Uncovering the Hidden Conflicts in Securities Class Action Litigation: Lessons from the State Street Case

Courts, Congress, and commentators have long worried that stockholder plaintiffs in securities and M&A litigation and their counsel may pursue suits that benefit themselves rather than absent stockholders or the corporations in which they invest. Following congressional reforms that encouraged the appointment of institutional stockholders as lead plaintiffs in securities actions, significant academic commentary has focused on the problem of “pay to play”—the possibility that class action law firms encourage litigation by making donations to politicians with influence over institutional stockholders, particularly public sector pension funds. A recent federal securities class action in the District of Massachusetts, however, suggests that the networks of influence between class plaintiffs and their counsel are much more complex and difficult to detect. After appointing a special master to look into fee issues, the court discovered that a large class action firm had paid over $4 million in “bare referral” fees to an attorney who did little work on the case but had recommended the larger firm to a public sector pension fund “after considerable favors, political activity, money spent and time dedicated in Arkansas.” This is only one of the less-visible ways that class counsel may route benefits to class plaintiffs. Current class action processes do not routinely identify these potential conflicts of interest. Instead, they tend to surface when nonlitigants bring them to public attention. Because neither the lead plaintiff nor the defendants have a strong incentive to voluntarily address these conflicts, we propose revisions to the class certification process that would require class plaintiffs to disclose more information regarding their relationships with class counsel. We also propose that courts routinely appoint special masters or class guardians as part of the settlement approval process to ensure that class plaintiffs’ statements are subject to discovery and adversarial review

Positive Affect and Adjustment to Perceived Racism

This research provided the first empirical investigation of the role of positive affect in moderating the relationship between perceived racism and depressive symptoms. A sample of 215 racial and ethnic minority young adults completed measures of perceived racism, daily race–related stress, positive affect, optimism, and depressive symptoms. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that positive affect and perceived racism accounted for a significant portion of the variance in depressive symptoms. Most notably, above and beyond the effects of optimism, positive affect interacted with perceived racism to weaken its influence on depression. Implications for future research directions that build on these initial findings are discussed

Plasmonic nanogaps for broadband and large spontaneous emission rate enhancement

We present the optical properties of a plasmonic nanogap formed between a silver metallic nanoparticle and an extended silver film that shows a strong enhancement in the spontaneous emission rate over the whole visible range. In particular, we use three-dimensional finite difference time domain calculations to study the spontaneous emission rate and the quantum efficiency of an emitting material placed within the gap region as a function of the geometrical parameters of the plasmonic nanogap. Our calculations reveal that the enhancements in the total decay rate can be divided into two regions as a function of wavelength; region I spans the wavelength range from 350 nm to 500 nm and peaks at approximately at 400 nm. Region II covers the spectral range between 500 nm and 1000 nm. The enhancements in total decay rate in region I are mainly dominated by Ohmic losses by the metal, while the enhancements in total decay rate in region II are mainly dominated by radiative decay rate enhancements. Furthermore, our calculations show over 100 times enhancement in the spontaneous emission rate in region II. We combine this with quantum efficiency enhancements of almost 30 times from materials with low intrinsic quantum efficiencies and only a small reduction in efficiency from those with high intrinsic quantum efficiencies. All results appear easily achievable using realistic geometrical parameters and simple synthesis techniques. These results are attributed to the strong field confinements in the nanogap region. The structures are of high interest for both the fundamental understanding of light mater interactions under extreme electromagnetic field confinements and also potential applications in quantum optics and Raman spectroscopy

Hope Measurement in Mexican American Youth

Hope is a motivational construct that has been associated with many positive outcomes in children, adolescents, and adults. Although research with the Children’s Hope Scale (CHS) has demonstrated support for the reliability and validity of the CHS with various samples of youth, there is little empirical evidence for its use with Latino youth. The current study examined the psychometric properties of the six-item CHS in a sample of 135 Mexican American youth. Confirmatory factor analyses provided support for a hierarchical representation of the CHS with two underlying factors (pathways and agency). CHS scores were found to be positively correlated with measures of positive affect, life satisfaction, support from family and friends, and optimism. Additional analyses provided evidence supporting convergent validity and measurement invariance across gender. Implications and directions for future research are discussed

Hope as a Source of Resilience in Later Adulthood

This research provided a preliminary investigation of how variations in trait and state hope are associated with positive adaptation to stress in later adulthood. Trait hope and neuroticism were measured by questionnaires and state hope, stress, and negative emotions were assessed daily for 45 days. Results from multilevel random coefficient modeling analyses suggested that daily hope provides protective benefits by keeping negative emotions low, while also contributing to adaptive recovery from stress. The dynamic linkages between daily hope, stress, and emotion were further moderated by individual differences in trait hope. Compared with those low in trait hope, high-hope individuals showed diminished stress reactivity and more effective emotional recovery

AT-RISK: The habitual watering of one word and the tree that has grown.

