Tag: Wolfram

Wolfram SystemModeler Takes on Large-Scale System Modeling

The Wolfram Group today announced its new SystemModeler product, a high-fidelity modeling environment that creates computable, large-scale systems using symbols and a drag-and-drop interface. The software integrates the Wolfram technology platform to enable analysis and reporting, integrating the modeling and engineering phases of design.

The announcement of SystemModeler came on the Wolfram Blog, in a post by Stephen Wolfram himself. From the blog post:

In SystemModeler, a system is built from a hierarchy of connected components—often assembled interactively using SystemModeler‘s drag-and-drop interface. Internally, what SystemModeler does is to derive from its symbolic system description a large collection of differential-algebraic and other equations and event specifications—which it then solves using powerful built-in hybrid symbolic-numeric methods. The result of this is a fully computable representation of the system—that mirrors what an actual physical version of the system would do, but allows instant visualization, simulation, analysis, or whatever.

Wolfram purposely made SystemModeler very general in terms of what is possible with the software. Users can model mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, biological, and other types of systems. SystemModeler was built such that every piece of a system will have both a symbolic and mathematical representation.

“If you think models are just for modeling, you’re missing the future of design optimization,” said Jan Brugård CEO of MathCore and SystemModeler Manager. “Instead, build the high-fidelity model once for modeling, simulation, and analysis. Computation isn’t an optional extra, it’s central to the infrastructure of modern model optimization.”

The standard edition of SystemModeler for students costs only $75, and is $35 for a Semester Edition. An individual license for teachers will cost around $500, and individual government use costs $2,800. The most expensive individual license is for business customers, who will need to cough up almost $3,500 for the software. For enterprise and group licensing, potential buyers will have to request a quote from Wolfram.

May 23, 2012
Wolfram Finance Platform Brings Mathematica to Finance

Wolfram Research has just released a computational finance tool it calls the Wolfram Finance Platform. The platform will bring the computational power of Wolfram’s Mathematica software and apply it to finance to deliver greater computational integrity, automated workflows, faster speeds, and more accuracy.

“As algorithmic agility comes center stage in finance, platform integration and automation become crucial for competitiveness,” said Conrad Wolfram, CEO of Wolfram Research in Europe. “Finance tools often are outmoded compared with modern, smart computation in other fields. That’s a key facet of what Wolfram Finance Platform fixes—injecting the smartest algorithmic tools into finance workflows.”

Finance Platform is actually a suite of solutions that combines computation, data analysis, visualization, and reporting. The Bloomberg feed link feature of the software allows real-time trading data to be fed directly into computations or visualizations.

“New integrated capabilities, including CUDA-accelerated pricing calculations, and data feeds, such as Bloomberg and interactive reporting tools, are all just the start of our increased focus on finance,” said Samuel Chen, Product Manager for Wolfram Finance Platform. “But as well as new technology, we are rolling out a new package of professional services, including bespoke onsite training, consultancy, and 24-hour support.”

Jon McLoone, Wolfram’s director of business development, announced the product launch in a blog post on the Wolfram Blog. There, he describes how the Finance Platform project came about. From the blog post:

As part of this, I spent some time interviewing finance customers in the city of London about what they liked and didn’t like about Mathematica, what they wanted, and why some of their colleagues didn’t use it.

It turned out to be an exercise in staying open-minded and listening—because while we are naturally most excited about all the great computation that we provide (including “finance” functionality), time and again the issues that mattered were the less glamorous workflow improvements.

The Wolfram Finance Platform is now available over at the Wolfram website. The price of the package scales with the level of implementation needed, and Wolfram is prepared to provide quotes for both small teams and large companies.

May 16, 2012
Use Wolfram’s Mathematica To Analyze Your Email

Mathematica from Wolfram is a pretty remarkable piece of software. Designed to be a multi-purpose computational tool, it allows users to develop and analyze an almost limitless variety of workflows. It also allows users to plot and analyze all kinds of data quickly and easily.

Now, thanks to some recent updates, it looks like users can use Mathematica for a little self-awareness, too. Thanks to newly released automated analysis capabilities, the software now lets users plot certain daily activities, like email use. Stephen Wolfram himself first demonstrated this in a blog post earlier in the week. Analyzing his patterns of sending email allowed Wolfram to see some of the patterns in his personal life:

In another post on the Wolfram Blog, lead Wolfram Alpha developer Paul-Jean Letourneau posts instructions on how to duplicate the kind of analysis Wolfram performed with Mathematica. The software also allows users to plot several kinds of data. While the first graph represents outgoing emails, it’s also possible to plot incoming emails in the same way. Moreover, it allows you to compare multiple data points. For example, Letourneau plotted his incoming and outgoing email together by time:

In addition to the example graphs, Letourneau posts the code users need to perform the same kinds of tasks in Mathematica. In addition to email, Mathematica can plot a wide array of data sets, including keystrokes, hours spent on the phone, and much more.

The potential applications for this sort of data analysis are many. In addition to the interesting personal uses, it could also allow businesses to track a wide variety of metrics related to productivity and

April 5, 2012