The term ERP originally implied systems designed to plan the use of enterprise-wide resources. Although the initialism ERP originated in the manufacturing environment, today's use of the term ERP systems has much broader scope. ERP systems typically attempt to cover all basic functions of an organization, regardless of the organization's business or charter. Businesses, non-profit organizations, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and other large entities utilize ERP systems.
To be considered an ERP system, a software package must provide the function of at least two systems. For example, a software package that provides both payroll and accounting functions could technically be considered an ERP software package.
However, the term is typically reserved for larger, more broadly based applications. The introduction of an ERP system to replace two or more independent applications eliminates the need for external interfaces previously required between systems, and provides additional benefits that range from standardization and lower maintenance (one system instead of two or more) to easier and/or greater reporting capabilities (as all data is typically kept in one database).
Examples of modules in an ERP which formerly would have been stand-alone applications include: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Financials, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Resources, Warehouse Management and Decision Support System.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Resource_Planning
Decision support systems are a class of computer-based information systems including knowledge based systems that support decision making activities.
Because there are many approaches to decision-making and because of the wide range of domains in which decisions are made, the concept of decision support system (DSS) is very broad. A DSS can take many different forms. In general, we can say that a DSS is a computerized system for helping make decisions. A decision is a choice between alternatives based on estimates of the values of those alternatives. Supporting a decision means helping people working alone or in a group gather intelligence, generate alternatives and make choices. Supporting the choice making process involves supporting the estimation, the evaluation and/or the comparison of alternatives. In practice, references to DSS are usually references to computer applications that perform such a supporting role.[1]
The term decision support system has been used in many different ways (Alter 1980, Power, 2002) and has been defined in various ways depending upon the author's point of view [2]. Finlay [3] and others define a DSS rather broadly as "a computer-based system that aids the process of decision making." Turban [4] defines it more specifically as "an interactive, flexible, and adaptable computer-based information system, especially developed for supporting the solution of a non-structured management problem for improved decision making. It utilizes data, provides an easy-to-use interface, and allows for the decision maker's own insights."
Other definitions fall between these two extremes. For Little [5], a DSS is a "model-based set of procedures for processing data and judgments to assist a manager in his decision-making." For Keen [6], a DSS couples the intellectual resources of individuals with the capabilities of the computer to improve the quality of decisions ("DSS are computer-based support for management decision makers who are dealing with semi-structured problems"). Moore and Chang [7] define DSS as extendible systems capable of supporting ad hoc data analysis and decision modeling, oriented toward future planning, and used at irregular, unplanned intervals. For Sprague and Carlson [8], DSS are "interactive computer-based systems that help decision makers utilize data and models to solve unstructured problems." In contrast, Keen [9] claims that it is impossible to give a precise definition including all the facets of the DSS ("there can be no definition of decision support systems, only of decision support"). Nevertheless, according to Power [10], the term decision support system remains a useful and inclusive term for many types of information systems that support decision making. He humorously adds that every time a computerized system is not an on-line transaction processing system (OLTP), someone will be tempted to call it a DSS. As you can see, there is no universally accepted definition of DSS. [11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_Support_System
Magic marker myths
Bookmarks can help you quickly find just the right page among hundreds or even thousands. But we know better than to confuse a bookmark for the page it points to, and we all know that bookmarks can get misplaced. So it is with stem cells. Cell-surface proteins and other markers may seem a convenient way of identifying stem cells, but they're no substitute for assessing what the cells can really do.
Sean Morrison, director of the University of Michigan's Center for Stem Cell Biology, thinks misplaced trust in stem-cell markers is one of the field's biggest problems. "A high percentage of discoveries that don't hold up fail to hold up because people weren't careful enough about the markers they used to identify the stem cells," he says. That's because many tissues lack good functional assays, or markers, or both. So when researchers hear of a stem-cell marker from another system that just might apply to their own, they tend to latch on.
Morrison recently undermined the case for one cherished 'magic marker' for stem cells that equated 'stemness' with cells' retention of the nucleotide-analogue label bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). The longest-running rationale for this marker holds that stem cells divide more slowly than the progenitor cells they generate. So, after the label is withdrawn from the growth medium, the relatively quiescent stem cells hoard the stash of label already deposited in their genomes, whereas label incorporated into progenitor cells' DNA is steadily diluted as those cells proliferate.
But there's at least one fly in that ointment. If a progenitor undergoing a final division to become two long-lived, differentiated cells happens to get labelled, those cells can retain the label for years, confounding the assay.
An alternative notion posits that BrdU is an even more specific marker of stemness. The 'immortal strand' hypothesis proposes that when a stem cell divides into another stem cell plus a differentiation-committed daughter cell, the former retains its original DNA strands with the newly synthesized (and, presumably, imperfectly copied) strands shunted off to the latter1. Thus, you would expect stem-cells' labeled strands to be always retained in those stem cells.
The trouble is that the label-retention hypothesis has not been validated, says Morrison. "A lot of people take it as an article of faith that DNA-label-retaining cells are highly enriched for stem cells," even in tissues where stem cells cannot be clearly defined by phenotype or function.
Morrison found himself thinking: "If we're going to build a whole field based on this proposition, then somebody should test it." So he did, in the most extensively characterized system available: haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs).2 His team pulsed mice with BrdU and examined their blood at various times to see where the labeled DNA turned up.
Labeled DNA gradually disappeared from HCSs, Morrison says, and more than 99% of those cells that did retain BrdU were not stem cells. Although at least one well-designed study has shown evidence supporting BrdU retention in another tissue, the hair follicle3, Morrison believes label retention is one of the worst markers that has ever been used in published papers. "It's your textbook example of a terrible stem-cell marker."
It's also ubiquitous. "Until half a year, or a year, ago I never heard anybody damn or doubt label retention as a stem-cell marker," says Hans Clevers, director of the Netherlands Institute for Developmental Biology's Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht. Gut epithelium is renewed from cells located in the crypts at the base of intestinal villi. In a recent study4, Clevers' group found that the well-known Paneth cells in the crypts had been falsely identified as the gut epithelial stem cells. That widespread assumption had been based largely on observations that the cells retained BrdU.
Clevers's team made transgenic mice in which the gene lacZ, which encodes an enzyme that can yield an intense blue stain in tissue sections, was tethered to the promoter for Lgr5, a gene expressed only, and rarely, in the crypts, making it a possible marker for stem cells. The cells that stained blue were not the Paneth cells, however, but small, sparse cells called crypt-based columnar cells (CBCs).
http://www.nature.com/stemcells/2008/0801/080131/full/stemcells.2008.26.html
Big Boys missing early this morning.
Medium Boys more selling than buying.
Will Big Boys pop up later or have they decided to celebrate the New Rat Year earlier.
Trade with care.
Happy New Mouse Year.
