Indian Central Bank Buys IMF Gold

 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has increased the quantity of its gold holdings. With a recent purchase of 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund, the Indian Central Bank is now the ninth or tenth largest holder of gold globally.

 

Executed as a part of its foreign exchange reserves management, the RBI recently purchased $6.7 billion USD worth of the IMF's gold, from Oct. 19 to Oct. 30th 2009. Although the RBI does not officially discuss its diversification strategy, speculation is rampant that the purchase may be part of India's push for greater influence within the IMF itself. 

 

India, along with other emerging BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) is jockeying for greater bearing on the global economic stage, and this recent move may be a tactic of this strategy. The Indian economy has grown rapidly in recent years, and is now in aggregate, a $1.2 trillion USD economy. 

 

According to the latest data, of India’s total foreign reserves of $285.5 billion on Oct. 23, 2009, slightly more than $10 billion worth was in gold. The recent purchase has increased India’s percentage of gold holdings in its portfolio, from approximately 4 percent to approximately 6 percent. The purchase was one of the largest single purchases of gold by a Central Bank, in memory.

 

Portfolio-wise, Indian gold holdings are on average much less than most Central Banks of the developed world, but interestingly, Indian gold holdings are approximately four times the size of China's share. With this recent move, perhaps New Delhi may be trying to assert its strength in world economic affairs, relative to the other BRIC nations.

 

For gold markets in general, the picture is less clear. What does the RBI’s decision signal for the global gold market? Does India’s recent move potentially signify the beginning of a new bull market for bullion? Only time will tell.

Posted via web from Global Business News

US and Asian GDP Return to Growth

 

American GDP is growing again.

After four consecutive quarters of GDP decline, the US Economy grew in the third quarter by 3.5%.  This ends the longest contraction in the US economy since the Great Depression. The 3.5 per cent growth figures were stronger than expected by some analysts, including Goldman Sachs, who had forecast only 2.7 per cent growth. 

Simultaneously, the IMF has doubled its forecast for Asian economic growth in 2010. 

The region’s prospects have improved dramatically over the past 6 months due to the concerted efforts of Asian Governments to nurse their economies back to health. China, South Korea, India, and Japan have taken the lead in this regard. The International Monetary Fund has forecast GDP growth of 2.8 per cent for 2009, and 5.8 per cent in 2010 for the region. 

The “Great Recession”, as it has come to be known, may be technically over according to the Economists, but it's been replaced by fears that this may only be a statistical recovery. The manifest growth in the US is literally underwritten by billions of dollars in US Federal government spending. Some economists posit that all of the government money in the US system will lead to an artificial and jobless recovery in America. Last month's US jobless rate was 9.8 per cent, its highest rate in 26 years. 

Nonetheless, third quarter figures indicate that 2010 will be a year of growth in the American economy, which is certainly reassuring news for the Global economy, as the US Economy is currently underperforming globally.

Posted via web from Global Business News

Taiwan lab develops panda robot

The world's first panda robot is taking shape at a cutting-edge lab in Taiwan where an ambitious group of scientists hope to add new dimensions to the island's reputation as a high-tech power. The Centre for Intelligent Robots Research aims to develop pandas that are friendlier and more artistically endowed than their endangered real-life counterparts.

"The panda robot will be very cute and more attracted to humans. Maybe the panda robot can be made to sing a panda song," said Jerry Lin, the centre's 52-year-old director. Day by day, the panda evolves on the centre's computer screens and, if funding permits, the robot will take its first steps by the end of the year.

"It's the first time we try to construct a quadrupedal robot. We need to consider the balance problem," said 28-year-old Jo Po-chia, a doctoral student who is in charge of the robot's design. The robo-panda is just one of many projects on the drawing board at the centre, which is attached to the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, the island's version of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Taipei-based centre also aims to build robots that look like popular singers, so exact replicas of world stars can perform in the comfort of their fans' homes. "It could be a Madonna robot. It will be a completely different experience from just listening to audio," said Lin.

Commercial value is what counts for Lin, who hopes to contribute to the Taiwan economy at a time when it has matured and no longer exhibits the stellar growth of the earlier take-off phase. "If I write 25 academic papers, I won't contribute anything. But if I create something people need, I will contribute to the Taiwan economy," he said. Lin and his team are also working on educational robots that can act as private tutors for children, teaching them vocabulary or telling them stories in foreign languages.

