Is Financial Literacy Improved by Participating in a Stock Market Game?

This study investigates the effectiveness of the Stock Market Game (SMG) in improving student scores on a general multiple-choice test covering basic financial concepts. Teachers in the test group used the Stock Market Game and a complementary curriculum in class while teachers in the control group did not. Students in both groups completed the same online pre- and post-tests, demographic surveys, and math aptitude tests. The results of ordinary least squares regression show that playing SMG along with teaching seven general lessons from the Learning from the Market curriculum improves student performance on the financial literacy assessment.Stock Market Game, financial literacy, student assessment

Encouraging Corporate Innovation for Our Homeland During the Best of Times for the Worst of Times: Extending Safety Act Protections to Natural Disasters’

This article first analyzes the innovative tort reform of the SAFETY Act and then argues for expansion of SAFETY Act type risk protection to natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires. The SAFETY Act was drafted to stimulate the development and deployment of technologies that combat terrorism by providing liability protection. Applying the same type of legislation to natural disasters will provide a commensurate benefit of encouraging preparedness and development of technologies that could mitigate harms resulting from natural disasters. The Department of Homeland Security voiced a desire to increase the use of the SAFETY Act by private industry. This article argues that one way to increase the utility of the SAFETY Act and provide more value for the American public is for Congress to extend SAFETY Act protections, by amendment or new legislation, to cover risk related to national catastrophes

A stability approach for solving multidimensional quadratic BSDEs

We establish an existence and uniqueness result for a class of multidimensional quadratic backward stochastic differential equations (BSDE). This class is characterized by constraints on some uniform a priori estimate on solutions of a sequence of approximated BSDEs. We also present effective examples of applications. Our approach relies on the strategy developed by Briand and Elie in [Stochastic Process. Appl. 123 2921--2939] concerning scalar quadratic BSDEs.Comment: This update contains corrections for Propositions 5.1 and 5.

The DNA Binding Properties of the Parsley bZIP Transcription Factor CPRF4a Are Regulated by Light

The common plant regulatory factors (CPRFs) from parsley are transcription factors with a basic leucine zipper motif that bind to cis-regulatory elements frequently found in promoters of light-regulated genes. Recent studies have revealed that certain CPRF proteins are regulated in response to light by changes in their expression level and in their intracellular localization. Here, we describe an additional mechanism contributing to the light-dependent regulation of CPRF proteins. We show that the DNA binding activity of the factor CPRF4a is modulated in a phosphorylation-dependent manner and that cytosolic components are involved in the regulation of this process. Moreover, we have identified a cytosolic kinase responsible for CPRF4a phosphorylation. Modification of recombinant CPRF4a by this kinase, however, is insufficient to cause a full activation of the factor, suggesting that additional modifications are required. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the DNA binding activity of the factor is modified upon light treatment. The results of additional irradiation experiments suggest that this photoresponse is controlled by different photoreceptor systems. We discuss the possible role of CPRF4a in light signal transduction as well as the emerging regulatory network controlling CPRF activities in parsley

Comment on “Heat-Flow Induced Anomalies in Superfluid 4He near Tλ”

In a recent Letter [1], Haussmann and Dohm (HD) presented a renormalization group treatment of the 4He lambda transition in a heat current Q. In this Comment, we use simple arguments that yield the same critical point exponent for the depressed Tl, and nearly the same critical velocity, but indicate that HD may not have calculated the proper specific heat anomaly