Investment Games

Popular zero-commission stock trading apps like Robinhood innovate in user-experience design, featuring “gamification” practices—flashy graphics, leaderboards, and the like—that make it attractive, easy, and fun to trade stocks. Regulators are increasingly scrutinizing gamification and other digital engagement practices, with efforts underway at the SEC to adopt rules in broker-dealer and investment-advisor regulation. This attention reflects considerable skepticism about gamification in securities markets. At best, these practices encourage motivation and engagement, and democratize access to financial markets. But at worst, these practices encourage people to trade habitually and unreflectively, and more than they might want. This can lead to undesirable market-wide effects, like distorting the process by which markets allocate investment capital to firms and projects that will grow the real economy, as well as socially wasteful (and individually harmful) excessive trading. And given that interventions in retail investor choice have significant implications for market quality and wealth inequality, regulatory responses here are a high stakes matter for society broadly. Calls to regulate gamification highlight a tension at the core of securities markets. Securities law has largely ceded the field of market structure to the interests of sophisticated financial intermediaries in producing liquidity and price discovery. By permitting gamification practices that encourage active trading for the primary benefit of financial intermediaries, securities law subordinates its investor protection function to encourage wasteful investment in achieving eversmaller improvements in liquidity and price discovery. Regulatory intervention would be socially desirable, I argue, not just given what we know about retail trader behavior and its effects on personal finance and markets—but because it is an opportunity for securities law to recalibrate away from an all-out arms race in arbitrage. This Article takes up the problem of gamification and related digital engagement practices. It considers how gamification is the nearly inevitable consequence of the rise of retail investors who trade without superior information about a stock’s fundamental value, competition on brokerage commissions, and a fragmented market structure. Yet calls for regulatory interventions often elide important distinctions between how securities law should treat active traders who prefer risk, and those with preferences distorted by gamification. This Article explains how we got here; examines the social-welfare case for regulating gamification and related digital engagement practices; offers a typology of techniques that securities regulators can adopt in response; and assesses these interventions against existing securities law doctrine and policy. This Article also considers how the securities laws’ tenuous relationship with innovative stock-market technology shapes how retail investors engage with financial markets

Mentoring Experiences Among Navy Flag Officers: A Narrative Survey Approach

The literature has shown that mentoring can play an important role in leadership development, yet very little has been written concerning the phenomenon of mentoring within the military. This study serves to strengthen the data base concerning the role of mentoring, specifically within the leadership of the United States Navy. The sample frame for this study consisted of all U.S. Navy Admirals who were retired from active duty by 1996. A survey instrument concerning mentor relationships was mailed to 1479 retired admirals, where the nature and function of mentoring in their careers was assessed. Admiral\u27s descriptions of how mentor relationships were initiated, how long they lasted, important personality characteristics of mentors, and the salient benefits of mentoring were also evaluated. This study informs us that mentors have played a very important role in the lives of our nation\u27s most successful Naval officers. A mentor was found to provide encouragement, direction, key advancement positions and opportunities for junior officers to show their potential leadership abilities. Mentors were described as senior officers who modeled integrity, professionalism and leadership skills. The duration of the mentor relationships often lasted a lifetime, only ending in retirement or death of the mentor. Of particular importance was the mentor\u27s ability to instill the belief that the junior officer had potential and the ability to serve their country within the highest ranks. Strong support was given to more effectively facilitate the mentoring process in the U.S. Navy

Leading the way:stellar quines and intersectional feminist working praxis

This paper will explore the notion of ‘leading’ institutional change in a specific creative ecology by focusing on Stellar Quines, Scotland’s foremost intersectional feminist theatre company dedicated to promoting performance’s role in ensuring gender justice for all. Now in its 30th year, Stellar Quines is at a pivotal moment in the organisation’s development as it prepares to establish a permanent base in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and radically reappraise its creative and working practices to centre on community engagement and co-creation. Stellar Quines is already leading the way in intersectional theatre practice and community-led working practices as an explicitly learning organisation. Their work is as much concerned with producing work for a diverse range of audiences as well as engaging in feminist activism. In terms of infrastructural change and female leadership in governance, they have developed a board pioneer programme that other companies are using to introduce more female representation on boards, they have commissioned reports on female leadership in the theatre industry in Scotland, and they have successfully introduced a range of masterclasses for women in technical roles in the theatre industry.Building on scholarship on community arts practice, gender justice, and feminists’ networks (see Aston 2016; McAvinchey 2016; 2020; Rudakoff 2021) and in conversation with Sarah Ahmend’s critique of institutional “non-performatives” (Ahmed, 2012), this paper will reflect on the evolution of Stellar Quines’ working practices and leadership models in order to propose potential new directions for community-led, intersectional feminist working models for arts-based initiatives and enterprise.<br/

