ITT Corp. reported today that its Energy Absorption unit received a $1 million order to supply Indian Railways with more than 3,000 dampers and shock absorbers for rail cars on four Indian rail lines.

Considerable expansion of India’s rail system has prompted the rail companies to invest in parts, infrastructure and technology, the White Plains-based conglomerate said.

The company operates in India through its ITT India subsidiary, it said.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. said today it has plans to open a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, under the hotelier’s St. Regis brand.

The 200 room luxury hotel, which would also have 200 residences as well as restaurants and meeting halls, is scheduled to open in 2014, White Plains-based Starwood said.

Shares of Starwood were lower in late-afternoon trading, down $1.07, or 2.2 percent, to $47.18 a share.

Armonk-based IBM Corp. and Ireland’s Industrial Development Agency have established a center to manage water resources, the entities said today.

The Dublin-based facility, to be called IBM Centre of Excellence for Water Management, will monitor changes in fresh water, and marine and oceanic environments, IBM and the IDA said.

One of the center’s first tasks will be to work with Ireland’s Marine Institute on SmartBay, a research project that monitors and manages aquatic data, such as tidal flow, wave heights and temperature, through a network of sensors, robotics and other technology throughout Ireland’s Galway Bay.

IBM will develop an advanced sensor network, and use real-time monitoring and other technologies to provide scientists, commercial fishers, monitoring agencies and the public with environmental information, similar to weather and marine forecasts.

“The Marine Institute’s aim is to create a mind shift in the way we view our marine sector in terms of economic opportunities,” said Peter Heffernan, chief executive of the Marine Institute.

Novel technologies that emerge from SmartBay will create new business for a wide range of Irish companies, Heffernan said, and enhance “the viability of the seafood, shipping and water-monitoring sectors.”

Bunge Limited of White Plains said its board of directors raised the company’s regular quarterly dividend by 11.8 percent, from 17 cents to 19 cents.
The new dividend is payable on Sept. 3 to shareholders of record on Aug. 15.

When you think of IBM, you think of computers, not rice bowls. But for the billions of people around the world who rely on rice as a staple food, a new initiative by Big Blue could mean heartier meals.

A worldwide network of computers created by IBM will be tackling the looming rice shortage by helping researchers at the University of Washington research stronger, more nutritious and climate-tolerant rice strains.

IBM’s World Community Grid — a network of more than 1 million personal computers linked together to donate idle time to science — has accepted the Nutritious Rice for the World project as its latest effort.

Robin Wilner, vice president of Global Community Initiatives at IBM’s Armonk headquarters, said this is the ninth project for the grid, which was started in 2004.

“As a corporation, we’re a member of all of the communities where IBMers live and work and where our customers live and work. We need to be involved in solving problems that affect those communities, whether it’s looking for a cure for AIDS, creating diagnostic tools for cancer or finding more nutritious, disease-resistant rice,” she said.

IBM is not only providing technical assistance to the project, it’s donating computer time. Almost a third of IBM’s employees have signed up to allow their PCs to be used by the World Community Grid’s projects.

“More than 100,000 of us have World Community Grid on our laptops. Whenever we are on the phone, like we are now, my laptop is working to find out about the proteins in rice because I’m not typing,” she said.

The idea behind the grid is that unused computer power can add up to deliver the performance of a supercomputer to an organization that couldn’t afford to buy one for itself.

The University of Washington researchers will use the grid in a project that is expected to take 12 to 18 months. Without IBM’s help, it would 200 years to complete the rice study using just the computers the researchers have at hand.

The project involves mapping the structure of rice proteins using three-dimensional models on the computer to find ones that yield more rice, repel bugs, resist drought or contain more nutrients.

Anyone with a computer and Internet access can donate their time.

The project is supported by a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.