Bearish options strategies are employed when the options trader expects the underlying stock price to move downwards. It is necessary to assess how low the stock price can go and the timeframe in which the decline will happen in order to select the optimum trading strategy.
The most bearish of options trading strategies is the simple put buying strategy utilised by most novice options traders.
In most cases, stock prices seldom make steep downward moves. Moderately bearish options traders usually set a target price for the expected decline and utilise bear spreads to reduce risk. While maximum profit is capped for these strategies, they usually cost less to employ. The bear call spread and the bear put spread are common examples of moderately bearish strategies.
Mildly bearish trading strategies are options strategies that make money as long as the underlying stock price does not go up on options expiration date. These strategies usually provide a small upside protection as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Options_Trading
ETF wraps are gaining market share for a host of reasons, including the fact that they are generally much less expensive than comparable mutual fund portfolios. An article published by Dow Jones Newswires earlier this year, "ETFs Are Moving Into The Spotlight" by Tara Siegel Bernard, cited the expense ratio for the average domestic stock ETF at 36 basis points, compared with 88 basis points for the average domestic stock index fund. Yes, ETF wraps charge an additional layer of fees to cover trading, administration, and so forth, but so do mutual fund wrap programs. When the wrap fee is factored out, the cost difference comes down to the expense ratios of the underlying investments, and the ETFs really shine.
ETF wraps also have greater trading flexibility than their mutual fund cousins. Unlike mutual funds, which trade once per day, ETFs offer the flexibility of intraday trading. If the markets are rising or falling, investors can make real-time decisions regarding the disposition of their portfolios. While this may not be a significant advantage to longer-term ETF wrap investors, it can be a huge bonus for more active investors who constantly trade in and out of their ETF holdings.
On the tax efficiency front, ETFs are also superior to mutual funds. New investors do not inherit embedded capital gains, and large redemptions are handled with in-kind distributions of the underlying securities, so the bulk of an investor's capital gains tax liability is deferred until the investor sells his or her holdings. (See An Inside Look At ETF Construction for more information about ETFs and tax efficiency.)
A less tangible - but psychologically attractive - benefit of investing in ETFs (and, by association, ETF wraps) is the fact that ETFs remain untainted by the scandals that have affected the financial services industry in general and the mutual fund companies in particular. Adding to this psychological comfort level is the inherent transparency of ETF portfolios - investors always know exactly what is in the portfolio. This is not the case with mutual funds, which only report holdings on a periodic basis.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/mutualfund/05/ETFwrap.asp
In business, the term Operational Risk Management (ORM) is the oversight of many forms of day-to-day operational risk including the risk of loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems, or from external events. Operational risk does not include market risk or credit risk.
Benefits of ORM
Reduction of operational loss.
Lower compliance/auditing costs.
Early detection of unlawful activities.
Reduced exposure to future risks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_risk_management
For more than a decade, Peter Zandstra has been working at the University of Toronto to rev up the production of stem cells and their descendants. The raw materials are adult blood stem cells and embryonic stem cells. The end products are blood and heart cells – lots of them. Enough mouse heart cells that they form beating tissue.
To do this, he has been applying engineering principles to stem cell research – work that has just earned him recognition by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The society will induct him as a Fellow during its Annual Conference, being held in Boston from February 14 to 18.
Starting with computer models of stem cell growth and differentiation (the process by which a stem cell matures into its final form), Zandstra has moved on to develop more sophisticated culture methods that fine-tune the microenvironments to guide the generation of the different cells types that make up the mature cells in our tissues: heart cells for the heart or blood cells for blood.
"If you describe something mathematically, you have a much better understanding of it than if you just observe it," he says. "And it's also a powerful way to test many different hypotheses in silico before going into the lab and doing the much more difficult experiments in vitro."
Dr. Zandstra, the Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Bioengineering, also held a prestigious NSERC Steacie Fellowship. The Steacie prize - which goes to six select Canadian professors annually – allowed Zandstra to extend his work from mouse to man.
“There's only so much we can do with mouse cells,” notes Dr. Zandstra. “Now if we can also figure out how to get human embryonic stem cells to differentiate on command to generate functional adult-like cells, you can begin to think about the kinds of medical conditions you could treat with them.” -Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
http://news.nabou.com/cgi-bin/newsframe/437892yks4328903Dnabou2BInews421789994asgw3798etys6787/18A8047A97056E4D9B2CDA039BFF5E58backheadline3DHow2Bdo2BI2Bcut2Ba2Boout3Fnews26o3D0/FrameIt.cgi?Url=http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r1301593458
Symmetrical triangles are generally considered neutral, ascending triangles are bullish, and descending triangles are bearish. From a time perspective, triangles are usually considered to be intermediate patterns. Usually, it takes longer than a month to form a triangle. Seldom will a triangle last longer than three months. If a triangle pattern does take longer than three months to complete the formation will take on major trend significance.
Converging trendlines of support and resistance gives the symmetrical triangle pattern its distinctive shape. This occurs because the trading action gets tighter and tighter until the market breaks out with great force. Buyers and sellers find themselves in a period where they are not sure where the market is headed. Their uncertainty is marked by their actions of buying and selling sooner, making the pattern look like an increasingly tight coil moving across the chart.
A breakdown below the lower symmetrical support will trigger a test of the previous sub-trough at 12069.5. Support failure here increases downward pressure to break the next support at 11644.8 and retest the green parallel support line. The hammer candlestick formation needs a strong confirmation from the next candlestick bar to gain momentum to clear the previous sub-peak and trigger a challenge to breakout above the upper symmetrical resistance line. This will propel price towards the red parallel resistance line. Breakout here will result in a more positive outlook for the Dow Jones Industrial Index.
Bullish options strategies are employed when the options trader expects the underlying stock price to move upwards. It is necessary to assess how high the stock price can go and the timeframe in which the rally will occur in order to select the optimum trading strategy.
The most bullish of options trading strategies is the simple call buying strategy used by most novice options traders.
In most cases, stocks seldom go up by leaps and bounds. Moderately bullish options traders usually set a target price for the bull run and utilize bull spreads to reduce risk. While maximum profit is capped for these strategies, they usually cost less to employ. The bull call spread and the bull put spread are common examples of moderately bullish strategies.
Mildly bullish trading strategies are options strategies that make money as long as the underlying stock price do not go down on options expiration date. These strategies usually provide a small downside protection as well. Writing out-of-the-money covered calls is a good example of such a strategy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Options_Trading
A new type of memory could soon be available to device makers.
Governance, Risk, and Compliance or "GRC" is an increasingly recognized term that reflects a new way organizations focus on and manage an integrated approach to these three areas.
According to Michael Rasmussen, an industry analyst at Forrester Research, the challenge in defining GRC is that individually each term has "many different meanings within organizations. There is corporate governance, IT governance, financial risk, strategic risk, operational risk, IT risk, corporate compliance, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance, employment/labor compliance, privacy compliance . . . you get the picture."
According to Scott L. Mitchell, Chairman & CEO of the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), there "are substantially more processes than governance, risk and compliance playing critical roles in GRC. But 13-letter acronyms rarely catch on
Typically GRC solutions are Enterprise Software that enables businesses to comply with legal requirements. Examples for such requirements are regulation like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Basel II and local requirements for occupational health and safety. Failure to meet these standards can lead to severe legal penalties or civil liability.
Initial interest in GRC was driven by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, but GRC software requirements have changed and now are seen as a means to achieve Enterprise Risk Management. Specifically to evolve from managing risk as a transaction or compliance activity to adding business value by improving operational decision making and strategic planning.
GRC software becomes the governance platform for defining, maintaining, and monitoring risk.
OCEG, a non-profit organization that provides a performance framework for integrating governance, compliance, risk management and culture, is one of the leading voices for GRC.[citation needed] OCEG has developed a Measurement and Metrics Guide (MMG) for assisting in measuring and reporting on the performance of compliance and ethics programs. This measurement platform advocates that program objectives be aligned with and contribute to the enterprise objectives in a tangible way. In order to achieve desired program outcomes, an organization should design processes and practices that effectively measure program dimensions on three key dimensions: effectiveness, efficiency and responsiveness.
i-flex solutions, is the first company to issue a GRC Framework for the financial services industry, according to BobsGuide, an industry news site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance%2C_Risk_Management%2C_and_Compliance
Smashed gap resistance turned gap support zone now. Cleared both the red downtrend resistance line and 50 days EMA resistance line. Immediate resistance zone is 20 to 22 cents follow by 25 cents resistance. Immediate support is 16.5 to 16 cents gap support zone. Support failure here will trigger test of next support at 14 cents. Interesting Monday trading expected.
An ETF wrap is similar to a mutual fund wrap, except the underlying investments are ETFs. (If you are unfamiliar with ETFs or Mutual Fund Wraps, see Introduction to Exchange-Traded Funds and Introduction To Mutual Fund Wraps.) Like mutual fund wraps, ETF wraps are available in two varieties: discretionary and non-discretionary.
Discretionary Account
From an asset allocation perspective, discretionary accounts are similar to lifestyle funds. They offer a variety of pre-selected equity, balanced and fixed-income asset allocation models designed to suit the needs of a wide range of investors. These models typically reflect a range of potential portfolios from 100% equity to 100% fixed income, with balanced models generally varying from 80% equity/20% fixed income to 20% equity/80% fixed income.
