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 Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni
David Sarne (Eds.)
LNAI 12158

Artificial Intelligence
IJCAI 2019 International Workshops
Macao, China, August 10–12, 2019
Revised Selected Best Papers

123
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 12158

Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Series Editors
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Yuzuru Tanaka
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
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DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

Founding Editor
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/1244
Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni •

David Sarne (Eds.)

Artificial Intelligence
IJCAI 2019 International Workshops
Macao, China, August 10–12, 2019
Revised Selected Best Papers

123
Editors
Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni David Sarne
Sorbonne University – Sciences Bar-Ilan University
Paris, France Ramat Gan, Israel

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence
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 Preface

As one of the primary AI conferences, the 28th International Joint Conference on

Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2019) was accompanied by a rich workshops program
aiming to provide a structured setting for the discussion of specialized technical topics
between researchers from academia and industry. The program which included 38
workshops, was held during August 10–12, 2019, and preceded the main conference in
the convention center of the Venetian Macao Hotel Resort. The different workshops, in
which 437 carefully selected papers that went through a rigorous review process were
presented, attracted 2,271 participants overall. Most workshops were a full-day event,
although some were planned for half a day or over two days.
Many of the workshops focusing on a particular research area were recurring ones,
continuing long-lasting gatherings of well-established communities. For example, the
workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Knowledge Management and Innovation (held
for the 7th time), the International Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and
Reasoning (held for the 14th time), the International Workshop on Qualitative Rea-
soning (held for the 32nd time), the workshop on FCA (Formal Concept Analysis) for
Artificial Intelligence (held for the 7th time), the International Workshop on
Agent-based Complex Automated Negotiations (held for the 12th time), the Interna-
tional Workshop on Natural Language Processing for Social Media (held for the 7th
time), and the workshop on Strategic Reasoning (held for the 10th time). Others, held
for the first time, were focused on emerging topics and applications, or on open
research questions and challenges. For example the workshop on Financial Technology
and Natural Language Processing, the workshop on Education in Artificial Intelligence
K-12, the workshop on AI and the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), the
workshop on Human Brain and Artificial Intelligence, the workshop on Deep Learning
for Human Activity Recognition, the workshop on AI for Social Good, the workshop
on Artificial Intelligence and Food, and the workshop on AI for Aging, Rehabilitation
and Independent Assisted Living. This year, we also welcomed workshops that
addressed issues related to responsible and explainable AI.
This volume provides a glimpse into this AI festive celebration. It focuses on 12
different workshops, representing various strands of research in AI. For each workshop
there is a comprehensive summary of the workshop organizers, providing overview and
goals, workshop history, main highlights, topics discussed, and insights for future
research. In addition, for each represented workshop we include the extended version
of the paper selected by the organizers as the best paper presented in their work-
shop. These papers, which were carefully reviewed by the workshop organizers and
Program Committee, represent the state of the art in the specific sub-field and naturally
are a good starting point for researchers interested in the related areas.
We would like to thank workshop participants and presenters, workshop program
chairs and Program Committee members, the IJCAI chairs and Program Committee
vi Preface

chairs, and the IJCAI local organization team for their invaluable contribution and
support for the success of the IJCAI 2019 workshops.

April 2020 Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni

David Sarne
 Organization

Workshops Chairs
Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni Sorbonne University, LIP6, France
David Sarne Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Web Master
Hongming Zhang The Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology, Hong Kong, China

Workshops Coordinator
Derek Fai Wong University of Macau, Macau, China

Publication Chair
Arthur Casals Sorbonne University, LIP6, France

Workshops Organizers
Eunika Mercier-Laurent International Federation for Information Processing
(IFIP)
Mieczyslaw Lech Owoc Wroclaw University of Economics, Poland
Chung-Chi Chen National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Hen-Hsen Huang National Chengchi University, Taiwan
Hiroya Takamura AIST, Japan
Hsin-Hsi Chen National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Matthew Klenk Palo Alto Research Center, USA
Diedrich Wolter University of Bamberg, Germany
Ruben Glatt Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA
Felipe Leno da Silva Advanced Institute for AI, Brazil
Denis Steckelmacher Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium
Patrick MacAlpine Microsoft Research, USA
Sheng Li University of Georgia, USA
Yaliang Li Alibaba Group, USA
Jing Gao University at Buffalo, USA
Yun Fu Northeastern University, USA
Douglas Lange Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, USA
Luke Marsh Defence Science and Technology Group, Australia
Takayuki Ito Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan
Minjie Zhang University of Wollongong, Australia
viii Organization

Reyhan Aydogan Ozyegin University, Turkey

Di Wang Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Ahmed Moustafa Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan
Takanobu Otsuka Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan
Zhenghua Chen ASTAR, Singapore
Pushpak Bhattarcharya IIT Patna, India
Niranjan Nayak Microsoft AI, India
Manoj Kumar Chinnakotla Bing, USA
Puneet Agrawal Microsoft AI, India
Kedhar Nath Narahari Microsoft AI, India
Akinori Abe Chiba University, Japan
Hiroki Fukushima Kyushu Women’s University, Japan
Huáscar Espinoza Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, France
Han Yu Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Xiaowei Huang The University of Liverpool, UK
Freddy Lecue Thales, Canada
Cynthia Chen The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
José Hernández-Orallo Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh University of Cambridge, UK
Richard Mallah Future of Life Institute, USA
Parisa Kordjamshidi Michigan State University, USA
Kristian Kersting TU Darmstadt, Germany
Quan Guo Michigan State University, USA
Nikolaos Vasiloglou Relational AI, USA
Hannaneh Hajishirazi University of Washington, USA
Dan Roth University of Pennsylvania, USA
 Contents

Artificial Intelligence for Knowledge Management and Innovation

Translation Embeddings for Knowledge Graph Completion

in Consumer Banking Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Dongxu Shao and Rajanikanth Annam

Financial Technology and Natural Language Processing

Economic Causal-Chain Search Using Text Mining Technology . . . . . . . . . . 23

Kiyoshi Izumi and Hiroki Sakaji

Qualitative Reasoning

Support Relation Analysis for Objects in Multiple View RGB-D Images . . . . 41

Peng Zhang, Xiaoyu Ge, and Jochen Renz

Scaling-Up Reinforcement Learning

Extending Sliding-Step Importance Weighting from Supervised Learning

to Reinforcement Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Tian Tian and Richard S. Sutton

Bringing Semantic Knowledge into Vision and Text Understanding

Generative Adversarial Networks for Video Prediction

with Action Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Zhihang Hu and Jason T. L. Wang

Evaluation of Adaptive Systems for Human-Autonomy Teaming

Data Communication Assistance via Swarm Robotic:

A Behaviour Creation Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Phillip Smith, Asad Khan, Aldeida Aleti, Vincent C. S. Lee,
and Robert Hunjet

Agent-Based Complex Automated Negotiations

Numerical Abstract Persuasion Argumentation for Expressing Concurrent

Multi-Agent Negotiations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Ryuta Arisaka and Takayuki Ito
x Contents

Deep Learning for Human Activity Recognition

Action Recognition Using Co-trained Deep Convolutional

Neural Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Le Zhang, Jagannadan Varadarajan, and Yong Pei

Humanizing AI

Curriculum Learning Strategies for Hindi-English Code-Mixed

Sentiment Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Anirudh Dahiya, Neeraj Battan, Manish Shrivastava,
and Dipti Mishra Sharma

Language Sense on Computer

Comparing Conceptual Metaphor Theory-Related Features Using

Classification Algorithms in Searching for Expressions Used Figuratively
Within Japanese Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Mateusz Babieno, Rafal Rzepka, Kenji Araki, and Pawel Dybala

Artificial Intelligence Safety

CPMETRIC: Deep Siamese Networks for Metric Learning

on Structured Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Andrea Loreggia, Nicholas Mattei, Francesca Rossi,
and K. Brent Venable

Declarative Learning Based Programming

Logical Inference as Cost Minimization in Vector Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Taisuke Sato and Ryosuke Kojima

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Artificial Intelligence for Knowledge
Management and Innovation
 Artificial Intelligence for Knowledge
Management and Innovation

Eunika Mercier-Laurent1 and Mieczyslaw Lech Owoc2

1
IFIP TC12
eunika.mercier-laurent@univ-reims.fr
2
IFIP TC12.6, Wroclaw University of Economics
mieczyslaw.owoc@ue.wroc.pl

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence
Knowledge Management
Smart City

Transportation
Marketing

1 Summary

The objective of this multidisciplinary seventh workshop (initiated in Montpellier on

ECAI’2012) was to gather both researchers and practitioners to discuss methodologi-
cal, technical and organizational aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods used for
knowledge management (KM) and to share the feedback on KM applications using AI.
Accepted papers were presented in three thematically ordered sessions:
1. Intelligent Applications – including papers related to Knowledge Management in
Smart Cities, universities, and other institutions applying suited artificial intelli-
gence methods and techniques.
2. Knowledge about Humans – referring to papers on relationships between
knowledge constructs and different group of users.
3. Artificial Intelligence and Business – embracing papers devoted to business ori-
ented implementations.
After a warm welcome from the TC12 Artificial Intelligence Group chair prof.
Eunika Mercier-Laurent, our invited talk Waltraut Ritter (Knowledge Dialogues, HK)
presented the specifics and main AI solutions in the field of transportation in various
countries. She also discussed specific conditions to consider, such as population,
geographical aspects, existing barriers and tendency of formulation more universal
approaches in solving similar transportation problems using artificial intelligence
methods.
During the first session managed for the group of papers oriented on “Intelligent
Applications” Lukasz Przysucha stressed usability and potential applications repre-
senting crowdsourcing in smart city areas. Anna Reklewska (student of Wroclaw
University of Economics) tried to prove important role of Big Data technology in
development of Smart City concepts.
Problems of potential generation of Robot Operation System codes taken from
workflow with human behavior level were discussed by Takeshi Morita and Takahira
Yamaguchi. Perspectives of the usage intelligent technology (like chatbots and
 Artificial Intelligence for Knowledge Management and Innovation 3

automation of signing contracts were demonstrated by Mieczyslaw Owoc and Pawel

Weichbroth. Minar Rawat representing India Innovation Lab focused on impact of
natural language used in knowledge extraction with visual analytics option. The last
presentation of this session was by Hailang Su about hyperspectral image classification
based on advanced strategy involving deep learning.
The second session “Knowledge about Humans” begun with presentation of
semantic-based support system for merging process knowledge delivered by Krzysztof
Kluza. In turn, Xusheng Luo focused on development of e-commerce concept net
towards user needs understanding Ali-net. Maciej Pondel discussed the problem of
increasing customer loyalty supported by implementation selected machine learning
techniques. Last paper of this session was those by Hafiz Suliman on stressed usability
of deep neural network in labeling of outdoor scene.
The last session “Artificial Intelligence and Business” was initiated by Piotr
Domagala who considered Internet of Things as a source of innovation for intelligent
organizations. Discussion about translation embedding for knowledge graph comple-
tion in banking sector was performed by Dongxu Shao – this paper was awarded by
PC. The last presentation of Helena Dudycz was devoted to potential difficulties in
searching for business using semantic network visualization.
This year workshop attracted over 50 registered participants. Amid invited talk, 14
papers were presented and discussed. Electronic proceedings are available on the
WG12.6 group website http://ifipgroup.com/.
The organizers invited the authors of selected papers to extend their work that will
be published in Springer AICT series.
Finally, chairs of the workshop thanked for discussions and expressed hope for
meeting in Yokohama during 8th workshop on IJCAI-20 in Yokohama.

Fig. 1 7th AI4KM Speakers

 Translation Embeddings for Knowledge Graph
Completion in Consumer Banking Sector

Dongxu Shao(B) and Rajanikanth Annam

DBS Bank, Singapore, Singapore

{dongxushao,rajanikanth}@dbs.com

Abstract. Knowledge graphs have shown many successful applications such as

recommendation. One essential challenge of knowledge graph is link prediction,
which is to estimate the probability of a link between two nodes based on the
existing graph. Most state-of-art models to solve this problem are built using
embeddings. Experiments of previous works have been conducted on WN18 and
FB15K datasets to compare the performance. However, both datasets have sig-
nificantly different properties compared with financial data on which there is no
benchmarking of link prediction models. In this paper, we run extensive experi-
ments of recent models on real financial data, compare their performance deeply,
and show the usage of a completed knowledge graph in consumer banking sector.

Keywords: Knowledge graph · Link prediction · Consumer banking

1 Introduction
Being the largest bank in Southeast Asia1 , DBS Bank has tremendous customer data
from various sources such as demographics, payments, fund transfers and so on. As
most of the data is inter-related, graph is a promising way to store the data, analyze the
relations and extract useful insights.
Graphs storing knowledge base such as customer data are often considered as
knowledge graph, where facts in the knowledge base are represented by links in the
graph (edges between nodes). The nodes in a knowledge graph represent entities in
knowledge base and the edges represent relations. Additionally, each node and edge
could be associated with a type. For example, in the context of consumer banking, the
type of a node in the graph could be customer, merchant, or building. A link (fact) in
knowledge graph is a triplet h, r, t, where h is a node representing the subject of the
fact, t is a node representing the object, and r is the edge between the two nodes repre-
senting the relationship of the fact. As in the consumer banking example, the triplet
Bob, transf er to, Carlo is a transaction between two customers, and the triplet
Alice, with address, Orchard represents the fact that the customer Alice lives in
Orchard district.
As a benefit of the graphical structure, knowledge graph can capture interrelations
and interactions across tremendous types of entities more effectively than traditional
1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of largest banks in Southeast Asia.

c Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
A. El Fallah Seghrouchni and D. Sarne (Eds.): IJCAI 2019 Workshops, LNAI 12158, pp. 5–17, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56150-5_1
6 D. Shao and R. Annam

Table 1. Summary of popular works

Model Scoring function Parameters Time complexity Space complexity

RESCAL [12] hT Mr t h, t ∈ Rn , Mr ∈ Rn×n O(n2 ) O(n2 )
TransE [4] ||h + r − t||p h, r, t ∈ Rn O(n) O(n)
DistMult [20] hT diag(r)t h, r, t ∈ Rn O(n) O(n)
ComplEx [18] Re(hT diag(r)t̄) h, r, t ∈ Cn O(n) O(n)

methods, and hence has drawn lots of attention recently. For example, Google has
been using its Google Knowledge Graph [6] containing millions of facts and entities
to enhance its search engine’s result. DBpedia [8] is a knowledge graph extracted from
data in Wikipedia useful for question answering and fact checking.
Among the various applications of knowledge graph, link prediction is one of the
most widely used and researched. The aim of link prediction is to predict new links
between nodes based on the existing graph. It comes from the situation that many
knowledge graphs are incomplete. For example, a customer of a bank may not have
credit cards in this bank. But he or she may have cards in other banks, which cannot
be captured by the graph within the bank. Using link prediction, this customer could be
linked with a similar card issued by the bank. As link prediction can uncover unobserved
facts and intentions, it is highly useful in community detection, customer recommen-
dation, anti-money laundering, and many more. For the same reason, link prediction is
also known as knowledge graph completion.
To solve the link prediction problem, embedding-based models inspired by word
embedding [10] in text mining have been increasingly popular recently. In the embed-
ding framework, nodes and edges in a graph are all embedded into some continuous
vector space. So in a triplet h, r, t, h, r and t are represented by vectors or matri-
ces. Then a score function is proposed to measure the probability that this triplet is a
fact in the graph. Hence the embeddings are obtained by minimizing a loss function
over all relations in the graph. With the learnt embeddings, the probability that h and
t are linked by r can be estimated by the score of h, r, t. Most previous works take
the same embedding framework with different scoring function and loss function. One
straightforward model [4] is to use vector addition to composite h and r to h + r and
use Lp -norm of h + r − t to score the triplet. More models [5, 9, 13–15, 18, 19] have
been proposed with various complicated scoring functions.
Experiments of previous works have been conducted and compared on public
datasets such as WN18 about lexical relation between words and FB15k about gen-
eral facts. However, it has been pointed out [17] that for many of the triplets in these
two dataset, its reversion also belongs to the same dataset. For example, WN18 has two
relations with large number of instances: “has part” and “parts of ”. So every triplet
h, has part, t corresponds to t, part of, h in the same dataset. In the consumer
banking data, such inverse relation property only applies to a small portion of the data
such as fund transfer. More importantly, each link in the banking knowledge graph is
explicitly associated with certain types of nodes only. Hence irrelevant nodes should be
excluded in the link prediction for a given link as pointed out in [14].
 Knowledge Graph Completion in Consumer Banking 7

In this paper, we will construct a knowledge graph using real consumer banking
data from DBS Bank, run experiments of popular models with node types and link
types introduced, conduct comprehensive comparison of the performance drilled down
to relation level, and conclude the most suitable model for different relation types.
Moreover, use cases of link prediction for consumer banking will be provided.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to benchmark knowledge graph
completion models using real consumer data and propose a guideline to select models
for different relation types.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. We will review relevant literatures
in Sect. 2 and explore the details of popular models in Sect. 3. The performance of
different models on our consumer banking data will be summarized in Sect. 4. Section 5
will show some use cases and the paper will be concluded in Sect. 6.