There is an obvious target market: China, with its tens of millions of middle-class parents doting on the one child they are allowed under strict population policies. "Asian parents are prepared to spend a lot of money to teach their children languages," said Lin.

Robots running amok are a fixture of popular literature but parents do not have to worry about leaving their children home alone with their artificial teachers, he said. "A robot may hit you like a car or a motorbike might hit you. But it won't suddenly lose control and get violent. Humans lose control, not robots. It's not like that."

Lin's long-term dream is to create a fully-functioning Robot Theatre of Taiwan, with an ensemble of life-like robots able to sing, dance and entertain. Two robotic pioneers, Thomas and Janet, appeared before an audience in Taiwan in December, performing scenes from the Phantom of the Opera, but that was just the beginning, Lin said.

"You can imagine a robot shooting down balloons, like in the wild west, using two revolvers, or three, but much faster than a person. Some things robots can do better than humans with the aid of technologies," Lin said.

His vision is to turn the show into an otherworldly experience where robots and humans mix seamlessly on stage, leaving the audience in doubt which is which. But the bottomline is the bottomline. Lin wants commercial viability, in the interest of his home island.

"I want to be able to go to an amusement park in the US and see a building where on top it says, 'Robot Theatre from Taiwan'. That's my lifetime goal," he said.

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Source:

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/technology/6077266/taiwan-lab-develops-panda-robot/

Tags:

China, Taipei, Robot panda, Robot Theatre of Taiwan, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Global IT News, The Centre for Intelligent Robots Research,

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World's Largest Yacht is Paparazzi Proof

Roman Abramovich's latest extravagance, Eclipse, probably so-called because it's almost big enough to block out the sun, is the world's largest mega-yacht. Measuring 557ft long, it boasts two swimming pools, two helipads and an onboard missile defence system. And, just in case any missiles do get through, it comes complete with an escape pod: its own submarine. Its most curious feature, however, defends it against an altogether more insidious weapon: the prying eyes of the paparazzi.

The boat's anti-paparazzi system, described in several reports as a "laser shield", is a little less science fiction than it sounds. The lasers – beams of infrared light – are used to detect the electronic light sensors that digital cameras use instead of film. The camera is then targeted with a focused beam of bright light that disrupts the potential photo, making any shots unusable. It's not so much a space-age Star Wars laser shield, then, as a big budget version of shining a torch in someone's face.

A similar technology is already available to all in the form of an anti-paparazzi purse, devised by New York University student Adam Harvey, which detects the flash of a camera and responds with a bright flash of its own, cloaking the intended target in a blob of white light. Nigel Atherton, editor of What Digital Camera, explains, "You couldn't stop them taking a picture but you could ruin the picture." Eclipse's anti-paparazzi defence grid, he suspects, "is essentially a large-scale version of that."

What makes Eclipse's system special is that it can detect any digital camera, whether it's using a flash or not, and before the first shot. But Abramovich's shield still has a serious weakness: it can't possibly detect the presence of an old-fashioned analogue or mechanical camera.

So for £724m, he's got himself a boat that digital-camera-wielding paparazzi can't photograph, say, falling over outside a nightclub at 3am. It's a shame really. That's exactly the sort of memory you'd want to capture.

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Source:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/22/roman-abramovich-yacht-paparazzi

Tags:

Roman Abramovich, Eclipse Yacht, Anti-Papparazzi system, lasers, New York University, Laser shield, escape pod, missile defense systems, Global Blog Network, Billionaire, paparazzi protection, flash photography,

Posted via email from Global Business News

Delivering Data At Light Speed

You may not have heard of nanophotonics, but it may be the technology that puts Intel and Broadcom chips to shame.

Greg Young serves as president and CEO of Luxtera [full disclosure: My venture firm, Lux Capital, is an equity investor]. Prior to Luxtera, he was vice president and general manager of the High Speed Ethernet Controller and High Definition Media PC Video business units at Broadcom. While there, Greg led the growth of the Ethernet Controller business unit from concept to hundreds of millions in revenue and the No. 1 market share position. Prior to joining Broadcom, Greg was with Intel, where he held several engineering marketing and leadership positions.