Professional money managers oversee the portfolios, selecting investments, monitoring performance and rebalancing to maintain the desired allocation. (To learn more about asset allocation, see Achieving Optimal Asset Allocation.)
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/mutualfund/05/ETFwrap.asp
In the 19th century, state corporation law enhanced the rights of corporate boards to govern without unanimous consent of shareholders in exchange for statutory benefits like appraisal rights, to make corporate governance more efficient. Since that time, and because most large publicly traded corporations in the US are incorporated under corporate administration friendly Delaware law, and because the US's wealth has been increasingly securitized into various corporate entities and institutions, the rights of individual owners and shareholders have become increasingly derivative and dissipated. The concerns of shareholders over administration pay and stock losses periodically has led to more frequent calls for corporate governance reforms.
In the 20th century in the immediate aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 legal scholars such as Adolf Augustus Berle, Edwin Dodd, and Gardiner C. Means pondered on the changing role of the modern corporation in society. Berle and Means' monograph "The Modern Corporation and Private Property" (1932, Macmillan) continues to have a profound influence on the conception of corporate governance in scholarly debates today.
From the Chicago school of economics, Ronald Coase's "Nature of the Firm" (1937) introduced the notion of transaction costs into the understanding of why firms are founded and how they continue to behave. Fifty years later, Eugene Fama and Michael Jensen's "The Separation of Ownership and Control" (1983, Journal of Law and Economics) firmly established agency theory as a way of understanding corporate governance: the firm is seen as a series of contracts. Agency theory's dominance was highlighted in a 1989 article by Kathleen Eisenhardt (Academy of Management Review).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_governance
The COSO "Enterprise Risk Management-Integrated Framework" published in 2004[1] defines ERM as: "A process, effected by an entity's board of directors, management, and other personnel, applied in strategy setting and across the enterprise, designed to identify potential events that may affect the entity, and manage risk to be within its risk appetite, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of entity objectives."
The COSO ERM Framework has eight Components and four objectives categories. It is an expansion of the COSO Internal Control-Integrated Framework published in 1992 and amended in 1994. The eight components - additional components highlighted - are:
Internal Environment
Objective Setting
Event Identification
Risk Assessment
Risk Response
Control Activities
Information and Communication
Monitoring
The four objectives categories - additional components highlighted - are:
Strategy - high-level goals, aligned with and supporting the organization's mission
Operations - effective and efficient use of resources
Financial Reporting - reliability of operational and financial reporting
Compliance - compliance with applicable laws and regulations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_risk_management
Big Boys are buying a lot and not selling.
Massive buying across all groups from Big Boys to retail buyers.
Something is brewing.
As exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have become increasingly popular and investors have discovered their benefits, financial services firms have developed more ways to package those benefits. Enter the ETF wrap, a packaging innovation that is beginning to gain attention. It offers all of the benefits typically associated with an index fund - and more. Here we'll look at the types of ETF wraps available, discuss their advantages and disadvantages, and see what the future holds for this relatively new financial product.
An ETF wrap is similar to a mutual fund wrap, except the underlying investments are ETFs. (If you are unfamiliar with ETFs or Mutual Fund Wraps, see Introduction to Exchange-Traded Funds and Introduction To Mutual Fund Wraps.) Like mutual fund wraps, ETF wraps are available in two varieties: discretionary and non-discretionary.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/mutualfund/05/ETFwrap.asp
Corporate governance is the set of processes, customs, policies, laws and institutions affecting the way a corporation is directed, administered or controlled. Corporate governance also includes the relationships among the many players involved (the stakeholders) and the goals for which the corporation is governed. The principal players are the shareholders, management and the board of directors. Other stakeholders include employees, suppliers, customers, banks and other lenders, regulators, the environment and the community at large.
Corporate governance is a multi-faceted subject.An important theme of corporate governance is to ensure the accountability of certain individuals in an organization through mechanisms that try to reduce or eliminate the principal-agent problem. A related but separate thread of discussions focus on the impact of a corporate governance system in economic efficiency, with a strong emphasis on shareholders welfare. There are yet other aspects to the corporate governance subject, such as the stakeholder view and the corporate governance models around the world.
There has been renewed interest in the corporate governance practices of modern corporations since 2001, particularly due to the high-profile collapses of a number of large U.S. firms such as Enron Corporation and Worldcom. In 2002, the US federal government passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, intending to restore public confidence in corporate governance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_governance
Two important ERM frameworks are COSO and RIMS. Each describes an approach for identifying, analyzing, responding to, and monitoring risks or opportunities, within the internal and external environment facing the enterprise. Management selects a risk response strategy for specific risks identified and analyzed, which may include:
Avoidance: exiting the activities giving rise to risk
Reduction: taking action to reduce the likelihood or impact related to the risk
Share or insure: transferring or sharing a portion of the risk, to reduce it
Accept: no action is taken, due to a cost/benefit decision
Monitoring is typically performed by management as part of its internal control activities, such as review of analytical reports or management committee meetings with relevant experts, to understand how the risk response strategy is working and whether the objectives are being achieved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_risk_management
Big Boys selling into strength.
