Ontological approach to development of computing with words based systems

AbstractComputing with words introduced by Zadeh becomes a very important concept in processing of knowledge represented in the form of propositions. Two aspects of this concept – approximation and personalization – are essential to the process of building intelligent systems for human-centric computing.For the last several years, Artificial Intelligence community has used ontology as a means for representing knowledge. Recently, the development of a new Internet paradigm – the Semantic Web – has led to introduction of another form of ontology. It allows for defining concepts, identifying relationships among these concepts, and representing concrete information. In other words, an ontology has become a very powerful way of representing not only information but also its semantics.The paper proposes an application of ontology, in the sense of the Semantic Web, for development of computing with words based systems capable of performing operations on propositions including their semantics. The ontology-based approach is very flexible and provides a rich environment for expressing different types of information including perceptions. It also provides a simple way of personalization of propositions. An architecture of computing with words based system is proposed. A prototype of such a system is described

The Basel III net stable funding ratio adjustment speed and systemic risk

The theory on the timing of liquidity trades highlights two contrasting rational expectations equilibria for the liquidity adjustment speed effect, namely an immediate-trading equilibrium (trade at the onset of the liquidity shock) and a delayed-trading equilibrium (trade at the last resort). Using a partial adjustment model and an annual data sample of US bank holding companies from 1991 to 2012, we investigate the effect of Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) adjustment speeds on systemic risk. We find that banks with the immediate-trading equilibrium tend to adjust the NSFR quickly in response to the Basel III liquidity requirement, thereby, reducing systemic risk. With the same level of the NSFR, our findings suggest that only the adjustment speed exerts a negative impact on systemic risk. Our evidence shows that small banks strengthen the effects of the negative impact of the NSFR adjustment speed on systemic risk. Our study sheds light on a real-time indicator of the NSFR for Basel III revisions before its implementation in 2018

Funding liquidity risk and internal market in the multi-bank holding companies: Diversification or internalization?

This study examines how a multi-bank holding company (MBHC) manages funding liquidity risk through its internal liquidity market, how its internal liquidity market works, and the benefits that its member banks enjoy. The results provide evidence that the diversification effect mostly dominates the internalization effect. A new entrant into an MBHC structure benefits from holding lower liquidity and raising deposits at lower costs than a non-MBHC structure, suggesting that MBHCs have enjoyed scant liquidity at the cost of mismatch risk. We find that other member banks also enjoy the benefits of diversified risk when a new entrant joins, suggesting that MBHCs manage liquidity in response to changes in funding liquidity risk. However, internalization is more important for MBHCs that have large numbers of subsidiaries. Whichever types of mergers/acquisitions are chosen by an MBHC, the diversification effect appears. Basel III liquidity regulations would mitigate the mismatch risk at the cost of distorted internal liquidity markets

Were regulatory interventions effective in lowering systemic risk during the financial crisis in Japan?

This study investigates the effectiveness of various regulatory interventions on systemic risk during the financial crisis in Japan. Our evidence generally shows that the regulatory interventions worked effectively through the liquidity provision. That is, the public fund injection programs, the prompt corrective actions, and the blanket guarantee reduced systemic risk. The simple government intervention package to bail out distressed “too-big-to-fail” banks stabilized the banking system via the external channel whereas the massive bailout scheme suffered the “too-many-to-fail” problem in the sense that it increased systemic risk through both direct spillover and external channels. This study suggests that the effective government intervention should be restricted to a limited number of bailouts to reduce systemic risk

ColMix -- A Simple Data Augmentation Framework to Improve Object Detector Performance and Robustness in Aerial Images

In the last decade, Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and transformer based object detectors have achieved high performance on a large variety of datasets. Though the majority of detection literature has developed this capability on datasets such as MS COCO, these detectors have still proven effective for remote sensing applications. Challenges in this particular domain, such as small numbers of annotated objects and low object density, hinder overall performance. In this work, we present a novel augmentation method, called collage pasting, for increasing the object density without a need for segmentation masks, thereby improving the detector performance. We demonstrate that collage pasting improves precision and recall beyond related methods, such as mosaic augmentation, and enables greater control of object density. However, we find that collage pasting is vulnerable to certain out-of-distribution shifts, such as image corruptions. To address this, we introduce two simple approaches for combining collage pasting with PixMix augmentation method, and refer to our combined techniques as ColMix. Through extensive experiments, we show that employing ColMix results in detectors with superior performance on aerial imagery datasets and robust to various corruptions

Who acquires whom among stand-alone commercial banks and bank holding company affiliates?

This paper presents the difference in the likelihood of being targets or acquirers among stand-alone banks, single-bank holding company (SBHC) affiliates and multi-bank holding company (MBHC) affiliates. Using a sample of U.S. commercial bank data from 1997 to 2012, we find that MBHC affiliates exhibit a greater likelihood of being targets than do stand-alone commercial banks, while stand-alone banks have a greater probability of becoming targets than do SBHC affiliates. Our findings show that MBHC affiliates tend to have a greater likelihood of being acquirers than do SBHC affiliates, which again have a greater probability of being acquirers than do stand-alone banks. Those banks that acquire another bank within the same MBHC structure tend to be smaller and more financially constrained than those banks acquiring outside the same MBHC structure, whereas targets that are acquired by another bank within the same MBHC structure tend to be smaller, higher profitability and capital than targets that are acquired by banks from outside the MBHC structure. Our results suggest that the MBHC parent attempts to discipline distressed, poorly performing and smaller affiliates by involving them in mergers and acquisitions

Can parents protect their children? Risk comparison analysis between affiliates of multi- and single-bank holding companies

We find that multi-bank holding companies (MBHCs) in the U.S. have lower insolvency risk than single-bank holding companies (SBHCs) at the parent level, but have significantly higher insolvency risk than the latter at the subsidiary level. Our results suggest that MBHC parents tend to benefit from the internal capital market while allowing for more risk-taking at the individual levels. We further find that the higher risk for MBHC affiliates is because of the organizational and geographic complexity at the MBHC parent level. Our results highlight the importance of government regulation on banks at both parent and subsidiary levels

The role of bank affiliation in bank efficiency: a fuzzy multi-objective data envelopment analysis approach

This paper examines differences in bank efficiency between banks affiliated with single-bank holding companies and those affiliated with multi-bank holding companies by applying a fuzzy multi-objective two-stage data envelopment analysis technique. Using a sample of U.S. commercial banks covering 1994-2018, the results show that banks affiliated with multi-bank holding companies are more efficient than those affiliated with single-bank holding companies, suggesting that the former takes advantage of their parents' resources to enhance their efficiency, consistent with the internal capital market theory. They also show that banks with a powerful CEO exhibit lower efficiency than others. Moreover, there is an inverted U shape relationship between multi-bank holding company structure and bank efficiency, suggesting the presence of an optimal number of multi-bank holding subsidiaries that maximizes efficiency

Culturally adaptive storytelling intervention versus didactic intervention to improve hypertension control in Vietnam- 12 month follow up results: A cluster randomized controlled feasibility trial

INTRODUCTION: Vietnam is experiencing an epidemiologic transition with an increased prevalence of non-communicable diseases. The country needs novel, large-scale, and sustainable interventions to improve hypertension control. We report the 12 month follow-up results of a cluster randomized feasibility trial in Hung Yen province, Vietnam, which evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of two community-based interventions to improve hypertension control: a storytelling and a didactic intervention. METHODS: The storytelling intervention included stories in the patients\u27 own words about coping with hypertension and didactic content about the importance of healthy lifestyle behaviors in controlling elevated blood pressure levels. The didactic intervention included only didactic content, which were general recommendations for managing several important risk factors for hypertension and other non-communicable diseases. The storytelling intervention was delivered by two DVDs three months apart; the didactic intervention included only one DVD. The trial was conducted in patients with poorly controlled hypertension from 4 communes (communities), which were equally randomized to the two interventions. RESULTS: The mean age of the 160 patients was 66 years and 54% were men. Between baseline enrollment and the 12 month follow-up, mean systolic blood pressure declined by 10.8 mmHg (95% CI: 6.5-14.9) in the storytelling group and by 5.8 mmHg (95% CI: 1.6-10.0) in the didactic content group. The storytelling group also experienced more improvement in several health behaviors, including increased levels of physical activity and reduced consumption of salt and alcohol. CONCLUSIONS: We observed considerable long-term beneficial effects of both interventions, especially of our storytelling intervention, among patients with inadequately controlled hypertension. A large scale randomized trial should more systematically compare the short and long-term effectiveness of the two interventions in controlling hypertension. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02483780