Open Banking: Credit Market Competition When Borrowers Own the Data

Open banking facilitates data sharing consented to by customers who generate the data, with the regulatory goal of promoting competition between traditional banks and challenger fintech entrants. We study lending market competition when sharing banks’ customer transaction data enables better borrower screening. Open banking can make the entire financial industry better off yet leave all borrowers worse off, even if borrowers have the control of whether to share their banking data. We highlight the importance of the equilibrium credit quality inference from borrowers’ endogenous sign-up decisions. We also study extensions with fintech affinities and data sharing on borrower preferences

Open Banking: Credit Market Competition When Borrowers Own the Data

Open banking facilitates data sharing consented by customers who generate the data, with a regulatory goal of promoting competition between traditional banks and challenger fintech entrants. We study lending market competition when sharing banks’ customer data enables better borrower screening or targeting by fintech lenders. Open banking could make the entire financial industry better off yet leave all borrowers worse off, even if borrowers could choose whether to share their data. We highlight the importance of equilibrium credit quality inference from borrowers’ endogenous sign-up decisions. When data sharing triggers privacy concerns by facilitating exploitative targeted loans, the equilibrium sign-up population can grow with the degree of privacy concerns

Robust H

The problem of robust H∞ filter design is investigated for stochastic pantograph systems governed by linear Itô differential equation. First, a sufficient condition for asymptotic mean-square stability of stochastic pantograph systems is presented by means of Lyapunov approach. Then, based on matrix inequalities, the H∞ filtering problem for this kind of systems is studied and a sufficient condition for the existence of the H∞ filter is derived. Furthermore, the explicit expression of the desired filter parameters is characterized. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the results

In-situ growth of nanowire WO2.72 on carbon cloth as a binder-free electrode for flexible asymmetric supercapacitors with high performance

For the first time, WO2.72 nanowires were in-situ grown on carbon cloth by a simple solvothermal reaction. The nanowire WO2.72/carbon cloth (NW WO2.72/CC) electrode showed good electrochemical performance with specific capacitance (C s) reaching up to 398 F g-1 at a current density of 2 A g-1. The capacitance of 240 F g-1 was retained at a high current density of 16 A g-1. To further evaluate the energy storage performance, flexible asymmetric supercapacitors (FASCs) were fabricated using the activated carbon/carbon cloth (AC/CC) as negative electrode and NW WO2.72/CC as positive electrode, respectively. The FASCs delivered a high energy density of 28 Wh kg-1 at a power density of 745 W kg-1 and 13 Wh kg-1 even at a high power density of 22.5 kW kg-1. More impressively, 81% of the specific capacitance of the FASCs was retained after 10,000 cycles, indicating excellent cycle stability. This work indicates the NW WO2.72/CC holds a great potential for application in energy storage devices

Effects of beer, wine, and baijiu consumption on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: Potential implications of the flavor compounds in the alcoholic beverages

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common causes of chronic liver disease and its global incidence is estimated to be 24%. Beer, wine, and Chinese baijiu have been consumed worldwide including by the NAFLD population. A better understanding of the effects of these alcoholic beverages on NAFLD would potentially improve management of patients with NAFLD and reduce the risks for progression to fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. There is evidence suggesting some positive effects, such as the antioxidative effects of bioactive flavor compounds in beer, wine, and baijiu. These effects could potentially counteract the oxidative stress caused by the metabolism of ethanol contained in the beverages. In the current review, the aim is to evaluate and discuss the current human-based and laboratory-based study evidence of effects on hepatic lipid metabolism and NAFLD from ingested ethanol, the polyphenols in beer and wine, and the bioactive flavor compounds in baijiu, and their potential mechanism. It is concluded that for the potential beneficial effects of wine and beer on NAFLD, inconsistence and contrasting data exist suggesting the need for further studies. There is insufficient baijiu specific human-based study for the effects on NAFLD. Although laboratory-based studies on baijiu showed the antioxidative effects of the bioactive flavor compounds on the liver, it remains elusive whether the antioxidative effect from the relatively low abundance of the bioactivate compounds could outweigh the oxidative stress and toxic effects from the ethanol component of the beverages

Resource Allocation for Hybrid NOMA MEC Offloading

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and mobile edge computing (MEC) have been recognized as promising technologies for the beyond fifth generation networks to achieve significant capacity improvement and delay reduction. In this paper, the technologies of hybrid NOMA and MEC are integrated. In the hybrid NOMA MEC system, multiple users are classified into different groups and each group is allocated a dedicated time slot. In each group, a user first offloads its task by sharing a time slot with another user, and then solely offloads during a time interval. To reduce the delay and save the energy consumption, we consider jointly optimizing the power and time allocation in each group as well as the user grouping. As the main contribution, the optimal power and time allocation is characterized in closed form. In addition, by incorporating the matching algorithm with the optimal power and time allocation, we propose a low complexity method to efficiently optimize user grouping. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed resource allocation method in the hybrid NOMA MEC systems not only yields better performance than the conventional OMA scheme but also achieves quite close performance as global optimal solution

Fracture and Delamination Assessment of Prestressed Composite Concrete for Use with Pipe Jacking Method

Prestressed composite concrete pipe (PCCP) has been widely used in water-transmission line and has been proven with many advantages over pure concrete or steel pipes, such as high performance with relatively low cost for materials as well as simplified installation and construction process. Recent efforts have been made to enable the PCCP structure suitable for pipe jacking method so as to replace the conventional cut and cover method. In this way, the construction time, disturbance to nearby structures, and the cost can be greatly reduced. In this paper, we present the full-scale experimental and numerical studies of PCCP and the evaluation of fracture and delamination behaviour of the structure when it is used with pipe jacking construction method subjected to various jacking forces and ground conditions