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This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the nature and characteristics of the volatility transmission channels of major crash events in international stock markets between 03 July 1997 and 09 March 2021. Using dynamic conditional correlations (DCC) for conditional correlations and volatility clustering, GARCH-BEKK for the direction of transmission of disturbances, and the Diebold-Yilmaz spillover index for the level of volatility contagion, the paper finds that the climbs in external shock transmissions have long-lasting impacts in domestic markets due to the contagion effect during crisis periods. The findings also reveal that the heavier magnitude of financial stress is transmitted between Asian countries via the Hong Kong stock market. Additionally, the degree of volatility spillovers between advanced and emerging equity markets is smaller compared to the pure spillovers between advanced markets or emerging markets, offering a window of opportunity for international market participants in terms of portfolio diversification and risk management applications. Furthermore, the study introduces a novel early warning system created by integrating DCC correlations with a state-of-the-art deep learning model to predict the global financial crisis and COVID-19 crisis. The experimental analysis of long short-term memory network finds evidence of contagion risk by verifying bursts in volatility spillovers and generating signals with high accuracy before the 12-month crisis period. This provides supplementary information that contributes to the decision-making process of practitioners, as well as offering indicative evidence that facilitates the assessment of market vulnerability for policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landslides cause severe economic damage and a large number of casualties every year around the world. In many cases, it is not possible to avoid them, and the task of engineers and geologists is to mitigate their effects using measures such as building diverting structures or preparing escape roads to be used when an alarm is triggered. It is necessary, therefore, to predict the path of the landslide, its depth and velocity, and the runout. These objectives are usually are attained by using mathematical, numerical and rheological models. An important limitation of the analysis is the lack of data, specially when few laboratory tests are available, and in cases where their present important variations. This leads to performing sensitivity analyses in which analysts study the influence of several magnitudes of interest, such as friction angle, porosity, basal pore pressure and geometry of the sliding mass, just to mention a few, leading in turn to perform a large number of simulations. We propose in this paper a methodology to speed up the process, which is based on: (i) using depth integrated models, which provide a good combination of accuracy and computer effort and (ii) using artificial intelligence tools to reduce the number of simulations. Let us consider a case where we have N mag main variables to explore; for each of them we select a number of cases, which can differ from one magnitude to another. The number of cases will be where N cases (i) is the number of cases we have selected for magnitude i. We can consider these variables as nodes belonging to a hypercube of dimension N mag . We will refer from now on as "hypercube" to the set of all cases generated in this way. The paper presents two cases where these techniques will be applied: (i) a 1D dam break problem and (ii) a case of a real debris flow which happened in Hong Kong, for which there is available information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rock classification provides vital information to geosciences and geological engineering practices. Reaping the benefits of the advances of computer vision-based deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) technology, this study aims to develop a next-generation convolutional neural network (CNN) to perform automatic rock classification. Two major challenging issues have been particularly addressed. First, most of the previous rock classifications are simply transfer learning of CNNs that are trained by life-like scenarios. Second, classifying rock types with similar textures leads to severe overfitting of CNNs. In this study, a novel CNN called HKUDES_Net is proposed and implemented to classify seven common Hong Kong rock types, namely fine-grained granite, medium-grained granite, coarse-grained granite, coarse ash tuff, fine ash tuff, feldsparphyric rhyolite, and granodiorite. With the aid of dynamic expansion, squeeze and excitation, and other strategies, HKUDES_Net can classify rock types with similar texture patterns/colors but different grain sizes. As compared with the other ten landmark CNNs and seven feature-based algorithms, HKUDES_Net has the best performance in precision (90.9%), recall (90.4%), and f1-score (90.5%). By implementing the alerting level, which restricts the training loss hovering above a small constant and prevents the validation loss from rising, the overfitting has been efficiently eliminated. The proposal and implementation of HKUDES_Net highlight the value of interdisciplinary research and will continuously pave the way for better coupling AI and geosciences. Highlights: A next-generation convolutional neural network (CNN) called HKUDES_Net is developed to perform automatic rock classification. HKUDES_Net can classify rock types with similar texture patterns/colors but different grain sizes. By implementing the alerting level in HKUDES_Net, the overfitting has been efficiently eliminated. Plain Language Summary: Rock classification provides vital information to geosciences and geological engineering practices. However, the traditional way of rock classification is to a certain degree experience-based. Computer vision-based artificial intelligence (AI), especially convolutional neural network (CNN), a sub-branch of AI, may help people automatically classify rock types with the hope to train AI models (CNNs), which can instantly and precisely perceive rock images similar to how human beings observe rocks. In other words, by putting a rock image into a CNN, the CNN will read the information from the image and tell people what rock type in the image is. This study develops and implements a next-generation CNN called HKUDES_Net to classify seven different rock types. Adopting different computational strategies, HKUDES_Net can classify rock types of different grain sizes with similar texture patterns/colors, which is challenging for other CNNs. As compared with the other landmark CNNs and machine learning algorithms, HKUDES_Net has much a better prediction accuracy performance. The proposal and implementation of HKUDES_Net exemplify an interdisciplinary research study, and we are confident that this paper will be instrumental to pave the way for further coupling AI and geosciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligently predicting the frequency and volume of natural hazards, including boulder falls, attracts widespread attention in earth science and engineering communities. Taking Hong Kong, China, which is a highly developed and densely populated city, as a research example, the present paper statistically studies the occurrence of boulder falls based on power law relationships and supervised machine learning. The 2002–2016 boulder fall inventory of Hong Kong, which consists of 194 boulder falls, is compiled and analyzed in detail, including volume and spatial distributions. Based on the findings, a power law relationship with the b-value greater than one is particularly proposed for Hong Kong, which then allows major boulder falls (volume ≥1 m3) occurring in two subsequent years to be accurately predicted. In order to predict volume ranges of potential boulder falls, eight supervised machine learning algorithms are trained and validated based on sixty-five filtered samples with five represented features. Two key conclusions are drawn from the findings. First, the geological settings, altitudes, and gradients of source locations are demonstrated to be three triggering factors of different volume ranges of boulder falls. Second, the logistic regression algorithm has the best performance in predicting boulder fall volumes among all the algorithms. The f1-score of 5-fold cross-validation is 72.9%, and the prediction accuracy of the test dataset is 75.8%. We are confident that the methodologies and results in this paper will pave the way for analyzing other types of natural terrain hazards in addition to boulder falls in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the opening of the Stock Connect programs, the mainland China and Hong Kong stock markets are becoming more closely linked. In this paper, we develop a China's stock market risk early warning system. The proposed early warning system consists of three components. First, we use value at risk (VaR) to identify the stock market risk in which stock market risk is divided into multiple categories instead of two categories. Second, we construct a comprehensive indicator system in which basic indicators, technical indicators, overseas return rate indicators, and macroeconomic indicators are considered simultaneously. Third, we use four machine learning models, namely long short-term memory (LSTM), gate recurrent unit (GRU), multilayer perceptron (MLP), and EXtreme Gradient Boosting algorithm (XGBoost), to predict China's stock market risk. Experimental results show that: (1) Considering the macroeconomic indicators and basic indicators of Shanghai Composite Index (SSEC), ShenZhen Component Index (SZCZ) and Hang Seng Index (HSI) can significantly improve the performance of predicting China's stock market risk. (2) The opening of SH-HK Stock Connect program improves the predictive performance, but the opening of SZ-HK Stock Connect program decreases the predictive performance. (3) The indicators related to Hong Kong become more important after the SZ-HK Stock Connect program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research concentrates on segmenting credit card clients of Taiwan into optimal groups. Unsupervised Learning plays a significant role in dividing customers into