Bombay-based Rave Computers is designing and developing computerised 'Emergency Planning System (EPS)' to help counter bomb threats received by the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in London. UBS undertook engineering evaluation of the impact of different bomb scenarios. This evaluation was used by Rave Computers to develop software which will provide a structured response and can be utilised by UBS building managers in the event of a threat or a blast.

Rave assembled a multi-disciplinary team of ballistic experts, security experts and software engineers located London and Bombay to help design the unique EPS for UBS. Windows-based EPS has several features. It captures information about action taken in building management in response to the threat and determines the shelter areas within the building using complex methods and algorithms defined by experts in ballistic and bomb-shelter design. It also has a tool for calculating and describing graphically and textually the safety of shelter areas of UBS building and in some special cases inside the building also. It also provides the building management staff with a set of defined procedures to be followed in the event of a threat and to record the action taken against these threats.

Very soon international airports which handle over 500 arrivals daily will be able to enhance airport capacity and also save about $7 million in fuel cost every year with NAL-WAKE, a software developed by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bangalore, one of the chain of research laboratories under the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.

NAL-WAKE will help assess the effect of the vortex system of a leader aircraft on a follower aircraft. This will help the air traffic controller determine the ideal separation distance between a leader aircraft and follower aircraft.

The software accounts for the effect of ground plane and crosswind, and includes modules for generation of vorticity, roll up, propagation and characteristic times for events such as vortex breakdowns , vortex linking and vortex lifetime. All that the air traffic controller has to do is press a few keys or click a few times on the computer mouse to input codes for the leader and follower aircraft and for the meteorological data. The computer will tell what the ideal separation time should be.

Though the primary objective of NAL is to offer R&D backup and technology support for the national aeronautical and space programmes, NAL-WAKE, developed recently for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of UK, is in line with NAL's recent thrust on commercialising research findings in aerospace and related technologies.

Crux Knowledgeware, a Bangalore-based company, has developed a rapid application development tool for Java programmers. The company claims this is the first ever expert system application generator in Java to be developed anywhere in the world.

CruXpert 1.4, which is an enhancement of the earlier C version ( version 1.2) released three years ago, doubles as a Java code generator for hand-written applications, making them compatible to highly portable Internet/intranet applications. This is apart from its role as an application development tool. CruXpert can help prototype as well as generate web-based applications.

CruX has also partnered with NetExpert Inc., a US-based associate, to market the product in the US. CruXpert will also be available on the Net for down loading. Details about the product can be had from kmurali@giasbg01.vsnl.net.in