An Exploratory Statistical Analysis of NASDAQ Provided Trade Data

Since Benoit Mandelbrot\u27s discovery of the fractal nature of financial price series, the quantitative analysis of financial markets has been an area of increasing interest for scientists, traders, and regulators. Further, major technological advances over this time have facilitated not only financial innovations, but also the computational ability to analyze and model markets. The stylized facts are qualitative statistical signatures of financial market data that hold true across different stocks and over many different timescales. In pursuit of a mechanistic understanding of markets, we look to accurately quantify such statistics. With this quantification, we can test computational market models against the stylized facts and run controlled experiments. This requires both discovery of new stylized facts, and a persistent testing of old stylized facts on new data. Using NASDAQ provided data covering the years 2008-2009, we analyze the trades of 120 stocks. An analysis of the stylized facts guides our exploration of the data, where our results corroborate other findings in the existing body of literature. In addition, we search for statistical indicators of market instability in our data sets. We find promising areas for further study, and obtain three key results. Throughout our sample data, high frequency trading plays a larger role in rapid price changes of all sizes than would be randomly expected, but plays a smaller role than usual during rapid price changes of large magnitude. Our analysis also yields further evidence of the long term persistence in the autocorrelations of signed order flow, as well as evidence of long range dependence in price returns

Irish Journalists and Journalism during the American Civil War

Irish journalists played a significant role in the lead up to the US Civil War in ensuring the Irish population supported the Union and volunteered for the army

Pachystigmus Hellén, 1927 : a substitute name for Noserus Foerster, 1863 (Hymenoptera: Braconidae), not Noserus LeConte, 1862 (Coleoptera: Zopheridae)

By establishing the date of its first publication, Noserus Foerster, 1863 (Hymenoptera, Braconidae) is shown to be a junior primary homonym of Noserus LeConte, 1862 (Coleoptera, Zopheridae). The substitute name for Noserus Foerster is that of its subjective synonym, Pachystigmus Hellén, 1927 [type species: Pachystigmus nitidulus Hellén, 1927]. Other described species in the genus are: Pachystigmus facialis (Foerster, 1863) New Combination; P. similis (Szépligeti, 1896) New Combination, P. nitidulus Hellén, 1927, P. gigas (Tobias, 1964)New Combination, P. occipitalis (Belokobylskij, 1986) New Combination, P. olgensis (Belokobylskij, 1994) New Combination, and P. sculpturator (Belokobylskij, 1999) New Combination

Keeping the State’s secrets: Ireland’s road from ‘official’ secrets to freedom of information

The introduction of the Freedom of Information act in Ireland in 1997 was a profound change for a state, a civil service and political system far more comfortable with official secrets. It has had a transformational effect on relations between citizen and the state, and has been useful for journalists despite many challenges. After its introduction it was then amended, with high costs and limitations imposed. It has subsequently been amended again to restore much of its previous powers

The Press and Democracy Building: Journalism Education and Training in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe during Transition

Media assistance to the former communist countries of Eastern Europe from 1989 became an important part of the transformation of that part of Europe from a socialist command economy to a democratic, liberal market economy. The media was seen as an important ideological weapon of the previous regimes and so was to be transformed in order to change society. The exact amount of media aid is unknown, so much of it was hidden under such headings as aid to civil society and democracy building, but it is known to account for hundreds of millions of euro. Most was spent on specific training of working journalists, some was used to establish codes of conduct, or help legislators frame media laws. Some funding was used as loans to help establish new media enterprises. Mostly the model used was a training one, and the training was often given by working journalists, with a very specific view of their own profession and its importance to democracy. Usually the trainers had no knowledge of local languages, culture or its media. They believed they were tasked with bringing to Eastern Europe Western-style journalism, usually that associated with the English language presumption of impartiality and objectivity, usually personified as the New York Times and the BBC. One of the first projects to include the old journalism faculties in the staterun universities was a project aimed at professionalising the media in 4 Bulgaria, which was established as part of Bulgaria’s pre European Union entry programme. That project is at the centre of this thesis as an important case study, both as an example of how media development has worked and how it might develop. This thesis set out to establish whether working with the faculties that had been central to the old system of journalism education, and ignored by the new training, was a valuable and workable alternative to the training model which was being questioned by many involved in journalism and media training. The thesis offers an analysis of journalism and journalism education and training, places media development aid in its context, and analyses specifically the Bulgarian project, and its links with the university. It concludes that working with the existing faculties allows cultural mediation for Western aid and also works to help universities themselves to modernise

The Political Lobby System

At the heart of the political system in Ireland, inside Leinster House, is a small groQp of journalists who cover politics. They are the political correspondents. They have a privileged position, their own rooms, access to politicians in their place of work, access to government ministers and regular briefings from the government press secretary and from the press officers of the other political parties. It is these few journalists, working together, who write the first story on any event, who decide what to cover and how stories should be covered. It is to these journalists that the government press secretary goes following a cabinet meeting to give them what he wants them to hear, all off the record. Ori radio and television, in the morning and evening newspapers, his words will appear as a \u27government source\u27, a \u27source close to the government\u27; or more obliquely, \u27indications are\u27 or \u27it would seem that the government intends\u27. At times, the words of the Government press secretary, a civil servant, have appeared as a source speaking for a political party. What is most important is that what is said can often be denied by the Taoiseach or government ministers, if they do not like the reaction

How Journalism Became a Profession

Newspaper developed in Ireland as a political press, with each publication clearly identified with particular political groupings. However, for reasons of economics journalism itself developed a professional paradign, that stressed impartiality, so allowing journalists to move from publication to publication regardless of the politics or religion of the journalist. Newspapers and journalists also helped develop a civil society that contributed to the eventual democratic nature of the Irish state, following independence

Death in Every Paragraph: Journalism & The Great Irish Famine

It is a truism to say that the Great Irish Famine of 1845 to 1852 brought enormous changes to Ireland. The impact of massive emigration, death and suffering of so many people changed Ireland and marks the separation from the 18th century from modernity. It was also a period of change for the press, whose journalists had to find ways to tell the story of the famine. This work, using the three Cork newspapers as its case study, argues that the methods developed in the late 1840s laid down the basis for disaster coverage to this day