Page 44 - DCAP601_SIMULATION_AND_MODELING

Simulation and Modelling

Notes Selection of Integration Formulas

Block-oriented simulation languages are a dominant tool for solving simulation problems.
A problem of major significance in simulation,yet, is the option of the integration formula to be
employed in the integration block. Users of previous simulation languages had no problem in
choosing a formula as these languages provided only a single formula. Advanced languages
have a number of formulas available, but leave the choice to the user who does not have much
to go by apart from the good names of the formulas. Troubles which were encountered in the
use of multistep formulas made formulas of the Runge-Kutta type more well-liked. Experience
has shown that they are less critical with respect to steadiness. Though, the calculating time for
a Runge-Kutta formula is considerably larger and for this reason multistep formulas, which
involve the predictor- corrector scheme, are however appealing.



Caselet 5 Ways to Automate Internal Controls

CARF and EAM, snapshots, audit hooks, ITF and CIS. Quite an alphabet soup, but
these are the five types of automated evaluation techniques discussed in Technical
SGuide on Information System Audit from the Committee on Information Technology
of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
The use of SCARF (system control audit review file) and EAM (embedded audit modules)
involves planting specially-written audit software in the organisation's host application
system so that the application systems are monitored on a selective basis, explains the
publication.
The second technique, that is, snapshot involves taking "pictures of the processing path
that a transaction follows from the input to the output stage. With the use of this technique,
transactions are tagged by applying identifiers to input data and recording selected
information about what occurs for the auditor's subsequent review."
Audit hooks function as red flags and induce information system auditors to act before an
error or irregularity gets out of hand; ITF (integrated test facilities) gets the system to
process test transactions and to update the records of a dummy entity; and CIS (continuous
and intermittent simulation) mimics instruction execution of an application during a
process run.

To those who wonder if all these are relevant to companies, the preface explains how
information system audits are increasingly necessary in the context of the Clause 49 in
corporate law regime, which requires certification by the directors about the existence
and operation of sufficient internal controls.
Recommended Read for Security Professionals
Neural Networks

Essentially, when we respond to the daily stimuli of the environment that we already
know from past interactions, we are using the same circuitry to define ourselves in our
world, writes Joe Dispenza in Evolve Your Brain: The science of changing your mind
(Westland).

"Most people spend a great deal of their day unconsciously feeling and thinking from past
memories. They do this because they have hardwired those experiences by repeatedly
thinking of them and by associating many other experiences with them."
Contd...

38 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY