The cognitive bases for the design of a new class of fuzzy logic controllers: The clearness transformation fuzzy logic controller

This paper analyses the internal operation of fuzzy logic controllers as referenced to the human cognitive tasks of control and decision making. Two goals are targeted. The first goal focuses on the cognitive interpretation of the mechanisms employed in the current design of fuzzy logic controllers. This analysis helps to create a ground to explore the potential of enhancing the functional intelligence of fuzzy controllers. The second goal is to outline the features of a new class of fuzzy controllers, the Clearness Transformation Fuzzy Logic Controller (CT-FLC), whereby some new concepts are advanced to qualify fuzzy controllers as 'cognitive devices' rather than 'expert system devices'. The operation of the CT-FLC, as a fuzzy pattern processing controller, is explored, simulated, and evaluated

Asset Market Liquidity Risk Management: A Generalized Theoretical Modeling Approach for Trading and Fund Management Portfolios

Asset market liquidity risk is a significant and perplexing subject and though the term market liquidity risk is used quite chronically in academic literature it lacks an unambiguous definition, let alone understanding of the proposed risk measures. To this end, this paper presents a review of contemporary thoughts and attempts vis-à-vis asset market/liquidity risk management. Furthermore, this research focuses on the theoretical aspects of asset liquidity risk and presents critically two reciprocal approaches to measuring market liquidity risk for individual trading securities, and discusses the problems that arise in attempting to quantify asset market liquidity risk at a portfolio level. This paper extends research literature related to the assessment of asset market/liquidity risk by providing a generalized theoretical modeling underpinning that handle, from the same perspective, market and liquidity risks jointly and integrate both risks into a portfolio setting without a commensurate increase of statistical postulations. As such, we argue that market and liquidity risk components are correlated in most cases and can be integrated into one single market/liquidity framework that consists of two interrelated sub-components. The first component is attributed to the impact of adverse price movements, while the second component focuses on the risk of variation in transactions costs due to bid-ask spreads and it attempts to measure the likelihood that it will cost more than expected to liquidate the asset position. We thereafter propose a concrete theoretical foundation and a new modeling framework that attempts to tackle the issue of market/liquidity risk at a portfolio level by combining two asset market/liquidity risk models. The first model is a re-engineered and robust liquidity horizon multiplier that can aid in producing realistic asset market liquidity losses during the unwinding period. The essence of the model is based on the concept of Liquidity-Adjusted Value-at-Risk (L-VaR) framework, and particularly from the perspective of trading portfolios that have both long and short trading positions. Conversely, the second model is related to the transactions cost of liquidation due to bid-ask spreads and includes an improved technique that tackles the issue of bid-ask spread volatility. As such, the model comprises a new approach to contemplating the impact of time-varying volatility of the bid-ask spread and its upshot on the overall asset market/liquidity risk.Economic Capital; Emerging Markets; Financial Engineering; Financial Risk Management; Financial Markets; Liquidity Risk; Portfolio Management; Liquidity Adjusted Value at Risk

A Unified Approach to Configuration-based Dynamic Analysis of Quadcopters for Optimal Stability

A special type of rotary-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), called Quadcopter have prevailed to the civilian use for the past decade. They have gained significant amount of attention within the UAV community for their redundancy and ease of control, despite the fact that they fall under an under-actuated system category. They come in a variety of configurations. The "+" and "x" configurations were introduced first. Literature pertinent to these two configurations is vast. However, in this paper, we define 6 additional possible configurations for a Quadcopter that can be built under either "+" or "x" setup. These configurations can be achieved by changing the angle that the axis of rotation for rotors make with the main body, i.e., fuselage. This would also change the location of the COM with respect to the propellers which can add to the overall stability. A comprehensive dynamic model for all these configurations is developed for the first time. The overall stability for these configurations are addressed. In particular, it is shown that one configuration can lead to the most statically-stable platform by adopting damping motion in Roll/Pitch/Yaw, which is described for the first time to the best of our knowledge.Comment: 6 page, 9 figure

