We seek to develop an Integrated and Distributed Software Platform for Text Mining, Semantic Web, Machine Learning. Students are invited to carry out applied research in optimizing existing Natural Language Processing (NLP) platforms such as Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA) and other tools to be integrated for real-time big data processing. We apply this technology to High-Frequency, Real-Time Complex Event Processing (CEP), including in Finance, Healthcare, and Cybersecurity. The applications are not industrial grade but will serve as demo to recruit external partners.

Pension funds and insurance companies generally have prior commitments with fixed terms. As a result, these institutional investors might need to alter their investment strategies drastically with low interest rates, which will in turn affect the performances of their portfolios. In this research project, we plan to study the effect of interest rates on the strategies and performances of pension funds and insurance companies. We will achieve this using state-of-the-art econometric methodologies such as regression models with time varying coefficients and TOBIT models.

A prototype Forex currency trading system has demonstrated a proof of concept on a static data set. The current project proposes to implement the trading system for real-time applications.

Stock-based compensation allows employers and employees to share in the risks and rewards of their company’s success. In addition to intangible benefits such as team building and goal sharing, there can also be large financial rewards for employees and similar costs to employers. These costs must be reported in the company’s financial documents such as quarterly and annual reports. Current (and future) vesting rules for stock options are making them difficult to price, and this makes financial reporting difficult.

The project has to do with the financial evaluation of using different types of trees as biomass for energetic consideration. This initiative is designed to develop a model to analyze and evaluate the economic benefits of the intensive cultivation of willow trees and compare them with results obtained with traditional forestry practices. The project also aims to determine optimal production conditions for poplar plantations and the cultivation of other woody plants, including triticale and switch grass.

Fund managers must select a portfolio of assets from a group of securities so as to balance the conflicting goals of maximizing portfolio return and minimizing portfolio risk. There are many elegant approaches to this problem. All suffer from the same flaw – they all require estimates of the expected future risk and return of the constituent securities as well as of the correlations between the returns of pairs of these securities.

Vancouver City Savings Credit Union (Vancity) and its subsidiary, Citizens Bank of Canada, is looking to improve its current commercial mortgage risk rating systems to better predict the default possibility of commercial mortgage loan customers. In this project, the intern will begin with familiarizing herself with the principles, processes and operation of the existing rating model and applications as well as understating the risk profile and loan performance data.