Complinet: New Vessel Screening Technology Will Reduce Corporate Risk

Complinet provides institutions with market leading technology to spot
sanctioned vessels
LONDON–(Business Wire)–
Iran`s suspected attempt to smuggle weapons through the shipping lanes by hiding
the true identity of the ships being used has highlighted flaws in the ability
to track and trace the ownership of seagoing vessels.

Thanks to tougher scrutiny, banks, financial institutions and other corporate
companies have begun recognising the loopholes that frustrate regulatory bodies
such as the US Department of the Treasury in their attempts to identify the true
ownership of shipping fleets.

More importantly financial institutions have recognised that vessel
identification is a major challenge to managing risk. They also see the
importance of ensuring that a ship carrying their cargo or that is under their
ownership is not blacklisted – and it`s all thanks to Complinet`slatest
technology.

Complinet`s Vessel Data Screening software (VDS), developed in partnership with
IHS Fairplay, formerly Lloyd`s Register-Fairplay, helps companies manage and
mitigate the risk of their name being associated with flagged, blacklisted or
`wanted` vessels and the consequences of being linked to one.

VDS scans a ship`s IMO number – the one identification on every vessel that can
never be altered – ending the concern companies faced from ships changing names
and paperwork to avoid detection.

In addition, VDS also allows you to search on current and previous vessel names
ensuring even if the IMO number is not readily available, you will still find
the ship and have the ability to scan these names against the US Treasury`s SDN
(Special Designated Nationals) as well as other sanction and enforcement lists.

The new technology reduces cost and time when assessing a vessel, helping
companies in their decision making as the process takes five minutes instead of
the four hours that used to be involved.

If caught using or trading with a sanctioned vessel, any money involved in the
partnership can be frozen and the assets impounded – which is why VDS is being
viewed as the latest tool in managing risk.

Richard Russell, Group Director Information Services at Complinet said, “The
impounding of a vessel in a port can cost a company in excess of $1m a day, so
any assets frozen act as a huge deterrent to the business of chartering vessels
and the potential loss to the organisation chartering the vessel is enormous.
Complinet`s new technology encourages companies not to operate in ignorance.”

Launched four weeks ago, VDS has been many months in the making, with a lot of
time invested in the feedback from experts in the shipping and regulating
market.

For more information on Complinet`s Vessel Data Screening software:
www.complinet.com/connected/solutions/global-screening/vessel-data/

About Complinet

Complinet is a leading online provider of connected risk and compliance
solutions to the global financial services community.

Complinet’s cost-effective range of services includes a ‘complete’ service that
delivers insight and interpretation of regulatory risks and developments. Our
portfolio also helps firms to screen their clients, manage their policies and
train their staff.

Complinet was founded in 1997 and employs more than 200 people in its offices in
New York, London, Sydney, Singapore and Dubai. Every day, industry professionals
in more than 1,900 firms across 81 countries rely on Complinet as their
information partner for ongoing analysis and solutions that help them keep pace
with changing regulations.

Complinet
Michelle McCann
Tel: +44-(0)870-042-6400
pr@complinet.com

Copyright Business Wire 2010

Digital search algorithms may clear path to personalized therapies

Washington, January 11 (ANI): Search algorithms used in digital communications can help make the cumbersome procedure of identifying effective multi-drug combinations easy, say researchers.

Led by Dr. Giovanni Paternostro, a scientist at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, a research team used the stack sequential algorithm developed for digital communications to search for optimal drug combinations.

Writing about their work in PLoS Computational Biology, the researchers said that the algorithm could integrate information from different sources, including biological measurements and model simulations, which differed it from the classic systems biology approach by having search algorithms rather than explicit quantitative models as the central element.

The researchers further said that the variability of biological systems was the fundamental motivation for the strategy.

“Combination therapies have demonstrated efficacy in treating complex diseases such as cancer and hypertension, but it is difficult to identify safe and effective combination treatment regimens using only trial and error,” said Dr. Paternostro.

“As personalized medicine moves from the present emphasis on diagnosis and prognosis to therapy, the problem of searching for optimal drug combinations uniquely suited to the genetic and molecular profile of each patient will need to be solved. This research is a first step in that direction,” the researcher added.

Current methodology for identifying effective combination therapies involves exhaustive testing. However, the exponential expansion of possibilities precludes exploring large combinations using this approach.

Many chemotherapy regimens include six drugs from a pool of 100. A study including all combinations at three different doses would have to digest 8.9 x 1011 possibilities. The problem requires a new approach rather than more efficient screening technology.

The researchers, during the study, tested a small subset of the possible drug combinations identified using the algorithms in two biological model systems.

One system studied improvement in the physiological decline associated with aging in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies), while the other tested for selective killing of cancer cells.

In both cases, effective drug combinations were identified by combining the algorithm with biological tests.

“Our work was greatly helped by collaborators with expertise in medicine, engineering and physics from Burnham, University of California, San Diego and Michigan State University,” said Dr Paternostro.

“We especially benefited from suggestions from Dr. Andrew Viterbi, inventor of the Viterbi algorithm so widely used in digital communications, who pointed to parallels between this biological problem and signal decoding,” the researcher added.

The study was funded by the Ellison Medical Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. (ANI)