The State of Origin of Australian Equity: Does Active Fund Manager Location Matter?

We examine the relation of active equity fund managers’ location proximity to a stock's headquarter and fund managers’ stock selection skill and investment behaviour using a representative sample of Australian institutional equity funds. Contrary to the findings of much international research, our study reveals evidence which is inconsistent with a location advantage for Melbourne and Sydney active equity funds. Both Melbourne and Sydney fund managers overweight Melbourne stocks, exhibit skill in picking Sydney stocks and avoid poor performing Melbourne and Sydney stocks. In addition, we find no evidence of word-of-mouth trading effects in Melbourne or Sydney funds. Taken together, this suggests information asymmetries arising from location are weak for Melbourne and Sydney funds. © 2008, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

Individual investors and broker types

© 2014 Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington. We study the informativeness of trades via discount and full-service retail brokers. We find that trades via full-service retail brokers are statistically and economically more informative than are trades via discount retail brokers. This finding holds in every year over the 12-year sample period and in various subsamples. We also find that past returns, volatility, and news announcements positively relate to the net volume of discount retail brokers, but these variables are unrelated to the net volume of full-service retail brokers. Our results suggest that broker type selection bias is an important consideration in studying individual investors' trades

The Value of Alpha Forecasts in Portfolio Construction

This study examines a portfolio strategy which selects stocks using the undisclosed monthly holdings of Australian active fund managers. When considering a large range of strategies incorporating fund portfolio holdings information, the top performing strategies are robust to data snooping and are both statistically significant and economically significant when incorporating transaction costs. These strategies are short term in nature, with statistically significant performance lasting up to nine months. When we account for look-ahead bias in the formation of a strategy, we find statistically significant alpha when following the best performing strategy holding 20 stocks or more in the previous month. © 2009, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

Disentangling the roles of aneuploidy, chromosomal instability and tumour heterogeneity in developing resistance to cancer therapies.

Aneuploidy is defined as the cellular state of having a number of chromosomes that deviates from a multiple of the normal haploid chromosome number of a given organism. Aneuploidy can be present in a static state: Down syndrome individuals stably maintain an extra copy of chromosome 21 in their cells. In cancer cells, however, aneuploidy is usually present in combination with chromosomal instability (CIN) which leads to a continual generation of new chromosomal alterations and the development of intratumour heterogeneity (ITH). The prevalence of cells with specific chromosomal alterations is further shaped by evolutionary selection, for example, during the administration of cancer therapies. Aneuploidy, CIN and ITH have each been individually associated with poor prognosis in cancer, and a wealth of evidence suggests they contribute, either alone or in combination, to cancer therapy resistance by providing a reservoir of potential resistant states, or the ability to rapidly evolve resistance. A full understanding of the contribution and interplay between aneuploidy, CIN and ITH is required to tackle therapy resistance in cancer patients. However, these characteristics often co-occur and are intrinsically linked, presenting a major challenge to defining their individual contributions. Moreover, their accurate measurement in both experimental and clinical settings is a technical hurdle. Here, we attempt to deconstruct the contribution of the individual and combined roles of aneuploidy, CIN and ITH to therapy resistance in cancer, and outline emerging approaches to measure and disentangle their roles as a step towards integrating these principles into cancer therapeutic strategy

A model of emulation funds

© 2014 AFAANZ. Emulation funds are a potentially cost-effective way for multimanager funds to improve their investment performance by delaying and netting trade signals from underlying managers. We develop a model to represent the expected sources of differential performance in an emulation fund relative to its underlying multimanager portfolio. The model formalises the expected interaction between potential savings and opportunity costs and allows us to observe complexities in the emulation process that are hidden without a benchmark. Finally, the functional representation of the model allows sensitivity analysis of the emulation fund to key parameters and enables us to determine theoretically optimal lag periods

The Duffin-Schaeffer Conjecture with extra divergence II

This paper takes a new step in the direction of proving the Duffin-Schaeffer Conjecture for measures arbitrarily close to Lebesgue. The main result is that under a mild `extra divergence' hypothesis, the conjecture is true.Comment: 7 page

How has the Relevance of Institutional Brokerage Changed?

