The Regulation of Insider Trading as an Agency Problem

This paper attempts to shed a new light on the insider trading issue by studying the unintended effects of insider trading laws. It shows that government regulation of insider trading can actually make the problems it intends to resolve worse. More particularly, this paper shows that insider trading laws instead of mitigating the agency problems that have been associated with insider trading actually can aggravate them by hindering the effectiveness of governance mechanisms existing within and outside the corporation

Can Regulation of Insider Trading Be Effective?

While there is a very prolific literature showing that the regulation of insider trading is by and large ineffective when it comes to discourage individuals from trading on non-public information, almost no work has been done on whether insider trading regulation can be effective. This paper attempts to fill that gap by investigating whether the regulation of insider trading can be effective. First, we show why insider trading regulation cannot be effective. Second, we see to what extend the empirical studies are consistent with our analysis

High dimensional latent panel quantile regression with an application to asset pricing

We propose a generalization of the linear panel quantile regression model to accommodate both \textit{sparse} and \textit{dense} parts: sparse means while the number of covariates available is large, potentially only a much smaller number of them have a nonzero impact on each conditional quantile of the response variable; while the dense part is represent by a low-rank matrix that can be approximated by latent factors and their loadings. Such a structure poses problems for traditional sparse estimators, such as the $\ell_1$-penalised Quantile Regression, and for traditional latent factor estimator, such as PCA. We propose a new estimation procedure, based on the ADMM algorithm, consists of combining the quantile loss function with $\ell_1$ \textit{and} nuclear norm regularization. We show, under general conditions, that our estimator can consistently estimate both the nonzero coefficients of the covariates and the latent low-rank matrix. Our proposed model has a "Characteristics + Latent Factors" Asset Pricing Model interpretation: we apply our model and estimator with a large-dimensional panel of financial data and find that (i) characteristics have sparser predictive power once latent factors were controlled (ii) the factors and coefficients at upper and lower quantiles are different from the median

Drift compensation of gas sensor array data by Orthogonal Signal Correction

Drift is an important issue that impairs the reliability of gas sensing systems. Sensor aging, memory effects and environmental disturbances produce shifts in sensor responses that make initial statistical models for gas or odor recognition useless after a relatively short period (typically few weeks). Frequent recalibrations are needed to preserve system accuracy. However, when recalibrations involve numerous samples they become expensive and laborious. An interesting and lower cost alternative is drift counteraction by signal processing techniques. Orthogonal Signal Correction (OSC) is proposed for drift compensation in chemical sensor arrays. The performance of OSC is also compared with Component Correction (CC). A simple classification algorithm has been employed for assessing the performance of the algorithms on a dataset composed by measurements of three analytes using an array of seventeen conductive polymer gas sensors over a ten month period

Actinobacteria From Termite Mounds Show Antiviral Activity Against Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus, A Surrogate Model For Hepatitis C Virus

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Extracts from termite-associated bacteria were evaluated for in vitro antiviral activity against bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV). Two bacterial strains were identified as active, with percentages of inhibition (IP) equal to 98%. Both strains were subjected to functional analysis via the addition of virus and extract at different time points in cell culture; the results showed that they were effective as posttreatments. Moreover, we performed MTT colorimetric assays to identify the CC50, IC50, and SI values of these strains, and strain CDPA27 was considered the most promising. In parallel, the isolates were identified as Streptomyces through 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. Specifically, CDPA27 was identified as S. chartreusis. The CDPA27 extract was fractionated on a C18-E SPE cartridge, and the fractions were reevaluated. A 100% methanol fraction was identified to contain the compound(s) responsible for antiviral activity, which had an SI of 262.41. GC-MS analysis showed that this activity was likely associated with the compound(s) that had a peak retention time of 5 min. Taken together, the results of the present study provide new information for antiviral research using natural sources, demonstrate the antiviral potential of Streptomyces chartreusis compounds isolated from termite mounds against BVDV, and lay the foundation for further studies on the treatment of HCV infection.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)FAPESP [2011/50919-5]CNPq [311779/2014-0

Design and evaluation of a cervical conisation training simulator

Introducción: Los residentes de Ginecología aprenden a realizar procedimientos quirúrgicos,tales como la conización cervical directamente en pacientes reales. El nivel de habilidad técnica influye en los resultados, aumentando los riesgos obstétricos posteriores de las pacientes si el profesional tiene poca experiencia. Este proyecto tiene como objetivo el diseño y la evaluación de un simulador seguro, útil y reproducible para el entrenamiento en conización cervical con asa diatérmica. Material y métodos: Para la construcción del simulador se ha utilizado material accesible en cualquier hospital docente, empleando productos cárnicos para reproducir el cuello uterino. Para la evaluación del mismo se ha diseñado una encuesta de satisfacción cumplimentada por 16 profesionales que valoraron el simulador, realizando posteriormente un análisis descriptivo de los resultados. Resultados: Durante la primera fase del proyecto se detallaron los pasos para la construcción del simulador de conización cervical. La segunda fase o evaluación del simulador mostró que la mayoría de profesionales valoran los primeros conos realizados por residentes como de mala calidad, dificultando la interpretación de la pieza quirúrgica por parte del patólogo. El 100% de los encuestados afirmó que utilizaría el simulador en su hospital de referencia y lo valoraron como «sencillo, útil, seguro, reproducible y adecuado para docencia». Conclusión: El simulador construido propone un método docente para la enseñanza a residentes de la técnica de conización cervical con asa diatérmica, siendo fácilmente reproducible y posibilitando en un futuro, tras su validación, el diseño de programas de entrenamientoIntroduction: Gynaecology residents learn how to perform surgical procedures such as cervicalconization directly on real patients. Their skills level determines the outcomes, with an increasein the subsequent obstetric risks of the patients if the physician is not experienced. This projectincludes the design and evaluation of a safe, useful and reproducible surgical simulator for loopelectrosurgical conisation technique training. Materials and methods: Affordable and available material in any teaching hospital was used inthe construction of the simulator. The human cervix was simulated using a sausage model.In order to evaluate the project, a satisfaction survey was designed and completed by 16professionals. A subsequent descriptive analysis of the results was performed.Results: During the first stage of the project, the different steps of the simulator’s constructionwere detailed. The second, or evaluation stage, showed that most professionals rated thefirst cones of resident doctors as poor in quality, making them difficult to be interpreted by apathologist. All the respondents stated that they would use the simulator in their hospital, andrated it as ‘‘simple, safe, useful, reproducible and suitable for teaching’’.Conclusions: The developed simulator proposes a method for teaching residents skills in loopelectrosurgical cervical conisation, being easily reproducible and allowing, after future valida-tion, the design of training programs for resident