Portfolio and investment risk analysis on global grids

The financial services industry today produces and consumes huge amounts of data and the processes involved in analysing these data have large and complex resource requirements. The need to analyse the data using such processes and get meaningful results in time, can be met only up to a certain extent by current computer systems. Most service providers attempt to increase efficiency and quality of their service offerings by stacking up more hardware and employing better algorithms for data processing. However, there is a limit to the gains achieved by using such an approach. One viable alternative would be to use emerging technologies such as the Grid. Grid computing and its application to various domains have been actively studied by many groups for more than a decade now. In this paper we explore the use of the Grid in the financial services domain; an area which we believe has not been adequately looked into.     

Double auction-inspired meta-scheduling of parallel applications on global grids

Meta-schedulers map jobs to computational resources that are part of a Grid, such as clusters, that in turn have their own local job schedulers. Existing Grid meta-schedulers either target system-centric metrics, such as utilisation and throughput, or prioritise jobs based on utility metrics provided by the users. The system-centric approach gives less importance to users’ individual utility, while the user-centric approach may have adverse effects such as poor system performance and unfair treatment of users. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel meta-scheduler, based on the well-known double auction mechanism that aims to satisfy users’ service requirements as well as ensuring balanced utilisation of resources across a Grid. We have designed valuation metrics that commodify both the complex resource requirements of users and the capabilities of available computational resources. Through simulation using real traces, we compare our scheduling mechanism with other common mechanisms widely used by both existing market-based and traditional meta-schedulers. The results show that our meta-scheduling mechanism not only satisfies up to 15% more user requirements than others, but also improves system utilisation through load balancing.     

Thermopower Studies of Polycrystalline Ag Doped LaMnO3 Manganites

The effects of silver doping on the magnetotransport and thermopower of La_1?x Ag _x MnO₃ (0.05≤x≤0.30) have been investigated. For the sample with x=0.05, temperature dependent resistivity exhibits an insulating behavior, while thermopower is found to be large and negative over the measured temperature range. An increase in the Ag doping enhances the conductivity and shifts the metal-insulator transition temperature toward high temperature side. The low temperature thermopower data has been explained in terms of diffusion, magnon drag, and phonon drag effects and found that the magnon drag effect dominates in this region. Finally, the electrical transport in the high temperature region has been analyzed by using adiabatic small polaron hopping mechanism.     

Protective effect of tetrahydrocurcumin and chlorogenic acid against streptozotocin–nicotinamide generated oxidative stress induced diabetes

The present study was undertaken to investigate the protective effect of tetrahydrocurcumin (THC) and chlorogenic acid (CGA) against streptozotocin (STZ)–nicotinamide (NA)-induced type 2 diabetes in adult Wistar rats. Diabetes was induced in experimental rats weighing 180–220 g, by a single intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of STZ (45 mg/kg BW), 15 min after the (i.p.) administration of NA (110 mg/kg BW). THC (80 mg/kg BW) and CGA (5 mg/kg BW) were orally administered to diabetic rats for a period of 45 days. Fasting plasma glucose, glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA_1C), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and lipid hydroperoxides (LOOH) were significantly increased, whereas insulin, total haemoglobin (Hb), non-enzymic antioxidants (reduced glutathione (GSH), vitamin C, vitamin E and ceruloplasmin) were decreased significantly in diabetic rats. Though the diabetic rats treated with THC and CGA individual exerts beneficial effects in all the biochemical parameters in (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. The combined treatment with THC and CGA normalized all the above-mentioned biochemical parameters in STZ-induced diabetic rats. Normal pancreatic histological architecture in THC and CGA treated diabetic rats revealed that these phytochemical exert higher degree of protection when administered in combination than single treatment of individual compounds.     

Ultrasonic velocity measurements for characterizing the annealing behaviour of cold worked austenitic stainless steel

Precise measurements of shear wave velocities have been made in 20% cold worked and annealed samples of alloy D9 (Ti-modified austenitic stainless steel) to characterize the microstructural changes during annealing. The variation in wave velocity with annealing time exhibited a three stage behaviour. In the first stage, a slight increase in the velocity during recovery regime has been observed. This is followed by a significant increase in the velocity in the recrystallization regime (second stage) and reaching saturation on completion of recrystallization (third stage). Microstructural observations using optical metallography confirmed these three stages. The maximum variation in velocity is observed only when the polarization or the propagation direction of the shear wave is alingned with the cold working direction. Variation in shear wave velocity during annealing process, in general, is just opposite to that of the variation in longitudinal wave velocity. A number of velocity measurements were made by changing the propagation and polarization directions of the shear waves with respect to the cold working direction. Based on these measurements, a suitable velocity ratio parameter is suggested for determining the degree of recrystallization during annealing of cold worked alloy D9.     