2 Related Work
Most of the models proposed for link prediction in knowledge graph leverage embed-
ding framework. Given a triplet h, r, t and embeddings of nodes into a vector space
or matrix space, there are different approaches to score the probability of the existence
of the triplet. Popular models are summarized in Table 1 with complexity.

2.1 Translation-Based Approaches

The structured embedding model (SE) [2] embeds edges into two matrices Lh ∈ Rn
and Lt ∈ Rn , where Lh is to transform h and Lt is to transform t. Then ||Lh ·h−Lt ·t||p
is employed as the score function, where || · ||p is the Lp -norm. The idea of this model
is that if two nodes are in the same triplet, then their embedding vectors should be close
in some subspace depending on the edge. The TransE model [4] took a more direct way.
Instead of mapping an edge into two matrices, TransE embeds each edge into Rn , hence
the head node h can be translated by adding the edge vector r to obtain a candidate tail
vector h + r. Then Lp -norm is adopted to measure the distance between h + r and t.
Although SE model has a better expressiveness, it is outperformed by TransE model.
Following the idea of TransE that the tail node t is a translation from the head node
h via the edge r in the same embedding space, many models have been proposed by
extending TransE from different aspects. TransH [19] first projects the embedding vec-
tors of h and t to a hyperplane that is perpendicular to the edge embedding vector, and
then uses Lp -norm to score the projected triplet. TransR [9] generalizes TransH in the
sense that the node embedding vectors could be projected to arbitrary edge-related sub-
space. It finds a matrix Mr to each edge r and uses Lp -norm the score the transformed
difference Mr h + r − Mr t.

2.2 Bilinear Approaches

Instead of translating from head node to tail node via the edge, bilinear approaches treat
the triplets as a 3D binary tensor and score a triplet by edge-related bilinear functions
8 D. Shao and R. Annam

whose inputs are embedding vectors of h and t. RESCAL model [12] represents the
edge r by a matrix Mr in Rn×n , and scores the triplet by hT Mr t.
DistMult model [20] extends RESCAL model by setting Mr to be a diagonal matrix,
so the scoring function is hT diag(r)t, where diag(r) is the diagonal matrix whose
main diagonal is r. Hence DistMult reduces the number of learning parameters sig-
nificantly compared with RESCAL, and also outperforms RESCAL. However, neither
of these two models have considered the difference of positioning one node as head
and tail. In other words, the triplet h, r, t and the triplet t, r, h will be given the
same score. To overcome this issue, ComplEx model [18] proposes to embed nodes and
edges into complex vector space Cn instead of real space, and uses the conjugation of
the embedding vector of a node when it is in tail position, so the scoring function is
Re(hT diag(r)t̄).

2.3 Other Approaches

ConvE model [5] proposed to reshape and concatenate the embedding vectors of h and
r into a 2D array, feed the array into a convolutional neural network producing a new
vector, and score the output vector with t.
NTN model (Neural Tensor Network) [16] employs a normal neural network struc-
ture to score the triplets with a tensor layer using an edge-related tensor to connect head
node and tail node.
A type-constrained model was proposed by [3] to refine the embedding models by
excluding impossible triplets whose head node or tail node is not feasible for the edge.
Similarly, TransAt model [14] introduces the attention mechanism to address the same
challenge. The model first clusters nodes into several types and then only scores triplets
whose node types are relevant to the relation.

3 Methodology
A knowledge graph is a directed graph G = (V, E) with node type set TV and edge
type set TE . Given the set of vertices V and the set of edges E, the node type set TV
is a cover of V so that each node is associated with at least one type in TV . The edge
type set TE is a subset of the Cartesian product P (TV ) × P (TV ) where P (TV ) is the
powerset of TV . So, each edge is associated with one type connecting from one node
type to another node type. For example, the edge type with address connects from
customer nodes to district nodes.

3.1 Problem Statement

The knowledge graph can also be viewed as a set of triplets h, r, t, where h, t ∈ V ,
r ∈ TE and (h, t) is an edge in E with edge type r. Triplets existing in the knowledge
graph are considered as facts. But non-existing triplets could also be potential facts in
two scenarios. One scenario is the knowledge graph may not be necessarily complete,
so some facts could be missing in the graph. The other scenario is although h and t are
not in relation r for the time being, they have high probability to be connected by r.
 Knowledge Graph Completion in Consumer Banking 9

The link prediction problem is to estimate the probability of a triplet h, r, t to be

a fact in the given knowledge graph. Let φ be a scoring function and Θ be the set of all
embeddings, then the probability can be represented by:

P r[h, r, t|Θ] = σ(φ(h, r, t|Θ)),

where σ is an activation function such as sigmoid function.

3.2 Base Solutions

Different models solve the problem adopting different scoring function and different
loss function. In this paper, we focus on the following three models with the lowest
time complexity and space complexity.

TransE. TransE model [4] embeds all nodes and edges into Rn , and assumes that
h + l ≈ t if h, r, t is in the graph. So the scoring function is:

φ(h, r, t, Θ) = ||h + r − t||p ,

where p is either 1 or 2.
The embeddings are learnt by minimizing the following loss function over the train-
ing set D:
 
max(γ + ||h + r − t||p − ||h + r − t ||p , 0),

h,r,t∈D h ,r,t ∈Dh,r,t


where γ is a margin hyperparameter and Dh,r,t is the corruption set of h, r, t defined
by:

Dh,r,t = {h , r, t|h ∈ V } ∪ {h, r, t |t ∈ V }.

DistMult. DistMult model [20] embeds all nodes and edges into Rn , and adopts the
following scoring function:

φ(h, r, t, Θ) = hT diag(r)t,

where diag(r) is the diagonal matrix whose main diagonal is r.

This model uses the same loss function as TransE.

ComplEx. ComplEx model [18] embeds all nodes and edges into the complex vector
space Cn . In order to differentiate the head embedding and tail embedding of the same
node, it adopts an asymmetrical scoring function:

φ(h, r, t, Θ) = Re(hT diag(r)t̄),

where Re(x) is the real part of a complex number x.

10 D. Shao and R. Annam

Given the training set D, a negative set D is generated as a set of false facts. Then
the embeddings are learnt by minimizing the following loss function:

log(1 + exp(−φ(h, r, t, Θ)))+
h,r,t∈D

log(1 + exp(φ(h, r, t, Θ))) + λ||Θ||22 ,
h,r,t∈D 

where λ is the L2 -regularization parameter.

3.3 Type Restriction

Given a relation r and all triplets with this relation in the graph, define its head candidate
set as the collection of node types of the head nodes in these triplets:

H(r) = {τ ∈ TV |∃h, r, t, h ∈ τ },

and define its tail candidate set similarly:

T (r) = {τ ∈ TV |∃h, r, t, t ∈ τ }.

Suppose Θ has been learnt from some model whose scoring function is φ. When
scoring a new candidate triplet h, r, t, refine φ to be negative infinity if h ∈ H(r) or
t ∈ T (r). In other words, if the type of h or t does not match with the type of r, then
this potential link should be ignored in the knowledge graph completion process.

4 Experiments
A knowledge graph of customers in DBS Bank has been constructed where the eval-
uation of the three most efficient models will be conducted. The models are evaluated
with different performance measurements and drilled down to relation level.

4.1 Datasets
To evaluate the models on real data, the knowledge graph constructed with DBS cus-
tomers involves money transfer between customers, demographics, credit cards and
merchants.
Specifically, there are 6 types of node and 6 types of relation in the knowledge
graph. Node types are listed in Table 2 with description. Table 3 describes the relations
with corresponding percentage in the graph, showing that 60% of the links are from
relation with mcc.
The data source of the knowledge graph covers the first half year of 2018. In other
words, only transactions happened between Jan 2018 and Jun 2018 are captured in the
graph, and all demographics information are updated until Jun 2018.
Most of the previous works were evaluated on FB15K and WN18 datasets pro-
vided by [4], containing 14,951 and 40,943 nodes respectively. FB15K is a collection
 Knowledge Graph Completion in Consumer Banking 11

Table 2. Node types in the knowledge graph

Node type Description

Customer A customer DBS
Occupation Occupation of customers
District A residence district
Age Group Ages are binned into 10’s
Credit Card Type Type of credit card
Merchant Type Type of merchant

Table 3. Relations in the knowledge graph

Relation Percentage Head node Tail node Description

with occupation 8.44% Customer Occupation The head is with this occupation
with address 8.44% Customer District The head lives in this district
with age 8.44% Customer Age Group The age of the head is in this age group
with card 9.56% Customer Credit Card Type The head has a credit card of this type
with mcc 59.94% Customer Merchant Type The head spent in merchant of this type
transfer to 5.18% Customer Customer The head transferred money to the tail

of general facts retrieved from Freebase [1] and WN18 is a collection of lexical relation
between words retrieved from WordNet [11]. To compare the performance on datasets
with comparable scale, our knowledge graph is built on a subset of customers and split
into training, validation and testing datasets on a ratio of 8:1:1. The metadata is sum-
marized in Table 4.

4.2 Performance Measurement

The performance of the models is evaluated by MRR, HITS@1, HITS@3 and
HITS@10 as in [4]. To make this paper self-contained, the definitions of these mea-
surements are explained below.
Let V = {ej |j = 1, · · · , m} be the set of nodes in the knowledge graph, and
T = {xi |i = 1, · · · , n} be the testing set, where xi is a triplet hi , ri , ti . For each test

Table 4. Datasets metadata

Dataset # Node # Relation # Edge in Train/Valid/Test

FB15K 14,951 1,345 483,142/50,000/59,071
WN18 40,943 18 141,442/5,000/5,000
DBS 16,729 6 154,280/19,285/19,285
12 D. Shao and R. Annam

Table 5. Overall performance on DBS data

MRR HITS@1 HITS@3 HITS@10

Model Filtered Raw Filtered Raw Filtered Raw Filtered Raw
TransE 0.169 0.112 0.002 0.001 0.305 0.167 0.440 0.353
DistMult 0.257 0.116 0.180 0.069 0.310 0.108 0.400 0.270
ComplEx 0.288 0.116 0.207 0.070 0.347 0.100 0.435 0.274
TransE (Type Restriction) 0.324 0.180 0.237 0.097 0.377 0.208 0.494 0.371
DistMult (Type Restriction) 0.310 0.149 0.216 0.084 0.368 0.145 0.492 0.341
ComplEx (Type Restriction) 0.318 0.141 0.221 0.080 0.383 0.129 0.497 0.328

triplet xi , define its head corruption set by replacing its head node with any other node
in the graph:
C h (xi ) = {h, ri , ti |(h ∈ V ) ∧ (h = hi )}.
And define its tail corruption set by replacing its tail node with any other node in
the graph:
C t (xi ) = {hi , ri , t|(t ∈ V ) ∧ (t = ti )}.
Hence a good model is supposed to score xi higher than its corruptions. Let φ be
the scoring function, then compute the rank of xi in its corruptions using φ as follows:

rankih = 1 + I(φ(xi ) < φ(x)),
x∈C h (xi )

and 
rankit = 1 + I(φ(xi ) < φ(x)),
x∈C t (xi )

where I(τ ) = 1 if and only if τ is true.

Then the Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR) is defined as the harmonic mean of head
rank and tail rank:
1  1 1
M RR = ( + t ),
2|T | h
ranki ranki
x ∈T i

and HITS@k is defined as the portion of test triplets whose rank is no larger than k:
1 
HIT S@k = [I(rankih ≤ k) + I(rankit ≤ k)].
2|T |
xi ∈T

Since the target of the models is to give higher score to links existing in the graph, it
should not be considered as a mistake to score a test triplet xi lower than its corruption
x if x is also valid in the graph. For this reason, a filtered version of MRR and HITS@k
is defined using refined corruptions by removing valid triplets:

Cfhiltered (xi ) = {h, ri , ti |(h ∈ V ) ∧ (h = hi )} \ G,

Cft iltered (xi ) = {hi , ri , t|(t ∈ V ) ∧ (t = ti )} \ G,

 Knowledge Graph Completion in Consumer Banking 13

where G is the set of triplets in the knowledge graph.

For simplicity, the original measurements are denoted as “Raw” and the filtered
ones as “Filtered”.

4.3 Experiment Setup

For each model in the experiment2 , we test with different initial learning rates among
{0.05, 0.01, 0.005, 0.001} and different embedding dimensions among {50, 100, 150,
200, 250, 300}, and the best combination will be selected according to MRR (Raw).
Then the performance will be compared across different models with and without
type restriction at both overall level and relation level for “Raw” and “Filtered” mea-
surements.

4.4 Comparison

The performance of TransE, DistMult and ComplEx models with and without type
restriction is shown in Table 5, which is much lower than the performance on WN18
and FB15K datasets as reported in [18].
For models without type restriction, ComplEx gives the best performance on MRR
and HITS@1 for both Raw and Filtered and HITS@3 Filtered, and TransE is the best for
HITS@10 for both Raw and Filtered and HITS@3 Raw. It shows that without type restric-
tion, ComplEx is better at identifying only few most possible triplets. In other words, if
the aim is to obtain a small number of new links, ComplEx should be used because it has
the best HITS@1 performance. On the other hand, with a larger number of new links to
pick out, TransE model should be used because it has the best HITS@10 performance.
It is obvious that the performance has been uplifted significantly by type restriction.
With type restriction, TransE model outperforms DistMult and ComplEx for almost all
measurements except Filtered HITS@3 and Filtered HITS@10.

Table 6. Relation level filtered MRR for type restriction

Relation TransE DistMult ComplEx

with occupation 0.2731 0.2727 0.2846
with address 0.0575 0.0570 0.0605
with age 0.3767 0.4164 0.4164
with card 0.3988 0.3784 0.3996
with mcc 0.3787 0.3530 0.3606
transfer to 0.0062 0.0057 0.0010

The relation level Filtered MRR performance for models with type restric-
tion is shown in Table 6. ComplEx model has the best performance on relation

2
The implementation uses public code at https://github.com/mana-ysh/knowledge-graph-
embeddings with reduced running time.
14 D. Shao and R. Annam

with occupation, with address and with card, while TransE model performs the
best for relations with mcc and transf er to where TransE model is the best.
As in the graph each customer has only one occupation, one address and one age,
so with occupation, with address and with card are Many-to-One relations. On the
other hand, as one customer could have more than one merchant type and transfer to
more than on customer, and one merchant type could be linked to multiple customers,
with mcc and transf er to are Many-to-Many relations. Hence, ComplEx is more
suitable for Many-to-One relations and TransE is more suitable for Many-to-Many rela-
tions. Since the relation with mcc is dominating the graph as shown in Table 3, TransE
has the best overall performance.
It is worth pointing out that transf er to is the only relation in the graph whose head
node and tail node are from the same type, and ComplEx performs much worse than the
other two models on this relation. So, ComplEx should be avoided for graphs with large
portion of Many-to-Many relations or relations connecting nodes with the same type.

5 Use Case

The link prediction on a knowledge graph has many useful applications in consumer
banking sector. It uncovers relations which is unobserved now but has high probability
to be a fact.

Fig. 1. Example of completed knowledge graph

Generally, there are two types of unobserved links. One type is links existing beyond
DBS data. For example, there is no fund transfer between two customers within DBS,
but they may have fund transfer through other banks. The other type is links to be true.
For example, a customer does not have DBS credit card. But based on the connections
 Knowledge Graph Completion in Consumer Banking 15

from this customer to other customers and products, there is some card suitable for
this customer. With the knowledge graph completed using link prediction, we can get a
better understand about what our customers intend to do.
Suppose we have a sample knowledge graph completed using link prediction as
illustrated by Fig. 1. Solid edges in the graph are existing ones and dashed edges are
obtained from link prediction.

5.1 Personalized Recommendation

There are lots of products offered by the bank or partners of the bank. For each of the
product, most suitable target customers need to be identified. If one predictive model
is developed to identify the target customers for every product, it requires much time
and resources. More efficiently, the knowledge graph provides a one-stop solution to
generate target customers for all products.
Given a customer in the graph such as Bob in the example, it is straightforward to
find out the products which connects to Bob by predicted link. In other words, Bob has
high probability to hold a travelling credit card. As he is not holding the card now, it
will be more effective to recommend travelling credit card to Bob.
The recommendation could also be real-time. Suppose Alice in the example logged
in to her internet banking. With a simple query on the graph for first-degree product
connections of Alice, it will be discovered that she has high probability to hold shopping
credit card and treasures product. Then the internet banking system will display banners
of shopping credit card and treasures product on the website she is surfing.

5.2 Member-Get-Member
Member-Get-Member (MGM) is an important channel for the bank to acquire new trea-
sures customers. The targeting customers of MGM are customers who have treasures
products and have many first-degree customer connections.
As in the example, Bob has treasures investment and he connects to Alice. Without
link prediction, he has only 1 first-degree customer connection which is Alice. However,
he has high probability to connect Carlo given by link prediction. There may be transfers
from Bob to Carlo through other banks. So, it is more reasonable to count Bob’s number
of first-degree customer connections as 2.
Targeting customers with more first-degree customer connections including pre-
dicted links, it can capture intended connections of customers, making MGM more
profitable.

6 Conclusions
Extensive experiments have been conducted using DBS datasets for different models.
The performance is much lower than that on the public datasets.
Type restriction can improve the model performance significantly. With type restric-
tion, ComplEx model performs best on Many-to-One relations while TransE model has
the best performance on Many-to-Many relations. Additionally, ComplEx model has
very low performance on relations linking nodes with the same type.
16 D. Shao and R. Annam

References
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Financial Technology and Natural
Language Processing
 Financial Technology and Natural Language
Processing

Chung-Chi Chen1, Hen-Hsen Huang2, Hiroya Takamura3, and Hsin-Hsi Chen4,5

1
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering,
National Taiwan University
2
Department of Computer Science, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
3
Artificial Intelligence Research Center, AIST, Japan
4
Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taiwan
University
5
MOST Joint Research Center for AI Technology and All Vista Healthcare, Taiwan

Abstract. The 1st FinNLP workshop was held in conjunction with IJCAI-
2019. There were 13 oral presentations, 8 posters, and 71 registered partici-
pants from both academia and industry. In this paper, we will introduce the
topics in the workshop and illustrate the future research directions for NLP in
FinTech applications.

1 Innovation in the 1st FinNLP Workshop

Applying artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the efficiency of humans is one of the
trends recently. In this workshop, we focus on the problems of the financial industry.
The followings are the topics discussed in this year FinNLP. Many works dealt with
market information prediction via end-to-end models. However, if machines plan to
capture the fine-grained information embedded in the documents, more in-depth works
are needed. Explainable AI is one of the rise topics in the hype cycle for AI. Extracting
the cause-effect is a potential approach for explaining the outcomes of the models. The
best paper, entitled “Economic Causal-Chain Search using Text Mining Technology”,
is related to this topic. Evaluating the rationales behind the decisions is an additional
issue after extracting the reason. For instance, different rationales may cause different
influence to the results.
Legal issues are also important for enterprises, especially, for the department of
compliance. Leveraging machine learning techniques, the enterprises can predict the
possible litigations based on the multi-dimensional information of the companies. The
fine-grained analysis of the contracts or other legal instruments could help understand
the background knowledge of the models and thus further improve the performance.
Know your customers (KYC) is also an important topic for enterprises, particularly, for
the bank. Evaluating the credit and the trustworthiness of the customers is a routing
work in the bank. With machine learning and natural language understanding
methodologies, the accuracy of the evaluation could be improved. Anti-money
Another random document with
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 Papa gave him a little counsel in a low tone of voice, but I do not
think he listened very attentively. He was a boy without a bit of
sentiment or tender regard. He merely sang out—“Good-bye, old
chap,” to Louis, and though he thanked us for our kindness, it was
only from a gentlemanly instinct. Then he sprang into the stage and
was off.
“I do not know whether I should like to have such a son or not,”
mamma said slowly, as we entered papa’s study. “He is bright and
manly and entertaining, but he leaves you with a feeling that out of
sight is out of mind.”
“I have tried to sow a little good seed;” yet papa shook his head
gravely.
“But you are afraid it is in sandy ground;” Fan added, with a touch
of comforting sweetness in her voice. “I haven’t much faith in its
bearing fruit, and yet I do believe he has come to have more
consideration for Louis. He has not tormented him half as much
lately. That would be one point gained.”
“Yes. After all, I have more hope of Louis. The struggle will be
much harder, for his temperament and his health are against him,
but he will be steadier in anything he undertakes. I have become
deeply interested in both of them, and I do not feel as if it was going
to end here.”
It seemed as if the day was to be rendered memorable for us. In
the midst of the talk came a sudden hard ring. I answered it and
found Mr. Fairlie’s man with a frightened look in his face.
“If you please, Miss—is your father in?” he asked.
“Papa!”
He came at the summons.
“The master is—very bad, sir. They want to see you right away.
Mister Dick is taking it very hard.”
“Mr. Fairlie!” exclaimed papa in amaze.—“Why, I saw him
yesterday, and well.”
 “He’s been rather queer in his head for two or three days. It was
the sun or something.—And about midnight he was taken. The
Doctor has given him up now.”
“Yes,” said papa, bewildered. “I’ll be there directly.”
“I’ve the wagon here for you, sir.”
He just kissed mamma and went without another word. Such calls
left no room for discussions.
“It cannot be possible!” ejaculated Fan.
“Mrs. Fairlie and Kate away!” said mamma. “How very sad.”
We had not the heart to talk about it and separated for our
morning’s employment. School had begun again, so I made the
children ready. Nelly had just entered the Seminary. Then I put my
rooms in order while Fan assisted in the kitchen. Tabby came up
stairs followed by her small gray and white kitten, who was a puffy
ball of frolic. She glanced around the room in a curious, complacent
fashion.
“Yes, Tabby,” I said, “the plague of your life has departed. Mrs.
Whitcomb will be here next, and you know she is fond of you, so
your troubles are ending. I don’t believe we have learned to like boys
so very much, after all.”
“No,” returned Tabby, with a grave whisk of the tail, while the kitten
made a vigorous attack on the bits of sunshine quivering through the
great sycamore leaves.
I went down stairs and sewed awhile in the nursery. Dinner came,
but no papa. Louis had returned from his drive and looked very
cheerful. We could not wait on account of the children, and
unconsciously his prolonged absence gave us a little hope.
It was dashed down presently. The church bell began to toll. We
glanced at each other in a startled way.
“Poor Dick!” said Fan, turning her head, and I knew her eyes were
full of tears. I could not help a curious thought. What if this sorrow
should bring them together?
 Miss Churchill made us a nice long call in the afternoon, and
before she had gone papa returned. Dick had begged him to stay
and go to the station for Mrs. Fairlie who had just come, and do
several other special errands for him. The ladies had stopped on
their homeward way at the house of a cousin in Bridgeport, and were
thus easily reached by telegraph.
“What a terrible shock!” exclaimed Miss Churchill. “A man in
almost perfect health, too; though Dr. Hawley I believe mentioned his
having some trouble with his heart. Was that the cause?”
“I have no doubt it helped materially. He had complained of a dull,
heavy headache for two or three days, and yesterday he was out in
the sun which appeared to affect him a good deal. At midnight he
was taken with paralysis. But brief as the time was it found him
ready. He seemed to have gleams of consciousness and knew me at
intervals. His trust was staid upon God, and there was no fear, no
shrinking.”
“He has been a good, upright man. Kenton always esteemed him
highly.”
“He was more than that, Miss Churchill, he was an earnest
Christian. If the household had been of one mind, workers in the
vineyard, he would have lived a fuller and more joyous christian life.
But we are to work our way through hindrances. God gave him grace
and strength and perfected him in good deeds. I feel as if I had lost
my mainstay in the church. He was not a man of many words, but
you could rely upon him to the uttermost. And though I shall grieve
for a true and staunch friend, I shall also rejoice that he has gone to
his reward, better far than any earthly happiness.”
“You loved him very much,” said Miss Churchill, deeply moved.
“I did indeed.”
“The loss is dreadful to his family.”
“My heart ached for Richard. He and his father were tender
friends, and the watching through long hours, the not being able to
give him up, was agonizing in the extreme. Mrs. Fairlie was stunned
by the suddenness.”
 “I wonder if I could be any—comfort to her?” Miss Churchill
questioned slowly.
“I wish you would call to-morrow,” said papa. “I don’t know but I
shall have to come to you and your brother now.”
“I am sure I should be glad to give you any assistance in my
power. I have been thinking lately that we live quite too much for
ourselves.”
“For the night cometh in which no man can work,” said papa
solemnly.
An awe fell over us all. One and another dropped in to wonder at
the occurrence. Sudden deaths always shock a community greatly.
Even the children did not want to play but sat on the porch steps and
looked into vacancy. Louis went up stairs directly after supper, but I
heard him pacing his room restlessly. I had put the little ones to bed
and was going down stairs when he called.
“Did you want anything?” I inquired.
“No—that is—are you busy?”
“Not especially.”
“I am going away so soon;” he said apologetically.
“And if I can do anything for you, I shall be glad to,” I made answer
cheerfully. “Shall I come in and read?”
“Thank you—I don’t care about that, I am in an odd, inconsequent
mood to night. Suppose you talk to me? I believe your voice has a
soothing effect.”
“Let us go down on the porch. It is cooler.”
“Where are the others?”
“Papa and Fanny have gone for a call. Mamma is in the nursery.”
“O, I wanted only you.”
“Come down then.”
 I brought an easy chair out on the porch, and dropped into my own
small rocker. Tabby came along and crawled in my lap, turning round
three times and settling herself regardless of the welfare of her small
child, though I dare say she was asleep in some one’s slipper. The
moon was nearly at its full and made silvery shadows through the
interstices of the vines. The dewy air was fragrant and the night
musical with chirp and hum of countless insects.
“It is quite a relief to be rid of Stuart,” he began presently. “And
when I am gone you will doubtless feel still more comfortable.”
“I think you are quite comfortable to get on with now;” I said
cheerfully.
“Which implies—there was a time. Miss Endicott, do you think I
have improved any?”
“I do not know as it would be hardly fair to judge you by the first
week or two. You were on the eve of a severe illness, with your
nervous system completely disorganized.”
“But since then—be honest?”
“I think you have been pleasanter, more considerate, not so easily
ruffled;” I answered slowly.
“Please don’t fancy me fishing for compliments.”
“Compliments from me would not be so very flattering to one’s
vanity. They do not carry weight enough.”
“You believe that one could overcome—any fault?” after a pause
between the words.
“With God’s help—yes.”
“Without God’s help—what then?”
I was always so afraid of going astray in these talks. I could feel
what I meant, but I could not explain it clearly.
“‘Every good and perfect gift cometh from God,’” I made answer.
“And the desire to be better or stronger, to overcome any fault, must
proceed from Him.”
 “Then why doesn’t he make Christians perfect?”
“God gives us the work to do. He says, ‘My grace shall be
sufficient for thee.’ Therefore we are to strive ourselves. He shows
us the right way, but if we seek out other paths, or if we sink into
indolence waiting for an angel to come and move our idle hands or
stir up our languid wills, can we reasonably blame Him?”
“I had not thought of that, I must confess. I had a fancy that—
religion did all these things for you.”
“What then is the Christian warfare? You know that grand old St.
Paul had to fight to the last, that he might not be a cast-away. Yet I
think no one ever doubted the genuineness of his conversion.”
“But if a man of his own determination, resolved, he could do a
great deal.”
“I should be weak to deny it. People have achieved heroic
victories, suffered pain and shame and death bravely for pride, or
some chosen idea. Only when it is done for the sake of Him who
saved us, it becomes so much the more noble. It is obeying Him.”
“Is it an easy thing to be good, Miss Endicott?”
“Not for every one,” I said.
“You admit that natures are different?”
“I do, cheerfully. Some people have very little self-control, others a
great deal. But it is strengthened by use, like a limb.”
“I have very little?”
“I did not say that.”
“But you know I have.”
“Papa said your temperament and your health were against you!”
“Did he say that?” was the eager question. “Well there are a
hundred things—I sometimes have such headaches that I can hardly
tell where I am, and if anything bothers me I feel as if I could stamp
on it, crush it out of existence. And if it is a person—”
 “Oh,” I cried, “don’t please! That is murder in one’s heart.”
“And when any one annoys Stuart he laughs at him, flings, jeers
and exasperates. It is his way, yet every one thinks he has a lovely
temper. He makes others angry. I have seen him get half a class by
the ears, and in such a mess that no one knew what was the matter.
—I do not believe I ever in my life set about making another person
angry. But I cannot stand such things. They stir up all the bad blood
in me.”
“So you need patience, first of all.”
“But I can’t stop to think.”
“Ah, that is just it. Stopping to think saves us. And when we have
our great Captain to remember, and are endeavoring to walk in the
path He marked out for us, it makes it easier. We are trying for the
sake of one we love.”
“What else do I want?”
“Don’t ask me, please,” I entreated.
“Yes. I shall not let you evade me. Write me some copies to take
with me. Patience—what next?”
“Cheerfulness;” seeing that he compelled me to it. “Your nature is
morbid and melancholy. Just try to think that people will like you.
“But they do not.”
“Then you must give them something to like. Suppose we all hid
away our brightness?”
He laughed.
“It would be a rather blue world. But to try for admiration.”
“You don’t try for admiration. You give freely of the very best you
have. You remember about the little boy who hid his cake away until
it was mouldy and spoiled?”
“I believe you always give of the best here. And you never seem to
have any lack.”
 “Did you ever break off a sprig of lemon verbena? Three new
shoots come in its place. When I was a little girl mamma explained it
to me, and said that if you nipped off one bit of pleasantness for a
friend or neighbor, something grew instantly for the next one. You
never give away all your joy and good feeling.”
He sighed a little, and said slowly—
“I believe I shall begin with my temper. I have always known that it
was bad, and expected to keep it all my life, but if it could be made a
little more reasonable!”
“I am sure it can, if you will try. It is hard work to be fighting
continually, to be on your guard against surprises, and sometimes to
have your best efforts misunderstood, yet it seems to me a grand
thing to gain a victory over one’s self.”
“You make it so;” he replied in a half doubtful tone.
“I wish you could be good friends with papa. He is so much wiser,
and can explain the puzzles. When you came to know him well you
would like him, you couldn’t help it.”
“Sometime—when I want such a friend;” he answered a trifle
coldly.
The voices sounded on the walk just then, and in a few moments
they came up. We had no special talk after that.
Mamma went over to Mrs. Fairlie’s the next day and met Miss
Churchill there. Kate had been in violent hysterics all night. They
appeared so utterly helpless. What should they do about black?
There wasn’t any thing decent in Wachusett! And could Mrs. Fairlie
find a long widow’s veil any where? There would not be time to send
to the city.
“I am quite sure that Mrs. Silverthorne has one. Hers was very
beautiful and she never wore it but a little; and a plain bonnet will
do.”
“Thank you, Miss Churchill. How kind you are. But I cannot
understand why this grief should come upon me.”
 “God’s ways are not as our ways;” said mamma.
“But Mr. Fairlie was needed so much. I don’t know how I can live
without him!”
Mamma and Miss Churchill soothed and tried to comfort. Each
took a few orders on leaving.
“My objection to mourning is just this,” said Miss Churchill, when
they were seated in her basket phaeton. “In the midst of your grief
you have to stop and think wherewithal you shall be clothed. Dress-
makers and milliners are your constant care for the first month.”
“The fashion of this world;” mamma replied a little sadly.
That afternoon Louis received a telegram from his cousin. He
would meet him the next noon at the station in a through train, that
there might be no lost time. He only packed a valise, as his trunk
would be sent to Wilburton. We said our good-byes in quite a friendly
fashion. He appeared really grateful and sorry to leave us. Papa
went to the station with him and returned in an unusually grave
mood.
We kept up to the tense point of excitement until after Mr. Fairlie’s
funeral. It was largely attended, and very solemn and affecting.
Indeed, nearly every heart ached for Kate and her mother.
“But I do believe Dick suffers the most;” Fanny said. “I never saw
any one so changed in a few days.”
Afterward the will was read. The farm was bequeathed to Richard.
Stocks, bonds and mortgages were divided between Mrs. Fairlie and
Kate, who were thus made quite rich women. They could go to
Europe now.
I found myself wondering a little what Mr. Fairlie’s life would have
been with different surroundings. The Fairlies in their way were as
old and as good a family as the Churchills, only they did not happen
to settle at the West Side, and had gone a little more into active
business. But they did not lay claim to any special position or
grandeur. This had always seemed to mortify Mrs. Fairlie somewhat.
“Mr. Fairlie is so old-fashioned,” she would say complainingly. “There
was no getting him out of the one groove.” She wanted to make a
show, to have people admit that she was somebody.—She went to
church regularly and would have been much offended not to have
been considered an important member. She gave to the Christmas
and Easter feasts and adornings, but for the poor or the needy sick
she rarely evinced any sympathy. Her duty stopped at a certain
point, the rest of her time, money, and interest was distinctly her
own. So the husband and wife lived separate lives, as it were.
Would Richard’s fate repeat the same confused and tangled
story? No doubt his mother would desire him to marry well in worldly
point of view. She might even object to Fan on the score of money.
Would he have the courage to suit himself? For what he needed was
a sweet, domestic woman with the culture that did not disdain every
day matters. His tastes were simple and homelike, yet he was by no
means dull. He wanted a woman to honor him, to put him in his true
position as head of the family.
Would Providence bring him happiness, or discipline only?
 CHAPTER XII.

