“Best Execution, Price Transparency, and Linkages: Protecting the Investor Interest”

Today I want to revisit the components of best execution, transparency, and linkages, but I want to approach them from a slightly different angle. Often, when we discuss concepts such as “trade execution” or “price visibility” or “order interaction,” it’s easy to get mired in highly technical, even puzzling details. These are not necessarily straightforward concepts, and meaningful debates about their impact on our markets often demand rigorous analysis. It’s easy to lose sight of what’s at the very core of these principles—and that’s serving the investor interest. Execution quality takes some effort to consider, but it is more than worth it for most investors

Final Thoughts on Litigation Reform Remarks

This is speech made by the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Arthur Levitt, at the 23rd Annual Securities Regulation Institute in Coronado, California. Mr. Levitt discusses the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and the path it followed through Congress. He also discusses SEC action against Orange County based on securities fraud

Off-The-Shelf Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Sentiment and Emotion Analysis: A Tutorial on Using IBM Natural Language Processing

Artificial intelligence (AI) rests on the premise that machines can behave in a human-like way and potentially solve complex analytics problems. In recent years, we have seen several off-the-shelf AI technologies that claim to be ready to use. In this paper, we illustrate how one can use one such technology, called IBM Natural Language Understanding (NLU), to solve a data-analytics problem. First, we provide a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to use NLU. Next, we introduce our case study in which we investigated the implications of Starbucks’ pledge to hire refugees. In this context, we used NLU to assign sentiment and emotion scores to social-media posts related to Starbucks made before and after the pledge. We found that consumers’ sentiment towards Starbucks became more positive after the pledge whereas investors’ sentiment became more negative. Interestingly, we found no significant relationship between consumers’ and investors’ sentiments. With help from NLU, we also found that consumers’ sentiments lacked consensus in that their social media posts contained a great deal of mixed emotions. As part of our case study, we found that NLU correctly classified the polarity of sentiments 72.64 percent of the time, an accuracy value much higher than the 49.77 percent that the traditional bag-of-words approach achieved. Besides illustrating how practitioners/researchers can use off-the-shelf AI technologies in practice, we believe the results from our case study provide value to organizations interested in implementing corporate social responsibility policies

Elevated glutamatergic compounds in pregenual anterior cingulate in pediatric autism spectrum disorder demonstrated by 1H MRS and 1H MRSI.

Recent research in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has aroused interest in anterior cingulate cortex and in the neurometabolite glutamate. We report two studies of pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) in pediatric ASD. First, we acquired in vivo single-voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H MRS) in 8 children with ASD and 10 typically developing controls who were well matched for age, but with fewer males and higher IQ. In the ASD group in midline pACC, we found mean 17.7% elevation of glutamate + glutamine (Glx) (p<0.05) and 21.2% (p<0.001) decrement in creatine + phosphocreatine (Cr). We then performed a larger (26 subjects with ASD, 16 controls) follow-up study in samples now matched for age, gender, and IQ using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging ((1)H MRSI). Higher spatial resolution enabled bilateral pACC acquisition. Significant effects were restricted to right pACC where Glx (9.5%, p<0.05), Cr (6.7%, p<0.05), and N-acetyl-aspartate + N-acetyl-aspartyl-glutamate (10.2%, p<0.01) in the ASD sample were elevated above control. These two independent studies suggest hyperglutamatergia and other neurometabolic abnormalities in pACC in ASD, with possible right-lateralization. The hyperglutamatergic state may reflect an imbalance of excitation over inhibition in the brain as proposed in recent neurodevelopmental models of ASD

Delayed presentation of acute ischemic strokes during the COVID-19 crisis

This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted established care paths worldwide. Patient awareness of the pandemic and executive limitations imposed on public life have changed the perception of when to seek care for acute conditions in some cases. We sought to study whether there is a delay in presentation for acute ischemic stroke patients in the first month of the pandemic in the US. Methods: The interval between last-known-well (LKW) time and presentation of 710 consecutive patients presenting with acute ischemic strokes to 12 stroke centers across the US were extracted from a prospectively maintained quality database. We analyzed the timing and severity of the presentation in the baseline period from February to March 2019 and compared results with the timeframe of February and March 2020. Results: There were 320 patients in the 2-month baseline period in 2019, there was a marked decrease in patients from February to March of 2020 (227 patients in February, and 163 patients in March). There was no difference in the severity of the presentation between groups and no difference in age between the baseline and the COVID period. The mean interval from LKW to the presentation was significantly longer in the COVID period (603±1035 min) compared with the baseline period (442±435 min, P<0.02). Conclusion: We present data supporting an association between public awareness and limitations imposed on public life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US and a delay in presentation for acute ischemic stroke patients to a stroke center

Migration trajectories of ‘highly skilled’middling transnationals: Singaporean transmigrants in London

10.1002/psp.569Population, Space and Place171116-12