Behind Enemy Phone Lines: Insider Trading, Parallel Enforcement, and Sharing the Fruits of Wiretaps

Two key trends were present in the successful prosecution of Raj Rajaratnam and his coconspirators in one of the largest insider-trading conspiracies in history: the use of wiretaps to investigate and prosecute insider trading and a joint effort between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to conduct the investigation. Despite the close working relationship between the DOJ and the SEC, the DOJ never disclosed the fruits of the wiretaps to the SEC, presumably due to its belief that Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (as amended, the “Wiretap Act”)—the comprehensive framework that authorizes the government to conduct wiretaps in certain circumstances—prohibited it from doing so. Though the Second Circuit in SEC v. Rajaratnam ultimately held that the SEC could obtain wiretap materials from the criminal defendants as part of civil discovery, the question of whether direct disclosure of the wiretap materials from the DOJ to the SEC is prohibited has been raised but not yet addressed. This Note analyzes previous cases addressing the construction of the Wiretap Act’s disclosure provisions and concludes that direct disclosure from the DOJ to the SEC is not prohibited by the Act. It further proposes a process by which civil enforcement agencies, such as the SEC, can request disclosure of wiretap materials through the DOJ in such a way that balances the benefits of disclosure against the privacy interests of the parties whose conversations were intercepted

On the perspectivization of a recipient role - cross-linguistic results from a speech production experiment on GET-passives in German, Dutch and Luxembourgish

The focus of this paper is the perspectivization of thematic roles generally and the recipient role specifically. Whereas perspective is defined here as the representation of something for someone from a given position (Sandig 1996: 37), perspectivization refers to the verbalization of a situation in the speech generation process (Storrer 1996: 233). In a prototypical act of giving, for example, the focus of perception (the attention of the external observer) may be on the person who gives (agent), the transferred object (patient) or the person who receives the transferred object (recipient). The languages of the world provide differing linguistic means to perspectivize such an act of giving, or better: to perspectivize the participants of such an action. In this article, the linguistic means of three selected continental West Germanic languages –German, Dutch and Luxembourgish– will be taken into consideration, with an emphasis on the perspectivization of the recipient role

Effect of Dedifferentiation on Time to Mutation Acquisition in Stem Cell-Driven Cancers

Accumulating evidence suggests that many tumors have a hierarchical organization, with the bulk of the tumor composed of relatively differentiated short-lived progenitor cells that are maintained by a small population of undifferentiated long-lived cancer stem cells. It is unclear, however, whether cancer stem cells originate from normal stem cells or from dedifferentiated progenitor cells. To address this, we mathematically modeled the effect of dedifferentiation on carcinogenesis. We considered a hybrid stochastic-deterministic model of mutation accumulation in both stem cells and progenitors, including dedifferentiation of progenitor cells to a stem cell-like state. We performed exact computer simulations of the emergence of tumor subpopulations with two mutations, and we derived semi-analytical estimates for the waiting time distribution to fixation. Our results suggest that dedifferentiation may play an important role in carcinogenesis, depending on how stem cell homeostasis is maintained. If the stem cell population size is held strictly constant (due to all divisions being asymmetric), we found that dedifferentiation acts like a positive selective force in the stem cell population and thus speeds carcinogenesis. If the stem cell population size is allowed to vary stochastically with density-dependent reproduction rates (allowing both symmetric and asymmetric divisions), we found that dedifferentiation beyond a critical threshold leads to exponential growth of the stem cell population. Thus, dedifferentiation may play a crucial role, the common modeling assumption of constant stem cell population size may not be adequate, and further progress in understanding carcinogenesis demands a more detailed mechanistic understanding of stem cell homeostasis

How task format affects cognitive performance:a memory test with two species of New World monkeys

