StumbleUpon | aliasinkhorn's URL reviews

NewsDaily: Hormones, incentive, experience "make best traders"

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:32:45 -0800

Hormones, incentive, experience "make best traders"

From the page: "British scientists say a perfect combination of testosterone, experience and a hunger for a share of profits can produce financial traders who consistently outperform the market -- even during a crisis.

Researchers from Cambridge University who studied 53 traders from the City of London financial district found that several years of trading experience, the right kind of hormones and profit-sharing incentives make profitable, prudent risk-takers.

The study looked at male "high-frequency" traders, who buy and sell financial products but only hold positions for only a few seconds, and the "Sharpe ratio" performance measure -- a ratio between trading profit and the level of risk taken.

The Sharpe ratio was developed in 1966 by former Nobel prize winner William Sharpe to measure risk-adjusted performance.

"A trader making $100 million would normally be considered a star, but not if the trader could just as easily have lost $500 million. A trader's Sharpe ratio is a better measure of skill than profits alone because it would expose this trader as reckless," said John Coates, a Cambridge research fellow in neuroscience who previously worked on Wall Street.

The researchers compared traders' Sharpe ratios with the Sharpe ratio of the DAX German stock market index and found that more experienced traders scored significantly higher -- an average of 1.02 compared with the Dax's average 0.53.

The traders' Sharpe ratios also increased markedly with the number of years they had been trading -- a result suggesting that learning plays a role in increasing returns, they wrote in the study published in the Public Library of Science journal.

Coates said his study suggested banks should use improving Sharpe ratios over time as an indication that a trader "has developed a skill worth paying for."

"The traders in our study ... received no bonus, only profit shares. They had therefore a strong incentive to lower, not raise, the variance of their profits," he wrote in a commentary.

Previous studies have suggested that the hormone testosterone plays an important part in the work of financial traders, with evidence that male traders will make much more aggressive trades on days when their testosterone is high.

Coates said this risk-taking trait was important, but only counted if it was combined with training and the right incentives: "In trading, as in sports, biology needs the guiding hand of experience," he wrote."
.

Talking to ourselves: How consumers navigate choices and inner conflict

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:16:39 -0800

Talking to Ourselves: How Consumers Navigate Choices and Inner Conflict

From the page: ""... In our analysis of relationships between two selves with different worldviews and consumption preferences, we discovered a unique relationship in which one self offers a non-judgmental acceptance of another self's opposing views and behavior, and in doing so brings peace and equanimity in a situation involving opposing preferences," the authors write.

At other times, one self will take over and dominate, which can lead to inner conflict. One finding exposed a "desirable self," which can promote positive consumption behaviors like exercise and hard work. However, when allowed free reign, this self can push consumers to overstretch their limits and end up with physical injuries or burnout.

The authors believe this study can help marketers and other agencies that are trying to promote more mindful consumption choices. "By understanding the different voices in consumers they can promote communications that model consumers' inner conflicts and present different dialogical strategies like negotiation, coalition, compassion, and compartmentalization that will help them navigate conflicts to make better choices."

.

New Study Finds Men and Women May Respond Differently to Danger

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:15:08 -0800

New Study Finds Men and Women May Respond Differently to Danger

AT A GLANCE

-- An fMRI study of men and women showed that their brains respond differently to positive and negative stimuli.

-- Women associate positive images with memories.

-- Men may be more likely to act when confronted with danger.

From the page: "Researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activation have found that men and women respond differently to positive and negative stimuli, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"Men may direct more attention to sensory aspects of emotional stimuli and tend to process them in terms of implications for required action, whereas women direct more attention to the feelings engendered by emotional stimuli," said Andrzej Urbanik, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Radiology at Jagiellonian University Hospital in Krakow, Poland.

For the study, Dr. Urbanik and colleagues recruited 40 right-handed volunteers, 21 men and 19 women, between the ages of 18 and 36. The volunteers underwent fMRI while viewing pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), a widely used, standardized testing system comprised of several thousand slides of various objects and images from ordinary life designed to evoke defined emotional states. The images were displayed in two runs. For the first run, only negative pictures were shown. For the second run, only positive pictures were shown.

While viewing the negative images, women showed decidedly stronger and more extensive activation in the left thalamus, which relays sensory information to and from the cerebral cortex, including the pain and pleasure centers. Men exhibited more activation in the left insula, which gauges the physiological state of the entire body and then generates subjective feelings that can bring about actions. Information from the insula is relayed to other brain structures involved in decision making.

"The brain activation seen in the women might indicate stronger involvement of the neural circuit, which is associated with identification of emotional stimuli," Dr. Urbanik said. "The more pronounced activation of the insular cortex in the men might be related to the autonomic components, such as elevated heart rate or increased sweating, that accompany watching emotional material."

The autonomic nervous system controls involuntary functions, including respiration, heart rate and digestion, and helps to adjust certain functions in response to stress or other environmental stimuli. It is responsible for the body's "fight or flight" response to threatening situations.

"In men, the negative images on the slides were more potent in driving their autonomic system," Dr. Urbanik said. "This might signal that when confronted with dangerous situations, men are more likely than women to take action."

While viewing positive images, women showed stronger and more extensive activation in the right superior temporal gyrus, which is involved in auditory processing and memory. Men exhibited stronger activation in the bilateral occipital lobes, which are associated with visual processing.

Dr. Urbanik believes these differences indicate that women may analyze positive stimuli in a broader social context and associate the positive images with a particular memory. Viewing a picture of a smiling toddler might evoke memories of a woman's own child at this age. Conversely, male responses are more perceptual.

"Positive images are devoured by mens' visual and motivational systems," Dr. Urbanik said..."

.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2783/4123827573_19de1a46e4_o.jpg

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:08:39 -0800

d i s c u s f i s h

A cup of Brazilian mint tea relieves pain as well as aspirin, but without the harmful side effects

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:56:23 -0800

A cup of Brazilian mint tea relieves pain as well as aspirin, but without the harmful side effects

From the page: "Researchers from Newcastle University have scientifically proven that Hyptis crenata, also known as Brazilian mint, is a powerful pain reliever that works just as well as Indometacin, a synthetic drug similar to aspirin. A traditional remedy for treating the flu, stomach problems, high fevers, and headaches, Brazilian mint was found to be extremely powerful and safe.

The team, led by Graciela Rocha, set out to perform the study using the traditional preparation of the herb. Surveys were conducted in Brazil to figure out exactly how this was done and how much should be consumed in order to achieve beneficial results. The preparation the team ended up using consisted of the herb's dried leaves being steeped in boiling water for 30 minutes. Once cool, the tea was consumed in the same way as any other brewed tea would be. The results indicated efficacy in a wide range of ailments.

Graciela emphasized the fact that more than 50,000 plants worldwide are used for some type of medicinal purpose and that researchers should focus on identifying these types of plants and testing their efficacy. Since more than half of all prescription drugs are derived from plant compounds, it is a worthy effort to study plant medicines in their natural, safe forms.

Findings were put forward at the 2nd International Symposium on Medicinal and Nutraceutical Plants in New Delhi, India and are set to be published in the society's journal Acta Horticulturae. Clinical trials are the next step for the group who hopes to discover not only the various effective dose levels for various pains and illnesses but also the specific characteristics of the herb that make it so advantageous."
.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2544/4133135659_892715b3a3_o.jpg

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:54:24 -0800

s r i l a n ka l e o p a r d s

- Bloomberg.com

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:37:57 -0800

Mark Pittman, Reporter Who Foresaw Subprime Crisis, Dies at 52

From the page: "Mark Pittman, the award-winning investigative reporter whose fight to open the Federal Reserve to more scrutiny led Bloomberg News to sue the central bank and win, died Nov. 25 in Yonkers, New York. He was 52.

Pittman suffered from heart-related illnesses. The precise cause of his death wasn't known, said his friend William Karesh, vice president of the Global Health Program at the Bronx, New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

A former police-beat reporter who joined Bloomberg News in 1997, Pittman wrote stories in 2007 predicting the collapse of the banking system. That year, he won the Gerald Loeb Award from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, the highest accolade in financial journalism, for "Wall Street's Faustian Bargain," a series of articles on the breakdown of the U.S. mortgage industry.

"He was one of the great financial journalists of our time," said Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for economics. "His death is shocking."

Pittman's fight to make the Fed more accountable resulted in an Aug. 24 victory in Manhattan Federal Court affirming the public's right to know about the central bank's more than $2 trillion in loans to financial firms. He drew the attention of filmmakers Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, who gave him a prominent role in their documentary about subprime mortgages, "American Casino," which was shown at New York City's Tribeca Film Festival in May.

`One Reporter'

"Who sues the Fed? One reporter on the planet," said Emma Moody, a Wall Street Journal editor who worked with Pittman at Bloomberg. "The more complex the issue, the more he wanted to dig into it. Years ago, he forced us to learn what a credit- default swap was. He dragged us kicking and screaming."..."

A very, very great lost to Americans - for the ones that read him, that is.
.

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1425950.jpg

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:35:48 -0800

punat, island of krk, croatia

the last place i vacationed
before returning back to the states

.

Vitamin D tied to muscle power in adolescent girls

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:25:22 -0800

Vitamin D tied to muscle power in adolescent girls

From the page: "Although vitamin D is naturally produced in the body through exposure to direct sunlight, vitamin D deficiency has become widely common in the United States. Vitamin D deficiency has been shown to have a significant negative impact on muscle and bone health, and can lead to conditions including osteoporosis and rickets.

"We know vitamin D deficiency can weaken the muscular and skeletal systems, but until now, little was known about the relationship of vitamin D with muscle power and force," said Dr. Kate Ward, Ph.D., of the University of Manchester in the U.K., and lead author of the study. "Our study found that vitamin D is positively related to muscle power, force, velocity and jump height in adolescent girls."

...

"Vitamin D affects the various ways muscles work and we've seen from this study that there may be no visible symptoms of vitamin D deficiency," said Dr. Ward. "Further studies are needed to address this problem and determine the necessary levels of vitamin D for a healthy muscle system.""
.

Weekly and biweekly vitamin D2 prevents vitamin D deficiency

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:20:41 -0800

Weekly and biweekly vitamin D2 prevents vitamin D deficiency

From the page: "Boston University School of Medicine researchers (BUSM) have found that 50,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D2, given weekly for eight weeks, effectively treats vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D2 is a mainstay for the prevention and treatment of vitamin D deficiency in children and adults. Continued treatment with the same dose of vitamin D2 every other week for up to six years after the initial eight-week period prevents vitamin D deficiency from recurring with no toxicity. The BUSM study appears online in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

Vitamin D is essential for strong bones because it helps the body absorb calcium and phosphorus from the food we eat. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to rickets in children and the painful bone disease osteomalacia in adults. Vitamin D deficiency can also cause osteoporosis and has been linked to increased risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases and infectious diseases including influenza, according to senior author Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, director of the Bone Healthcare Clinic and the Vitamin D, Skin and Bone Research Laboratory at Boston University School of Medicine."
.