Retailers buying from Big Boys.
Trade with care.
Clone inverted hammer or clone shooting star depending on whether price can take off from here. Price rally restricted by downtrend immediate resistance line. Need to clear 24 cents before heading for next resistance zone at 26 to 27 cents. Strong buying in early trading was not support in the afternoon causing price to lose earlier gains. Volume distribution chart below shows Big Boys selling in early aftternoon trading and no follow up buying in late afternoon. If there is no further buying support tomorrow it will definitely be a false breakout from its trading range. Immediate gap support is 22 cents. Next support is support zone 20.5 to 19.5 cents.
Big Boys bought in early morning trading and sold in early afternoon trading.
If no follow up buying by Big Boys before closing price breakout from trading range will fail.
In short, they are similar to index mutual funds, but are traded more like a stock. As their name implies, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) represent a basket of securities that are traded on an exchange. As with all investment products, exchange traded funds have their share of advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of Exchange Traded Funds
Being similar to stocks, exchange traded funds offer more flexibility than your typical mutual fund.
ETFs can be bought and sold throughout the trading day, allowing for intraday trading - which is rare with mutual funds.
Traders have the ability to short or buy ETFs on margin.
Low annual expenses rival the cheapest mutual funds.
Tax efficiency - due to SEC regulations, ETF tend to beat out mutual funds when it comes to tax efficiency (if it is a non-taxable account then they are equal).
http://mutualfunds.about.com/cs/etfs/a/exchangetraded.htm
Enterprise Architecture is the description of the current and/or future structure and behavior of an organization's processes, information systems, personnel and organizational sub-units, aligned with the organization's core goals and strategic direction. Although often associated strictly with information technology, it relates more broadly to the practice of business optimization in that it addresses business architecture, performance management, organizational structure and process architecture as well.
Modelling the Enterprise Architecture is becoming a common practice within the U.S. Federal Government to inform the Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) reference models serve as a framework to guide Federal Agencies in the development of their architectures. The primary purpose of creating an enterprise architecture is to ensure that business strategy and IT investments are aligned. As such, enterprise architecture allows traceability from the business strategy down to the underlying technology.
Companies such as BP, Intel and Volkswagen AG also have applied enterprise architecture to improve their business architectures as well as to improve business performance and productivity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_architecture
In business, enterprise risk management (ERM) includes the methods and processes used by organizations to manage risks (or seize opportunities) related to the achievement of their objectives. ERM provides a framework for risk management, which typically involves identifying particular events or circumstances relevant to the organization's objectives (risks and opportunities), assessing them in terms of likelihood and magnitude of impact, determining a response strategy, and monitoring progress. By identifying and proactively addressing risks and opportunities, business enterprises protect and create value for their stakeholders, including owners, employees, customers, regulators, and society overall.
ERM can also be described as a risk-based approach to managing an enterprise, integrating concepts of strategic planning, operations management, and internal control. ERM is evolving to address the needs of various stakeholders, who want to understand the broad spectrum of risks facing complex organizations to ensure they are appropriately managed. Regulators and debt rating agencies have increased their scrutiny on the risk management processes of companies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_risk_management
An option strategy is implemented by combining one or more option positions and possibly an underlying stock position. Options are financial instruments which give the buyer the right to buy (for a call option) or sell (for a put option) the underlying security at some specific point of time in the future (European Option) or until some specific point of time in the future (American Option) for a price (strike price) which is fixed in advance (when the option is bought).
Calls increase in value as the underlying stock increases in value. Likewise puts increase in value as the underlying stock decreases in value. Buying both a call and a put means that if the underlying stock moves up the call increases in value and likewise if the underlying stock moves down the put increases in value. The combined position can increase in value if the stock moves in either direction. (The position loses money if the stock stays at the same price or within a range of the price when the position was established.) This strategy is called a straddle. It is one of many options strategies that investors can employ.
Options strategies can favor movements in the underlying stock that are bullish, bearish or neutral. In the case of neutral strategies, they can be further classified into those that are bullish on volatility and those that are bearish on volatility. The option positions used can be long and/or short positions in calls and/or puts at various strikes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Options_Trading
Because of their wide scope of application within a business, ERP software systems are typically complex and usually impose significant changes on staff work practices.Implementing ERP software is typically not an "in-house" skill, so even smaller projects are more cost effective if specialist ERP implementation consultants are employed.The length of time to implement an ERP system depends on the size of the business, the scope of the change and willingness of the customer to take ownership for the project.A small project (e.g., a company of less than 100 staff) may be planned and delivered within 3-9 months; however, a large, multi-site or multi-country implementation may take years.