In cognitive tests, animals are often given a choice between two options and obtain a reward if they choose correctly. We investigated whether task format affects subjects' performance in a physical cognition test. In experiment 1, a two-choice memory test, 15 marmosets, Callithrix jacchus, had to remember the location of a food reward over time delays of increasing duration. We predicted that their performance would decline with increasing delay, but this was not found. One possible explanation was that the subjects were not sufficiently motivated to choose correctly when presented with only two options because in each trial they had a 50% chance of being rewarded. In experiment 2, we explored this possibility by testing eight naïve marmosets and seven squirrel monkeys, Saimiri sciureus, with both the traditional two-choice and a new nine-choice version of the memory test that increased the cost of a wrong choice. We found that task format affected the monkeys' performance. When choosing between nine options, both species performed better and their performance declined as delays became longer. Our results suggest that the two-choice format compromises the assessment of physical cognition, at least in memory tests with these New World monkeys, whereas providing more options, which decreases the probability of obtaining a reward when making a random guess, improves both performance and measurement validity of memory. Our findings suggest that two-choice tasks should be used with caution in comparisons within and across species because they are prone to motivational biases

Does opportunistic testing bias cognitive performance in primates? Learning from drop-outs

Dropouts are a common issue in cognitive tests with non-human primates. One main reason for dropouts is that researchers often face a trade-off between obtaining a sufficiently large sample size and logistic restrictions, such as limited access to testing facilities. The commonly-used opportunistic testing approach deals with this trade-off by only testing those individuals who readily participate and complete the cognitive tasks within a given time frame. All other individuals are excluded from further testing and data analysis. However, it is unknown if this approach merely excludes subjects who are not consistently motivated to participate, or if these dropouts systematically differ in cognitive ability. If the latter holds, the selection bias resulting from opportunistic testing would systematically affect performance scores and thus comparisons between individuals and species. We assessed the potential effects of opportunistic testing on cognitive performance in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) with a test battery consisting of six cognitive tests: two inhibition tasks (Detour Reaching and A-not-B), one cognitive flexibility task (Reversal Learning), one quantity discrimination task, and two memory tasks. Importantly, we used a full testing approach in which subjects were given as much time as they required to complete each task. For each task, we then compared the performance of subjects who completed the task within the expected number of testing days with those subjects who needed more testing time. We found that the two groups did not differ in task performance, and therefore opportunistic testing would have been justified without risking biased results. If our findings generalise to other species, maximising sample sizes by only testing consistently motivated subjects will be a valid alternative whenever full testing is not feasible.</p

Dual Status and Adultification: Black Girls\u27 Lives in Context

In the United States, Black youth are consistently overrepresented in the child welfare and juvenile carceral systems. However, Black girls represent an invisible population whose lived experiences are historically devalued and silenced. Scholars have begun to explore Black girls in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, the adultification of Black girls, and the lives of crossover or dual-status youth[1]. That is, youth who have been involved in both the juvenile and the child welfare systems simultaneously or at different periods. Previous research on crossover youth has focused on young boys—primarily Black and Latino males—from the perspective of professionals, program models, and interventions rather than from youth and their experiences. Furthermore, there is a lack of understanding about how adultification impacts Black girls’ lives in these dual systems (i.e., child welfare and juvenile justice). Thus, the purpose of this contextualization is to examine the role of adultification in the experiences of Black girls with dual status using two theoretical frameworks: critical race feminism and intersectionality. To accomplish this goal, the paper begins by exploring the literature on identity development, discrimination, and bias among Black girls who have experiences in one or both systems. Next, the consequences of crossover or dual-status youth are discussed. Using critical race feminism and intersectionality, the author explored how adultification for Black girls with dual status may create unique experiences different from their peers. Suggestions for future research, policy, and practice are provided to aid social work leaders, researchers, and legal professionals in better serving this population, through an antiracist lens, and further the empowerment of, and advocacy for, Black girls. [1] Crossover youth and dual status youth are both terms used to describe this population. For the purposes of this paper, the term dual status will be used

An Examination of the Death Penalty

The death penalty, or capital punishment, is the use of execution through hanging, beheading, drowning, gas chambers, lethal injection, and electrocution among others in response to a crime. This has spurred much debate on whether it should be used for reasons such as ethics, revenge, economics, effectiveness as a deterrent, and constitutionality. Capital punishment has roots that date back to the 18th century B.C., but, as of 2016, has been abolished in law or practice by more than two thirds of the world’s countries and several states within the United States. Here, the arguments for and against the death penalty are presented and examined for effectiveness. The conclusion is drawn that the death penalty should be abolished and the sentence of life without parole should be adopted as the punishment for capital crimes