HotGrid: Graduated Access to Grid-based Science Gateways

We describe the idea of a Science Gateway, an application-specific task wrapped as a web service, and some examples of these that are being implemented on the US TeraGrid cyberinfrastructure. We also describe HotGrid, a means of providing simple, immediate access to the Grid through one of these gateways, which we hope will broaden the use of the Grid, drawing in a wide community of users. The secondary purpose of HotGrid is to acclimate a science community to the concepts of certificate use. Our system provides these weakly authenticated users with immediate power to use the Grid resources for science, but without the dangerous power of running arbitrary code. We describe the implementation of these Science Gateways with the Clarens secure web server

Credit Derivatives and the Default Risk of Large Complex Financial Institutions

This paper addresses the impact of developments in the credit risk transfer market on the viability of a group of systemically important financial institutions. We propose a bank default risk model, in the vein of the classic Merton-type, which utilizes a multi-equation framework to model forward-looking measures of market and credit risk using the credit default swap (CDS) index market as a measure of the global credit environment. In the first step, we establish the existence of significant detrimental volatility spillovers from the CDS market to the banks’ equity prices, suggesting a credit shock propagation channel which results in serious deterioration of the valuation of banks’ assets. In the second step, we show that substantial capital injections are required to restore the stability of the banking system to an acceptable level after shocks to the CDX and iTraxx indices. Our empirical evidence thus informs the relevant regulatory authorities on the magnitude of banking systemic risk jointly posed by CDS markets.distance of default, credit derivatives, credit default swap index, financial stability

Multivariate financial econometrics: with applications to volatility modelling, option pricing and asset allocation

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A Risk Strategy for Mine Action

A generic risk management methodology has been derived, and aspects of it were used to develop risk management strategies for Cambodia and Bosnia. These countries presented different problems and so required very different approaches. In Cambodia, the available resources are wholly inadequate to remove the risk from landmines in the medium-term. Moreover, the mine treatment options that might be practicable, even if they were available, are limited, because of the poor infrastructure and type of terrain where they would be applied. Nevertheless, there is some scope for using risk assessment to identify where the practicable mine treatment options (mainly manual demining and limiting the use of the land) could be applied best. This could mean partially treating areas, so that there is a significant possibility that mines remain, at least in the medium-term, and thus leading to some casualties in treated areas. Hopefully, this would be offset by reducing risks more effectively in other areas, thus reducing the total number of casualties. In addition, the effective landuse would be increased.This study has examined these issues from a risk management perspective. A preliminary methodology was developed [1]. Outline risk strategies, based on the ideas in the methodology, were then developed for demining in Cambodia [2] and Bosnia-Herzegovenia [3]. The strategies were distributed to interested parties, such as demining NGOs, Mine Action Groups, and donors, and their comments were taken on board in this final report. The studies are summarised in this report, as well as implementation issues that arose during the studies and from the comments on them

Comparison of Compression Schemes for CLARA

CLARA (Compact Linear Advanced Research Accelerator)at Daresbury Laboratory is proposed to be the UK's national FEL test facility. The accelerator will be a ~250 MeV electron linac capable of producing short, high brightness electron bunches. The machine comprises a 2.5cell RF photocathode gun, one 2 m and three 5 m normal conducting S-band (2998MHz) accelerating structures and a variable magnetic compression chicane. CLARA will be used as a test bed for novel FEL configurations. We present a comparison of acceleration and compression schemes for the candidate machine layout.Comment: 3 pages, 5 figures, IPAC 201

The impact of volatility on the pricing efficiency of the South African futures exchange market

Bibliography: leaves 181-184

Parallelization of a Six Degree of Freedom Entry Vehicle Trajectory Simulation Using OpenMP and OpenACC

The art and science of writing parallelized software, using methods such as Open Multi-Processing (OpenMP) and Open Accelerators (OpenACC), is dominated by computer scientists. Engineers and non-computer scientists looking to apply these techniques to their project applications face a steep learning curve, especially when looking to adapt their original single threaded software to run multi-threaded on graphics processing units (GPUs). There are significant changes in mindset that must occur; such as how to manage memory, the organization of instructions, and the use of if statements (also known as branching). The purpose of this work is twofold: 1) to demonstrate the applicability of parallelized coding methodologies, OpenMP and OpenACC, to tasks outside of the typical large scale matrix mathematics; and 2) to discuss, from an engineers perspective, the lessons learned from parallelizing software using these computer science techniques. This work applies OpenMP, on both multi-core central processing units (CPUs) and Intel Xeon Phi 7210, and OpenACC on GPUs. These parallelization techniques are used to tackle the simulation of thousands of entry vehicle trajectories through the integration of six degree of freedom (DoF) equations of motion (EoM). The forces and moments acting on the entry vehicle, and used by the EoM, are estimated using multiple models of varying levels of complexity. Several benchmark comparisons are made on the execution of six DoF trajectory simulation: single thread Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPU, multi-thread CPU using OpenMP, multi-thread Xeon Phi 7210 using OpenMP, and multi-thread NVIDIA Tesla K40 GPU using OpenACC. These benchmarks are run on the Pleiades Supercomputer Cluster at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center (ARC), and a Xeon Phi 7210 node at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)