Performance Evaluation of Market Timers

Previous investigators have shown that the Sharpe measure of the performance of a managed portfolio may be flawed when the portfolio manager has market timing ability. We develop the exact conditions under which the Sharpe measure will completely and correctly order market timers according to ability. The derived conditions are necessary, sufficient, and observable. We compare them to empirical estimates of actual market conditions, and find that the circumstances which can lead to a failure of the Sharpe measure do in fact occur. We show, however, that such failures can be greatly reduced by more frequent sampling.

Human Rights and the Challenges of Science and Technology

The expansion of the corpus of international human rights to include the right to water and sanitation has implications both for the process of recognizing human rights and for future developments in the relationships between technology, engineering and human rights. Concerns with threats to human rights resulting from developments in science and technology were expressed in the early days of the United Nations (UN), along with the recognition of the ambitious human right of everyone "to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications." This comment explores the hypothesis that the emerging concepts most likely to follow recognition of the human right to water primarily involve issues of science and technology, such as access to medicines or clean and healthy environment. Many threats to human rights from advances in science, which were identified in the past as potential, have become real today, such as invasion of privacy from electronic recording, deprivation of health and livelihood as a result of climate change, or control over individual autonomy through advances in genetics and neuroscience. This comment concludes by urging greater engagement of scientists and engineers, in partnership with human rights specialists, in translating normative pronouncements into defining policy and planning interventions

Valuing the Future: Intergenerational Discounting, Its Problems, and a Modest Proposal

This article examine how intergenerational investment projects, such as, investments related to global warming, natural resources, energy, etc., should be undertaken. In particular, it examines two popular prescriptions: 1) In making intergenerational investments, policymakers should use a zero discount rate. 2) In making intergenerational investments, policymakers should use the market rate. The article shows that neither of these prescriptions are correct. Indeed, the article suggests that using present-value discounting at all is extremely problematic. Instead, the best we can probably do is to is to adopt a simple algorithm: set certain minimal goals for future generations: clean air, potable water, sufficient energy supplies, a nontoxic environment, etc., and then analyze the most cost-effective way of achieving those goals

The Novel-Manifesto: Modernist Kunstlerromane and the Discourse of Modernist Aesthetic Theory

This dissertation proposes the modernist kunstlerroman as a site for aesthetic theorizing. Like the aesthetic manifestos that proliferated between 1890 and 1939, the kunstlerromane of this period advance a set of aesthetic criteria and values. The modernist kunstlerroman’s formal qualities—it’s an art object about art—as well as the period in which it is written—the aesthetically revolutionary modernist period—provide the foundation for reading modernist kunstlerromane as manifesto-like novels. Through close reading, three kunstlerromane of the period are explored as examples of the novel-manifesto: The Tragic Muse (1890), by Henry James; Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), by James Joyce; and The Revenge for Love (1937), by Wyndham Lewis. These novels were chosen for two reasons. First, they span much of the modernist period and represent what we might call emerging, high, and late modernism. Second, the authors have produced important theoretical statements, and their positions in the canon. mean that each has been the subject of extensive critical work. My readings of the three kunstlerromane, then, trace the authors’ theoretical statements and subsequent critical work. Such tracing is not to show that the kunstlerromane are novelized statements of the theoretical statements. Rather, the kunstlerroman is an unrecognized, supplementary site for critical understanding of modernist theory. There are at least three important implications for this research. First, it introduces a heretofore unrealized source for researching modernist aesthetic theory. Next, it provides an underutilized source for studying the theoretical ideas of specific modernist writers, and, finally, it provides a fuller understanding of modernist aesthetics. To this last point, I conclude that for these three canonical writers, at least, theories of perception were foundational to modernism, and perception itself was being redefined in late-nineteenth/early-twentieth-century literature

Interferometric differentiation between resonant Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering and nonresonant four-wave-mixing processes

A major impediment of using Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering to identify biological molecules is that the illumination levels required to produce a measurable signal often also produce significant nonresonant background from the medium, especially from water, that is not specific to the resonance being investigated. We present a method of using nonlinear interferometry to measure the temporal shape of the anti-Stokes signal to differentiate which components are resonant and nonresonant. This method is easily adaptable to most existing pulsed CARS illumination methods and should allow for distinguishing resonant CARS when using higher energy pulses. By examining the differences between signals produced by acetone and water, we show that the resonant and nonresonant signals can be clearly differentiated.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Teenage Births in Maine: Positive Trends But More to Be Done

Teen birth rates in Maine have fallen by 34 percent over the past decade, the fourth highest decline in the nation. However, as King and Marks point out, a low birthrate of 29.8 percent in 1999 still exceeds the teenage birthrate in most other industrialized countries in the world by a substantial margin. Moreover, when the authors compared Maine’s predominantly white population with non-Hispanic whites in other states, Maine’s success is not as remarkable. Indeed, the teenage birthrate of Maine’s non-Hispanic white population is higher than every other state in the Northeast corridor with the exception of Delaware. All of this suggests that more needs to be done in Maine. The authors review the tremendous progress made through school- and community-based family planning programs in Maine. They call for more education, more funding for the Family Planning Association of Maine, and more economic/social supports for young adults most in need

The Delivery of Market Timing Services: Newsletters Versus Market Timing Funds

We examine delivery systems that disseminate market timing information either through newsletters or by setting up timing funds in which investors can invest. Absent market imperfections, both systems produce the same result. With restrictions on borrowing, or with other nonlinearities, the newletter system is superior. This result does not depend on the cost of obtaining information or uncertainty about, or the manipulation of, the quality of the information. Institutional restrictions on borrowing, and preferences that lead to nonlinear responses to information signals, provide one explanation for the plethora of market timing newsletters and the paucity of market timing funds

Prospect for Regional Planning in California

Because the environment is being seriously threatened by overpopulation, overdevelopment, and pollution, there has been an increasing awareness of dhe need to control land usage through comprehensive regional planning. While California has failed to effectively respond to that need in the past, it appears that the Legislature is now moving in that direction and the establishment of at least some comprehensive regional planning agencies is imminent. In this article, the authors discuss various approaches to regional planning, problems of enforcement of regional plans, and alternatives available for controlling the regional planning process. The authors conclude dheir analysis by setting forth commendations for basic criteria necessary for effective regional planning legislation in 1973

Will the currently proposed reforms to the Affordable Care Act raise the proportion of Texans without health insurance coverage?

Will the currently proposed reforms to the Affordable Care Act raise the proportion of Texans without health insurance coverage? In this issue of the Health Policy Newsletter, the authors analyze the potential impact of proposed legislation to repeal and replace the ACA