Combining expert knowledge and databases for risk management

Correctness, transparency and effectiveness are the principalattributes of knowledge derived from databases. In current data miningresearch there is a focus on efficiency improvement of algorithms forknowledge discovery. However important limitations of data mining canonly be dissolved by the integration of knowledge of experts in thefield, encoded in some accessible way, with knowledge derived formpatterns in the database. In this paper we will in particular discussmethods for combining expert knowledge and knowledge derived fromtransaction databases.The framework proposed is applicable to widevariety of risk management problems. We will illustrate the method ina case study on fraud discovery in an insurance company.risk management;datamining;knowledge discovery;knowledge based systems

Surveillance, big data and democracy: lessons for Australia from the US and UK

This article argues that current laws are ill-equipped to deal with the multifaceted threats to individual privacy by governments, corporations and our own need to participate in the information society. Introduction In the era of big data, where people find themselves surveilled in ever more finely granulated aspects of their lives, and where the data profiles built from an accumulation of data gathered about themselves and others are used to predict as well as shape their behaviours, the question of privacy protection arises constantly. In this article we interrogate whether the discourse of privacy is sufficient to address this new paradigm of information flow and control. What we confront in this area is a set of practices concerning the collection, aggregation, sharing, interrogation and uses of data on a scale that crosses private and public boundaries, jurisdictional boundaries, and importantly, the boundaries between reality and simulation. The consequences of these practices are emerging as sometimes useful and sometimes damaging to governments, citizens and commercial organisations. Understanding how to regulate this sphere of activity to address the harms, to create an infrastructure of accountability, and to bring more transparency to the practices mentioned, is a challenge of some complexity. Using privacy frameworks may not provide the solutions or protections that ultimately are being sought. This article is concerned with data gathering and surveillance practices, by business and government, and the implications for individual privacy in the face of widespread collection and use of big data. We will firstly outline the practices around data and the issues that arise from such practices. We then consider how courts in the United Kingdom (‘UK’) and the United States (‘US’) are attempting to frame these issues using current legal frameworks, and finish by considering the Australian context. Notably the discourse around privacy protection differs significantly across these jurisdictions, encompassing elements of constitutional rights and freedoms, specific legislative schemes, data protection, anti-terrorist and criminal laws, tort and equity. This lack of a common understanding of what is or what should be encompassed within privacy makes it a very fragile creature indeed. On the basis of the exploration of these issues, we conclude that current laws are ill-equipped to deal with the multifaceted threats to individual privacy by governments, corporations and our own need to participate in the information society

Procalcitonin and other markers of infection. What should be their role in clinical practice?

AbstractClinicians are always faced with a decision when confronted with a febrile patient; they must decide between what is an infectious condition and what is not, and between what merits hospital observation, what requires empirical antibiotic treatment and what needs outpatient follow-up. In this respect, judgement based on medical history and physical examination outweigh the predictive value of various laboratory markers of infection, as the latter generally reflect a nonspecific reaction of the host to widely different infectious and inflammatory stimuli. In the evaluation of specific subgroups of patients, e.g. those in the intensive care unit, laboratory tests should also preferably form a continuum with medical history and physical examination, aimed at clarifying host condition, the setting and the source of a possible infection

'Nut en nog eens nut'; Over retoriek, mythes en rituelen in informatiesysteemonderzoek

Rede, in verkorte vorm uitgesproken bij de aanvaardig van het ambt van hoogleraar aan de Faculteit der Bedrijfskunde met als leeropdracht Bedrijfskunde, in het bijzonder Informatie ManagementThere has been much debate in the management sciences in general and the field of information systems in particular over the tradeoffs between rigor and relevance. Since it is viewed as a tradeoff, most of those debating the is-sues take up position on one side or the other. On the one hand, mainly to gain acceptance as an academic discipline the management sciences have stressed rigor. On the other hand, the business community severely criticizes university education and research for its lack of relevance. In this paper an ap-proach is proposed to achieve both rigor and relevance. Part of the response suggested can be described as application driven theory development, mean-ing that relevance may be attained starting off with a concrete problem in the context of an actual problem situation. Theory becomes part of the equation when the approaches used are generalized and made publicly available for use by others and with sufficient rigor to allow for validation. Academia and business have their own specific role in such research processes

