Judging Fund Managers by the Company They Keep

We develop a performance evaluation approach in which a fund manager's skill is judged by the extent to which his investment decisions resemble the decisions of managers with distinguished performance records. The proposed performance measures are estimated more precisely than standard measures, because they use historical returns and holdings of many funds to evaluate the performance of a single fund. According to one of our measures, funds with significantly positive ability considerably outnumber funds with significantly negative ability at the end of our sample. Simulations demonstrate that our measures are particularly useful in ranking managers. In an application that relies on such ranking, we find only weak persistence in the performance of U.S. equity funds after accounting for momentum in stock returns.

Steep Trendelenburg Associated Postoperative Vision Loss Prevention Education

Postoperative vision loss (POVL) is a rare, but devastating complication that has been reported following robot-assisted laparoscopic surgeries that require prolonged steep Trendelenburg positioning. A central Illinois hospital had recently established a robot-assisted surgical program but lacked active interventions to reduce POVL risk due to a knowledge gap of the anesthesia providers. Following a comprehensive literature review, a PowerPoint educational program was provided at an anesthesia staff meeting. An evidence-based cognitive aid to provide a quick reference of POVL risk reduction strategies was created by the author in collaboration with the stakeholder. Once approved, the cognitive aid was attached to the anesthesia machine. A post-presentation survey was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching methods and to determine if the anesthesia staff intended to incorporate the teachings into their practice. The results of the survey indicated all participants perceived an increase in their knowledge and reported a willingness to implement POVL risk reducing strategies. A POVL Checklist was used to track which interventions were used in the hospital during a two-month period. Although few surgeries consistent with POVL risk were conducted, four completed POVL Checklists were submitted and indicated practice change. The predicted long-term impact is that the cognitive aid will continue to be used with appropriate patients, evidence-based interventions will be implemented to reduce POVL risk, and the providers will revise the guidelines when new evidence is available

Can Individual Investors Beat the Market?

We document strong persistence in the performance of trades of individual investors. Investors classified in the top 10 percent place other trades that on average earn excess returns of 15 basis points per day. A rolling-forward strategy of going long firms purchased by previously successful investors and shorting firms purchased by previously unsuccessful investors results in excess returns of 5 basis points per day. These returns are not confined to small stocks nor to stocks in which the investors are likely to have inside information. Our results suggest that skillful individual investors exploit market inefficiencies to earn abnormal profits, above and beyond any profits available from well-known strategies based upon size, value, or momentum.Individual Investors, Market Efficiency, Performance Persistence

Reauthorization Ready: How NASFAA Influences the Higher Education Policymaking Process

The Higher Education Act (HEA) is due to be reauthorized by Congress and the higher education policy community is working hard to be a part of those efforts. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) plays a unique role in this process, as the HEA contains the legislation behind all of the federal student financial aid programs. As partisan politics infiltrate Washington D.C., NASFAA is working with its members and association colleagues to put forth innovative recommendations to shape and inform the reauthorization process. This paper examines the reauthorization process; highlights NASFAA’s specific work, including policy recommendations; and explains how NASFAA utilizes its members and operates within the broader Washington D.C. higher education policy community to influence policy

Lyophilization and a preliminary thermodynamic characterization of recombinant SCOMT_His6

Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT, EC 2.1.1.6) was first described in 1958. COMT is a monomeric enzyme magnesium dependent that is involved in the inactivation of catechol substrates such as dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine. COMT is an important target in protein engineering due to their role in normal brain and their possible role in human neurological disorders such as Parkinson's, schizophrenia, depression and Alzheimer's disease. Actually, the most effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease is a triple prophylaxis consisting of the dopamine replacement with levodopa together with an inhibitor of aromatic amino acid decarboxylase and an inhibitor of COMT. In recent years, several COMT inhibitors have been developed for Parkinson's disease treatment, and there is considerable interest in developing new and more effective inhibitors. To do so, two points should be taken into consideration. Firstly, although large quantities of COMT can nowadays be produced through biotechnological processes, is still difficult to maintain the protein in a stable and active state mainly in a more pure state, like that achieved after a chromatographic step. There is no fast way to get active protein unless all the process since the production or (in case of frozen cells) since the lyses was done. To overcome this limitation, in this work, a lyophilization process applied to a purified immobilized-metal affinity chromatograph (IMAC) COMT fraction was study with the objective to store or transporting this fractions more easily and for longer periods. The second aspect to take into account concerns the inhibitors of COMT produced. With the number of new inhibitors being produced, is important to study their interactions with the protein. The microcalorimetric technics appears as a good means to kinetically characterize these interactions. So, also in this work, is discussed an initially approach to establish an isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) method to study interactions between the COMT enzyme and the 3,5-dinitrocatechol (3,5-DNC) inhibitor.A proteína catecol-O-metiltransferase (COMT, CE 2.1.1.6) foi descrita pela primeira vez em 1958. A COMT é uma enzima monomérica, dependente de magnésio que está envolvida na inativação de substratos com estrutura catecólica como a dopamina, a epinefrina e a norepinefrina. A COMT é um alvo importante na engenharia de proteínas devido à sua função na atividade normal do cérebro e ao seu possível papel em desordens neurológicas humanas, como a doença de Parkinson, esquizofrenia, depressão e Alzheimer. Atualmente, o tratamento mais eficaz para a doença de Parkinson consiste numa tripla profilaxia que consiste na reposição de dopamina com levodopa, um inibidor da enzima descarboxilase dos aminoácidos aromáticos e um inibidor da COMT. Nos últimos anos têm vindo a ser desenvolvidos vários inibidores desta enzima para o tratamento da doença de Parkinson, e há um grande interesse em desenvolver novos inibidores mais eficazes. Para tal, dois pontos devem ser tidos em consideração. Em primeiro lugar, apesar de atualmente ser possível produzir grandes quantidades de COMT por processos biotecnológicos, ainda é difícil manter a proteína num estado estável e ativo, principalmente num estado mais puro, como aquele em que se encontra após um passo cromatográfico. Não há uma forma rápida de obter a proteína a menos que todo o processo desde a produção ou (no caso de células congeladas) desde a lise seja feito. Para ultrapassar essa limitação, neste trabalho, um processo de liofilização aplicado a uma fração purificada por cromatografia de afinidade com metal imobilizado (IMAC) de COMT foi estudado com o objetivo de armazenar ou transportar estas frações mais facilmente e por períodos de tempo maiores. O segundo aspeto a ter em conta diz respeito aos inibidores produzidos para a COMT. Com o número de novos inibidores a serem produzidos, é importante estudar as suas interações com a proteína. As técnicas de microcalorimetria surgem então como um bom meio para caracterizar cineticamente essas interações. Portanto, também neste trabalho, é discutida uma abordagem inicial para estabelecer um método de calorimetria de titulação isotérmica (ITC) para estudar as interações entre a enzima e o inibidor 3,5-dinitrocatecol (3,5-DNC)

The Geography of Investment: Informed Trading and Asset Prices

This paper uses geography to shed light on the role of asymmetric information in asset pricing. Demonstrating that investors possess significant informational advantages in evaluating nearby investments, we find that active mutual fund managers overweight proximate firms in their portfolios and earn substantial abnormal returns in local holdings. These findings are more pronounced among funds which are small, have few holdings, and operate out of remote locations. Aggregating across all funds, we use the fraction of a stock's shares held by local investors as a measure of the information asymmetry in its investor base. We find that a firm's degree of local ownership is positively related to the cross-section of expected returns, even when controlling for other factors known to explain return variation. The results document new evidence of informed trading and establish a link between such trading and asset prices.

Student-led Collection Development for Diversifying Collections and Making Connections

Poster presented at the Association of College & Research Libraries conference, Pittsburgh, PA, 16 March, 2023. Librarians at Bryn Mawr College established an annual paid spring break internship for undergraduate students focused on collection development. The goal was to promote diversity in library collections by providing the students with the knowledge and budget to purchase popular reading material from Philadelphia independent bookstores who collections reflect diverse voices

Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?

This paper employs a new empirical approach for identifying the impact of government spending on the private sector. Our key innovation is to use changes in congressional committee chairmanship as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal expenditures. In doing so, we show that fiscal spending shocks appear to significantly dampen corporate sector investment and employment activity. These corporate reactions follow both Senate and House committee chair changes, are present among large and small firms and within large and small states, are partially reversed when the congressman resigns, and are most pronounced among geographically-concentrated firms. The effects are economically meaningful and the mechanism - entirely distinct from the more traditional interest rate and tax channels - suggests new considerations in assessing the impact of government spending on private sector economic activity.

Virtual volatility

We introduce the concept of virtual volatility. This simple but new measure shows how to quantify the uncertainty in the forecast of the drift component of a random walk. The virtual volatility also is a useful tool in understanding the stochastic process for a given portfolio. In particular, and as an example, we were able to identify mean reversion effect in our portfolio. Finally, we briefly discuss the potential practical effect of the virtual volatility on an investor asset allocation strategy.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, elsart.cls, Accepted to Physica A. Added few comments that clarify data used for empirical wor