Ditransitives in Iraqi Arabic and English

PhD ThesisThis thesis mainly investigates ditransitive constructions with lexical as well as pronominal objects in two historically unrelated languages: Iraqi Arabic, a poorly documented language, and English (including British English dialects). The aim is to obtain insight into possible crosslinguistic similarities and differences in the ditransitive constructions, which is a controversial issue in generative theory, and thus, contribute to the theory of argument structure, Case, and agreement, particularly in relation to pronouns. It shows that Iraqi Arabic provides a rich environment for the study of ditransitives as it exhibits a wide variety of ditransitive patterns. The thesis will first present the descriptive facts of ditransitives of Iraqi Arabic which covers word order options, Case-marking, and passives. Then, it will review the various current approaches on ditransitives within a generative theory of grammar. A special focus will be given to the debate about the nature of the relationship between DOCs and PDCs, in particular whether it is derivational or projectional. Later, the thesis will introduce the reader to the theory of pronouns where a distinction will be made between the terms strong, weak pronouns, affixes and clitics as well as discussing their syntactic properties. It will address the question regarding the derivation of pronominal clitics, whether they are X°s or XPs, i.e. whether they are a wordlevel or phrase-level category. In addition, Shlonsky’ (1997) and Roberts’ (2010) theories of clitics will be presented. A close investigation and comparison of pronominal objects in Arabic, particularly Iraqi Arabic, and English is expected to shed more light on the syntax of pronominal objects in general, including the distinction between strong, weak and clitic pronouns, and pronominal objects of ditransitive verbs in particular. Following Holmberg et al (2018), it will be argued that the ditransitive predicate in the DOC contains, in addition to v and V, an applicative head, Appl which assigns a role to the Recipient, while V assigns a role to the Theme. There is cross-linguistic variation regarding how the two objects are ‘Case-licensed’. I will argue that, in Iraqi Arabic and Standard English, v assigns Case to the Recipient while Appl assigns Case to the Theme. In some British English dialects, on the other side, v may assign Case either to the Recipient or Theme. This is due to flexible licensing by Appl in these dialects as Appl may license either the Recipient or the Theme. In the PDC, on the other hand, v will assign Case to the Theme while the Goal gets Case from a preposition. In addition to the Appl attested in the DOC which I will term Appl 1, I will argue that Iraqi Arabic exhibits another Applicative head which I will term Appl 2. The latter introduces a iv Benefactive argument in clauses containing such arguments. What is special about Iraqi Arabic is that these Appl heads can be realized as the special form, -iya in the language when the following object is a pronoun. In analyzing pronominal objects, I will argue that pronominal objects in Iraqi Arabic are syntactic clitics. I will adopt a version of the theory proposed by Shlonsky (1997) where the pronominal clitics of Arabic are derived by Agree between v and a pronominal object, with incorporation in the sense of Roberts (2010). According to Roberts (2010), the pronominal clitic is a spell-out of agreement between v and a defective object. I will claim that English pronominal contracted objects are syntactic clitics, too, derived in a similar way. It will be argued that the two languages under investigation are more similar than what traditionally is thought to be the case especially as regards exhibiting syntactic clitics. The similarity between the two languages can be seen especially in the DOC construction in that both languages allow the DOC with a defective Recipient and full DP-Theme. Furthermore, both disallow the DOC with a full DP-Recipient and a defective Theme. Moreover, both languages allow the DOC with a defective Recipient and a defective Theme. In addition, both languages exhibit the DOC with two full-DP objects as well as the PDC with lexical or pronominal objects. Still, there are differences in that while some British English dialects allow the pattern, she gave it’im/John where the Theme is defective, and the Recipient is defective or a full-DP object, Iraqi Arabic disallow this construction. The flexibility of Appl 1 to agree with either the Recipient or the Theme attested in some British English dialects is not found in Iraqi Arabic as the latter allows Appl1 to agree only with the Theme in the DOC. The implication here will be that while the unvalued features of v can be valued only by the Recipient in Iraqi Arabic, it can be valued either by the Recipient or Theme in some British English dialects. Another difference to be pointed out between the two languages is that while Iraqi Arabic exhibits Appl1 and Appl 2, British English dialects exhibits only Appl1. Earlier work on a range of grammatical structures has shown the benefits of detailed crosslinguistic comparison. This dissertation adds to this body of work and further confirms its value through the results achieved from a comparison of ditransitives in English and Iraqi Arabic.Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MOHESR