© 2016 International Review of Finance Ltd. 2016 Institutional brokerage rates have been in decline. We investigate whether this reduction has coincided with a fall in benefits provided by brokers to institutional asset managers. We use trade packages from both active and passive equity funds from 1995 to 2001 and active equity funds from 2002 to 2010. We find that later period active funds recoup a combined 1.75 basis point benefit (from price impact cost recovery and short-term alpha) per basis point of brokerage cost. Later period active investors saw improved trade price impact and shorter-term alpha net benefits, relative to earlier period active investors. These results are robust after controlling for trade characteristics and cross-sectional variation over time. Our findings suggest that brokers innovate to provide valuable services in the subsequent, lower brokerage environment

Designing 'Embodied' Science Learning Experiences for Young Children

Research in embodied cognition emphasises the importance of meaningful ‘bodily’ experience, or congruent action, in learning and development. This highlights the need for evidence-based design guidelines for sensorimotor interactions that meaningfully exploit action-based experiences, that are instrumental in shaping the way we conceptualise the world. These sensorimotor experiences are particularly important for young children as they can provide them with an embodied toolkit of resources (independent of language skills or subject specific vocabulary) that they can draw upon to support science ‘think’ and ‘talk’, using their own bodies to develop and express ideas through gesture, that are grounded on sensorimotoric representations from action experiences. Taking an iterative design-based research (DBR) approach, this paper reports the design, development and deployment of a programme of outdoor activities for children aged 4–6 years, that drew on embodied cognition theory to foster meaningful action in relation to ideas of air resistance. This research is relevant to researchers, practitioners and designers. It makes a contribution to learning experience design by making explicit the process of applying key components of embodied cognition theory to the design of science learning activities for early years, and how this can effectively inform digital design

Recommendations for exercise adherence measures in musculoskeletal settings : a systematic review and consensus meeting (protocol)

Background: Exercise programmes are frequently advocated for the management of musculoskeletal disorders; however, adherence is an important pre-requisite for their success. The assessment of exercise adherence requires the use of relevant and appropriate measures, but guidance for appropriate assessment does not exist. This research will identify and evaluate the quality and acceptability of all measures used to assess exercise adherence within a musculoskeletal setting, seeking to reach consensus for the most relevant and appropriate measures for application in research and/or clinical practice settings. Methods/design: There are two key stages to the proposed research. First, a systematic review of the quality and acceptability of measures used to assess exercise adherence in musculoskeletal disorders; second, a consensus meeting. The systematic review will be conducted in two phases and reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to ensure a robust methodology. Phase one will identify all measures that have been used to assess exercise adherence in a musculoskeletal setting. Phase two will seek to identify published and unpublished evidence of the measurement and practical properties of identified measures. Study quality will be assessed against the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments (COSMIN) guidelines. A shortlist of best quality measures will be produced for consideration during stage two: a meeting of relevant stakeholders in the United Kingdom during which consensus on the most relevant and appropriate measures of exercise adherence for application in research and/or clinical practice settings will be sought. Discussion: This study will benefit clinicians who seek to evaluate patients’ levels of exercise adherence and those intending to undertake research, service evaluation, or audit relating to exercise adherence in the musculoskeletal field. The findings will impact upon new research studies which aim to understand the factors that predict adherence with exercise and which test different adherence-enhancing interventions. PROSPERO reference: CRD4201300621

The ideal healthcare: priorities of people with chronic conditions and their carers

Background It is well established that health consumer opinions should be considered in the design, delivery, and evaluation of health services. However, the opinions of people with chronic conditions and their carers and what they actually consider as ideal healthcare is limited. The aim of this study is to investigate the healthcare priorities of consumers with chronic conditions and their carers, if there are differences between these two groups, and if priorities differ depending on geographical location. Methods The nominal group technique was used as a method to identify what is currently important to, or valued by, participants. This method was also particularly suited to learning about healthcare problems and generating important solutions, thereby helping to bridge the gap between research and policy. Recruitment was carried out via purposive sampling, with the assistance of community pharmacies, general practices, various health agencies, government and non-government organisations. A total of 11 nominal groups were conducted; five groups consisted predominantly of consumers (n = 33 participants), two groups consisted predominantly of carers (n = 12 participants) and four were mixed groups, i.e. consumers, carers, and both (n = 26 participants). Results The findings suggested that to create a model of ideal healthcare for people with chronic conditions and their carers, appropriate and timely healthcare access was of paramount importance. Continuity and coordinated care, patient-centred care and affordability were equally the second most important healthcare priorities for all groups. When compared with other groups, access was discussed more frequently among participants residing in the rural area of Mount Isa. Compared to consumers, carers also discussed priorities that were more reminiscent with their caring roles, such as increased access and continuity and coordinated care. Conclusions Access to healthcare is the most important priority for people with chronic conditions and their carers. In the event of inappropriate access for certain groups, all other efforts to increase the quality of healthcare delivery, e.g. patient-centred care, may be pointless. However, health professionals alone may be limited in their ability to address the concerns related to healthcare access; structural changes by health policy makers may be needed