Josh Wolfe: What career path led you to Luxtera?

Greg Young: After trying some startups out of school I joined Intel ( INTC - news -people ) in the mid-90s, beginning as an engineer and then transitioning over to marketing and running product lines. I worked at Intel until 1999, when I joined Broadcom ( BRCM - news - people ). I spent eight years at Broadcom helping to pioneer the company's participation in the Ethernet market for the network interface controller business. Ultimately, I helped grow that business to about $350 million dollars a year in semiconductor revenue. Most of my career has been spent building businesses off of advanced transceiver technology (devices that both transmit and receive information), so when I recognized the opportunity within Luxtera, it was easy for me to see how the technology could be built into a large-scale enterprise.

What excited you about the company?

First, some market backdrop here: It's getting harder and harder to send fast signals over copper wires. The world of optics has been sitting out there for a long time as the performance leader, but it has been a very expensive way to get the performance that you need for the same kind of input/output speeds. When I recognized that Luxtera had the ability to create a complete optical transceiver in CMOS technology to take performance to 10 gigabits and well beyond 10 gigabits at a cost point that was previously unachievable, I saw the same kind of opportunity I was given at both Intel and Broadcom.

Put it in perspective--how fast is 10 gigabits?

If you use a cable modem at home, that's about a 1 megabit connection--a million bits per second. We're talking about ultimately transitioning people to the point where they can readily transmit 10 billion bits a second. That's the equivalent of downloading more than 300 songs every second.

Why do photons trump electrons when it comes to broadcasting bits?

When you send an electronic signal over copper wires, there is a relationship between speed, distance, and signal integrity. As you get faster and faster over the same distance of wire, your signal integrity gets worse, and you see distortion in the signal that starts to dominate the signal quality at higher speeds. Because of that relationship, there is a natural limit for how fast and far you can push a signal over a copper wire.

At 10 gigabit speeds, electrical interconnects over copper wires really start to break down--it's hard to transmit the signal even 10 meters. Alternatively, you can send a burst of photonic energy down a low-cost fiber optic waveguide, and you can easily send a 10 gigabit signal over 10 kilometers. You can do it with less power, less complexity, and with Luxtera's technology--lower cost.

Why is transceiver technology important in this industry?

While at Intel and Broadcom, I saw two things: first, mixed signal circuitry (combined analog and digital circuitry) would enhance the communications signals between systems, and second, I realized that the rate at which you come out with new transceiver technology is really what controlled the cadence of the innovation in the industry. I first saw this at Intel.

The company was able to utilize its own technology to build transceivers for 100 megabit Ethernet. At the time, 3Com ( COMS - news - people) was the dominant player, but by leveraging the cost and performance benefits of having an integrated transceiver technology in CMOS, we were able to transition the market from 10 megabit to 100 megabit Ethernet and move Intel's position from a minority player to the market leader within the network interface controller business. That was a really interesting learning experience for me.

When I joined Broadcom in 1999, the company was the leader in mixed signal in CMOS and was just entering the Ethernet space, building up their business as an Ethernet transceiver vendor. What I was handed when I came into the company was a complete, single-chip gigabit Ethernet transceiver. At the time, no other company in the world knew how to build a single-chip transceiver for 1 gigabit data rates, and by having that technology I was able to facilitate a very similar transition to what I had been involved with at Intel--driving the market from 100 megabit Ethernet to 1 gigabit Ethernet.

Today, you can barely buy a computer that doesn't have a gigabit Ethernet network controller in it, and it was that transceiver advantage that Broadcom had that allowed them to subsequently grab the No. 1 market position from Intel.

CMOS, photonics, optical transceivers--sounds complex! In the simplest of terms, what is it that Luxtera's technology does?

Our technology takes a high-speed signal and gets it from point A to point B. A transceiver sends out a signal at point A and receives the same signal at point B. We send that signal over a fiber optic cable, giving us performance and signal quality advantages. Our system is less expensive than other optical approaches because of nanophotonics--we've shrunk the optical elements down to the same scale as the transistors that sit inside your PC's CPU.

By being down at that scale, we've enabled the manufacturing of our systems with the same processes that makes computer chips, meaning we can precisely stamp them out in large quantities, without needing complex assembly. We've been able to move the world of photonic interconnects from an era equivalent to that of the vacuum tubes, to one of the modern integrated circuit.

Who's competing with Luxtera in this market?

If you look at the area of silicon CMOS photonics, Intel, IBM ( IBM -news - people ), Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ - news - people ) and many other big names within the industry are all doing research. But Luxtera is the leader in development in this space. The original foundation for the company came out of advanced research at Caltech, which stimulated the very early years of development.

We have pioneered a brand new space, moving nanophotonic structures into a CMOS-compatible silicon process. By doing that, we've figured out how to increase performance while reducing cost. We've blazed a new trail, and in doing so we've established the methods and techniques needed to bring this technology into production. Based upon research papers written by other companies exploring this area, we estimate that we're at least five years ahead of the nearest competitor.

What do you see as the current market opportunity for this technology?

There is a huge short-term opportunity for Luxtera within the high-performance computing segment. High-performance computing refers to supercomputers and computer clusters like data centers that are trying to achieve maximum performance to solve complex computations or process large amounts of data. They are all on the cutting-edge of technology, and typically that technology very quickly waterfalls down into the mainstream PC market.

High-performance computing centers are typically the starting point for many innovations in the industry. In each of these centers, there are many, many processors that are trying to communicate with one another at mind-boggling speed, and it's becoming nearly impossible to make that communication work with copper wires.

While there has always been a broad opportunity for photonics, the photonic approaches thus far have always been too expensive to implement. Our technology allows us to take the performance of optics and reduce the cost so that we're able to interconnect these high-performance computing centers economically.

When will we see this type of technology in our home computers?

Over time, optics will transition into every market as speeds get faster and faster. The move from copper to fiber optics is a very natural transition forecasted by just about every industry pundit. You can find this technology today within the high-performance computing space, where we have products that send signals over fiber optics used to connect high-performance computing data centers.

Some of the world's fastest computer systems use photonic interconnects, and over time you're going see that transition down into consumer electronics: Home PCs, DVD players and TVs will all ultimately pick up optics for communications between subcomponents. What's notable is that optics has already moved into the home. The transition from magnetic media--like VHS and cassette tapes--to digital optical data storage on CDs and DVDs is a great precedent where storage requirements exceeded the limits of magnetic, copper-type systems and transitioned over to optics. Communication interconnects are moving down that same path.

Is Luxtera still focused on research or is the company shipping products today?

We are in production with products today. While we continue to do research to move the edge of technology forward (with 23 PhDs on staff), we are a product company with development engineering and manufacturing operations. In fact, we recently announced that through a partnership with Freescale Semiconductor ( FSL - news - people), we've reached full-scale production status for CMOS photonics technology.

What does this collaboration with Freescale mean for the company?

It means we can now design and produce chips that use our structures on a very large scale. Freescale already has a process that they use to build transistors at very large scale, and they produce lots of chips for things like network processors and automotive sensors. We've been able to integrate our novel nanophotonic device structures into Freescale's process, so now their factories can produce CMOS photonic transceivers.

As anyone in the semiconductor industry knows, it takes about five years to develop a new CMOS process, and once you have that process in production, you build products in it for a number of years. By taking our process to maturity through our relationship with Freescale, we can now design a whole host of products and bring them very quickly from design into volume manufacturing.

How do you think big players like Intel and Broadcom perceive your company in the market today?

I think that Intel in particular, and others that work in silicon photonics, see silicon CMOS photonics as being part of their future roadmap. Having a company like Luxtera out there that's in production with CMOS photonics, on the cutting edge of technology, I think one, it comforts them that the roadmap in front of them is truly viable, and two, if I were in their shoes, I would be a little threatened by it. Our technology can be applied to anyone in the industry. Any company that wants to be able to adopt

CMOS photonics to gain performance benefits in a very large market can leverage our technology platform and get to market very quickly. On the other hand, I think a lot of companies view us as an opportunity to get their hands on a technology that could move them ahead on their own roadmap faster.

The ease by which we transport massive waves of data may leave many unaware of the physical systems that enable our virtual world. How do you give people a sense of appreciation for the importance of this technology?

Here's an analogy that may give people some sense of scale: Many people have gone through the transition from a 56k modem to a cable modem or DSL service. What photonics represents to high-performance computing is akin to the transition from dial-up to broadband.

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Source:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/24/intel-broadcom-luxtera-personal-finance-guru-insight-nanophotonic-gigabit.html

Tags:

Josh Wolfe, Forbes, CMOS, photonics, Luxtera, Freescale, Greg Young, Lux Capital, Broadcom, electrons, optical transceivers, Freescale Semiconductor, nanophotonic structures, CMOS-compatible silicon process,

Posted via email from Global Business News

Tech Mogul Injured By Elephant

Today he's home in Woodside, recuperating from serious injuries. A little more than a month ago, Silicon Valley billionaire Tom Siebel was in the Serengeti, where a charging elephant attacked him and a guide.

"It was all happening so fast. There was no place to hide, no place to run," the 56-year-old Siebel, founder of the Siebel Systems software company, told the Mercury News in an exclusive interview Wednesday.

The elephant plowed into the guide and then turned on Siebel, breaking several ribs, goring him in the left leg and crushing the right. Siebel said they were able to radio for help only after the animal lost interest and wandered away, but it was three hours before he received any medical treatment.

Siebel sold his business to Oracle four years ago and now divides his time between his Woodside home, an office in Palo Alto and a ranch in Montana, where he raises cattle and competes in team roping events. He said he was on a photo safari in Tanzania last month when the elephant attacked without warning.

Early on the morning of Aug. 1, Siebel said, he and a guide went to a watering hole, where they hoped to observe a variety of game that were known to gather in the quiet early morning hours. They were watching a group of elephants from 200 yards away — "keeping a respectful distance," Siebel said — when one turned and without warning began to charge.

"There was no apparent reason, nothing that should have made it feel threatened," Siebel said. "It was quiet, and then the quiet stopped," when the elephant began thundering toward the two men. As the massive animal closed the distance, Siebel said the guide fired a gun but missed. Siebel said he was trampled and gored in the leg, until he just "curled into as tight a ball as I could." The guide suffered broken ribs and other injuries.

After the animal left and the men called for help, rescuers came and eventually airlifted Siebel to Nairobi, where he received emergency care before flying back to California for more treatment. All told, he said, he spent 18 days in four hospitals before he was allowed to go home. Siebel has been using a wheelchair but has told friends he expects to make a full recovery, after reconstructive surgery and physical therapy. "I was very fortunate to have survived something you might not think was survivable," he said cheerfully Wednesday. "But I am home now, and with my family. It makes you glad to be home."

Siebel has not discussed the incident publicly before now. He said Wednesday that he was not eager for publicity about the experience but agreed to describe what happened after the Mercury News contacted him to confirm an account that was circulating in the community. A veteran software executive, Siebel has kept a relatively low profile in the business world while investing his assets through a holding company called First Virtual Group. He has made a bigger splash with his nonprofit, the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, and by helping to fund alternative energy research and an anti-methamphetamine campaign that has been adopted by several rural states. BusinessWeek magazine included him in a 2008 ranking of the 50 most generous philanthropists in the country.

Siebel said Wednesday that he doesn't know what became of the elephant that attacked him. He said authorities in Tanzania searched for it, but as far as he knows it was never found. While he's doing some work from home, he said, he's focused on his recovery. "My job is to get healthy and get over it," he said, "and I'm going to do my job."

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Source:

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Tags:

Silicon Valley billionaire, Tom Siebel, Serengeti, charging elephant attack, founder Siebel Systems software company, Mercury News, Oracle, Nairobi, Tanzania, First Virtual Group, Tom and Stacey Siebel Foundation, fund alternative energy research, anti-methamphetamine campaign, BusinessWeek magazine, 50 most generous philanthropists in USA,

Posted via email from Global Business News

IBM First to X-Ray a Molecule

IBM scientists claim to be the first to image the inner structure of a molecule, opening up new possibilities in building smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient computing components. The achievement, reported in the August 28 issue of Science magazine, is described as a milestone in surface microscopy, which pushes the exploration of using molecules and atoms in the field of nanotechnology.

"Though not an exact comparison, if you think about how a doctor uses an x-ray to image bones and organs inside the human body, we are using the atomic force microscope to image the atomic structures that are the backbones of individual molecules," IBM Researcher Gerhard Meyer said in a statement.

