High Frequency Trading, it’s role in the 2007/2009 financial crisis and the 2010 flash crash

High Frequency Trading (HFT) is automation of the conventional securities trades in exchanges that begins by placing limit buy or sell orders, connecting the buyer to the seller and executing the transaction for profit. HFT began in the wake of the millennium and rapidly grew till 2005, later dropping after the 2007-2009 financial crisis; igniting a huge debate. I argue that HFT neither caused the 2007-2009 financial crisis actually occasioned by mispricing of subprime mortgages nor the May 6, 2010 flash crash actually caused by the immediacy problem. That HFT is just an algorithm that attracted mistrust by a section of exchange stakeholders by reason of high speed trade execution. I finally forecast that HFT can only gain more ground after reaching its lowest in 2014, but that it requires regulation to operate in stability

Community-driven data revolution is feasible in developing countries: experiences from an integrated health information and surveillance system in Kenya

Over the period of the Millennium Development Goals (2000-15), it became clear that there was a pressing need and an increasing capacity for a ‘data revolution’ to inform the global health development agenda. In most developing countries, data on key indicators were collected through laborious and retrospective surveys that were as much as five years out-of-date, or through passive reporting systems that relied on routinely generated health facility data. Gaps in the primary data were filled by modelled estimates, which often relied on inadequate assumptions

Reorienting Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kenya: A Review

In Kenya, millions of children have limited access to nurturing care. With the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it is anticipated that vulnerable children will bear the biggest brunt of the direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic. This review aimed to deepen understanding of the effects of COVID-19 on nurturing care from conception to four years of age, a period where the care of children is often delivered through caregivers or other informal platforms. The review has drawn upon the empirical evidence from previous pandemics and epidemics, and anecdotal and emerging evidence from the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Multifactorial impacts fall into five key domains: direct health; health and nutrition systems; economic protection; social and child protection; and child development and early learning. The review proposes program and policy strategies to guide the reorientation of nurturing care, prevent the detrimental effects associated with deteriorating nurturing care environments, and support the optimal development of the youngest and most vulnerable children. These include the provision of cash transfers and essential supplies for vulnerable households and strengthening of community-based platforms for nurturing care. Further research on COVID-19 and the ability of children’s ecology to provide nurturing care is needed, as is further testing of new ideas

Exploiting tumour metabolism to augment the cytotoxicity of photodynamic therapy and to develop novel photosensitizers

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Glucosamine improves the efficiency of photodynamic therapy (PDT)

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is based on the preferential uptake and retention of a photosensitizer (PS) in metabolically more active cells then focal light activation of the PS in the presence of molecular oxygen which leads to cytotoxicity. Compared to other cancer therapies, PDT has some advantages in that it spares the tissue architecture, is minimally invasive, does not damage tissue outside the treated area and can be used repeatedly with no serious side effects or development of resistance. However, PDT with the currently approved photosensitizers is not without adverse effects such as prolonged widespread photosensitivity. We propose using glucosamine, a natural glucose analogue widely used as a dietary supplement, to potentiate the PDT effect. Glucosamine was first reported as an inhibitor of tumour growth by Quastel and Cantero in 1953 and various in vivo and in vitro studies have confirmed the inhibitory effect. In our experiments, we used glucosamine together with disulfonated aluminium phthalocyanine (AIPcS2), one of the most clinically effective second-generation photosensitizers, on MCF-7 cell cultures. Dark toxicity and phototoxicity were studied by propidium iodide exclusion assay using fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. Dark toxicity was minimal and phototoxicity showed that AIPcS2 in the presence of human physiologically tolerable glucosamine increased cell death by around 15% compared to AIPcS2 alone. Our findings raise the possibility of using a combination of photosensitizers and glucosamine clinically in a simple and cheap way to improve the efficiency of PDT treatment. The combination might therefore help in lowering the dose of photosensitizer that patients need to receive in order to achieve an optimal PDT effect. This has a very important implication in that it can reduce treatment toxicity and other side effects associated with PDT treatment. Further studies are required in order to see if these observations on MCF-7 cell line can be replicated in other established cancer cell lines and in vivo

Ligand Activation of TAM Family Receptors-Implications for Tumor Biology and Therapeutic Response

The TAM family of receptors (i.e., Tyro3, Axl, and Mertk), and their ligands Growth arrest specific factor 6 (Gas6) and Protein S (Pros1) contribute to several oncogenic processes, such as cell survival, invasion, migration, chemo-resistance, and metastasis, whereby expression often correlates with poor clinical outcomes. In recent years, there has been great interest in the study of TAM receptors in cancer, stemming both from their roles as oncogenic signaling receptors, as well as their roles in tumor immunology. As a result, several classes of TAM inhibitors that include small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies, decoy receptors, as well as novel strategies to target TAM ligands are being developed. This paper will review the biology of TAM receptors and their ligands with a focus on cancer, as well as evidence-based data for the continued pursuit of TAM/Gas6 inhibitors in clinical practice

Fully protected glycosylated zinc (II) phthalocyanine shows high uptake and photodynamic cytotoxicity in MCF-7 cancer cells

Phthalocyanine photosensitizers are effective in anticancer photodynamic therapy (PDT) but suffer from limited solubility, limited cellular uptake, and limited selectivity for cancer cells. In order to improve these characteristics, we synthesized isopropylidene-protected and partially deprotected tetra β-glycosylated zinc (II) phthalocyanines and compared their uptake and accumulation kinetics, subcellular localization, in vitro photocytotoxicity, and reactive oxygen species generation to those of disulfonated aluminium phthalocyanine. In MCF-7 cancer cells, one of the compounds, Zinc phthalocyanine {4}, demonstrated ten-fold higher uptake, five-fold greater PDT-induced cellular reactive oxygen species concentration, and two-fold greater phototoxicity than equimolar (9 μM) disulfonated aluminium phthalocyanine. Thus, isopropylidene-protected β-glycosylation of phthalocyanines provides a simple method of improving the efficacy of photodynamic therapy

Contribution of Defective PS Recognition and Efferocytosis to Chronic Inflammation and Autoimmunity

Rapid and efficient clearance of apoptotic cells results in elimination of auto-antigens and provides a strong anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive signal to prevent autoimmunity. While professional and non-professional phagocytes utilize a wide array of surface receptors to recognize apoptotic cells, recognition of phosphatidylserine (PS) on apoptotic cells by PS receptors on phagocytes is emblematic signal for efferocytosis in metazoans. PS-dependent efferocytosis is associated with production of anti-inflammatory factors such as IL-10 and TGF-β that function, in part, to maintain tolerance to auto-antigens. In contrast, when apoptotic cells fail to be recognized and processed for degradation, auto-antigens persist, which can trigger immune activation leading to autoantibody production and autoimmunity. Despite the fact that genetic mouse models clearly demonstrate that loss of PS receptors can lead to age-dependent autoimmune diseases reminiscent of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), link between PS and defective clearance in chronic inflammation and human autoimmunity is not well delineated. In this hypothesis and theory, we review emerging questions developing in the field that may be of relevance to SLE and human autoimmunity