Banking: Past and Present

The paper presents the evolution of the banking through out history to modern days. The roots of banking reviewed and the changes are expressed. Reasons for bank evolution is presented and first banking operations are described. The difference between past and present is traced out.Banking, ancient banking, modern banking, deposits, loan.

An implementation of IoT LPWAN SCHC message fragmentation and reassembly

This extended abstract reports about the implementation of the fragmentation and reassembly mechanisms of the SCHC framework for Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs). The project aims to program the methods and routines described in the SCHC standard protocol for the fragmentation and reassembly mechanism while being independent of the LPWAN technology and remaining as an open-source project. The implementation addresses the ACK-on-Error mode, where an acknowledgement message is sent back to the sender device only when lost fragments are detected. Initial tests have been successful using a local communication setting with network sockets. We are currently porting the code to support the Sigfox LPWAN using Google Cloud Platform as a cloud computing service and the Python framework Flask for easy testing.Sergio Aguilar, Rafael Vidal and Carles Gomez were funded in part by the Spanish Government through projects TEC2016-79988-P, PID2019-106808RA-I00 (AEI/FEDER, and UE); and the Generalitat de Catalunya Grant 2017 SGR 376.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Un món de mones. La persistència de Robert Robert

Cada vegada que es tornen a llegir els vint-i-set articles que Robert Robert va publicar al setmanari Un tros de paper entre el 1865 i el 1866, es constata fins a quin punt és certa la coneguda afirmació de Josep Pla segons la qual alguns d’aquests textos —i en particular el titulat La rebotiga— són de les millors coses escrites en català durant la Reinaxença. Si deixem Verdaguer al marge, els articles de Robert són efectivament els únics textos del seu temps que encara val la pena llegir; i deixar Verdaguer al marge és justament el que fa Pla per construir el seu elogi. És a dir, decideix que tenen més interès un grapadet d’escrits humorístics destinats a entretenir els barcelonins el diumenge a la tarda, que no pas una obra d’abast espiritual, ambiciosa i extensa com la de Verdaguer. Per si aquestes circumstàncies no fessin encara prou escandalosa la preferència de Pla, la llengua amb què treballa Robert és d’entrada un material rovellat, carregat de llacunes d’imperfeccions, i que no té per model sinó el que l’orella pot captar sobre la marxa a les converses ordinàries dels ciutadans. Verdaguer, en canvi, que també es veu obligat a modelar el català literari sobre la base del que sent dir, posseeix un coneixement profund de la parla dels pagesos de la Plana de Vic, molt menys contaminada que la de Barcelona, i un instint pel llenguatge poètic que fa de la seva obra un dels fonaments més segurs de la literatura catalana moderna. Com no podria ser d’altra manera, Pla reconeix aquesta realitat, però al final en conclou que “per al gust d’avui són molt més interessants les descripcions vulgars de Robert que les retòricament tòpiques de Verdaguer”

Pseudo-global Fitting of Gapped Helioseismic Data

Mode fitting or "peak-bagging" is an important procedure in helioseismology allowing one to determine the various mode parameters of solar oscillations. We have recently developed a new "pseudo-global" fitting algorithm as a way of reducing the systematic bias in the fits of certain mode parameters that are seen when using "local" fitting techniques to analyse "sun-as-a-star" p-mode data. This new algorithm has been designed specifically to gain the advantages of fitting the entire power spectrum, while retaining the efficiency of local fitting techniques. Using simulated data with a full fill we have previously shown that the pseudo-global routine reduces the bias in estimates of the frequencies and asymmetries and in the estimates of the solar background when compared with a traditional fitting technique. Here we present results that show that the pseudo-global routine is also effective in reducing bias in the parameter estimates when the time-series has significant gaps. As such we are now able to employ the routine in order to fit ground based helioseismic data such as that collected by the Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network (BiSON).Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to be published in the proceedings of GONG 2008/SOHO XX