The latest publication comes two months after IBM scientists used the same complex technique known as "non-contact atomic force microscopy" to measure the charge states of atoms within a molecule. That work, combined with the latest achievement, are considered breakthroughs in the investigation of how an electrical charge transmits through molecules or molecular networks.

An understanding of how a charge is distributed at the atomic scale is essential for building smaller, more powerful, and more energy-efficient computing components than today's processors and memory devices, IBM said. In imaging the inner structure of a molecule, IBM scientists in Zurich, Switzerland, operated an atomic force microscope at an ultra-high vacuum at minus 451 degrees Fahrenheit. As a result, the researchers for the first time were able to look through the electron cloud covering the molecule to see its atomic backbone.

Atomic force microscopy, or AFM, uses a sharp metal tip to measure the tiny forces between the tip and within the molecule to create an image. The image created by IBM scientists was of an organic molecule called a Pentacene, consisting of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms measuring 1.4 nanometers in length. The researchers imaged the carbon atoms, which were only 0.14 of a nanometer apart, or about 1 millionth the diameter of a grain of sand. From this image, scientists deduced the positions of the hydrogen atoms.

A particular challenge in the imaging process was getting the tip of the AFM within a half nanometer from the molecule without disturbing it. To achieve this, a carbon monoxide molecule was placed at the tip, which acted as a powerful magnifying glass able to capture a 3D map of the molecule's inner structure. The IBM scientists who worked on the project were Meyer, Leo Gross, Fabian Mohn, and Nikolaj Moll. The researchers worked in collaboration with Peter Liljeroth of Utrecht University. A video of the scientists describing their work is on YouTube.

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Source:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/processors/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219500495&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News

Tags:

IBM scientists, inner structure of a molecule, energy-efficient computing components, Science magazine, surface microscopy, atoms, nanotechnology, Gerhard Meyer, Leo Gross, Fabian Mohn, Nikolaj Moll, Peter Liljeroth, Utrecht University,

Posted via email from Global Business News

Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop

If after a few months’ exposure to our David Lynch economy, in which housing markets spontaneously combust, coworkers mysteriously disappear and the stifled moans of dying 401(k) plans can be heard through the floorboards, you have the awful sensation that your body’s stress response has taken on a self-replicating and ultimately self-defeating life of its own, congratulations. You are very perceptive. It has.

As though it weren’t bad enough that chronic stress has been shown to raise blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress the immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, depression and Alzheimer’s disease and make one a very undesirable dinner companion, now researchers have discovered that the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence.

Reporting earlier this summer in the journal Science, Nuno Sousa of the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute at the University of Minho in Portugal and his colleagues described experiments in which chronically stressed rats lost their elastic rat cunning and instead fell back on familiar routines and rote responses, like compulsively pressing a bar for food pellets they had no intention of eating.

Moreover, the rats’ behavioral perturbations were reflected by a pair of complementary changes in their underlying neural circuitry. On the one hand, regions of the brain associated with executive decision-making and goal-directed behaviors had shriveled, while, conversely, brain sectors linked to habit formation had bloomed.

In other words, the rodents were now cognitively predisposed to keep doing the same things over and over, to run laps in the same dead-ended rat race rather than seek a pipeline to greener sewers. “Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal-directed behaviors when that would be the better approach,” Dr. Sousa said. “I call this a vicious circle.”

Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist who studies stress at Stanford University School of Medicine, said, “This is a great model for understanding why we end up in a rut, and then dig ourselves deeper and deeper into that rut.”

The truth is, Dr. Sapolsky said, “we’re lousy at recognizing when our normal coping mechanisms aren’t working. Our response is usually to do it five times more, instead of thinking, maybe it’s time to try something new.”

And though perseverance can be an admirable trait and is essential for all success in life, when taken too far it becomes perseveration — uncontrollable repetition — or simple perversity. “If I were to try to break into the world of modern dance, after the first few rejections the logical response might be, practice even more,” said Dr. Sapolsky, the author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” among other books. “But after the 12,000th rejection, maybe I should realize this isn’t a viable career option.”

