SECURITIES—DEMOCRATIZING EQUITY MARKETS WITH AND WITHOUT EXPLOITATION: ROBINHOOD, GAMESTOP, HEDGE FUNDS, GAMIFICATION, HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING, AND MORE

The stock trading frenzy of January 2021 brought a relatively new player in the securities markets into public consciousness—the platforms offering no- or low-commission trading that seek to appeal to young and less-experienced investors with a “fun” if not “delightful” user experience. Most prominent among these new brokers is Robinhood, with a slick mobile phone app, which claims that its platform will “democratize finance” by making investing cheaper and easier for the masses who have been looked down upon and locked out by the wealthy elites of Wall Street. However, Robinhood’s claims of “democratization” have all the hallmarks of manipulation and exploitation, making Robinhood’s founders multibillionaires while many of its retail customers suffer financial ruin. That is because platforms like Robinhood take arguably legal kickbacks for routing their customer orders—known as payment for order flow—to high frequency trading firms which execute those orders, almost always in dark, off-exchange venues. To maximize those kickbacks, Robinhood’s mobile trading app is gamified via predatory digital engagement practices to disarm its customers’ financial self-defense mechanisms and prompt as much frequent and risky trading as possible. Such trading behavior has been shown to be highly detrimental to retail investors, and indeed many of Robinhood’s customers have been harmed by engaging in such practices, some grievously. The result is that, unlike the legend of Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, the Robinhoods of the world are taking from the less experienced and enriching themselves and their fellow Wall Street billionaires. But it does not have to be this way. Finance can be genuinely democratized (easier access, lower costs, user-friendly financial tools, etc.) and trading can be demystified in ways that facilitate wealth creation rather than wealth extraction. However, for that to happen, regulators must enforce existing laws and rules against illegal conduct and impose meaningful penalties on individual corporate officers that punish and deter. Regulators must also enact new rules to prohibit, for example, predatory digital engagement practices. Once the highly profitable lawbreakers and predators are shut down, the financial industry can focus on serving Main Street investors rather than exploiting them to enrich Wall Street

Advanced composite elevator for Boeing 727 aircraft. Volume 1: Technical summary

The design, development, analysis, and testing activities and results that were required to produce five and one-half shipsets of advanced composite elevators for Boeing 727 aircraft are summarized. During the preliminary design period, alternative concepts were developed. After selection of the best design, detail design and basic configuration improvements were evaluated. Five and one-half shipsets were manufactured. All program goals (except competitive cost demonstration) were accomplished when our design met or exceeded all requirements, criteria, and objectives

Current and prospective use of musculoskeletal diagnostic ultrasound imaging at chiropractic teaching institutions: A worldwide survey of diagnostic imaging staff

Objective The purpose of this study was to survey the use of musculoskeletal diagnostic ultrasound imaging (MSK-DUSI) at chiropractic educational programs worldwide and to elicit opinions of academic diagnostic imaging staff of its prospective use at their teaching institutions. Methods An electronic questionnaire was delivered in 2014 using SurveyMonkey and notifications were disseminated by e-mail to 127 diagnostic imaging staff at chiropractic programs worldwide. The questionnaire consisted of 27 items using multiple-choice, Likert-type, and open-ended questions. Descriptive statistics were used for basic demographic data and the results of the numerical scales used in each item. Results Fifty-nine respondents (46.5%) from 24 (24/41) chiropractic programs returned questionnaires. The reported use of MSK-DUSI at chiropractic programs is low (n = 5/24); however, respondents from 9 institutions stated that it is planned to be implemented. Few respondents stated they had formal MSK-DUSI qualifications (4/59); however, 7 respondents stated they were in the process of becoming certified. Most respondents expressed an interest in the prospect of incorporating MSK-DUSI at their chiropractic program. Sixty-five percent stated that chiropractic programs should provide MSK-DUSI training to chiropractic students, and 75% of respondents stated that chiropractic programs should be providing accredited postgraduate MSK-DUSI courses. Conclusions The current use of MSK-DUSI among chiropractic programs that responded to this survey is low. The opinions of diagnostic imaging staff who responded suggest a positive attitude to its use and possible growth in its use if foundational work, including gaining funding, accreditation, and acceptance of within the scope of chiropractic practice, is undertaken

Exploring conversational and physiological aspects of psychotherapy talk

This study is part of a larger exploration of ‘talk and cure’ that combines the examination of talk-in-interaction with nonverbal displays and measurements of the client’s and therapist’s autonomic arousal during therapy sessions. A key assumption of the study is that psychotherapy entails processes of intersubjective meaning-making that occur across different modalities and take place in both verbal/explicit and nonverbal/implicit domains. A single session of a psychodynamic psychotherapy is analyzed with a focus on the expression and management of affect, with an aim to describe key interactive events that promote change in both semantic and procedural domains. The clinical dialog is analyzed discursively, with a focus on the conversational processes through which new meanings are jointly constructed and affective states shared; detailed attention is paid to nonverbal displays of affiliation and affect. Furthermore, we explore whether the interactional patterns implicated in joint meaning-making, as revealed by analyzing the therapeutic conversation, have correlates in the autonomic arousal of the two protagonists, as reflected in their heart rates. Conversation analysis has still untapped potential to illuminate interactional patterns that underlie the practice of psychotherapy. In this exploratory study we suggest that discursive analyses of talk-in-interaction can be enriched through detailed focus on nonverbal displays as well as measures of physiological arousal. Drawing upon the analysis, we suggest that bringing the methodological strengths of language-based analysis into fertile dialog with embodied quantitative data can help our explorations of what’s really going on in psychotherapy

El régimen jurídico aplicable a las actividades en la luna y otros cuerpos celestes

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