Trading Trust - Post-Aristocratic Finance in the City of Stockholm

Purpose The article aims to answer the question if particular values make for particular forms of trust. Design/methodology/approach In the present article, interviews and conversations the author has made with twenty-one employees in Swedish brokerage firms, merchant banks and mutual funds play the foremost empirical role. The informants range from stockbrokers, traders and market makers to managing directors of brokerage firms. Findings Trust is still important in the financial market, but researchers need to account for the new condition when finance means working with information technology and increasingly abstract instruments. Financial organizations are well described as networks while being informally structured, and characterised by an inward bonding that is cultural rather than formal. The article argues that social bonding, building upon the values and ideology of employees replaces the class-based identification that has previously characterised the Stockholm financial market. With increasingly hedonist attitudes, employees in finance form a more fluent, neo-tribal sociality. Studying at a business school, and interacting socially at work forms values and constructs an elitist identity in finance. This type of sociality consists in sharing a lifestyle and having work identities that dominate their private identities. Originality/value The present piece of research views agents as driven by a plurality of motivations and rationalities.neo-tribes; stockbrokers; financial networks; trust

Co-Opting Revolution in the Post-Revolutionary Age - Revolution as Embedded Counter-Culture in Swedish Finance

From the 1980s and onwards, markets have been prime movers in an individualist, market-liberal transformation, and now take part in the every-day life of the general public. Similar to economic development, also personal identity has become fuelled by consumption. Production and work turn more peripheral vis-à-vis the self-project. Instead of the process of production, objects of consumption, in which to express one’s individuality become situated at the centre of business-life. Consumers with values of expressive individualism view seemingly non-conformist products as attractive. Swedish finance is here analysed as a formerly conservative sector of business that because of an increasingly focus on speed opens up to notions of counter-culture and even revolution.brokerage firms; co-optation; counter-cultures; ethical consumption; revolution

”Life is a fake. All that is real are the stock prices” - Simulating Authenticity in Financial Markets

Technology has contributed to what Max Weber termed the disenchantment of the world. Re-enchantment is a broad tendency than has hitherto been described. This overlooked movement within post-industrial business stretches into financial markets. Presently, we observe magic, morality and narrative being allowed to enter business. Re-enchantment helps us to understand the evolution of post-modern markets, as it partly forms the present exit from industrial society. This piece of research takes a micro-sociological interest with the mentality and culture of financial markets. It also has a macro-sociological character in dealing with the process of rationalisation in society. The article gives a contribution to theory about the evolving entertainment economy under the heading of re-enchantment. The experience of meaning or alternatively deprivation of meaning is decisive for behaviour and interaction at work. Technology in work is vital for this. I study four important aspects of a desired re-enchantment; sense of community, expression, myth and magic, and morality.re-enchantment; financial markets; morality; meaning

Att klassas som elit - finansmarknadens inbäddning i samhället

The discreet charm of the stock broker: the social embeddedness of financial markets Use of technology gives rise to impersonal relations in financial markets. Personal interaction is replaced by the cold rationality of algorithms. While working in financial markets, employees aim at being rational maximizers. This competition is balanced with a co-operative dimension. The market depends on, and is thus embedded in non-contractual elements such as morality and social capital. Custom creates the basis upon which exchange may take place and facilitates the organisation of economic activities. Trust enables us to engage in economic action. With a similar background, education, and by means of being part of one and the same culture, investors have similar values and beliefs. Actors use norms and habits that reduce the complexity of their work. Resources embedded in social relations and networks are accessed for utilitarian purposes. Financial markets are disembedded while local contexts are replaced by a world-wide scope. Financial capitalism nonetheless becomes increasingly integrated in society, as eighty percent of the Swedish population own shares either directly or through funds. Media takes an increased interest for securities markets. The exclusivity of financial markets decreases.financial market; brokers; embeddedness; networks

Mentalité financière par-delà bien et mal - des marchés amoraux

Les conditions de travail particulières et les forces sociales créent une mentalité sur les marchés financiers. L’avidité abstraite et le concept de la main invisible ont des rôles essentiels dans la moralité des marchés financiers. La digitisation des marchés contribue à l’aliénation et l’irresponsabilité, et une mentalité amorale qui a autonomisé la sphère financière. Des traders et des courtiers sont souvent instruits dans les théories économiques néo-classiques, qui les incitent à négliger les dimensions de la moralité qui dépassent des règles explicites. Ces surhommes pseudo-Nietzschéens perçoivent leurs activités comme étant situé hors du bien et du mal.avidité; amoralité; marchés financiers; la main invisible

Cut-off scores for the Minimal Eating Observation and Nutrition Form – Version II (MEONF-II) among hospital inpatients