HE next thing that happened to us was—though to be

exact, it was two events. In the morning papa had a
long, lovely letter from Stephen Duncan, enclosing a
check for two hundred dollars on the boys’ account, and
one for fifty to mamma, to fill up the chinks made by the
sickness, he said. The Doctor’s bill he would settle when he came
home. Papa read most of it aloud, and I saw mamma’s sweet, dark
eyes fill with tears.
We were beginning a new week, and alone by ourselves. That
always reminds me of the story papa used to tell of a traveler who
passed a house where there were seven children sitting on the
stoop, and seven on the fence, all crying as hard as they could cry,
so he paused to ask what dreadful thing had happened.
“Oh,” said they with one voice, “our mother has gone away and left
us all alone!”
It was pretty much the same with us, only we did not cry for any
one gone away. It was delightful to have our house by ourselves.—
Though it seemed so queer that we lounged around and amused
each other making wonderful plans.
In the afternoon Mrs. Whitcomb arrived with her large basket. We
all rushed out and kissed her, and almost distracted her with our
avalanche of news. Fan untied her bonnet, I took her shawl and
mamma turned one glove into the other after her own careful
fashion.
“The wear seems to have told most upon you, Mrs. Endicott,” she
said with sweet solicitude. “First of all, girls, your mother must have a
holiday!”
We looked at each other blankly, then laughed.
“She shall have whatever is best;” returned Fan with much dignity.
 “Then she must go away. Let me see—among the mountains
somewhere, to an old farm-house where she can have milk, and
sweet corn, and sleep eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. She
must not take a stitch of sewing.”
“Splendid!” I declared, clapping my hands.
“Oh,” exclaimed Nelly, “won’t you go to Auntie Vandevere’s,
mamma? They want you to come so much.”
“Now there is a place provided,” said Mrs. Whitcomb. “You know
you were going all last summer and did not get started. It is just the
season to enjoy yourself. The girls and I can keep house. We will
have everything bright as a new gilt button on your return.—And
Edith is so good, or you might take one of the children to mind her.
Children come in so handy.”
“O mamma, me!” and Tim jumped up and down as incoherently as
her sentence.
“The house cleaning—” protested mamma faintly, Tim’s arms
being around her neck in a strangling fashion by this time.
“We will clean house, mend the stockings, weed the flower beds,
and keep matters straight. You will hardly know the place when you
return.”
“Here, Tim, look after your village! Baby has commenced to
devour the cows, and I think them a rather heavy article of diet for
her just yet.”
“What is one little make-believe cow?” said Tim disdainfully.
“Well, pick up the fragments. And here is Miss Dolly looking tired
and sleepy. Then run out and play.”
“We don’t want to;” cried the younger ones in chorus.
“Well, have your own way;” and Fan sat down in mock despair. “I
am determined to be obeyed in some respect.”
After we had them all snugly tucked in bed that evening, the elders
discussed the plan again. Papa approved of it so strongly that he
wrote the letter immediately.
 “But there is so much to do,” declared mamma. “I intended to
change the girls to the front chamber and put Nelly and Daisy in
theirs. And we want a new carpet for the study, and—oh, I don’t
believe I can go!”
“There is always some path out of the woods;” said Mrs. Whitcomb
when our laugh had subsided. “You need the rest—that is the
strongest argument. And I have come to help. You cannot make me
company if you try.”
On the following day we had it all out straight. The three seniors
were to go to Westburg on Thursday and buy everything they could
lay their hands upon. Friday afternoon mamma was to take her
journey. The next week on Wednesday or Thursday papa was to go
up after her, the two to come home on Saturday. There it was all as
plain and easy as “twice two” in the multiplication table.
They started bright and early in the morning. Fan and I went at the
front chamber. There was not much to do, for the walls were
papered. Ann cleaned the paint, we washed windows and rubbed the
paper with a soft cloth, then she shook the carpet for us and we
tacked it down.
“It seems odd to move over to this side of the house,” said Fan,
“but I shall like it ever so much. And Nell will be so pleased. She
hates to be packed like pins in a paper. But now comes the tug of
war—clothes, bureau drawers, odds and ends, and the plagues of
Egypt.”
“O no;” I returned laughingly.
“Well—flies, anyhow. They are not all gone.”
There was a large old-fashioned chest of drawers in the room. We
brought in our dainty bureau with its pretty glass, and I gave up all
the drawers to Fan, taking the other. There was a nice wardrobe for
our dresses and boxes. When Nelly returned from school she helped
with our pictures and brackets, and we had ourselves as well as our
room in order before the travelers returned. Baby had been good as
an angel all day. I dressed her clean and put on one of the pretty
bibs that Daisy had crocheted, and Ann had the supper table in
readiness.
They were all tired, enough, though we had bound them by
solemn promises not to do any of our fall shopping. They had made
a few calls, selected the carpet and made arrangements to have
papa’s study chair covered with Russia leather. So we kissed them
and made them welcome, both ladies being somewhat surprised by
our day’s work.
It was beautiful on Friday, and there was not the least shadow of
an excuse for mamma to stay. Not that we were so very glad to have
her go, after all, but we knew it would bring forth good fruit in the
end. Tim was about half crazy and brought all her play-things to be
packed up, but mamma compromised by taking her large rag doll, as
the baby could play with that.
“Girls,” said Mrs. Whitcomb on Saturday morning, “suppose we
begin at the other rooms. Nelly and Daisy can do a good deal in the
way of helping. I want to get the house all in order before your
mother returns. And there will be the carpet to make the first of the
week.”
“Agreed;” we all said, and went at it with a good will. Daisy
declared “that it was almost as splendid as moving, and she hoped
sometime we would move.” She was too young to remember the
discomforts of our coming to Wachusett.
This was a regular frolic. Mrs. Whitcomb was so charming with her
ways of quiet fun and odd bits of wisdom. Like mamma, she knew
how to begin at the right end, and make matters go on smoothly.
There is such a difference in that. She kept the children good-
natured and we were all as busy as bees.
Just as we were hurrying our utmost, about mid-afternoon a
carriage stopped. Daisy ran to the side window to reconnoitre.
“It is the Maynards,” she announced, “and a whole load of ladies.”
“Some one must go—Rose!”
“O, dear, no, not—”
 “For Joe, to be slangy,” and Fan laughed. “But you have just
finished the carpet, and you are the eldest, and you can brush up
your hair so quickly. Here, wash your face and I’ll get out your
dress.”
I washed and brushed, or rather just ran the comb through my hair
and twisted it in a great knot, put on some tidy slippers and a blue
cambric with ruffles at the wrist and throat. While I was fastening my
brooch Fan tied a pale blue ribbon in my hair.
“There, you look as sweet as a pink, only I never saw any blue
pinks. Don’t say you are just out of the soap-suds. Remember to
uphold the family credit.”
It was “all of the Maynards,” and a very elegant young gentleman.
Mrs. Silverthorne and the Misses Maynards were going West next
week, and had come to make a farewell call. They were very sorry to
miss mamma—how could we get along without her?
I said Mrs. Whitcomb was here taking charge of us.
“There;” began Mrs. Silverthorne, “Matilda, I don’t see why you
can’t get her to come and stay with grandma this winter, and you go
to the City for two months or so. I am sure if Mrs. Endicott feels it
safe to leave all of her children, you might leave just one person.”
“Mamma has the baby and my youngest sister with her,” I
returned. “And she only expects to stay a week.”
I could not see that the cases were at all parallel.
“Well, this Mrs. Whitcomb is a nice, trusty sort of person, is she
not? Doesn’t she take care of sick people?”
“Yes; she is very lovely.”
“That is only for your equals, my child;” she returned patronizingly.
I flushed but made no answer.
“Whose crayon drawing?” asked Miss Maynard, making a tour of
inspection through the room.
“My sister Fanny’s.”
 “O—the one with that lovely golden hair—is it not? Miss Lucy
Churchill raves about her. Why she has quite a talent. Does she
think of studying?”
“Not at present;” I replied.
“She is very young;” said Mrs. Maynard.
“If I were not going away I should be pleased to give her some
lessons. I think one ought to foster talent when one is in a position to
do it.”
“Thank you;” I returned with a little pride. “Miss Churchill intends to
give her lessons.”
“Indeed! Well, I have some friends connected with the School of
Design in New York. I might do something for her there.”
I simply thanked her again.
They left regrets and kind messages, and swept through the hall in
a complacent fashion.
I ran up stairs and took off my dress in a hurry.
“It wasn’t worth the trouble;” I declared with some disgust. “I really
think I could find more intellectual enjoyment in tacking down
carpets. I am sure I could in hanging pictures.”
“What a depraved taste! And West Side people, too!”
“I can’t help it, Miss Churchill would have been charming.” Then I
repeated Miss Maynard’s offers.
“Very thoughtful of her;” said Fan dryly.—“People in her position
can do many nice things if they try. I would not have hung that
picture in the parlor if it had not been for papa.”
“Our parlor is our own,” replied I.
“No, it belongs in part to the parish.”
Mrs. Whitcomb laughed at that.
“Oh, won’t this room be lovely,” said Nelly. “Why, I could swing
Tabby around in it without hitting the children!”
 “Let me catch you swinging Tabby! She has passed through
purgatory.”
“And these book-shelves are just the thing. Daisy, they are mine,
do you understand? If I find one of your books here I shall put it in
the middle of the floor.”
“That will have one merit at least, I can see it there.”
We finished the two rooms by night, and then had callers all the
evening. But Sunday without mamma seemed quite out of the order
of things. I knew papa felt lost, though we all tried to do our best.
Once it came into my mind what the house would be without her
forever, and my eyes filled with tears. We sat together an hour after
church, talking about her.
We went to work again the first of the week. The carpet had come
and was very pretty. A mossy, fine figured vine in two shades of
green, with a dash of crimson here and there. The lounge had been
covered the year before with green reps and still looked bright.
“How pretty it will be!” I said, “I am all impatience to see it down
and the room in order. The carpet comes just like a present, doesn’t
it?”
“We have forgotten the work and the worry.”
“Perhaps it was a good thing for us. And somehow I do believe it
will prove good for Louis Duncan.”
“When will we go at the study, Mrs. Whitcomb?”
“Not until your father is out of the house.”
A ring at the bell startled us.
“West Side again;” said Mrs. Whitcomb;—“Miss Churchill.”
“O, please come in here;” exclaimed Fanny with a laugh. “It is only
a step from—dress-making to carpets.”
“Is it?” and she smiled. “Who is going to be so pretty?”
“Papa. Our study carpet was a thing of—shreds and patches,
rather than beauty. And we feel as if we had earned this money
ourselves. When papa goes to the mountains we shall have a
thorough renovating.”
“I wish I could add something,” said Miss Churchill. “Let me take a
peep, perhaps I can discover a new need.”
She glanced around. Fanny explained about the chair.
“There is one thing girls, and I shall do it. This paper is soiled and
dingy, and a new one must be put on.”
“It is pretty nearly covered with the books and pictures,” returned
Fanny.
“But it is not nice. Wednesday, you said, Mr. Endicott was going. I
will send you over some help to get the furniture and the books out,
and on Thursday the man shall come to do it. It will not take long.”
“We can do the removing, please;” and Fan smiled archly.
“If you are saucy I will come myself. Here is a basket of pears. I
suppose I dare not ask you to visit me until you have all your fortune
spent, and are bankrupt.”
“You will be very good to take us in then,” I answered.
“I can make allowance for the pernicious influence of wealth;” she
returned gaily.
She was as good as her word. The coachman come over to help
us lift, he said. One end of the room and one side of the chimney
had been put in book-shelves. Mrs. Whitcomb thoughtfully made out
a list so we could tell where they belonged.
The paper and the man were according to promise. The first was a
delicate French gray with quite wide, rich bordering that gave the
room the effect of being frescoed. It was as pretty as a picture. When
the carpet was down, and the chair came home, which it did,
Saturday noon, we were happy as larks.
But the best of all was mamma and the baby. We kissed them and
cried over them a little out of pure joy. The old tired look had gone
out of mamma’s sweet face, and her voice was bright and cheery.
And, oh, how surprised and pleased they both were! Papa declared
that it was as good as a Christmas feast.
It was only a little after all. Some of the ladies in town spent as
much on one dress and then were dissatisfied. I begin to think it is a
rare art to get a good deal of happiness out of a small amount of
material. When you work for it yourself it does seem sweeter, if the
work is not too hard. Hunger is a good thing if one does not pass the
point of appetite, and faint.
Mamma thought we had accomplished wonders. Truly the pictures
did look better on the new paper, and the bright border gave a glow
and richness. The carpet proved just the thing. Papa called it his
Castle of Indolence, because it had such a dreamy, comfortable
appearance.
“There is half of our fortune gone;” said Fanny, “but I don’t grudge
a penny of it. Indeed I feel like spending the rest on dear papa.”
“Papa has had his share, fully. Now I must do some shopping for
you girls. And I have a surprise in my mind for Mrs. Whitcomb.”
“A present, I know. O mamma, tell us at once.”
“She would not take any pay for her services in the summer, so I
shall spend part of my gift upon her. It is one of the chinks, and I
think it can best be filled with a new dress.”
“Just the thing. She has a nice black silk dress, so let this be a
poplin, a beautiful dark wine color. You know how pretty she looked
in the neck tie,” said Fan.
“I had been puzzling on a color. You and Rose and Nelly must
have a new winter dress apiece.”
“And mine shall be wine color. Can we afford poplin, mamma, real
pretty, I mean?”
“Hardly, I think. You will want a walking suit and what with overskirt
and jacket—”
Fan made a mental calculation.
 “No, mamma mia, it will never do. A dollar and a half a yard will be
our utmost limit. Well, there are lovely empress cloths. We will be
neat if we cannot be gorgeous. And if I could have velvet like it for a
hat, and a tiny real lace collar.”
“I will give you each thirty-five dollars. Will that answer?”
“We will make it, little mother;” I replied cheerfully.
We enjoyed shopping with our own money exceedingly. My dress
was a dark green with a bronze tint; and a felt hat to match, with
trimmings a shade lighter. Mamma gave us our gloves and some
ribbons, and we felt very grand. Nelly’s dress was a gold and black
waterproof.
We bought Mrs. Whitcomb’s under her very eyes, and smiled over
her comments. But when she saw it the next morning with her name
pinned on it, and “her dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Endicott” as donors,
her surprise and delight were good to witness. Fan declared that it
was the most satisfactory of all.
Afterward we had a regular dress-making “bee.” Mamma cut, Mrs.
Whitcomb and I basted, and Fan sewed on the machine. Miss
Oldways insisted upon coming one day, and we had a bright,
cheerful time. We made Mrs. Whitcomb’s too, though she said at first
that we should not.
By this time it was the middle of October. We felt as if we had
gained a march upon the season, shopping and sewing so early, and
we were quite proud not to have taken papa’s money. The salary
was not very large, and sometimes it required considerable planning
to make it do. Mamma used to say it was the five loaves and the two
small fishes among many, but we did often find a few fragments.
Mrs. Whitcomb had to say good-bye to us again. We fell back into
our old routine. Fanny being at home regularly gave me much more
leisure. We took up a course of reading with papa, and practiced our
music daily. There were walks and calls and parish visiting, so we
were not likely to be idle. The Churchills were very kind to us. Mr.
Churchill took the office of church warden, left vacant by Mr. Fairlie’s