IBM announced that its scientists have created specialised math algorithms to help model and manage natural disasters like wildlife, floods, diseases.

IBM's `stochastic optimisation model' was developed by IBM Math scientists from IBM Research Labs in New York and India working with business experts from IBM's Global Business Services to help relief agencies, government bodies and Companies with tools for strategic planning for more effective allocation of resources for natural disaster managemnet.

"Our researchers have worked on innovative optimisation solutions designed to create a roadmap for a responsive disaster risk reduction", said Dr Daniel Dias, Director, IBM India Research Laboratory adding the challenge lay in matching high end mathematical programming technologies with high impact business and societal problems.

The models can be explored to manage floods or famines in India or natural disasters anywhere in the world. A fully developed customised and implemented model can significantly help the approach for disaster risk reduction and management.

In case of flooding the stochastic model would use various flood scenarios, resource suply capabiites at different dispatch locations and fixed and variable costs associated various risk measures, a release said.

By assigning probabilities to the factors driving outcomes, the model outlines how limited resources can meet Wednesday's unknown demands or liabilities. In this way, the risks and rewards of various tradeoffs can be explored.

The model allows unforseen challenges to be solved mostly within an hour, and has scalability to manage even larger models in future.

Courtesy : THEFINANCIALEXPRESS.COM

Global corporates believe they are most vulnerable to corruption when doing business in emerging Markets like India and other BRIC countries, according to a new survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

According to the survey nearly two-third of global firms have faced some form of corruption in their business dealing, PwC said, while warning that this perception could affect flow of foreign investment into these countries and also raising of funds by the Companies from these nations.

"Indian Companies should be concerned about the perception of global firms regarding the corrupt environment in India as it would affect the flow of foreign investment and cost of raising funds by India Inc," PwC Advisory Leader Ashwani Puri said.

According to the report, 63 per cent of senior executives globally said they had experienced some form of actual or attempted corruption in their business dealings.

Further, almost 80 per cent of executives said they have anti-corruption programs in place at their company, but only 22 per cent are confident of these being effective.

"Executives indicated that they are most vulnerable to corruption particularly when doing business in emerging Markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), " the report said.

PwC had commissioned the Economist Intelligence Unit to conduct the global survey and interviews with senior officials and anti-corruption specialists. The survey respondents comprised of 390 senior executives from 70 countries.

While, 45 per cent said they had not entered a specific market or pursued a particular opportunity because of corruption risks, 39 per cent believe their Companies had lost bids because of corrupt officials. Besides, 42 per cent Companies said their competitors paid bribes.

Courtesy : THEFINANCIALEXPRESS.COM