The newly developed Minimal Eating Observation and Nutrition Form – Version II (MEONF-II) has shown promising sensitivity and specificity in relation to the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). However, the suggested MEONF-II cut-off scores for deciding low/moderate and high risk for undernutrition (UN) (>2 and >4, respectively) have not been decided based on statistical criteria but on clinical reasoning. The objective of this study was to identify the optimal cut-off scores for the MEONF-II in relation to the well-established MNA based on statistical criteria.Cross-sectional study.The study included 187 patients (mean age, 77.5 years) assessed for nutritional status with the MNA (full version), and screened with the MEONF-II. The MEONF-II includes assessments of involuntary weight loss, Body Mass Index (BMI) (or calf circumference), eating difficulties, and presence of clinical signs ofUN. MEONF-II data were analysed by Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) curves and the area under the curve (AUC); optimal cut-offs were identified by the Youden index (J=sensitivity + specificity–1).According to the MEONF-II, 41% were at moderate or high UN risk and according to the MNA, 50% were at risk or already undernourished. The suggested cut-off scores were supported by the Youden indices. The lower cut-off for MEONF-II, used to identify any level of risk for UN (>2; J=0.52) gave an overall accuracy of 76% and the AUC was 80%. The higher cut-off for identifying those with high risk for UN (>4; J=0.33) had an accuracy of 63% and the AUC was 70%.The suggested MEONF-II cut-off scores were statistically supported. This improves the confidence of its clinical use

The IncP-1 plasmid backbone adapts to different host bacterial species and evolves through homologous recombination

Plasmids are important members of the bacterial mobile gene pool, and are among the most important contributors to horizontal gene transfer between bacteria. They typically harbour a wide spectrum of host beneficial traits, such as antibiotic resistance, inserted into their backbones. Although these inserted elements have drawn considerable interest, evolutionary information about the plasmid backbones, which encode plasmid related traits, is sparse. Here we analyse 25 complete backbone genomes from the broad-host-range IncP-1 plasmid family. Phylogenetic analysis reveals seven clades, in which two plasmids that we isolated from a marine biofilm represent a novel clade. We also found that homologous recombination is a prominent feature of the plasmid backbone evolution. Analysis of genomic signatures indicates that the plasmids have adapted to different host bacterial species. Globally circulating IncP-1 plasmids hence contain mosaic structures of segments derived from several parental plasmids that have evolved in, and adapted to, different, phylogenetically very distant host bacterial species

Innovative Technology for High Performance and Mass Participation Sport

The chapter analyzes technological innovations used in high-level sport and how mass participants have and will benefit from these advancements. The authors discuss progressive practices of different successful sporting nations. The chapter debriefs high-performance facility development and utilization practices, as well as examples of modern equipment and technology being applied in multiple high-performance athlete service areas, such as general fitness, sport-specific training, restoration, nutrition, medicine, and psychology. This section also emphasizes examples of national and local high-performance technology practices for enhancing mass participation, such as evolving networks of comprehensive multisport training centers available for nurturing every possible age and socioeconomic group. Finally, suggestions are made to provide communities, in partnership with universities or local military installations, with recreation and sport technologies which are free or affordable for all, including instructions enabling everyone to utilize and enjoy the new technologies

Spherical Infall in G10.6-0.4: Accretion Through an Ultracompact HII Region

We present high resolution (0.''12 x 0.''079) observations of the ultracompact HII region G10.6-0.4 in 23 GHz radio continuum and the NH3(3,3) line. Our data show that the infall in the molecular material is largely spherical, and does not flatten into a molecular disk at radii as small as 0.03 pc. The spherical infall in the molecular gas matches in location and velocity the infall seen in the ionized gas. We use a non-detection to place a stringent upper limit on the mass of an expanding molecular shell associated with pressure driven expansion of the HII region. These data support a scenario in which the molecular accretion flow passes through an ionization front and becomes an ionized accretion flow onto one or more main sequence stars, not the classical pressure-driven expansion scenario. In the continuum emission we see evidence for externally ionized clumps of molecular gas, and cavities evacuated by an outflow from the central source.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letter

Analysing Large Scale Structure: I. Weighted Scaling Indices and Constrained Randomisation

The method of constrained randomisation is applied to three-dimensional simulated galaxy distributions. With this technique we generate for a given data set surrogate data sets which have the same linear properties as the original data whereas higher order or nonlinear correlations are not preserved. The analysis of the original and surrogate data sets with measures, which are sensitive to nonlinearities, yields information about the existence of nonlinear correlations in the data. We demonstrate how to generate surrogate data sets from a given point distribution, which have the same linear properties (power spectrum) as well as the same density amplitude distribution. We propose weighted scaling indices as a nonlinear statistical measure to quantify local morphological elements in large scale structure. Using surrogates is is shown that the data sets with the same 2-point correlation functions have slightly different void probability functions and especially a different set of weighted scaling indices. Thus a refined analysis of the large scale structure becomes possible by calculating local scaling properties whereby the method of constrained randomisation yields a vital tool for testing the performance of statistical measures in terms of sensitivity to different topological features and discriminative power.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA