The SEC's "Fair Value" Standard for Mutual Fund Investment in Restricted Shares and Other Illiquid Securities

Mutual funds generally do not invest in venture capital, private equity, or restricted shares of public companies. Consequently, individuals who desire to invest in such securities are unable to do so through diversified mutual funds. In this paper, we identify public policies and regulations that discourage mutual fund involvement in the markets for illiquid equity. We also present evidence that changes in SEC policy caused mutual funds to retreat from investing in illiquid equity. Under the Investment Company Act of l940, the SEC requires mutual fund boards to determine and report the “fair value” of their investments in restricted shares and other illiquid equity claims. The SEC interprets fair value to mean value in current sale. Under the Investment Company Act, fair value reporting is a “certification” standard that presumes investors rely on the value representations of the fund board and its auditors. We consider whether alternatives to certification and current sale valuation could reduce barriers to mutual fund investment, without exposing individuals who invest in mutual funds to excessive risk or potential manipulation. To assess the effects of public policies, we analyze recent efforts of the SEC to apply the fair-value standard and examine court decisions arising from subsequent litigation. We also analyze the financial economics literature concerning discounts for illiquidity and the implications for valuing restricted shares. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy alternatives, including allowing funds to rely more on “transparency” in lieu of certification and allowing funds more latitude in determining and reporting the values of their illiquid securities.

Book Reviews

Book reviews of: A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South By Peter Cozzens (Knopf, 2023. Acknowledgements, maps, notes, index. Pp. 464. $35.00 hardback. ISBN: 9780525659457.) Resident Strangers: Immigrant Laborers in New South Alabama. By Jennifer E. Brooks. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022. Acknowledgements, illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, index. Pp. xii, 239.$45 cloth, $19.95 ebook. ISBN: 0807176658) Bloody Flag of Anarchy: Unionism in South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis. By Brian C. Neumann. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022. Acknowledgements, maps, notes, index. Pp. ix, 216.$45 hardcover. ISBN: 0807176900. A Day I Ain’t Never Seen Before: Remembering the Civil Rights Movement in Marks, Mississippi. By Joe Bateman and Cheryl Lynn Greenberg. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2023. Pp. xi, 310. ISBN: 0820363035) The Last Fire-Eater: Roger A. Pryor and the Search for a Southern Identity. By William A. Link. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2023. Acknowledgements, illustrations, notes, index. Pp. 1, 123. ISBN: 0807178935.

Aquilegia, Vol. 18 No. 3, May-June 1994: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1071/thumbnail.jp

Designing Platforms for Customizable Produces and Processes in Markets of Non-Uniform Demand

This definitive article is located at http://cer.sagepub.com. Copyright (2007) Sage Publications. DOI: 10.1177/1063293X07079328.The foremost difficulty in making the transition to mass customization is how to offer product variety affordably. The answer to this quandary lies in the successful management of modularity and commonality in the development of products and their production processes. While several platform design techniques have emerged as a means to offer modularity and commonality, they are limited by an inability to handle multiple modes of offering variety for multiple design specifications. The Product Platform Constructal Theory Method (PPCTM) is a technique that enables a designer to develop platforms for customizable products while handling issues of multiple levels of commonality, multiple product specifications, and the inherent trade-offs between platform extent and performance. The method is limited, however, by its inability to handle multiple design objectives and its reliance on the assumption that demand in the market is uniform for each product variant. The authors address these limitations in this paper by infusing the utility-based compromise Decision Support Problem and demand modeling techniques. The authors further augment the PPCTM by extending it use to a new domain: the design of process parameter platforms. The augmented approach is illustrated through a tutorial example: the design of a product and a process parameter platform for the realization of a line of customizable cantilever beams.National Science Foundation (Grants #DMI-0085136 and #DMI-9900259)

A new scale to measure family members' perception of community health care services for persons with Huntington disease

Huntington Disease (HD) is a progressive genetic brain disease leading to disruptive cognitive, behavioral, and physical impairments. Persons with the condition and their caregivers need appropriate and accessible health care services to help them manage the disease adequately. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a new scale that measures family members' perception of community health care services (CHCS) for persons with HD

Gravitational Radiation from Rotational Instabilities in Compact Stellar Cores with Stiff Equations of State

We carry out 3-D numerical simulations of the dynamical instability in rapidly rotating stars initially modeled as polytropes with n = 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5. The calculations are done with a SPH code using Newtonian gravity, and the gravitational radiation is calculated in the quadrupole limit. All models develop the global m=2 bar mode, with mass and angular momentum being shed from the ends of the bar in two trailing spiral arms. The models then undergo successive episodes of core recontraction and spiral arm ejection, with the number of these episodes increasing as n decreases: this results in longer-lived gravitational wave signals for stiffer models. This instability may operate in a stellar core that has expended its nuclear fuel and is prevented from further collapse due to centrifugal forces. The actual values of the gravitational radiation amplitudes and frequencies depend sensitively on the radius of the star R_{eq} at which the instability develops.Comment: 39 pages, uses Latex 2.09. To be published in the Dec. 15, 1996 issue of Physical Review D. 21 figures (bitmapped). Originals available in compressed Postscript format at ftp://zonker.drexel.edu/papers/bars