To implement ERP systems, companies often seek the help of an ERP vendor or of third-party consulting companies. These firms typically provide three areas of professional services: consulting, customization and support.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning
A company based in San Diego, California, claims to have sequenced an individual human genome cheaper and faster than ever before.
The company, Illumina, said this week that it had sequenced DNA from the genome of an anonymous African man in “a matter of weeks” for US$100,000. This compares with last year’s announcement that 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut, had sequenced the genome of Nobel prize winner James Watson in two months for under $1 million. In October, Chinese officials also announced they had sequenced an Asian man's genome for about $1 million.
The completion of the human-genome reference sequence, announced in 2001, took more than a decade and cost $3 billion.
But Illumina’s announcement came before any of its supporting data were made available, leaving scientists eager to see more details before commenting on the significance of the effort. Many point out that the company has an interest in selling its Genome Analyzer, one in a crowded field of high-speed sequencing machines.
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080208/full/news.2008.563.html
Strong rally has pushed price to the base of giant descending triangle support turned resistance zone at 23 to 21 cents. Further price rally may be capped by 200 days EMA resistance line and the other downtrend resistance lines. Immediate support is the gap support at 17 cents. Profit taking expected in afternoon trading session.
Best Practices were also a benefit of implementing an ERP system. When implementing an ERP system, organizations essentially had to choose between customizing the software or modifying their business processes to the "Best Practice" function delivered in the vanilla version of the software.
Typically, the delivery of best practice applies more usefully to large organizations and especially where there is a compliance requirement such as IFRS, Sarbanes-Oxley or Basel II, or where the process is a commodity such as electronic funds transfer. This is because the procedure of capturing and reporting legislative or commodity content can be readily codified within the ERP software, and then replicated with confidence across multiple businesses who have the same business requirement.
Where such a compliance or commodity requirement does not underpin the business process, it can be argued that determining and applying a Best Practice actually erodes competitive advantage by homogenizing the business as compared to everyone else in the industry sector.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning
The Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine increased its sequencing capacity with an agreement to acquire five additional Genome Sequencer FLX Systems from Roche Diagnostics
With a total of eight Genome Sequencer FLX Systems, the Genome Sequencing Center will be able to support a wide variety of projects with the 454 Sequencing technology, ranging from the sequencing of new complex genomes to the diverse microbial world to the resequencing of portions of the human genome to identify genetic variations that may be associated with human diseases. This will include using the instruments for transcriptome analysis of individual tumors, an approach that the Genome Sequencing Center has pioneered as part of its ongoing studies of acute myeloid leukemia.
"We have been able to complete several projects with the GS FLX, demonstrating the system's strengths," said Richard Wilson, Director of the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine. "We now believe that with the new improvements and the increased throughput of the instrument, we will be able to complete several projects more quickly than originally anticipated and at a substantially lower cost."
"We are continuing to see the GS FLX moved into production settings due to the instrument's scalability and reliability, which allows it to run continuously," said Lonnie Shoff, Senior Vice President of Applied Science for Roche Diagnostics. "With more than 140 peer reviewed publications, we have a proven technology that continues to reshape the life sciences market."
In addition to the purchase agreement, the Genome Sequencing Center and Roche announced the Center's participation in the early access program for new technology advancements for the Genome Sequencer FLX system. The early access program will be featured Friday, Feb. 8 at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology Conference in Marco Island, Florida.
The Center's system improvements will include an increase in sequence read length beyond 400 base pairs and a dramatic increase in the number of sequencing reads per instrument run. Using a combination of reagent and software improvements, it is expected that the current Genome Sequencer FLX will generate more than 1 billion bases per day.
As part of the early access program, the Genome Sequencing Center plans to resequence several strains of Caenorhabditis elegans, a small nematode that has been previously used as a genetic model organism.
"By sequencing several different strains of C. elegans, we will be able to not only detect the smaller genetic variations such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, but identify the larger genome rearrangements that may also contribute to phenotypes," said Wilson. "With the longer 400 base pair read lengths, we can start to assemble the genomes using a de novo approach, eliminating the need to remap the sequences to a reference genome that can lead to errors.
"The new Genome Sequencer FLX systems will also be used in a number of projects studying the human microbiome at the Genome Sequencing Center. These projects are leading the way to the National Institutes of Health Human Microbiome Project, one of the new NIH Roadmap Initiatives. The goals of these projects are to characterize the microbial organisms that live within and on the human body, and study how the communities they form contribute to health and disease. It is estimated that there are nearly a trillion microbial organisms within a healthy human adult.
