Published stock recommendations as investor sentiment in the near-term stock market

This paper investigates the role of published stock recommendations in print and online media as investor sentiment in the near-term German stock market. In line with extant literature on other sentiment measures, vector autoregressions reveal that past stock returns drive today's sentiment, but not the other way around, and that sentiment is a powerful predictor of itself. In particular, sentiment based on printed analyst recommendations follows reversals, that is, when analysts face a stock market downturn, they see a buying opportunity and become optimistic.analyst forecasts, investor sentiment, media content, VAR analysis

Why is it so Hard to Engage with Practices of the Informal Sector? Experimental Insights from the Indian E-Waste-Collective

Electronic waste is one of the biggest and dirtiest waste streams worldwide, endangering humans and non-humans especially in the 'global south'. The government of India issued a new law to deal with this issue in 2011: the ‘e-waste (Management and Handling) Rules’. This article reconstructs the process by which this law was developed over eight years with ethnographically collected data. It points particularly to the ways the law threatens parts of the informal sector. 'Refurbishers’, who repair used electronic items, are ignored—even though they initially played a crucial part in the newly composed value chain, including during early draft of the electronic waste law. Such informal practices were neglected because of the particular focus of the legislature on modern recycling. This occurred because of the eerie imagination attached to the object electronic waste. Based upon voices from the informal sector, an alternative to this imagination is introduced and critically discussed: 'juggad', a new ideal of the broken down. Taken together, the diplomatic endeavour in this article wants to do more than show that the values of informal sector practices such as refurbishment are not appreciated. The goal is to also describe why it is so hard to engage with these practices in the first place. Bruno Latour's new approach, developed in 'An Inquiry into Modes of Existence' (2013), helps unfolding the argument. This recent shift in the actor-network-theory (ANT) renders a postcolonial reconstruction of democracy feasible

Statistical Investigation of the Immune Response in Non-Human Primate Models

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was first detected more than 30 years ago. Since then, intensive research has been done to develop a broadly protective vaccine, though without success. Our goal is to unveil some features of the protective immunity in non-human primate lentiviral infections in order to emulate HIV-infection. Two primate species have been studied, rhesus macaques (Rh) (Macaca mulatta) and African green monkeys (Ag) (Chlorocebus spp.). Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection is non-pathogenic to Ag while Rh develop an AIDS-like illness. In this study, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 8 Ag and 27 Rh were stimulated with phorbol merystate acetate and ionomycin to activate lymphocytes regardless of their specificity. We hypothesize that the immune response of the two species is fundamentally different resulting in the different reactions to SIV infection. CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells were investigated with respect to multiple surface markers and production of gamma-interferon (IFN), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF) and interleukin two (IL2). Additionally to principal component analysis, we tried a new approach by using exploratory factor analysis to reveal latent influences. We found differing relations for both Ag and Rh especially among cytokine secretion patterns. Based on our results, it is assumable that, besides their clear biological interaction, the TNF and IL2 are dependent on a latent factor in the Ag. However, this strong relation could not be found in Rh. Instead, TNF and IL2 seem to oppose each other for Rh because they are assigned to different latent factors

Factors Influencing the Yield Proportions of \u3ci\u3ePlantago lanceolata\u3c/i\u3e L. and \u3ci\u3eTaraxacum officinale\u3c/i\u3e Web. in \u3ci\u3eLolium perenne\u3c/i\u3e L. Swards

Diaspores of Plantago lanceolata and Taraxacum officinale respectively were sown in established Lolium perenne swards to determine the dynamics of their yield proportions during five years. The experimental factors were forb species, variety of the grass species (= early or late flowering), N-fertilization, and sward density. The amount of nitrogen fertilizer had the most important effect on yield proportions of the forb species and also on the total dry-matter (= DM) yield. The single creation of gaps in grass swards before sowing forbs had a lasting positive effect on the Plantago lanceolata and Taraxacum officinale proportions. Peak proportions of Taraxacum officinale in May were reduced when it was accompanied by the early flowering Lolium perenne variety. In contrast to Taraxacum officinale, until 1996 Plantago lanceolata had high yield proportions even when 80 kg N ha-1 a-1 was applied. This situation was not persistent, since the proportions of Plantago lanceolata in plots with high N amounts decreased rapidly in the following years