similar groups based on several parameters. If customers are clustered in groups optimally, it leads towards the retrieval of better precision from machine learning models applied to customers associated with the clusters. Different machine learning algorithms (Linear discriminant analysis, logistic regression and random forest) were applied on the obtained clusters through K-means, hierarchical and HK Means clustering algorithm, and predictive accuracy is compared with the accuracy obtained via applying mentioned machine learning models on the whole dataset. In this paper, a novel approach of combining K Means and hierarchical clustering (HK Means) is used. In this approach, HK means clustering algorithms are applied on the factorial coordinates, obtained from multiple correspondence analyses for segmenting customers into optimal groups has been proposed. The accuracy of the clustering techniques is evaluated from the decomposition of inertia. The results demonstrate that the combination of K Means and hierarchical clustering proved to be optimal clustering techniques for customer segmentation which can be used further for applying Machine Learning techniques for credit risk analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dissemination of fake news on social media platforms is an issue of considerable interest, as it can be used to misinform people or lead them astray, which is particularly concerning when it comes to political events. The recent event of Hong Kong protests triggered an outburst of fake news posts that were identified on Twitter, which were then promptly removed and compiled into datasets to promote research. These datasets focusing on linguistic content were used in previous work to classify between tweets spreading fake and real news using traditional machine learning algorithms (Zervopoulos et al., in: IFIP international conference on artificial intelligence applications and innovations, Springer, Berlin, 2020). In this paper, the experimentation process on the previously constructed dataset is extended using deep learning algorithms along with a diverse set of input features, ranging from raw text to handcrafted features. Experiments showed that the deep learning algorithms outperformed the traditional approaches, reaching scores as high as 99.3% F1 Score, with the multilingual state-of-the-art model XLM-RoBERTa outperforming other algorithms using raw untranslated text. The combination of both traditional and deep learning algorithms allows for increased performance through the latter, while also gaining insight regarding tweet structure from the interpretability of the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural terrain landslides are mainly triggered by rainstorms in Hong Kong, which pose great threats to life and property. To mitigate landslide risk, building a prediction model which could provide information on both spatial and temporal probabilities of landslide occurrence is essential but challenging. In this paper, real-time rainfall conditions are incorporated into landslide prediction through a unique rainstorm-based database of reported landslides. Other landslide controlling factors related to topography, geology, and land cover are also considered. Five machine learning methods, including logistic regression, random forest, adaboost tree, support vector machine, and multilayer perceptron, are utilized and compared. Validated against historical rainstorms, the machine learning powered landslide prediction model could reasonably forecast the occurrence of landslides in a spatiotemporal context. Moreover, the effects of different rainstorm characteristics in terms of distinct rainfall spatial distribution and intensity on landslide susceptibility could also be captured by this model. For the landslide controlling factors investigated, rolling rainfall factors are proven to play a more important role than antecedent rainfall factors for landslide prediction. Among the five machine learning methods, the random forest model yields the most promising results in terms of all performance indicators (i.e., classification accuracy, recall, precision, area under curve, and overall accuracy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating borehole and piezocone penetration test (CPTU) data in site characterization helps to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of ground conditions. However, soil types at CPTU and nearby borehole locations may not always be consistent. The presence of noisy data or thin layers will mislead the interpretation of CPTU data in soil type classification and soil property evaluation. This study proposes a coupled machine learning method to integrate the borehole and CPTU data under a rigorous Bayesian framework and to identify and separate the noisy CPTU data without subjective judgment, which contributes to more reliable soil classification and property evaluation. The borehole-reported soil type and CPTU data are treated as two types of evidence of the authentic soil type. A lateral transition of soil type from the CPTU location to the borehole location is allowed to capture the discrepancy of soil types. The proposed