Happily, the stress-induced changes in behavior and brain appear to be reversible. To rattle the rats to the point where their stress response remained demonstrably hyperactive, the researchers exposed the animals to four weeks of varying stressors: moderate electric shocks, being encaged with dominant rats, prolonged dunks in water. Those chronically stressed animals were then compared with nonstressed peers. The stressed rats had no trouble learning a task like pressing a bar to get a food pellet or a squirt of sugar water, but they had difficulty deciding when to stop pressing the bar, as normal rats easily did.

But with only four weeks’ vacation in a supportive setting free of bullies and Tasers, the formerly stressed rats looked just like the controls, able to innovate, discriminate and lay off the bar. Atrophied synaptic connections in the decisive regions of the prefrontal cortex resprouted, while the overgrown dendritic vines of the habit-prone sensorimotor striatum retreated.

According to Bruce S. McEwen, head of the neuroendocrinology laboratory at Rockefeller University, the new findings offer a particularly elegant demonstration of a principle that researchers have just begun to grasp. “The brain is a very resilient and plastic organ,” he said. “Dendrites and synapses retract and reform, and reversible remodeling can occur throughout life.”

Stress may be most readily associated with the attosecond pace of postindustrial society, but the body’s stress response is one of our oldest possessions. Its basic architecture, its linked network of neural and endocrine organs that spit out stimulatory and inhibitory hormones and other factors as needed, looks pretty much the same in a goldfish or a red-spotted newt as it does in us.

The stress response is essential for maneuvering through a dynamic world — for dodging a predator or chasing down prey, swinging through the trees or fighting off disease — and it is itself dynamic. As we go about our days, Dr. McEwen said, the biochemical mediators of the stress response rise and fall, flutter and flare. “Cortisol and adrenaline go up and down,” he said. “Our inflammatory cytokines go up and down.”

The target organs of stress hormones likewise dance to the beat: blood pressure climbs and drops, the heart races and slows, the intestines constrict and relax. This system of so-called allostasis, of maintaining control through constant change, stands in contrast to the mechanisms of homeostasis that keep the pH level and oxygen concentration in the blood within a narrow and invariant range.

Unfortunately, the dynamism of our stress response makes it vulnerable to disruption, especially when the system is treated too roughly and not according to instructions. In most animals, a serious threat provokes a serious activation of the stimulatory, sympathetic, “fight or flight” side of the stress response. But when the danger has passed, the calming parasympathetic circuitry tamps everything back down to baseline flickering.

In humans, though, the brain can think too much, extracting phantom threats from every staff meeting or high school dance, and over time the constant hyperactivation of the stress response can unbalance the entire feedback loop. Reactions that are desirable in limited, targeted quantities become hazardous in promiscuous excess. You need a spike in blood pressure if you’re going to run, to speedily deliver oxygen to your muscles. But chronically elevated blood pressure is a source of multiple medical miseries.

Why should the stressed brain be prone to habit formation? Perhaps to help shunt as many behaviors as possible over to automatic pilot, the better to focus on the crisis at hand. Yet habits can become ruts, and as the novelist Ellen Glasgow observed, “The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.”

It’s still August. Time to relax, rewind and remodel the brain.

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Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18angier.html?_r=1

Tags:

Bruce S. McEwen, neuroendocrinology laboratory, Rockefeller University, Dendrites, synapses, Ellen Glasgow, neural, endocrine organs, stimulatory, inhibitory hormone, chronic stress, brain research,

Posted via email from Global Business News

High Frequency Trading: The Rise of the Machines

As a professional trader, you are confronted daily with all kinds of dynamics and situations that require a flexible and adaptive mind. You are faced with multiple variables constantly interacting with each other and your task is to process ever-changing information quickly and profitably. Valuations arbitrage, reflexive supply-and-demand dynamics, and structural changes are recurrent landmines in the typical day of traders and money managers.

We accept this “dangerous” line of work for only two reasons: monetary compensation and pride in being part of capital markets, that transmission mechanism without which innovation and creativity would be prisoners of their own ethereal state.

As a society, we are ready to strike compromises in return for a system that will allow the ethereal state of our creativity to turn into reality. We allow market insiders like market makers, broker-dealers, and others to have small advantages over us mortal investors in order to have them create the positive externalities that help us build a more sophisticated economic system. We give market makers and specialists a privileged look at the order flow (the supply and demand of stocks) in exchange for their commitment to maintaining orderly markets whenever an imbalance occurs.

We give systemic firms like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs privileged access to liquidity via the Federal Reserve so that the banking system and capital markets can continue to serve us in our quest to invent, produce, and distribute new products. But sometimes things turn out more like a bad inland casino rather than a better market… We may still be reeling from the systemic economic collapse of last year, but new structural changes with potential negative externalities are already at our door.

For months I have witnessed strange dynamics in the way markets behaved: liquidity issues, intra-day volatility, and a constant disconnection between technical, sentiment and fundamental inputs. Markets often go through periods of irrationality, but this time it felt different.

As a professional trader and an educator on markets, my sensitivity level is higher than normal and I immediately began conducting research to make sense of my discomfort. This process pointed consistently to one element: high frequency trading or as I like to call it “the rise of the machines.”

What is High Frequency Trading?

High frequency trading (HFT) was, until recently, a topic confined to Wall Street insiders. Only in the last few weeks has it become a mainstream subject of debate via articles on theNew York Times, the Washington Post, and interviews on CNBC (yes even CNBC’s clueless anchors can now spell HFT).

The reason for this foray into the mainstream media is the potential negative ramifications HFT can have for all of us: investors, entrepreneurs, and just plain hopeful citizens.

But first, let’s define HFT as it is a very technical classification that, nonetheless, encompasses many different things. Generally speaking, HFT is high velocity trading based on mathematical algorithms that create huge daily volume on different electronic exchanges and platforms. It is machine against machine—endless trading in order to capture fractions of pennies in profits. But, so far so good: the machines provide liquidity to all of us. The owners of the machines (financial institutions) make an all-American profit and the liquidity aggregators (electronic exchanges) provide competition to other exchanges in the most capitalistic way.

But what happens if we scratch the surface? Like Michel de Montaigne, the famed Renaissance scholar, once said: “There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the law would not deserve hanging ten times over.”

High frequency algorithmic trading is ridden with issues:

Volume. Machine-driven trading is over 60% of trading volume on a daily basis and in some confined cases it can be as high as 90%.

Adaptability. Machines are unthinking units that do not adapt to human reactions. HFT algorithms are based on correlations and historical relationships, which are great guidelines for trading and investing but by no means they can be used blindly (see: 1987 portfolio insurance, long-term capital management 1998, credit default swaps 2008, mortgage-backed securities 2008…the list of quant-related disasters is a sad one).

Exclusivity. HFT can only work by using incredibly fast and powerful computers that also must be placed in the exchanges as proximity helps the speed. Few people can afford the computers and/or the co-location fees charged by the electronic exchanges.

Flash quotes. Some brokers have access to quotes of orders before anyone else. By exploiting the speed of their machines, they can either arbitrage price differentials or potentially front-run clients. Another abuse of flash quotes (called flash because they last one–to-three milliseconds) is that they can be used as teaser quotes to gauge supply and demand without the risk of being hit due to their quickness.

Rebates. Many high frequency traders trade not for profit but for rebates paid by the electronic platforms to attract liquidity. This escamotage incentivizes useless and toxic volume.

While these are only the most immediate concerns about HFT, they have a potentially disproportionate influence on the cost of running our capital markets. The HFT lobby pushes the argument that they create positive externalities by exploiting improving technology—but there is a difference between volume and liquidity.

If over 60% of trading is toxic, it will go away in a nanosecond and most likely it will dissipate right when investors and money managers need it the most. This could cause a huge liquidity vacuum and a 1987-type of event. Liquidity is created by market players with a stake in the game, not by casino-like machines. Flash quotes and “predatory algorithms” also raise the cost of execution for the necessarily slower institutions like pension funds and mutual funds. Additionally, the surreal tempo of machine trading makes trading for all more expensive as we now have to prepare for the irrational moves and volatility of markets when executing our trades.

I love this business and I love technology, but checks and balances are needed to preserve our capital markets. Little adjustments can be made to reduce systemic risk, like re-instating circuit breakers that cut off program trading when price changes accelerate beyond certain parameters, like investigation or stopping flash quotes that drive front running, like making good on teaser quotes for longer than just three milliseconds, and so on. In the end, we need to understand that capital markets are here not to destabilize our economy, but to serve us as a society and help us make better lives.

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Source:

http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/blog/index.php/2009/08/10/1341/