Performance of the 12-item WHODAS 2.0 in prodromal Huntington disease

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the PREDICT-HD sites, the study participants, the National Research Roster for Huntington Disease Patients and Families, the Huntington’s Disease Society of America and the Huntington Study Group. This publication was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), through Grant 2 UL1 TR000442-06. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. This research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (5R01NS040068) awarded to Dr Paulsen, CHDI Foundation, Inc (A3917) awarded to Dr Paulsen, Cognitive and Functional Brain Changes in Preclinical Huntington’s Disease (HD) (5R01NS054893) awarded to Dr Paulsen, 4D Shape Analysis for Modeling Spatiotemporal Change Trajectories in Huntington’s (1U01NS082086), Functional Connectivity in Premanifest Huntington’s Disease (1U01NS082083), and Basal Ganglia Shape Analysis and Circuitry in Huntington’s Disease (1U01NS082085).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Ecologies, synergies, and biological systems shaping human milk composition—a report from “Breastmilk Ecology: Genesis of Infant Nutrition (BEGIN)” Working Group 2

Human milk is universally recognized as the preferred food for infants during the first 6 mo of life because it provides not only essential and conditionally essential nutrients in necessary amounts but also other biologically active components that are instrumental in protecting, communicating important information to support, and promoting optimal development and growth in infants. Despite decades of research, however, the multifaceted impacts of human milk consumption on infant health are far from understood on a biological or physiological basis. Reasons for this lack of comprehensive knowledge of human milk functions are numerous, including the fact that milk components tend to be studied in isolation, although there is reason to believe that they interact. In addition, milk composition can vary greatly within an individual as well as within and among populations. The objective of this working group within the Breastmilk Ecology: Genesis of Infant Nutrition (BEGIN) Project was to provide an overview of human milk composition, factors impacting its variation, and how its components may function to coordinately nourish, protect, and communicate complex information to the recipient infant. Moreover, we discuss the ways whereby milk components might interact such that the benefits of an intact milk matrix are greater than the sum of its parts. We then apply several examples to illustrate how milk is better thought of as a biological system rather than a more simplistic “mixture” of independent components to synergistically support optimal infant health

The genome of Aeromonas salmonicida subsp. salmonicida A449: insights into the evolution of a fish pathogen

Background Aeromonas salmonicida subsp. salmonicida is a Gram-negative bacterium that is the causative agent of furunculosis, a bacterial septicaemia of salmonid fish. While other species of Aeromonas are opportunistic pathogens or are found in commensal or symbiotic relationships with animal hosts, A. salmonicida subsp. salmonicida causes disease in healthy fish. The genome sequence of A. salmonicida was determined to provide a better understanding of the virulence factors used by this pathogen to infect fish. Results The nucleotide sequences of the A. salmonicida subsp. salmonicida A449 chromosome and two large plasmids are characterized. The chromosome is 4,702,402 bp and encodes 4388 genes, while the two large plasmids are 166,749 and 155,098 bp with 178 and 164 genes, respectively. Notable features are a large inversion in the chromosome and, in one of the large plasmids, the presence of a Tn21 composite transposon containing mercury resistance genes and an In2 integron encoding genes for resistance to streptomycin/spectinomycin, quaternary ammonia compounds, sulphonamides and chloramphenicol. A large number of genes encoding potential virulence factors were identified; however, many appear to be pseudogenes since they contain insertion sequences, frameshifts or in-frame stop codons. A total of 170 pseudogenes and 88 insertion sequences (of ten different types) are found in the A. salmonicida genome. Comparison with the A. hydrophila ATCC 7966T genome reveals multiple large inversions in the chromosome as well as an approximately 9% difference in gene content indicating instances of single gene or operon loss or gain. A limited number of the pseudogenes found in A. salmonicida A449 were investigated in other Aeromonas strains and species. While nearly all the pseudogenes tested are present in A. salmonicida subsp. salmonicida strains, only about 25% were found in other A. salmonicida subspecies and none were detected in other Aeromonas species. Conclusion Relative to the A. hydrophila ATCC 7966T genome, the A. salmonicida subsp. salmonicida genome has acquired multiple mobile genetic elements, undergone substantial rearrangement and developed a significant number of pseudogenes. These changes appear to be a consequence of adaptation to a specific host, salmonid fish, and provide insights into the mechanisms used by the bacterium for infection and avoidance of host defence systems.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye