Database

White Paper 15, Tensor Representations of ActivityPub Networks

White Paper 15, Tensor Representations of ActivityPub Networks

Reading Time: 1 min.
Open Risk White Paper 15: Tensor Representations of ActivityPub Networks In this third Open Risk White Paper on Connecting the Dots we explore representations of online communication networks that are organized according to the ActivityPub protocol. We discuss the main relevant features of the protocol and the broader application ecosystem around it that shapes emerging online network topologies. We develop a stylized description of ActivityPub compliant networks as a mathematical multilayer network.
Connecting the Dots, Tensor Representations of Activitypub Networks

Connecting the Dots, Tensor Representations of Activitypub Networks

Reading Time: 4 min.
What are ActivityPub Networks? ActivityPub is a technical specification towards decentralized (more precisely, federated) social networking (termed the Fediverse) based upon the exchange of ActivityStreams messages that follow the Activity Vocabulary. The ActivityPub proposal has been standardized and published by the W3C and has motivated the design of several federated social networking systems. There are presently several concrete ActivityPub compliant implementations and the protocol sees meaningful adoption, primarily in the domain of federated social networks.
White Paper 14, Integrated Energy Accounting using Relational Databases

White Paper 14, Integrated Energy Accounting using Relational Databases

Reading Time: 3 min.
Open Risk White Paper 14: Integrated energy accounting using relational databases In this Open Risk White Paper we demonstrate a concrete implementation of an integrated energy accounting framework using relational database technologies. The framework enables accounting of non-financial disclosures (such as the physical and embodied energy footprints of economic transactions) while enforcing the familiar double-entry balance constraints used to produce conventional (monetary) accounts and financial statements. In addition, it allows enforcing constraints associated with the flow and transformations of energy that can happen inside the organizational perimeter.
White Paper 13, Techniques for Federated Analysis

White Paper 13, Techniques for Federated Analysis

Reading Time: 1 min.
Open Risk White Paper 13: Federated Credit Systems, Part II: Techniques for Federated Data Analysis In this Open Risk White Paper, the second of series focusing on Federated Credit Systems, we explore techniques for federated credit data analysis. Building on the first paper where we outlined the overall architecture, essential actors and information flows underlying various business models of credit provision, in this step we focus on the enabling arrangements and techniques for building Federated Credit Data Systems and enabling Federated Analysis.
Mathematical Representations of Credit Portfolio Data

Mathematical Representations of Credit Portfolio Data

What do we mean by credit data? This post is a discussion around mathematical terminology and concepts that are useful in the context of working with credit data, taking us from network graph representations of credit systems to commonly used reference data sets

Reading Time: 27 min.
Definition of Credit Data What do we mean by credit data? For our purposes Credit Data is any well-defined dataset that has direct applications in the assessment of the Credit Risk of an individual or an organization, or, more generally, a dataset that allows the application of data driven Credit Portfolio Management policies. The appearance of credit data is quite familiar to practitioners: A spreadsheet, or a table in a database, with a number of columns and rows full of all sorts of information about borrowers and loans.
Open Risk White Paper: Deep Linking Financial and Energy Accounting

Open Risk White Paper: Deep Linking Financial and Energy Accounting

We develop a conceptual framework for integrated accounting that imposes on certain non-financial disclosures the same double-entry balance constraints that apply to conventional financial statements. We identify the key ingredients required for a rigorous multidimensional accounting framework in terms of concepts, postulates and design choices, and we illustrate these ideas with a worked-out example of linking financial and energy accounts.

Reading Time: 9 min.
Integrated Energy Accounting is keeping track and reporting on an entity’s detailed energy footprint (primary inputs, transformations and waste generation) not as an addendum to financial accounting and reporting but as a deeply-linked extension that is subject to the same level of rigor. The central design is the use of multidimensional double-entry bookkeeping which tracks additional quantitative information characterizing economic objects beyond their monetary values. This choice ensures the enforcement of both classic balance sheet constraints and the applicable energy conservation laws.
White Paper 12, Deep-Linking Financial and Energy Accounting

White Paper 12, Deep-Linking Financial and Energy Accounting

Reading Time: 1 min.
Open Risk White Paper 12: Deep-Linking Financial and Energy Accounting We develop a conceptual framework for integrated accounting that produces (where possible) non-financial disclosures subject to the same double-entry balance constraints as those used to produce conventional financial statements and automatically ensures any additional conservation laws are satisfied. We identify the key ingredients required for such a rigorous integrated accounting framework, in terms of concepts, postulates and design choices. Our focus and concrete use case is built around energy accounting, keeping track on an entity’s detailed energy footprint (primary inputs, transformations and waste generation) as an extension of its standard financial accounting and reporting.
Representing Matrices as JSON Objects: Part 1

Representing Matrices as JSON Objects: Part 1

Representing a matrix as a JSON object is a task that appears in many modern data science contexts, in particular when one wants to exchange matrix data online. While there is no universally agreed way to achieve this task in all circumstances, in this series of posts we discuss a number of options and the associated tradeoffs.

Reading Time: 13 min.
Motivation and Objective Representing a matrix as a JSON object is a task that appears in many modern data science contexts, in particular when one wants to exchange matrix data online. There is no universally agreed way to achieve this task and various options are available depending on the matrix type and the programming tools and environment one has available. Matrices are not native structures in general purpose computing environments. They are typically handled with speficic packages (modules, extensions or libraries).
Class Inheritance in Data Science

Class Inheritance in Data Science

Object-oriented programming and techniques (OOP) such as using classes and inheritance are common in many application programming environments but don't travel well outside computer memory. When considering data science tasks and objectives the transition from object hierarchies to data structures (and vice versa) is not always straightforward. In this short course we explore how some programming languages, data formats, database API's and web frameworks handle hierarchical classes.

Reading Time: 3 min.
Summary In this short course we explore how some programming languages, data formats, database API’s and web frameworks handle hierarchical classes. Content Object-oriented programming and techniques (OOP) such as using classes and inheritance are common in many application programming environments but alas don’t “travel well” outside computer memory. The potentially intricate relationships of objects (both the data they hold and the meaning and possible uses of the data) are not easy to transfer (except of-course by full replication of code and data).
White Paper 09, Federated Credit Systems, Unbundling Credit Provision

White Paper 09, Federated Credit Systems, Unbundling Credit Provision

Reading Time: 1 min.
Open Risk White Paper 9: Federated Credit Systems, Part I: Unbundling The Credit Provision Business Model In this (the first of series of three) white paper, we introduce and explore the concept of federated credit systems. We review the rapidly developing fields of Federated Analysis and Federated Learning as already actively studied in the domains of medicine and consumer computing devices. This forms the backdrop for understanding the potential and challenges of applying similar concepts in finance and more particular credit provision.
Making Open Risk Data easier

Making Open Risk Data easier

We introduce an online database that allows the (relatively) easy publication of structured risk data

Reading Time: 1 min.
Making Open Risk Data easier In an earlier blog post we discussed the promise of Open Risk Data and how the widespread availability of good information that is relevant for risk management can substantially help mitigate diverse risks. The list of Open Risk Data providers, particularly from public sector, keeps increasing and we are aiming to document all available datasets in the dedicated page of the Open Risk Manual. The trailblazing Wikidata project In this post we want to introduce another facility, an online database that allows the (relatively) easy publication of structured risk data.
White Paper 08, Economic Networks as Property Graphs

White Paper 08, Economic Networks as Property Graphs

Reading Time: 0 min.
Open Risk White Paper 8: Connecting the Dots, Economic Networks as Property Graphs We develop a quantitative framework that approaches economic networks from the point of view of contractual relationships between agents (and the interdependencies those generate). The representation of agent properties, transactions and contracts is done in the context of a property graph. A typical use case for the proposed framework is the study of credit networks. Download OpenRiskWP12_230922 PDF
Can accounting ever be sexy? From IFRS 9 to Sustainability

Can accounting ever be sexy? From IFRS 9 to Sustainability

Reading Time: 1 min.
Accounting probably would not count among the more glamorous of professions. The reasons for that status and whether it is justified are beyond the scope of this brief commentary. What is interesting to note, though, is that the relative attractiveness of accounting is arguably improving, driven by a number of systemic societal developments: the need for more proactive assessment of the state of the world, eliminating the infamous “rear-view mirror” pathology.
What Inka quipus teach us about data management

What Inka quipus teach us about data management

Reading Time: 3 min.
What Inka quipus teach us about data management Chances are that your knowledge of ancient Peruvian culture is a bit rusty. Maybe you have some vague high-school memories of an extensive but backward empire that was conquered and then asset-stripped by a handful of Spanish conquistadores. Or maybe your best preserved memory is the excitement of reading von Daniken’s speculations that the Nazca lines are extraterrestrial spaceports. But unless you happened at some point later in life to hear about the work of Prof.
Open Source Risk Data with MongoDB and Python

Open Source Risk Data with MongoDB and Python

Reading Time: 3 min.
Open Source Risk Data with MongoDB and Python Open source software is all the rage those days in IT and the concept is making rapid inroads in all parts of the enterprise. An earlier comprehensive survey by Gartner, Inc. found that by 2011 more than half of organizations surveyed had adopted open-source software (OSS) solutions as part of their IT strategy. This percentage may have currently exceeded the 75% mark according to open source advisory firms.
White Paper 03, Introducing the Open Risk API

White Paper 03, Introducing the Open Risk API

Reading Time: 1 min.
Open Risk White Paper 3: Introducing the Open Risk API We develop a proposal for an open source application programming interface (API) that allows for the distributed development, deployment and use of financial risk models. The proposal aims to explore the following key question: how to integrate in a robust and trustworthy manner diverse risk modeling and risk data resources, contributed by multiple authors, using different technologies, and which very likely will evolve over time.