limited. This study advances and tests a model of individual differences associated with the perceived value of a customized product and mediated by involvement and perceived risk. A field survey administered to a sample of 240 participants provided data to test the model. Path analysis using structural equations modeling suggests that consumer value for mass customized products differs according to individual differences in need for uniqueness, need for optimization, and centrality of visual product aesthetics. Results also suggest that product category involvement and perceived risk are informative theoretical perspectives from which to study consumer value for mass customized products. The findings hold implications for how firms should approach the design of mass customization toolkits and how they should structure marketing communications promoting mass customized products. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Functional Rating Scale Taskforce for pre-Huntington Disease (FuRST-pHD) is a multinational, multidisciplinary initiative with the goal of developing a data-driven, comprehensive, psychometrically sound, rating scale for assessing symptoms and functional ability in prodromal and early Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion carriers. The process involves input from numerous sources to identify relevant symptom domains, including HD individuals, caregivers, and experts from a variety of fields, as well as knowledge gained from the analysis of data from ongoing large-scale studies in HD using existing clinical scales. This is an iterative process in which an ongoing series of field tests in prodromal (prHD) and early HD individuals provides the team with data on which to make decisions regarding which questions should undergo further development or testing and which should be excluded. We report here the development and assessment of the first iteration of interview questions aimed to assess functional impact of motor manifestations in prHD and early HD individuals.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is among the most prevalent and disabling medical conditions worldwide. Identification of clinical and biological markers (“biomarkers”) of treatment response could personalize clinical decisions and lead to better outcomes. This paper describes the aims, design, and methods of a discovery study of biomarkers in antidepressant treatment response, conducted by the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression (CAN-BIND). The CAN-BIND research program investigates and identifies biomarkers that help to predict outcomes in patients with MDD treated with antidepressant medication. The primary objective of this initial study (known as CAN-BIND-1) is to identify individual and integrated neuroimaging, electrophysiological, molecular, and clinical predictors of response to sequential antidepressant monotherapy and adjunctive therapy in MDD. CAN-BIND-1 is a multisite initiative involving 6 academic health centres working collaboratively with other universities and research centres. In the 16-week protocol, patients with MDD are treated with a first-line antidepressant (escitalopram 10–20 mg/d) that, if clinically warranted after eight weeks, is augmented with an evidence-based, add-on medication (aripiprazole 2–10 mg/d). Comprehensive datasets are obtained using clinical rating scales; behavioural, dimensional, and functioning/quality of life measures; neurocognitive testing; genomic, genetic, and proteomic profiling from blood samples; combined structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging; and electroencephalography. De-identified data from all sites are aggregated within a secure neuroinformatics platform for data integration, management, storage, and analyses. Statistical analyses will include multivariate and machine-learning techniques to identify predictors, moderators, and mediators of treatment response. From June 2013 to February 2015, a cohort of 134 participants (85 outpatients with MDD and 49 healthy participants) has been evaluated at baseline. The clinical characteristics of this cohort are similar to other studies of MDD. Recruitment at all sites is ongoing to a target sample of 290 participants. CAN-BIND will identify biomarkers of treatment response in MDD through extensive clinical, molecular, and imaging assessments, in order to improve treatment practice and clinical outcomes. It will also create an innovative, robust platform and database for future research. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01655706 . Registered July 27, 2012.

Sales control systems represent an important managerial tool in directing the sales force for desired organizational objectives. However, the majority of prior sales control research has focused only on the main effects of sales control systems without explicitly considering their interactive effects and associated intervening mechanisms. Drawing on job demands–resources theory, the authors theorize differential interactive effects of outcome control, activity control, and capability control on job engagement (i.e., adaptive selling behavior and selling effort) and job stress (i.e., role ambiguity and role conflict), which subsequently affect salesperson performance. Empirical results using a sample of industrial salespeople find that (1) outcome control and capability control have positive interactive effects on adaptive selling behavior and selling effort while suppressing role conflict, (2) activity control and capability control have a negative interactive effect on role ambiguity, and (3) outcome control and activity control have a positive interactive effect on selling effort but negative interactive effects on adaptive selling behavior and role clarity. These results indicate that sales control researchers can benefit from considering the complex interactive effects of various control styles as well as the intervening processes, which provide a more refined understanding of this important managerial tool.

Organizational support theory is used to investigate the moderating effects of both instrumental and social/psychological support on the relationships between a salesperson’s customer orientation and level of psychological empowerment and job performance. Results obtained within a sampling of 830 financial services salespeople operating from remote locations indicate that organizational support may interfere with salespeople’s attitudes in the development of salesperson performance. Specifically, this study found that under conditions of low social/psychological support the positive effect of empowerment on job performance becomes weaker, but the positive effect of customer orientation on job performance becomes significantly stronger. Further, instrumental support seems to be somewhat counterproductive to high-performing salespeople by diminishing the positive relationship between empowerment and performance. Implications of such findings are discussed.

Research in marketing suggests that the notion of market driven and market driving is highly relevant for industrial markets. This study provides evidence that interaction and entrepreneurial orientations are linked to market-driven and market-driving approaches respectively. Further, this research investigates how these two orientations affect organizational performance. Based on a survey of Taiwan's electronics industry, this study indicates that both interaction and entrepreneurial orientations improve the exploitative and exploratory capabilities of an organization, which in turn contribute to superior organizational performance. The results of this study provide important theoretical and managerial implications for strategy development from both the market driven and market driving perspectives.

Firms deploying a network strategy frequently adopt a relationship marketing orientation necessitating that they cultivate close relationships with independent firms performing business functions on their behalf. We consider this context by examining the influence of manufacturer conduct on satisfaction of manufacturers’ representatives contractually handling their sales function. The manufacturer, termed the principal, determines the quality of sales support and affects the nature of interactions with the representative. For that reason, principals’ support quality and leadership styles were assessed using a survey of manufacturers’ representatives. These factors and interrelationships are modeled to provide a “road map” for principals wishing to influence the satisfaction of manufacturers’ representatives.

This research paper investigates the combinatory effects of three well-established formal sales control styles: outcome, capability, and activity control. Drawing on Expectancy Theory and Cognitive Evaluation Theory , the authors theorize that sales control combinations have differential impacts on three key intermediary variables (salesperson knowledge, role ambiguity, and intrinsic motivation), which subsequently affect salesperson performance. A Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis using data from industrial salespeople and their managers indicates that (1) the capability and outcome control styles have positive combinatory effects that enhance salesperson knowledge and intrinsic motivation while mitigating role ambiguity, (2) combining outcome control and activity control can increase role ambiguity, and (3) a combination of activity control and capability control can enhance role clarity but dampen intrinsic motivation. Finally, our results indicate that the effects on manager-rated salesperson performance of capability control and activity control are fully mediated while the effects of outcome control are partially mediated by salesperson knowledge and role ambiguity.

This paper focuses on five critical, yet underresearched, areas vital to sales performance in a marketplace that is increasingly more complex, more demanding of customized solutions, and more relationship focused. The five topic areas addressed are the ability to marshal intraorganizational resources by salespeople, salesperson creativity, examining the buyer–seller interaction in terms of salesperson influence tactics behaviors and the importance of establishing credibility with buyers as a basis of influence, ethics relative to the buying and selling organization simultaneously, and selling teams. Research implications for each topic area are advanced.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to assist practitioners in improving the benefits they receive from trade shows. This study seeks to investigate the behaviour of resource commitment of exhibiting firms and its relationships with market orientation and exhibition performance.Design/methodology/approachData were collected at the 2007 Suzhou Circuitex Show, which is held annually in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. It is one of the largest international shows for the printed circuit board (PCB) industry. A total of 315 questionnaires were handed out and 185 usable questionnaires were returned.FindingsThe results advance the theoretical understanding of the market orientation‐resource commitment behaviour – performance framework within the setting of an industrial trade show. This study finds that market orientation is positively associated with an exhibiting firm's resource commitment behaviour, which in turn has varying influences on the different dimensions of trade show performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe cross‐sectional study suggests that different facets of exhibition resource commitment may have distinct effects on several dimensions of trade show performance. Future research should adopt a longitudinal survey and extend this study domain to a broader range of industrial contexts.Practical implicationsThe research provides a better understanding of the development process of trade show programmes for practitioners in industrial firms to develop effective exhibition strategies.Originality/valueThis paper fills a significant gap in the literature and offers evidence for the relationships among market orientation, resource commitment behaviour and trade show performance. Furthermore, the current research identifies three aspects of resource commitment behaviour and creates corresponding measures for them.

Although the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) is widely used in the assessment of Huntington disease (HD), the ability of individual items to discriminate individual differences in motor or behavioral manifestations has not been extensively studied in HD gene expansion carriers without a motor-defined clinical diagnosis (ie, prodromal-HD or prHD). To elucidate the relationship between scores on individual motor and behavioral UHDRS items and total score for each subscale, a nonparametric item response analysis was performed on retrospective data from 2 multicenter longitudinal studies. Motor and behavioral assessments were supplied for 737 prHD individuals with data from 2114 visits (PREDICT-HD) and 686 HD individuals with data from 1482 visits (REGISTRY). Option characteristic curves were generated for UHDRS subscale items in relation to their subscale score. In prHD, overall severity of motor signs was low, and participants had scores of 2 or above on very few items. In HD, motor items that assessed ocular pursuit, saccade initiation, finger tapping, tandem walking, and to a lesser extent, saccade velocity, dysarthria, tongue protrusion, pronation/supination, Luria, bradykinesia, choreas, gait, and balance on the retropulsion test were found to discriminate individual differences across a broad range of motor severity. In prHD, depressed mood, anxiety, and irritable behavior demonstrated good discriminative properties. In HD, depressed mood demonstrated a good relationship with the overall behavioral score. These data suggest that at least some UHDRS items appear to have utility across a broad range of severity, although many items demonstrate problematic features.

Within business-to-business relationship marketing, boundary-spanning representatives play a crucial role in establishing and maintaining positive relations between their organizations. Spirituality, a workplace individual-level variable, is proposed to significantly influence buyer representatives’ relationship formation with their seller counterparts, which subsequently affects the relationship development between organizations. Here we identify aspects of spirituality within buyer representatives and present a conceptual framework that delineates the impact of spirituality upon individual perceptions of relational constructs such as trust and commitment. Structural equation modeling analyses support the inclusion of spirituality as a relevant construct in relationship marketing research. In addition, because cultural differences are known to exist regarding the role of spirituality, the impact of spirituality upon perception within relationship marketing is addressed with data collected from both Ameri...

Career stage theory suggests that salespeople vary in their motivation systematically across career stages. However, empirical evidence using valence, expectancy, and instrumentality components of ...

Background: Although diagnostically dissociable, anxiety is strongly co-morbid with depression. To examine further the clinical symptoms of anxiety in major depressive disorder (MDD), a non-parametric item response analysis on “blinded” data from four pharmaceutical company clinical trials was performed on the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) across levels of depressive severity. Methods: The severity of depressive symptoms was assessed using the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD). HAMA and HAMD measures were supplied for each patient on each of two post-screen visits (n=1,668 observations). Option characteristic curves were generated for all 14 HAMA items to determine the probability of scoring a particular option on the HAMA in relation to the total HAMD score. Additional analyses were conducted using Pearson's product–moment correlations. Results: Results showed that anxiety-related symptomatology generally increased as a function of overall depressive severity, though there were clear differences between individual anxiety symptoms in their relationship with depressive severity. In particular, anxious mood, tension, insomnia, difficulties in concentration and memory, and depressed mood were found to discriminate over the full range of HAMD scores, increasing continuously with increases in depressive severity. By contrast, many somatic-related symptoms, including muscular, sensory, cardiovascular, respiratory, gastro-intestinal, and genito-urinary were manifested primarily at higher levels of depression and did not discriminate well at lower HAMD scores. Conclusions: These results demonstrate anxiety as a core feature of depression, and the relationship between anxiety-related symptoms and depression should be considered in the assessment of depression and evaluation of treatment strategies and outcome. Depression and Anxiety, 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Background Painful and non-painful somatic symptoms are often reported in patients with depressive disorder. The proper identification of depression-relevant somatic symptoms is important for the accurate diagnosis of depression, development of treatment strategies and measurement of outcome. The objective of this study was to characterize the relationship between somatic symptoms and depression in patients diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), using data from randomized drug trials carried out by a pharmaceutical company. Methods Pooled ‘blinded’ data from 2191 patients enrolled in randomized, multicenter, double-blind placebo-controlled studies for the treatment of MDD were analyzed. Somatic symptoms were assessed using the Somatic Symptoms Inventory (SSI) and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) was used to assess symptoms of depression. Results The most common somatic symptom reported by patients with MDD was ‘feeling fatigued, weak, or tired all over’, with 78% of patients reporting ‘moderate’ levels or above. This was followed by ‘feeling that not in as good physical health as most of your friends’ (59%), ‘not feeling well most of the time in the past few years’ (54%), and ‘feeling weak in parts of body’ (45%). ‘Headache’ was the most common pain-related symptom with 43% reporting ‘moderate’ or above. Pearson's product-moment correlations revealed that somatic symptoms generally increased as a function of overall depressive ( r = 0.43), with ‘feeling fatigued, weak, or tired all over’ ( r = 0.50), ‘feeling that not in as good physical health as most of your friends’ ( r = 0.42), ‘feeling weak in parts of body’ ( r = 0.41), ‘heavy feeling in arms and legs’ ( r = 0.34), ‘not feeling well most of the time in the past few years’ ( r = 0.32), and ‘headache’ ( r = 0.31) showing the strongest correlation with overall HAMD scores. Non-parametric item response analyses showed that many somatic symptoms demonstrate good relationship between item response and the overall severity of depression. In particular, ‘feeling fatigued, weak, or tired all over’ exhibited good discriminative properties across the full range of severity for depression. Limitations The analysis utilized data from a ‘restricted’ patient population in drug trials sponsored by a pharmaceutical company. Conclusions These results demonstrate a high prevalence and association of somatic symptoms in patients with MDD, including feelings of fatigue, physical malaise and pain-related symptoms, which could be potentially useful in the assessment of depression and in the evaluation of treatment strategies.

PurposeIncreasingly companies ask customers to participate in creating and producing services. This research aims to explore the effect that communicating role expectations to customers may have on their processing and evaluation of the encounter.Design/methodology/approachA dyadic experiment using prototypical customer‐couples and practicing insurance agents was implemented. Couples and agents were randomly assigned to dyads, which were then assigned to one of two conditions – a no‐expectations or an expectations condition. Post‐encounter, couples evaluated service quality and indicated their satisfaction, trust and anticipation of future interaction.FindingsThe study found that socialized customers relied more on service quality in evaluating the encounter than did unsocialized customers. However, socialized wives showed decreased trust, satisfaction and anticipation of future interaction than did non‐socialized wives (no significant differences for husbands).Research limitations/implicationsExpectations were simply provided to customers; and these expectations were framed to emphasize the benefits of complying with expectations may mitigate some negative effects of socialization.Practical implicationsWhile socialized customer outcomes declined, these customers relied more on the service quality elements of the encounter rather than peripheral elements beyond the control of the firm and the service provider. These findings highlight the caution managers must exercise as they juggle the trade‐offs inherent in communicating the customer's expanded role in the service production.Originality/valueThe customer's role in creating and producing service experiences has received increased attention. This research offers evidence that the benefits achieved through increased customer participation have costs to be considered.

This report describes the GRID-Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (GRID-HAMD), an improved version of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale that was developed through a broad-based international consensus process. The GRID-HAMD separates the frequency of the symptom from its intensity for most items, refines several problematic anchors, and integrates both a structured interview guide and consensus-derived conventions for all items. Usability was established in a small three-site sample of convenience, evaluating 29 outpatients, with most evaluators finding the scale easy to use. Test-retest (4-week) and interrater reliability were established in 34 adult outpatients with major depressive disorder, as part of an ongoing clinical trial. In a separate study, interrater reliability was found to be superior to the Guy version of the HAMD, and as good as the Structured Interview Guide for the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (SIGH-D), across 30 interview pairs. Finally, using the SIGH-D as the criterion standard, the GRID-HAMD demonstrated high concurrent validity. Overall, these data suggest that the GRID-HAMD is an improvement over the original Guy version as well as the SIGH-D in its incorporation of innovative features and preservation of high reliability and validity.