John and William Shakespeare The Sources and Acquisition of their Wealth

This thesis explores the proposition that to comprehend William Shakespeare better in his social and creative contexts one has to understand both his and his family’s money - where it came from and where it went. The Shakespearian mythos posits that John Shakespeare came penniless to Stratford where he did well in business before losing his wealth. Thereafter, his son William went to London, wrote plays which made him rich and then made a number of investments in Stratford. Among the various errors in this statement there is one that stands out - the “rich” part. It is not simply the fact that he made the investments - his house New Place, land, tithes etc. are well documented - it is when he made them that is of significance. The bulk of the Shakespeare family investments were made before William became part owner of the Globe or Blackfriars theatres. This evaluation has focused on the tangible data from the period, chiefly legal and financial records. Its conclusions challenge many pre-existing notions of how money flowed into the Early Modern Theatre and into William Shakespeare’s pockets. The fable is that young Will Shakespeare, like the pantomime Dick Whittington, left his poverty-stricken family, walked to London and won his fortune. In neither case was this true. The Early Modern theatre in London was brutally commercial and the aim was the acquisition of wealth more than the pursuit of art. For William Shakespeare, Pope put it neatly Shakespeare (whom you and every playhouse bill Style the divine! the matchless! what you will), For gain, not glory, wing’d his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despite. This thesis provides the evidence to dismiss many of the fantasies that surround William and John Shakespeare’s by replacing these with a clear financial picture of the sources and acquisition of their wealth

Prevalence of Mentoring on Clinical Versus Experimental Doctoral Programs: Survey Findings, Implications, and Recommendations

Previous research suggests that mentorships are quite important in the development of junior professionals in a range of fields, including psychology. Yet some evidence suggests that clinical doctoral students may be less frequently mentored by graduate faculty than other psychology doctoral students. Results of a survey of clinical and experimental psychology doctorates who earned the degree in four distinct time frames from 1945 to the present indicated that clinical PhDs (53%) were indeed less likely than experimental PhDs (69%) to be mentored. Potential explanations for this discrepancy include the nature of clinical training, diffusion in clinical training, and the advent of professional training models. The implications of less frequent mentoring for clinical doctorates are discussed, and several recommendations for addressing this phenomenon are offered

Diseño de mezcla de concreto F´c = 210 kg/cm2 adicionando ceniza de bagazo de la caña de azúcar, Piura - 2021

En esta tesis “Diseño de Mezcla de Concreto F´c = 210 kg/cm2 Adicionando Ceniza de Bagazo de la Caña de Azúcar, Piura – 2021”, cuyo objetivo de investigación ha sido determinar la influencia de adición de ceniza de bagazo de caña de azúcar en el diseño de mezcla de concreto f´c = 210kg/cm2. La metodología del trabajo de investigación es de tipo experimental y el diseño de investigación será cuasi – experimental. Respecto a la obtención de ceniza de bagazo de caña de azúcar se empleó el método de calcinación a una temperatura de 550°C con una duración de cinco horas en el horno de artesanal. El estudio se basó en realizar mezclas de concreto sin y con adición de cenizas de bagazo de caña de azúcar con dosificaciones de 0.5%, 1.5% y 2.5% sustituyéndose parte del cemento, al mismo tiempo se realizará comparaciones con la mezcla de concreto convencional. También se elaboró 24 probetas de concreto para los ensayos a compresión, en las edades de 7, 14 y 28 días de curado. Se hicieron ensayos en concreto fresco, teniendo como resultado que el Slump disminuye a medida que aumenta la adición de ceniza de bagazo de caña de azúcar, la temperatura se incrementa a mayor porcentaje de ceniza de bagazo de caña de azúcar. De los resultados que se obtuvo del ensayo a la resistencia a la compresión con sustitución de 0.5% de ceniza de bagazo de la caña de azúcar al cemento se obtuvo; a los 28 días de curado una resistencia f´c = 242 kg/cm2, al adicionar 1.5% de ceniza de bagazo de caña de azúcar alcanzó una resistencia de f´c = 211 kg/cm2 a los 28 días y con la adición de 2.5 % de ceniza de bagazo de caña de azúcar alcanzó una resistencia f´c = 221 kg/cm2 a los 28 días, con respecto a la probeta patrón tengo una resistencia f´c = 226 kg/cm2. Se concluyó de los resultados en laboratorio, que el uso de la ceniza de bagazo de caña de azúcar adicionados al concreto alcanzó resistencias a la compresión optimas y en algunos casos mayores a las del concreto convencional, evidenciándose la dosificación más adecuada el 0.5% de ceniza