Towards Building a Knowledge Base of Monetary Transactions from a News Collection

We address the problem of extracting structured representations of economic events from a large corpus of news articles, using a combination of natural language processing and machine learning techniques. The developed techniques allow for semi-automatic population of a financial knowledge base, which, in turn, may be used to support a range of data mining and exploration tasks. The key challenge we face in this domain is that the same event is often reported multiple times, with varying correctness of details. We address this challenge by first collecting all information pertinent to a given event from the entire corpus, then considering all possible representations of the event, and finally, using a supervised learning method, to rank these representations by the associated confidence scores. A main innovative element of our approach is that it jointly extracts and stores all attributes of the event as a single representation (quintuple). Using a purpose-built test set we demonstrate that our supervised learning approach can achieve 25% improvement in F1-score over baseline methods that consider the earliest, the latest or the most frequent reporting of the event.Comment: Proceedings of the 17th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL '17), 201

A software application to streamline and enhance the detection of fraud in published financial statements of companies

Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of software to support the detection of fraud in published financial statements of companies. Until the present date, however, the applied use of such research has been extremely limited due to the “black box” character of the existing solutions and the cumbersome input task they require. The application described in this paper solves both problems while significantly improving performance. It is based on Webmining and on the use of three Multilayer Perceptron where a modified learning method leads to the formation of meaningful internal representations. Such representations are then input to a features’ map where trajectories towards or away from fraud and other financial attributes are identified. The result is a Web-based, self-explanatory, financial statements’ fraud detection solution.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Three essays on corporate narrative disclosures

Accounting is the measurement, processing, and communication of economic activities and their results. Apart from numbers, a large amount of information is disclosed through narratives. This thesis presents three studies on the determinants, properties and consequences of firms’ narrative disclosures. In Chapter 1, “Firms’ Disclosure Strategies and Users’ Information Acquisition”, I study how firms’ disclosure strategies, i.e., smoothing and bundling, affect users’ decisions to acquire information. In Chapter 2, “Narrative Conservatism” (coauthored with Juan Manuel García Lara and Beatriz García Osma), we define narrative conservatism as narratives reflecting bad news in a more news-consistent, timely and complete manner than good news, and we find empirical evidence that corporate narrative disclosures is conservative. In Chapter 3, “Missing Narratives: Sample Selection Bias and Variable Choice in Textual Analysis Research” (coauthored with Andrea Bafundi, Beatriz García Osma and Encarna Guillamón-Saorín), we examine plausible biases in textual analysis studies of 10-K files. We provide detailed step-by-step guidance on how to download and prepare these files for analysis, and study the plausible biases introduced by a number of work-flow decisions regarding sample construction, data preparation, and variable choice.Programa de Doctorado en Empresa y Finanzas / Business and Finance por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Mención InternacionalPresidente: Mark A. Clatworthy.- Secretario: Bing Guo.- Vocal: Marco Trombett

Enterprise extension through extensible markup language

An extended enterprise is comprised of multiple linkages between and amongst a company and its suppliers, distributors, customers and others. Linkages are long term collaborative agreements based on synergies and the ability to create value. An extended enterprise eliminates wasteful transaction costs and removes redundancies, delays and inefficiencies from the supply chain. This is accomplished through the coordination of demand forecasting, production planning, deployment and transportation as well as creating organizational and process links with seamless information flows between them. Extended enterprise is enabled by developments in technology, especially information technology. Sharing information about sales forecast, production schedules, inventory, etc. makes an extended enterprise a win/win situation. Extended enterprise networks have used information technology systems such as electronic data interchanges, enterprise resource planning, and the Internet with different degrees of success. The Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative has identified several information technology criteria as critical to the success of future enterprises. Based on these criteria, this paper discusses XML’s contribution to the extended enterprise paradigm. Dell’s direct sale model is used to illustrate the role of XML in enterprise extension.Una empresa extendida está compuesta de varios enlaces entre una compañía y sus proveedores, distribuidores, clientes y demás. Estas uniones son acuerdos a largo plazo basados en la sinergia y en la habilidad de crear valor. Una empresa extendida elimina los costes de transacción innecesarios y retira las redundancias, atrasos e ineficiencias de la cadena de suministros. Esto se consigue mediante la coordinación de la demanda, la planificación de la producción, desempleo y transporte así como crear procesos organizativos y enlaces con información que fluye a través de estas partes. Una empresa extendida es posible gracias al Desarrollo en tecnología, especialmente la de la información. Compartir información sobre las ventas, el calendario de producción, el inventario, etc, permite a la empresa situarse en una situación de beneficio. Sus redes de trabajo han empleado la tecnología de la información como intercambios de datos electrónicos, planificación de recursos, y el internet con diferentes grados de éxito. La Iniciativa Artesana de Tecnología Hecha a Mano ha identificado ciertos criterios que resultan críticos para el éxito de las siguientes operaciones y empresas. Basados en estos criterios, este artículo discute la contribución de XML al paradigma de las empresas extendidas. El modelo de ventas directo de Dell se utiliza para ilustrar el papel de XML a la extensión de empresas

Do note disclosures influence value relevance more after financial statement placement becomes more uniformly prominent? Evidence from ASU 2011-05

We examine whether financial statement note disclosures play an enhanced role in value relevance when the placement of line items among financial statements becomes more uniformly prominent. We consider ASU 2011-05, which prohibited reporting other comprehensive income (OCI) in the statement of changes in stockholders’ equity, and report two main findings. First, using a larger sample and longer time period than early studies examining ASU 2011-05, we document that, relative to firms unaffected by this prohibition, firms required to change OCI placement exhibited positive changes in OCI value relevance after ASU 2011-05 became effective, in line with the FASB’s stated goal of raising OCI prominence. This finding resolves the seemingly puzzling findings of early studies, which documented an unexpected incremental decrease in OCI value relevance for these firms. Second, we find that this effect is enhanced when OCI-related note disclosures are more specific and numeric, and are more readable, more stable, or shorter in length. Collectively, our findings suggest that financial statement placement and note disclosure characteristics interact in a manner such that when financial statement line items influence valuation to a greater extent via prominent placement, qualitative characteristics of accompanying note disclosures assume this role more prominently as well

Integrative Learning and Interdisciplinary Information Systems Curriculum Development in Accounting Analytics

This paper develops the structure for an integrative model information systems curriculum on Accounting Analytics, which affords students the opportunities to develop domain knowledge along with application of data analytics. As industry experiences rapid technological change, university curricula must remain current in order to be effective. Curriculum content is further advanced and established with input from industry organizations that employ graduates of the programs. The paper output includes a curriculum review of top accounting programs, course curriculum map, accounting data skills matrix, and professional opportunities. The curriculum review utilizes an empirical text analytics methodological approach to extract patterns and develop additional insights for the advancement of accounting information systems research. To minimize curricular disruption, existing courses can be utilized as core curriculum, enhancing key courses to complete undergraduate, graduate, or certificate programs. The Accounting Analytics customized curriculum provides students an opportunity to take advantage of the growing interdisciplinary field and student interest among accounting and analytical career paths. The integrative curriculum is developed to better prepare graduates with the critical knowledge, skills, and abilities to excel in this new-age workforce

Tutorial: Legality and Ethics of Web Scraping

Researchers and practitioners often use various tools and technologies to automatically retrieve data from the Web (often referred to as Web scraping) when conducting their projects. Unfortunately, they often overlook the legality and ethics of using these tools to collect data. Failure to pay due attention to these aspects of Web Scraping can result in serious ethical controversies and lawsuits. Accordingly, we review legal literature together with the literature on ethics and privacy to identify broad areas of concern together with a list of specific questions that researchers and practitioners engaged in Web scraping need to address. Reflecting on these questions and concerns can potentially help researchers and practitioners decrease the likelihood of ethical and legal controversies in their work

Development of the BIRD: a metadata modelling approach for the purpose of harmonising supervisory reporting at the European Central Bank - Directorate of general statistics: master and metadata

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Information Analysis and ManagementThe work presented is a report documenting the work completed during an Internship at the European Central Bank (ECB), located in Frankfurt Germany from the 15th March 2019 – 15th March 2020. The internship took place in the Directorate of General Statistics (DG-S), specifically in the Master and Metadata section of the Analytical Credit and Master data division (MAM). It will be a continuation of the ECB Internal Banks’ Integrated Reporting Dictionary (BIRD) project as well as management of ECB’s centralised metadata repository, known as the Single Data Dictionary (SDD). The purpose of the dictionary and BIRD Project is to provide the banks with a harmonized data model that describes precisely the data that should be extracted from the banks' internal IT systems to derive reports demanded by supervisory authorities, like the ECB. In this report, I will provide a basis for understanding the work undertaken in the team, focussing of the technical aspect of relational database modelling and metadata repositories and their role in big data analytical processing systems, current reporting requirements and methods used by the central banking institutions, which coincide with the processes set out by the European Banking Authority (EBA). This report will also provide an in-depth look into the structure of the database, as well as the principles followed to create the data model. It will also document the process of how the SDD is maintained and updated to meet changing needs. The report also includes the process undertaken by the BIRD team and supporting members on the banking community to introduce new reporting frameworks into the data model. During this period, the framework for the Financial Reporting (FinRep) standards was included, through a collaborative effort between banking representatives and the master and metadata team