"The GS FLX system has become a dominant platform for sequencing microbial genomes, providing a fast, accurate, and economical way to sequence a large and diverse range of organisms," said George Weinstock, Associate Director at the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine. "One of the additional benefits of the GS FLX is in its application to sequencing complex mixtures of microbes, where its higher throughput will allow us to more completely identify which microbes are present and their individual abundances. This type of data is crucial for the Human Microbiome Project."
454 Life Sciences develops and commercializes the innovative Genome Sequencer™ system for ultra-high-throughput DNA sequencing. Specific applications include de novo sequencing and re-sequencing of genomes, metagenomics, RNA analysis, and targeted sequencing of DNA regions of interest. The hallmarks of 454 Sequencing™ are its simple, unbiased sample preparation and long, highly accurate sequence reads, including paired reads. 454 Sequencing technology has enabled more than 140 peer-reviewed studies in diverse research fields such as cancer and infectious disease research, drug discovery, marine biology, anthropology, paleontology and many more. For additional information, please visit http://www.454.com.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/96770.php
Prior to the concept of ERP systems, departments within an organization (for example, the human resources (HR)) department, the payroll department, and the financial department) would have their own computer systems. The HR computer system (often called HRMS or HRIS) would typically contain information on the department, reporting structure, and personal details of employees. The payroll department would typically calculate and store paycheck information. The financial department would typically store financial transactions for the organization. Each system would have to rely on a set of common data to communicate with each other. For the HRIS to send salary information to the payroll system, an employee number would need to be assigned and remain static between the two systems to accurately identify an employee. The financial system was not interested in the employee-level data, but only in the payouts made by the payroll systems, such as the tax payments to various authorities, payments for employee benefits to providers, and so on. This provided complications. For instance, a person could not be paid in the payroll system without an employee number.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning
In the absence of an all-inclusive definition, we focus on the history of DSS (see also Power[11]). According to Keen [6], the concept of decision support has evolved from two main areas of research: the theoretical studies of organizational decision making done at the Carnegie Institute of Technology during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the technical work on interactive computer systems, mainly carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1960s. It is considered that the concept of DSS became an area of research of its own in the middle of the 1970s, before gaining in intensity during the 1980s. In the middle and late 1980s, executive information systems (EIS), group decision support systems (GDSS), and organizational decision support systems (ODSS) evolved from the single user and model-oriented DSS. Beginning in about 1990, data warehousing and on-line analytical processing (OLAP) began broadening the realm of DSS. As the turn of the millennium approached, new Web-based analytical applications were introduced.
It is clear that DSS belong to an environment with multidisciplinary foundations, including (but not exclusively) database research, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, simulation methods, software engineering, and telecommunications.
DSS also have a weak connection to the user interface paradigm of hypertext. Both the University of Vermont PROMIS system (for medical decision making) and the Carnegie Mellon ZOG/KMS system (for military and business decision making) were decision support systems which also were major breakthroughs in user interface research. Furthermore, although hypertext researchers have generally been concerned with information overload, certain researchers, notably Douglas Engelbart, have been focused on decision makers in particular.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_Support_System
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that introns, or junk DNA to some, associated with RNA are an important molecular guide to making nerve-cell electrical channels. Senior author James Eberwine, PhD, Elmer Bobst Professor of Pharmacology, and lead authors Kevin Miyashiro, and Thomas J. Bell, PhD, both in Eberwine's lab, report their findings in this week's early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In nerve cells, some ion channels are located in the dendrite, which branch from the cell body of the neuron. Dendrites detect the electrical and chemical signals transmitted to the neuron by the axons of other neurons. Abnormalities in the dendrite electrical channel are involved in epilepsy, neurodegenerative diseases, and cognitive disorders, among others.
Introns are commonly looked on as sequences of "junk" DNA found in the middle of gene sequences, which after being made in RNA are simply excised in the nucleus before the messenger RNA is transported to the cytoplasm and translated into a protein. In 2005, the Penn group first found that dendrites have the capacity to splice messenger RNA, a process once believed to only take place in the nucleus of cells.
Now, in the current study, the group has found that an RNA encoding for a nerve-cell electrical channel, called the BK channel, contains an intron that is present outside the nucleus. This intron plays an important role in ensuring that functional BK channels are made in the appropriate place in the cell.
When this intron-containing RNA was knocked out, leaving the maturely spliced RNA in the cell, the electrical properties of the cell became abnormal. "We think the intron-containing mRNA is targeted to the dendrite where it is spliced into the channel protein and inserted locally into the region of the dendrite called the dendritic spine. The dendritic spine is where a majority of axons from other cells touch a particular neuron to facilitate neuronal communication" says Eberwine. "This is the first evidence that an intron-containing RNA outside of the nucleus serves a critical cellular function."
"The intron acts like a guide or gatekeeper," says Eberwine. "It keys the messenger RNA to the dendrite for local control of gene expression and final removal of the intron before the channel protein is made. Just because the intron is not in the final channel protein doesn't mean that it doesn't have an important purpose."
The group surmises that the intron may control how many mRNAs are brought to the dendrite and translated into functional channel proteins. The correct number of channels is just as important for electrical impulses as having a properly formed channel.
The investigators believe that this is a general mechanism for the regulation of cytoplasmic RNAs in neurons. Given the central role of dendrites in various physiological functions they hope to relate this new knowledge to understanding the molecular underpinnings of memory and learning, as well as components of cognitive dysfunction resulting from neurological disease.
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/35631/RNA-associated_introns_guide_nerve-cell_channel_production.html
Enterprise Resource Planning is a term originally derived from manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) that followed material requirements planning (MRP).[2] MRP evolved into ERP when "routings" became a major part of the software architecture and a company's capacity planning activity also became a part of the standard software activity.[citation needed] ERP systems typically handle the manufacturing, logistics, distribution, inventory, shipping, invoicing, and accounting for a company. Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software can aid in the control of many business activities, like sales, marketing, delivery, billing, production, inventory management, quality management, and human resource management.
ERP systems saw a large boost in sales in the 1990s as companies faced the Y2K problem in their legacy systems. Many companies took this opportunity to replace their legacy information systems with ERP systems. This rapid growth in sales was followed by a slump in 1999, at which time most companies had already implemented their Y2K solution
ERPs are often incorrectly called back office systems indicating that customers and the general public are not directly involved. This is contrasted with front office systems like customer relationship management (CRM) systems that deal directly with the customers, or the eBusiness systems such as eCommerce, eGovernment, eTelecom, and eFinance, or supplier relationship management (SRM) systems.
ERPs are cross-functional and enterprise wide. All functional departments that are involved in operations or production are integrated in one system. In addition to manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, and information technology, this would include accounting, human resources, marketing, and strategic management.
ERP II means open ERP architecture of components. The older, monolithic ERP systems became component oriented.
EAS — Enterprise Application Suite is a new name for formerly developed ERP systems which include (almost) all segments of business, using ordinary Internet browsers as thin clients.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning
MicroPorator Aims to Eliminate Challenges of Conventional Transfection Methods
The increasing demand for efficient transfection reflects the expanding applications for such technology. Introducing foreign DNA or RNA into mammalian cells has become fundamental for analyzing gene function, producing recombinant gene products, and devising strategies for gene therapy.
Successful results rely on the transfection method. Transfection of hard-to-transfect cells through common methods such as calcium phosphate, liposome-based reagent, and conventional electroporation, however, are problematic because of low transfection efficiency and low cell viability. Also, even though viral methods are efficient, they are time consuming to set up and are not cost effective.
To overcome these disadvantages, a novel electroporation technology called microporation has been developed, which provides high-efficiency transfection results. Microporation uses a specially designed handheld pipette-type device and specially designed pipette tips that utilize a capillary instead of a cuvette chamber.
The technology provides uniform electrical pulses delivered to samples ranging in volume from 10 µl to 100 µl using the pipette-tip electrodes. This method significantly improves transfection efficiency and cell viability versus the traditional cuvette-type sample chambers.
The potential harmful side effects that are caused by cuvette-type electroporation like pH variation, temperature increase, turbulence, and metal ion generation were eliminated by using the pipette technology. Thus, microporation provides an easier, more efficient, and reproducible way to work with hard-to-transfect cells.
http://www.genengnews.com/articles/chitem.aspx?aid=2359
Robotics is the science and technology of robots, their design, manufacture, and application.[1] Robotics requires a working knowledge of electronics, mechanics and software, and is usually accompanied by a large working knowledge of many subjects.[2] A person working in the field is a roboticist.