approach is applied to the marine site characterization of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge that crosses the Pearl River Estuary of China. The soil seams embedded in the dominant soil strata are successfully detected, producing a more reliable soil profile and interpreting more compatible soil properties with engineering practice. Additionally, the integration of borehole and CPTU data significantly reduces the stratification uncertainty in site characterization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public specialty ophthalmic clinics in Hong Kong, under the Hospital Authority, receive tens of thousands of referrals each year. Triaging these referrals incurs a significant workload for practitioners and the other clinical duties. It is well-established that Hong Kong is currently facing a shortage of healthcare workers. Thus a more efficient system in triaging will not only free up resources for better use but also improve the satisfaction of both practitioners and patients. Machine learning (ML) has been shown to improve the efficiency of various medical workflows, including triaging, by both reducing the workload and increasing accuracy in some cases. Despite a myriad of studies on medical artificial intelligence, there is no specific framework for a triaging algorithm in ophthalmology clinics. This study proposes a general framework for developing, deploying and evaluating an ML-based triaging algorithm in a clinical setting. Through literature review, this study identifies good practices in various facets of developing such a network and protocols for maintenance and evaluation of the impact concerning clinical utility and external validity out of the laboratory. We hope this framework, albeit not exhaustive, can act as a foundation to accelerate future pilot studies and deployments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adequate empirical antimicrobial coverage is instrumental in clinical management of community-onset Enterobacteriaceae bacteraemia in areas with high ESBL prevalence, while balancing the risk of carbapenem overuse and emergence of carbapenem-resistant organisms. It is unknown whether machine learning offers additional advantages to conventional statistical methods in prediction of ESBL production. To develop a validated model to predict ESBL production in Enterobacteriaceae causing community-onset bacteraemia. 5625 patients with community-onset bacteraemia caused by Escherichia coli, Klebsiella species and Proteus mirabilis during 1 January 2015–31 December 2019 from three regional hospitals in Hong Kong were included in the analysis, after exclusion of blood cultures obtained beyond 48 h of admission. The prevalence of ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae was 23.7% (1335/5625). Deep neural network and other machine learning algorithms were compared against conventional statistical model via multivariable logistic regression. Primary outcomes compared consisted of predictive model area under curve of receiver-operator characteristic curve (AUC), and macro-averaged F1 score. Secondary outcomes included sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). Deep neural network yielded an AUC of 0.761 (95% CI 0.725–0.797) and F1 score of 0.661 (95% CI 0.633–0.689), which was superior to logistic regression (AUC 0.667 (95% CI 0.627–0.707), F1 score 0.596 (95% CI 0.567–0.625)). Deep neural network had a specificity of 91.5%, sensitivity of 37.5%, NPV of 82.5%, and PPV of 57.9%. Deep neural network is superior to logistic regression in predicting ESBL production in Enterobacteriaceae causing community-onset bacteraemia in high-ESBL prevalence area. Machine learning offers clinical utility in guiding judicious empirical antibiotics use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes an accurate method in assessing chronological age of the adolescents using a machine learning approach using MRI images. We also examined the value of MRI with Tanner-Whitehouse 3 (TW3) method in assessing skeletal maturity. Seventy-nine 12–17-year-old healthy Hong Kong Chinese adolescents were recruited. The left hand and wrist region were scanned by a dedicated skeletal MRI scanner. T1-weighted three-dimensional coronal view images for the left hand and wrist region were acquired. Independent maturity indicators such as subject body height, body weight, bone marrow composition intensity quantified by MRI, and TW3 skeletal age were included for artificial neural network (ANN) analysis. Our results indicated that the skeletal age was generally underestimated using TW3 method, and significant difference (p < 0.05) was noted for skeletal age with chronological age for female category and at later stage of adolescence (15 to 17 years old) in both genders. In our proposed machine learning approach, ages determined by ANN method agreed well with chronological age (p > 0.05).The machine learning approach using ANN method was about 10-fold more accurate than the TW3 method using MRI alone. It offers a more objective and accurate solution for prospective chronological maturity assessment for adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]