Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed for valuating financial contracts and assessing the risk associated with such contracts. Such systems and methods receive valuation details and an internal contract representation related to the contract to value the contract. Internal contract representations describe the contract in terms of flow sets, cash flow functions, and choice functions Choice functions involve determining whether or not the information desirable to make the choice is available when the choice is to be made. If the information is not known for a particular choice function, then the choice function is replaced with a trigger rule. Trigger rules are determinable when the choice has to be made. Trigger rules are based on stochastic processes associated with the choice function.

Abstract: The present invention relates to methods for the design and/or production of a probe or primer that is capable of hybridizing to a plurality of sites in a sample comprising nucleic acid. Furthermore, the present invention provides methods for detecting and amplifying nucleic acid using such a probe or primer, for example, for identification of a strain, species or genera. Probe or primer sequences are determined by reference to codon usage bias of a target nucleic acid. In addition, the present invention provides methods for determining codon distribution and/or base pair distance between codons in a nucleic acid.

Abstract: Systems and methods valuate financial contracts and assess associated risk. Particular embodiments comprise: calibrating parameters of models based on market data; determining a metric for the risk of the models to changes in the parameters; determining a metric for the risk of the parameters to changes in the market data; generating a set of valuation functions corresponding to the contract and depending on the calibrated parameters of the models; generating a corresponding set of derivatives of the valuation functions, the derivatives depending on the metric for the risk of the parameters to changes in the market data; determining a value for the contract to comprise an expected value of one of the valuation functions; and assessing a risk of the value of the contract to one or more variables by determining an expected value of one or more of the set of derivatives of the valuation functions.

Abstract: The present invention relates to methods for the design and/or production of a probe or primer that is capable of hybridizing to a plurality of sites in a sample comprising nucleic acid. Furthermore, the present invention provides methods for detecting and amplifying nucleic acid using such a probe or primer, for example, for identification of a strain, species or genera. Probe or primer sequences are determined by reference to codon usage bias of a target nucleic acid. In addition, the present invention provides methods for determining codon distribution and/or base pair distance between codons in a nucleic acid.

Abstract: A set of oligonucleotide probes and method are disclosed for detecting a plurality of different target polynucleotides. The set includes a collection of different promiscuous probes each of which is capable of hybridizing to a target sequence shared between at least two of the target polynucleotides. At least one target polynucleotide comprises at least one target sequence that is shared with one or more other target polynucleotides. A predefined combination of promiscuous probes is capable of hybridizing to target sequences of said at least one target polynucleotide, wherein said predefined combination of probes provides specificity of detection of that target polynucleotide. Also disclosed are processes of identifying a set of target sequences for designing the set of oligonucleotide probes of the invention.