The nation has been watering the term at-risk for decades and we are surprised that the term now has different connotations. We have deemed the term oftentimes in a stereotypical manner in believing that At-Risk is codifies to two or possibly three groups. We\u27re not looking at the entire tree that has now grown and branched out into something much larger

The Effectiveness of a Career Services’ Digital Dirt Workshop for Undergraduate Students

Undergraduate students use Facebook or Myspace to communicate with their peers on the internet. Some of these individuals do not realize that their future employers may have access to their Facebook or Myspace profiles. Any negative information these employers discover about their candidates is “Digital Dirt”. The purpose of this study was to discover the effectiveness of a university-based career services’ Digital Dirt workshop for undergraduate students. This study sought to determine if participants would have different survey responses after the Digital Dirt workshop intervention (post-test) than they had before the Digital Dirt workshop intervention (pre-test). The results of this study indicated that participants are more likely to remove pictures and personal information from their social networking profiles after participation in the Digital Dirt workshop than before attending the workshop

An Analysis of Oral and Written Quizzes As Teaching Techniques

This study was conducted to determine whether any differences existed between the effectiveness of oral and written quizzes as teaching techniques. In the first of two experiments, 130 students enrolled in two sections of an introductory psychology class and two sections of a psychology of adjustment class served as subjects. The course was taught using Michael\u27s method of instruction, a contingency managed technique. In the first half of the term, one section from each course was taught by written quizzes while the other section was taught by oral quizzes. Following four weeks, teaching assignments were reversed. The dependent variables were scores on a test following one week of lectures, scores on tests following each condition, and attitude and interest ratings at the end of the course. For the two introductory psychology sections, there was no significant difference between oral and written methods. For the psychology of adjustment sections, a significant difference was found favoring the oral method in one of two comparisons. From surveys, it was shown that students were interested in and reported favorable attitudes toward the class in both courses. However, a preference for the oral method was shown only in the introductory psychology course. In a second experiment, 70 students enrolled in two sections of psychology of adjustment completed the requirements for the study. After each of 14 taped lectures, students were quizzed orally, wrote quiz answers, rated oral quizzes, rated written quizzes, or took no quiz. Inter-rater reliability checks were made by an item-by-item analysis of paired rater\u27s scores of student\u27s performances on quizzes. The raters\u27 reports were judged reliable. Validity was examined by a correlational analysis of quiz ratings and unit test performances. Validity was poor. An analysis of rank sums for difference scores obtained from pre-course and post-course test performances showed no differences between any two of the variables studied. Respectively, ranked sums of scores for each variable from high to low was: oral quiz rating, oral quiz taking, written quiz taking, no quizzes, and written quiz rating. However, the differences were not significant. Students interests in, and attitudes toward, the course in psychology of adjustment were found to be on a par with other classes taken in the same term. From Experiment I, it was concluded that test performances following oral quizzes were not significantly different from test performances following written quizzes. From Experiment II, rating and taking oral quizzes may result in higher test scores than rating and taking written quizzes, but in the present study the results leading to such a conclusion are only suggestive. Finally, judgments of untrained raters on student quiz performances should be viewed with caution since, in the examination of rater\u27s validity, the raters failed to match quiz performance with test performance

The high resolution electronic spectrum of propynal

The one photon ultraviolet absorption spectra of propynal (HCCCHO) and the three deuterated compounds have been recorded under a higher resolution than has previously been reported. The spectrum arising from the ùA" ← ùA' (S₁ ← S₀ ) transition has been studied in detail and the existing vibrational analysis has been extended. Rotational analyses of many of the vibrational bands in this spectrum have been carried out. Several vibrational and rotational perturbations have been observed and for many of these coupling matrix elements have been calculated. Where possible perturbing levels have been suggested. Existing studies on the ground electronic states of these compounds have been correlated and improved values of the molecular constants have been obtained. These values have been further enhanced from rotational analyses of the origin and lower vibrational bands of the S₁ ← S₀ spectrum by weighted least squares fits to both lower and excited states. On excitation of higher vibrational levels in the S₁ state of propynal an overall broadening and diffuseness of rotational structure is observed. This has been charted throughout the spectrum and lifetimes of the levels concerned have been estimated from the linewidths. These observations are compared to previous fluorescence studies and interpreted in terms of vibrationally and rotationally dependent predissociation. The origin band of the T₁ ← S₀ transition is reported for the molecules HCCCDO and DCCCDO for the first time and partial rotational analyses are attempted. The kinetics and mechanisms of energy decay from the S₁ and T₁ states of propynal are discussed on the basis of the results of this and previous studies