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Data Types are a fundamental building block of data science

Data science is about data, but data are not simple and tame beasts. They have character and attitude, which can cause a lot of friction between them and the data scientist. There is a lot of sweat and tears involved when confronting data, but data scientists can do worse than know how to handle in particular Data Type quirks. Namely, a good fraction of data science involves not modelling data, not transforming data, not even cleaning data but simply goading data around the right containers, providing them with the right stage that fits their character. Getting the data type wrong is many a source of both spectacular bugs and hidden, insidious application errors.

Celebrating Pi Day 2021

Pi Day is celebrated every year on March 14th. The reason of course is that the day is denoted in some calendars as (3/14), which evokes of 3.14, the first three digits of “π”. A thin excuse maybe but sufficient for the true believers to join along! The occasion represents an annual opportunity for mathematics and science enthusiasts to recite the infinite charms of Pi, including its irrationality, to talk to friends and family about math and its uses, and, when everything else fails, simply eat pie.

This CrashCourse is an introduction to semantic data using Python.

Course Content

It covers the following topics:

• We learn to work with RDF graphs using rdflib
• We explore the owlready package and OWL ontologies
• We look into json-ld serialization of RDF/OWL data
• We try data validation using pySHACL
• We use throughout a realistic data set based on the Credit Ratings Ontology

What is the future of stress testing?

To speculate on the future of Stress Testing we need first a basic definition what stress testing is. Broadly speaking, the goal of Stress Testing is to assess how a system would behave under adverse conditions that - while not the most likely outcome with the knowledge of today - are within the realm of the plausible.

Visualizing a year in lockdowns and restricted mobility

As we move into February 2021 the world will be experiencing almost a year under pandemic conditions. This has markedly changed behavioral patterns of human mobility across the board. One major difference with previous pandemics is that through the use of a variety of digital technologies and new data collection channels we know have an unprecedented view of those changing mobility patterns.

The Non-Perfoming Loan Ontology

The Non-Performing Loan Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about non-performing loans using semantic web information technologies. Codenamed NPLO, it codifies the relationship between the various components of a Non-Performing Loan portfolio dataset.(NB: Non-performing loans are bank loans that are 90 days or more past their repayment date or that are unlikely to be repaid, for example if the borrower is facing financial difficulties).

Introduction

What is FOSDEM?

FOSDEM is a non-commercial, volunteer-organized event centered on free and open-source software development (with a geographic focus on the European open source ecosystems / projects). FOSDEM is aimed at developers and anyone interested in the free and open-source software movement. It aims to enable developers to meet and to promote the awareness and use of free and open-source software.

Risk, Randomness, Uncertainty and other Ambiguous Terms

Uncertainty versus Risk is a popular discussion topic among risk managers, especially after major risk management disasters. The debate can get really hairy and drift into deep philosophical areas about the nature of knowledge etc. Yet the significance of having an as clear as possible language toolkit around these terms should not be underestimated. Practical risk management typically shuns too deep excursions into the meaning of things, yet that is not quite compatible with the use of sophisticated methods and tools (such as a Risk Model ) that assumes an understanding of the scope and limitations of “knowledge”.

Constructing a Global Mobility Index (GMI)

In previous posts (here, and here) we introduced new Open Risk Dashboard functionalities that integrate COVID-19 community mobility data (currently focusing on the datasets provided by Google).

As a reminder, these reports chart over time human mobility trends collected from mobile geolocation data. The granularity is by geography and across different categories of places / activities such as retail and recreation areas, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential areas. Through these data sets we have available (for the first time in history) an overall quantitative view of global mobility (and Mobility Risk )!

Is the size of global debt truly “astronomical”?

The notion of astronomical numbers and figures is quite frequently seeping in everyday language when large quantities of something are encountered in “normal” life. The strict definition of astronomical is obviously something of, or relating to, astronomy and astronomical observations but in common usage it also denotes something enormously or inconceivably large. This is, of course, because astronomical figures are inconceivably large!

The Risk Function Ontology

The Risk Function Ontology is a framework that aims to represent and categorize knowledge about risk management functions using semantic web information technologies. Codenamed RFO codifies the relationship between the various components of a risk management organization. Individuals, teams or even whole departments tasked with risk management exist in some shape or form in most organizations. The ontology allows the definition of risk management roles in more precise terms, which in turn can be used in a variety of contexts: towards better structured actual job descriptions, more accurate description of internal processes and easier inspection of alignement and consistency with risk taxonomies. See also live version and the white paper OpenRiskWP04_061415.

The role of simulation in risk management and decision support

A Simulation is a simplified imitation of a process or system that represents with some fidelity its operation over time. In the context of risk management and decision support simulation can be a very powerful tool as it allows us to assess potential outcomes in a systematic way and explore what-if questions in ways that might otherwise be not feasible. Simulation is used when the underlying model is too complex to yield explicit analytic models (An analytic model is one can be “solved” exactly or with standard numerical methods, for example resulting in a formula).

Federated Credit Systems, Part I: Unbundling the Credit Provision Business Model

As an architectural design and information technology approach, federation has received increased attention in domains such as the medical sector (under the name federated analysis), in official statistics (under the name trusted data) and in mass computing devices (smartphones), under the name federated learning.

Using Sankey Diagrams

Sankey Diagrams are a type of flow diagram composed of interconnected arrows. The width of the arrows is proportional to the flow rate. Sankey diagrams are often used in physical sciences (physics, chemistry, biology) and engineering but also in economics. They can be used to represent the relative role and significance of various inputs and outputs in a given process.

openNPL 0.2 release

The open source openNPL platform supports the management of standardized credit portfolio data for non-performing loans. In this respect it implements the detailed European Banking Authority NPL loan templates. openNPL aims to be at the same time easy to integrate in human workflows (using a familiar web interface) and integrate into automated (computer driven) workflows.

Risk Management will not be the same going forward: too much is at stake

The summer is over in the Northern Hemisphere - and what an unusual summer has it been! Worldwide the implications and challenges of adjusting to a Covid-19 pandemic are still a major issue, affecting individuals, companies and governments.

openNPL now Available in Dockerized Form

Following up on the first release of openNPL the platform is now available to install using Docker. Running openNPL via docker is the installation option that simplifies the manual process (but a working docker installation is required!).

Docker Hub

You can pull the latest openNPL image from Docker Hub (This method is recommended if you do not want to mess with the source distribution).

Course Objective

This course is a deep-dive into the structure of visualizations, in particular visualizations of timeseries data. The course is now live at the Academy.

Non-Performing Loans

The covid-19 crisis will certainly impact the concentration of Non-Performing Loans but given the special nature of this economic crisis compared (in particular) with the 2008 financial crisis it is unclear how precisely things will evolve.

In a previous post and white paper (OpenRiskWP07_022616) we discussed the importance of advancing open and transparent methodologies for managing the risks associated with such credit portfolios. Effective management of NPL is also a top regulatory priority. Following calls from the EU Commission and the EU Council to develop data templates to reduce information asymmetries between potential buyers and sellers of NPL, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has developed such standardised data templates.

What is Risk Compensation?

Risk Compensation is a behavioral model of human attitudes towards risk which suggests that people might adjust their behavior in response to the perceived level of risk. It follows that, depending on the strength of the effect, that it might counteract and even annul the impact of risk mitigation, if the updated attitude and behavior modifies the actual underlying risk