Although the appearance and capabilities of robots vary vastly, all robots share the features of a mechanical, movable structure under some form of autonomous control. The structure of a robot is usually mostly mechanical and can be called a kinematic chain (its functionality being akin to the skeleton of the human body). The chain is formed of links (its bones), actuators (its muscles) and joints which can allow one or more degrees of freedom. Most contemporary robots use open serial chains in which each link connects the one before to the one after it. These robots are called serial robots and often resemble the human arm. Some robots, such as the Stewart platform, use closed parallel kinematic chains. Other structures, such as those that mimic the mechanical structure of humans, various animals and insects, are comparatively rare. However, the development and use of such structures in robots is an active area of research (e.g. biomechanics). Robots used as manipulators have an end effector mounted on the last link. This end effector can be anything from a welding device to a mechanical hand used to manipulate the environment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics
Measured Move Projection Calculation
147 - 124 = 23
135 - 23 = 112
IF critical support at $1.16 breaks new support is $1.12
Ideally, ERP delivers a single database that contains all data for the software modules, which would include:
Manufacturing
Engineering, Bills of Material, Scheduling, Capacity, Workflow Management, Quality Control, Cost Management, Manufacturing Process, Manufacturing Projects, Manufacturing Flow
Supply Chain Management
Inventory, Order Entry, Purchasing, Product Configurator, Supply Chain Planning, Supplier Scheduling, Inspection of goods, Claim Processing, Commission Calculation
Financials
General Ledger, Cash Management, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets
Projects
Costing, Billing, Time and Expense, Activity Management
Human Resources
Human Resources, Payroll, Training, Time & Attendance, Rostering, Benefits
Customer Relationship Management
Sales and Marketing, Commissions, Service, Customer Contact and Call Center support
Data Warehouse
and various Self-Service interfaces for Customers, Suppliers, and Employees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a customer-centric business strategy with the goal of maximizing profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction. [1]
Technologies that support this business purpose include the capture, storage and analysis of customer, vendor, partner, and internal process information.
Functions that support this business purpose include Sales, Marketing and Customer Service, Training, Professional Development, Performance Management, Human Resource Development and Compensation.
Technology to support CRM initiatives must be integrated as part of an overall customer-centric strategy. Many CRM initiatives have failed because implementation was limited to software installation without alignment to a customer-centric strategy.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management
Recent advances in DNA sequencing technologies, both in the form of high lane-density gels and automated capillary systems, will lead to an increased requirement for sample preparation systems that operate at low cost and high throughput. As part of the development of a fully automated sequencing system, we have developed an automated subsystem capable of producing 10,000 sequence-ready ssDNA templates per day from libraries of M13 plaques at a cost of $0.29 per sample. This Front End has been in high throughput operation since June, 1997 and has produced > 400,000 high-quality DNA templates.
Improvements in electrophoresis technology have been announced recently by various companies (Molecular Dynamics, Perkin-Elmer/ABI, Beckman Coulter). In particular, the 96-sample capillary electrophoresis instruments being released promise increased throughput and decreased cost for DNA sequencing. Despite improved separation time, automation, and sample tracking compared to slab gels, capillary technologies have not gained acceptance in the past because of difficulties in resolving long DNA strands. Recent developments in sequencing reaction purification (Ruiz-Martine et al. 1998) and their effect on read length have made it more likely that capillary electrophoresis technologies will supplant slab gel-based sequencing instruments in the near future.
http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/full/9/5/457
Some organizations — typically those with sufficient in-house IT skills to integrate multiple software products — choose to implement only portions of an ERP system and develop an external interface to other ERP or stand-alone systems for their other application needs. For example, one may choose to use the HRMS from one vendor, and the financials systems from another, and perform the integration between the systems themselves.
This is very common in the retail sector, where even a mid-sized retailer will have a discrete Point-of-Sale (POS) product and financials application, then a series of specialized applications to handle business requirements such as warehouse management, staff rostering, merchandising and logistics.
MRP vs. ERP
Manufacturing management systems have evolved in stages over the past 30 years from a simple means of calculating materials requirements to the automation of an entire enterprise. Around 1980, over-frequent changes in sales forecasts, entailing continual readjustments in production, as well as the unsuitability of the parameters fixed by the system, led MRP (Material Requirement Planning) to evolve into a new concept : Manufacturing Resource Planning (or MRP2) and finally the generic concept Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning
Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain as efficiently as possible. Supply Chain Management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption.
The definition one American professional association put forward is that Supply Chain Management encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing, procurement, conversion, and logistics management activities. Importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third-party service providers, and customers. In essence, Supply Chain Management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies.
Some experts distinguish Supply Chain Management and logistics, while others consider the terms to be interchangeable.
Supply Chain Management is also a category of software product.
Supply chain event management (abbreviated as SCEM) is a consideration of all possible occurring events and factors that can cause a disruption in a supply chain. With SCEM possible scenarios can be created and solutions can be planned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain_management
Agilent Technologies says that it plans to acquire Velocity11 to strengthen its automated sample-preparation solutions. Velocity11 makes automated liquid-handling products and laboratory robotics for the life science market. The company designs, manufactures, and markets products that range from standalone instrumentation to benchtop automation solutions to large, multiarmed robotic systems. Velocity11 also develops software to control the robotics.
“Velocity11 is a market leader in lab automation with a solid reputation for innovative technology, quality products, and superb customer service,” comments Nick Roelofs, vp of Agilent’s life science systems and solutions unit. “Together, we can offer customers a comprehensive set of workflow solutions with increased levels of automation, which can help speed drug discovery and genetic research.”
http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=26169652&nc=1