Coal washing scenario in India and future prospects

International Journal of Coal Science & Technology - Coal Washing Exploration in India dates back to 1900s; though, first coking coal washeries in India were installed after independence. At...     

Value‐added products from underutilized fish species

Fish is a rich source of easily digestible protein that also provides polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals for human nutrition. Nonetheless, a large proportion of total landed fish remains unused due to inherent problems related to unattractive color, flavor, texture, small size, and high fat content. Most of these underutilized fish belong to the abundantly available pelagic species, which are landed as bycatch, and some are unconventional species such as krill. Although some species are used industrially for fish meal manufacture, a need for their conservation and utilization for human consumption has been recognized in order to prevent post‐harvest fishery losses. Recovery of flesh by mechanical deboning and development of value‐added products are probably the most promising approaches. This article discusses various possibilities for product development using mince from low‐cost fishery resources. These include surimi and surimi‐based products, sausages, fermented products, protein concentrates and hydrolysates, extruded products, and biotechnological possibilities. The dual advantages of this approach, namely, finding ways for better utilization of low‐value fish species and providing protein‐rich convenience foods, have been pointed out. However, the key to the success of this approach depends largely on the market strategies utilized.     

The determination of the enthalpy of formation and the enthalpy increment of Cd0.5Te0.5 by Calvet calorimetry

The enthalpy of formation of Cd_0.5Te_0.5(s) has been determined using a Calvet calorimeter at 785 K by direct reaction calorimetry. The heat changes were measured for the additions of Cd(s) or Te(s) from 298 K to a reaction crucible containing the other liquid metal at 785 K. Measurements were also carried out to determine the enthalpy changes due to the direct reaction of the Te(l) and Cd(l) at 785 K. The enthalpies of formation of Cd_0.5Te_0.5 calculated from the two sets of experiments were in agreement. The H_T°---H₂₉₈° values of the Cd_0.5Te_0.5 compound have also been determined in the temperature range 406–826 K by the drop method. Using ΔH_fm° at 785 K and H_T---H₂₉₈° values of Cd_0.5Te_0.5, ΔH_fm° at 298 K was determined to be −(50.349±0.510) kJ mol⁻¹.     

Some studies on the warm solid- and hollow-extrusion of sintered powder metallurgical copper preforms

The warm extrusion of sintered P/M preforms of electrolytically pure copper has been investigated for extrusion strains of 0.35, 0.5, 0.66 and 0.81 for the solid configuration and 0.43, 0.62, 0.85 and 1.09 for the tubular configuration at temperatures of 303, 363, 433, 493 and 563 K with densities of 7.45 and 7.90 g cm⁻³ for the solid configuration and 7.0 and 7.7 g cm⁻³ for the tubular configuration. Force requirements and microstructural property evaluation have been attempted. Using the standard axial ring-compression test on the initial preforms, the plastic properties were evaluated to enable the computation of theoretical forces. The actual forces were compared with these theoretical forces and a correction factor, φ, then determined. The influence of strain, temperature and the geometry in ensuring near to theoretical density of the extrudates has been assessed.     

Disk diffusion susceptibility testing of dermatophytes with imidazoles

Flupirtine belongs to the class of triaminopyridines and is successfully applied clinically as a non-opiate analgesic drug with additional muscle relaxant properties. Recently it was reported that flupirtine acts like an antagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor complex in neuronal cells both in vitro and in vivo. Here we have used primary cortical cells from rat embryos to demonstrate that this compound is also neuroprotective against the toxic effects caused by the prion agent PrPSc and lead acetate (Pb). These two agents display pleiotropic effects on neurons, which include activation of the NMDA receptor complex. At concentrations above 30 microM the toxic-peptide fragment of PrPSc causes apoptotic fragmentation of DNA and is consequently neurotoxic. Pb is neurotoxic at concentrations above 10 microM. Co-administration of flupirtine (10 microM) with either of these agents resulted in reduced neurotoxicity. These data indicate that the cytoprotective effect of flupirtine is measurable in vitro against these noxious agents which show their effects, including modulation of the NMDA receptor complex, pleiotropically.