'Nut en nog eens nut'; Over retoriek, mythes en rituelen in informatiesysteemonderzoek

Rede, in verkorte vorm uitgesproken bij de aanvaardig van het ambt van hoogleraar aan de Faculteit der Bedrijfskunde met als leeropdracht Bedrijfskunde, in het bijzonder Informatie Managementrelevance;rigor;academic research;applied research;information systems;relevantie;strengheid;akademisch onderzoek;toegepast onderzoek;informatie systemen

Risk Management Based on Expert Rules and Data Mining: A Case Study in Insurance

Correctness, transparency and effectiveness are the principal attributes of knowledge derived from databases using data mining. In the current data mining research there is a focus on efficiency improvement of algorithms for knowledge discovery. However, improving the algorithms is often not sufficient. The limitations of data mining can only be dissolved by the integration of knowledge of experts in the field, encoded in some accessible way, with knowledge derived from patterns in the databases. In this paper we discuss an approach for combining expert knowledge and knowledge derived from transactional databases. The approach proposed is applicable to a wide variety of risk management problems. We illustrate the approach with a case study on fraud detection in an insurance company. The case clearly shows that the combination of expert knowledge with monotomic neural networks leads to significant performance improvements

Combining expert knowledge and databases for risk management

Correctness, transparency and effectiveness are the principal attributes of knowledge derived from databases. In current data mining research there is a focus on efficiency improvement of algorithms for knowledge discovery. However important limitations of data mining can only be dissolved by the integration of knowledge of experts in the field, encoded in some accessible way, with knowledge derived form patterns in the database. In this paper we will in particular discuss methods for combining expert knowledge and knowledge derived from transaction databases.The framework proposed is applicable to wide variety of risk management problems. We will illustrate the method in a case study on fraud discovery in an insurance company

Oscillon spectroscopy

The sine-Gordon model in 3+1 dimensions is known to admit two oscillons of different energy and frequency but comparable lifetime. We show that the oscillon spectrum includes more spherically symmetric ``states''. We identify new high-amplitude oscillons by allowing the field profile to have a number of nodes. For each number of nodes, we find 2 states with a comparable lifetime to the nodeless ones. Oscillons with nodes are, however, unstable to non-spherical perturbations and so their lifetime is significantly reduced. Interestingly, these states are seen to fragment into a collection of nodeless oscillons. The heavy nodeless oscillon is quite remarkable: despite its energy it is stable against fragmentation. Moreover, it has considerably small oscillation frequency, meaning that it can be interpreted as a rather relativistic bound state

Core and Halo Properties in Multi-Field Wave Dark Matter

In this work, we compute multi-field core and halo properties in wave Dark Matter models. We focus on the case where Dark Matter consists of two light (real) scalars, interacting gravitationally. As in the single-field Ultra Light Dark Matter (ULDM) case, the scalar field behaves as a coherent BEC with a definite ground state (at fixed total mass), often referred to in the literature as a gravitational soliton. We establish an efficient algorithm to find the ground and excited states of such two-field systems. We then use simulations to investigate the gravitational collapse and virialization, starting from different initial conditions, into solitons and surrounding halo. As in the single-field case, a virialized halo forms with a gravitational soliton (ground state) at the center. We find some evidence for an empirical relation between the soliton mass and energy and those of the host halo. We use this to then find a numerical relation between the properties of the two. Finally, we use this to address the issue of alleviating some of the tensions that single-field ULDM has with observational data, in particular, the issue of how a galaxy's core and radius are related. We find that if galaxies of different masses have similar percentages of the two species, then the core-radius scaling tension is not addressed. However, if the lighter species is more abundant in lighter galaxies, then the tension can be alleviated