Algorithms & Fiduciaries: Existing and Proposed Regulatory Approaches to Artificially Intelligent Financial Planners

Artificial intelligence is no longer solely in the realm of science fiction. Today, basic forms of machine learning algorithms are commonly used by a variety of companies. Also, advanced forms of machine learning are increasingly making their way into the consumer sphere and promise to optimize existing markets. For financial advising, machine learning algorithms promise to make advice available 24–7 and significantly reduce costs, thereby opening the market for financial advice to lower-income individuals. However, the use of machine learning algorithms also raises concerns. Among them, whether these machine learning algorithms can meet the existing fiduciary standard imposed on human financial advisers and how responsibility and liability should be partitioned when an autonomous algorithm falls short of the fiduciary standard and harms a client. After summarizing the applicable law regulating investment advisers and the current state of robo-advising, this Note evaluates whether robo-advisers can meet the fiduciary standard and proposes alternate liability schemes for dealing with increasingly sophisticated machine learning algorithms

Damned Lies & Criminal Sentencing Using Evidence-Based Tools

The boom of big data and predictive analytics has revolutionized business. eHarmony matches customers based on shared likes and expectations for romance, and Target uses similar methods to strategically push its products on shoppers. Courts and Departments of Corrections have also sought to employ similar tools. However, the use of data analytics in sentencing raises a host of constitutional concerns. In State v. Loomis, the Wisconsin Supreme Court was faced with whether the use of an actuarial risk assessment tool based on a proprietary formula violates a defendant’s right to due process where the defendant could not review how the various inputs were weighed. The opinion attempts to save a constitutionally dubious technique and reads as a warning to lower courts in the proper use of predictive analytics. This article explores certain equal protection and due process arguments implicated by Loomis

The FAO Multilateral System for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: Better than Bilateralism?

Because innovation cycles in the plant breeding industry require five to fifteen years to create new stable varieties, the Multilateral System will not start producing effects for a few more years. However, the share of benefits derived from the commercialization of plant genetic resources that incorporate genetic material accessed from the Multilateral System should be fairly limited pursuant to the provisions of the Standard Material Transfer Agreement adopted by the International Treaty Governing Body in June 2006. This seems to vindicate the position of China and Ethiopia, which consisted of maintaining soybean and coffee outside the Multilateral System. Part I of this Article will show that such is not the case. Part II will then focus on the nature of the SMTA and compare its features to those of the GNU General Public License, with a particular focus on materials under development and benefit-sharing provisions. This Article suggests that, in order to avoid hold-up situations further down the road in the innovation process and high transaction costs, materials developed by public international research centers should not be protected by intellectual property rights, whose impact on the implementation of the International Treaty is analyzed in Part III. It concludes that the International Treaty is better than its alternative, i.e., a cluster of bilateral agreements

Fecundidad deseada en América Latina: tendencias y diferenciales en siete países

Incluye Bibliografí

Fiscal Transparency across the States: A Volcker Alliance Paper

On April 7, 2018, Alex Hathaway, a research associate with the Center for State and Local Finance, made a panel presentation at the Western Social Science Association Conference in Austin, Texas. His presentation on fiscal transparency in the Southeast expanded on research supported by the Volcker Alliance\u27s multiyear project on state budgeting practices. Jesseca Lightbourne and Bart Hildreth, along with pubic finance fellows Emily Franklin and Bethel Habte, contributed to the paper

Gentrification and Nonprofit Activities for Neighborhood Development in Baltimore, Maryland and Houston, Texas

This study examines the role of community-based nonprofit organizations in neighborhood revitalization/community development and their impact on the level of housing services. The neighborhoods in the study represent certain universalities of gentrification in older communities, and therefore selected for the study. By going beyond the profitability of gentrification, this study examines the social costs associated with gentrification through the lens of nonprofit organizations using quantitative data from Baltimore, Maryland and Houston, Texas. Taking into account nonprofit organizations as important actors in the gentrification field, this study contributes to the understanding of the social cost of gentrification and how community-based nonprofit organizations can be key to mitigating displacement of neighborhood residents and the erosion of social capital

APN-Physician Collaboration in Caring for Women With High-Risk Pregnancies

Purpose To examine: (a) frequency and focus of APN-physician collaborations in a clinical trial in which half of physician prenatal care for women with high-risk pregnancies was substituted with APN prenatal care delivered in women’s homes; and (b) characteristics of women requiring greater numbers of collaborations. Design and Methods Descriptive study with secondary analysis of data from 83 of the original trial’s 85 intervention participants followed by APNs prenatally through 8 weeks postpartum. APN practices, recorded in logs, included APN interactions with the women and the physician, and type of APN contact (e.g., home visit, telephone call). Each APN-physician collaboration was coded for type, timing, and focus. Findings Total number of APN-physician collaboration contacts was 351, with a mean of 4.5 and a range of 1 to 16 per woman. Focus of collaborations was: status updates (59%), new physical findings (21%), change in treatment (8%), patient concerns (7%) and medication adjustment (5%). No significant differences in numbers of collaborations were found according to age, primary diagnosis, marital status, type of health insurance, race, or income. Women with high school education received more collaborations than did those not completing high school or those with some postsecondary education. Prenatally, women with a first pregnancy required more collaborations than did multipara participants. Conclusions Most APN-physician collaborative contacts were focused on monitoring women’s physical and emotional status and discussing new physical findings. These collaborations were important in the original trial’s successful pregnancy and infant outcomes and savings in health care dollars

Disparities between research attention and burden in liver diseases: implications on uneven advances in pharmacological therapies in Europe and the USA

Effective oral therapies for hepatitis B and C have recently been developed, while there are no approved pharmacological therapies for alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (ALD and NAFLD). We hypothesise that fewer advances in fatty liver diseases could be related to disparities in research attention

Comparación de diferentes métodos de extracción para la obtención de una fracción rica en fitosteroles a partir de la cachaza de caña de azúcar

Los fitosteroles son compuestos naturales, de gran importancia en la industria farmacéutica y alimentaria, por su uso como precursores para la síntesis de medicamentos o por su empleo como nutracéuticos debido a sus excelentes y variadas propiedades farmacológicas. Una posible fuente de obtención de fitosteroles, disponible en Cuba en cantidades considerables, son algunos de los subproductos de la industria azucarera. En el presente trabajo, se llevó a cabo el estudio comparativo de cinco métodos de extracción de una fracción rica en fitosteroles a partir de la cachaza de la caña de azúcar. Se utilizaron métodos tradicionales como la maceración en reposo y con agitación, reactores agitados y soxhlet, y el más novedoso constitudo por la aplicación de los hornos microondas. Se varió la relación muestra/disolvente en todos los casos analizados, mientras que con los hornos de microondas, se estudiaron adicionalmente, el tiempo de irradiación y su nivel de potencia, para determinar los parámetros y el tratamiento de mejores resultados. Los mayores rendimientos se lograron con la extracción en soxhlet, reactores agitados, maceración previa a la irradiación, irradiación y maceración en orden decreciente. Se pudo observar que al aumentar la proporción de disolvente se incrementan los rendimientos en todos los métodos. Una menor relación muestra/disolvente, aumenta la eficiencia de la extracción de fitosteroles. De todos los procesos, el menos eficiente es el de la maceración