When company stock is one of the options in a 401(k) plan then even more serious diversification problems can occur. As the recent Enron experience has highlighted, employees with large company stock holdings in their 401(k) plan can discover that they have lost much of their retirement wealth at the very time that they are also losing their job. Even in less drastic circumstances, concentratin...

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.7759/cureus.401.].

The surface reconstruction problem for three-dimensional (3D) scattered point data derived from 3D range scanners has been investigated in fields such as computer graphics (CG) and computer-aided design (CAD) [1, 2]. By using an implicit function-based method, the surface reconstruction problem can be solved. However, it must be noted here that, for generation of an implicit function in general...

This paper presents two algorithms as extensions to the basic Resolution Principle of logic programs which exploit parallelism retaining the full semantics of Prolog. The first algorithm, called SPU, allows parallel execution of unifications belonging to deterministic paths of the proof tree, giving in effect AND-parallel execution. The second algorithm, called MPU, retains the benefits of SPU ...

We previously constructed telomerase-dependent, replication-selective adenoviruses OBP-301 (Telomelysin) and OBP-401 [Telomelysin-green fluorescent protein (GFP); TelomeScan], the replication of which is regulated by the human telomerase reverse transcriptase promoter. By intratumoral injection, these viruses could replicate within the primary tumor and subsequent lymph node metastasis. The aim...

Defaults often have a large influence on consumer decisions. We identify an overlooked but practical alternative to defaults: requiring individuals to make an explicit choice for themselves. We study such "active decisions" in the context of 401(k) saving. We find that compelling new hires to make active decisions about 401(k) enrollment raises the initial fraction that enroll by 28 percentage ...

Previous studies have shown that human DHFR (dihydrofolate reductase), in addition to its critical role in DNA biosynthesis, functions as an RNA-binding protein. The interaction between DHFR and its own mRNA results in translational repression. In this study, we characterized the cis-acting elements on human DHFR mRNA that are required for the DHFR mRNA-DHFR protein interaction. Using a series ...

How to manage the message passing among inter processor cores with lower overhead is a great challenge when the multi-core system is the contemporary solution to satisfy high performance and low energy demands in general and embedded computing domains. Generally speaking, the networks-on-chip connects the distributed multi-core system. It takes charge of message passing which including data and...

Given a complete unoriented point set, we propose a binary orientation tree (BOT) for volume and surface representation, which roughly splits the space into the interior and exterior regions with respect to the input point set. The BOTs are constructed by performing a traditional octree subdivision technique while the corners of each cell are associated with a tag indicating the in/out relation...

Psittacine birds have been identified as reservoirs of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli, a subset of pathogens associated with mortality of children in tropical countries. The role of other orders of birds as source of infection is unclear. The aim of this study was to perform the molecular diagnosis of infection with diarrheagenic E. coli in 10 different orders of captive wild birds in the state...