Using DDC to create a visual knowledge map as an aid to online information retrieval

Selection of search terms in an online search environment can be facilitated by the visual display of a knowledge map showing the various concepts and their links. This paper reports on a preliminary research aimed at designing a prototype knowledge map using DDC and its visual display. The prototype knowledge map created using the Protæ#169;gæ#169; and TGViz freeware has been demonstrated, and further areas of research in this field are discussed

Speculative Attacks or Economic Fundamentals: Evidence from the Asian Currency Crisis

This paper argues that what led to the Asian financial crisis was a fatal combination of several self-reinforcing factors including external sector weaknesses, fragility in domestic financial markets due to inadequately administered financial liberalisation, loss of confidence, and short-term capital flows, maturing within less than a year and denominated in unhedged dollars. Some of these factors were country-specific while others were common to the entire region. Asia\u27s financial crisis will almost certainly lead to important changes in the international financial system, as countries try to find an appropriate balance between the benefits from gaining access to intentional capital flows and the potential for instability and ohter risks that also seem to be much greater in a world of large and highly mobile capital movements. The paper discusses important lessons from the crisis

Molecular motors: design, mechanism and control

Biological functions in each animal cell depend on coordinated operations of a wide variety of molecular motors. Some of the these motors transport cargo to their respective destinations whereas some others are mobile workshops which synthesize macromolecules while moving on their tracks. Some other motors are designed to function as packers and movers. All these motors require input energy for performing their mechanical works and operate under conditions far from thermodynamic equilibrium. The typical size of these motors and the forces they generate are of the order of nano-meters and pico-Newtons, respectively. They are subjected to random bombardments by the molecules of the surrounding aqueous medium and, therefore, follow noisy trajectories. Because of their small inertia, their movements in the viscous intracellular space exhibits features that are characteristics of hydrodynamics at low Reynold's number. In this article we discuss how theoretical modeling and computer simulations of these machines by physicists are providing insight into their mechanisms which engineers can exploit to design and control artificial nano-motors.Comment: 11 pages, including 8 embedded EPS figures; Invited article, accepted for Publication in "Computing in Science and Engineering" (AIP & IEEE

Does Exchange Rate Variability Depress Trade Flows ? Evidence From Error Correction Models

This paper examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on the trade flows of the G-7 countries in the context of a multivariate error-correction model. The error-correction models do not show any sign of parameter instability. The results indicate that the exchange rate volatility has a significant negative impact on the volume of exports in each of the G-7 countries. Assuming market participants are risk averse, these results imply that exchange rate uncertainty causes them to reduce their activities, change prices, or shift sources of demand and supply in order to minimize their exposure to the effects of exchange rate volatility. This, in turn, can change the distribution of output across many sectors in these countries. It is quite possible that the surprisingly weak relationship between trade flows and exchange rate volatility reported in several previous studies are due to insufficient attention to the stochastic properties of the relevant time series

100 years of Einstein's theory of Brownian motion: from pollen grains to protein trains

Experimental verification of the theoretical predictions made by Albert Einstein in his paper, published in 1905, on the molecular mechanisms of Brownian motion established the existence of atoms. In the last 100 years discoveries of many facets of the ubiquitous Brownian motion has revolutionized our fundamental understanding of the role of {\it thermal fluctuations} in the exotic structures and complex dynamics exhibited by soft matter like, for example, colloids, gels, etc. The domain of Brownian motion transcends the traditional disciplinary boundaries of physics and has become an area of multi-disciplinary research. Brownian motion finds applications also in earth and environmental sciences as well as life sciences. Nature exploits Brownian motion for running many dynamical processes that are crucial for sustaining life. In the first one-third of this article I present a brief historical survey of the initial period, including works of Brown and Einstein. In the next one-third I introduce the main concepts and the essential theoretical techniques used for studying translational as well as rotational Brownian motions and the effects of time-independent potentials. In the last one-third of this article I discuss some contemporary problems on Brownian motion in time-dependent potentials, namely, {\it stochastic resonance} and {\it Brownian ratchet}, two of the hottest topics in this area of interdisciplinary research.Comment: 15 pages, LATEX, Based on the inaugural lecture in the Horizon Lecture Series organized by the Physics Society of I.I.T. Kanpur, in the "World Year of Physics 2005