Investor heterogeneity and the cross-sectional stock returns in China

We examine the relationship between divergence of opinion and the cross-sectional stock returns in Chinese A share market where short-selling of stocks is prohibited by law. Using a proxy for divergence of opinion among the entire investor base, we document a positive relationship between divergent beliefs and future stock returns. This is in sharp contrast to Miller's (1977) prediction of a negative relationship between the two. The result is likely to be driven by the dominance of individual investors and their speculative trading behaviors in China. Miller's prediction is confirmed when divergence of opinion is measured using data on mutual fund holdings. Our results are robust to a number of common return predictors. We also find a significantly negative relationship between the fraction of tradable shares in listed Chinese companies and future stock returns. Increase in the fraction of tradable shares tends to reduce the predictability of stock returns using divergence of opinion.

Not-I/Thou : the other subject of art and architecture

Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject of Art and Architecture is a series of essays delineating the gray areas and black zones in present-day cultural production. Part One is an implicit critique of neoliberal capitalism and its assault on the humanities through the pseudo-scientific and pseudo-empirical biases of academic and professional disciplines, while Part Two returns to apparent lost causes in the historical development of modernity and post-modernity, particularly the recourse to artistic production as both a form of mnemonics and periodic (and renascent) avant-garde agitation. In-between these twin systems of taking the measure of things, Art and Architecture, as forms of speculative intellectual capital, emerge from the shadow-lands of half-conscious and half-unconscious forces to become gestures toward a type of knowledge that has no utilitarian or generic agency. Defying the tendencies of such discourses to fall prey to instrumental orders that effectively neuter the inherent radical agenda of both, Art and Architecture are represented in this series of essays as noetic apparatuses, operating at the edge of authorized systems of knowledge, quietly and secretly validating and valorizing the shadowy and recondite, collective and personal operations of intellect in service to no particular end.

Metabolic remodelling in obesity and type 2 diabetes: pathological or protective mechanisms in response to nutrient excess?

Altered metabolism in tissues such as the liver, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue is observed in metabolic diseases characterized by nutrient excess and energy imbalance, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. These alterations in metabolism can include resistance to the hormone insulin, lipid accumulation, mitochondrial dysfunction and transcriptional remodelling of major metabolic pathways. The underlying assumption has been that these same alterations in metabolism are fundamental to the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases. An alternative view is that these alterations in metabolism occur to protect cell and tissue viability in the face of constant positive energy balance. This speculative review presents evidence that many of the metabolic adaptations that occur in metabolic diseases characterized by nutrient excess can be viewed as protective in nature, rather than pathogenic per se for disease progression. Finally, we also briefly discuss the usefulness and potential pitfalls of therapeutic approaches that attempt to correct these same metabolic defects when energy balance is not altered, and the potential links between metabolic survival responses and other chronic diseases such as cancer.

Chamber music in painting photography film

This exhibition expands upon the history, approaches of experimental film and image making. Through speculative and abstract approaches the artists appropriate images to deal with trauma, confusion and nostalgia. The artists in this exhibition use personal imagery to demonstrate abstract ideals and idiosyncratic perspectives. Work in the show will be made up of photographic prints, collage, 16mm film and video work. Through physical manipulations of the image surface, retrenching of forgotten archives and poetic layerings of time and place, this exhibition aims to examine the de-linear and personal ways artists can experiment with the image.Through incorporating work of long standing artists Dirk De Bruyn and Luigi Fusinato in contrast with the work of young artists Anna Higgins and Beth Caird, the exhibition will examine the relationship between experimental film from a pre-digital context and how it influences, echoes and evolves in a post-digital environment.

Citing the saucers: astronomy, UFOs and a persistence of vision

This paper consists of two parallel and interweaving investigations regarding the UFO phenomenon and its origins with respect to observational astronomy. First, as a young child, I was fascinated with astronomy and would spend many hours with my toy telescope, viewing blurred images of the night sky. I also held a deep belief in UFOs and was committed to seeing and recording a flying saucer for myself. This led me to fabricate my own UFO photographs and from these I developed a critical relationship with photography as a means of documentation and as a medium of illusionary projection. This paper is therefore partly personal and reflexive.The second thread investigates the advent of the UFO phenomenon as a consequence of nineteenth and early twentieth century developments in observational astronomy, and the speculative theories regarding life on Mars that emerged during this period. I will be considering the work of Giovanni Schiaparelli, Percival Lowell and the writings of Carl Jung. I will be arguing that the primary force that led towards a belief in flying saucers emerged from the speculations and misinterpretations of certain astronomical observations, together with a desire to project upon that which was observed, rather than to see that which was there.

Immune biomarkers in the spectrum of childhood noncommunicable diseases

A biomarker is an accurately and reproducibly quantifiable biological characteristic that provides an objective measure of health status or disease. Benefits of biomarkers include identification of therapeutic targets, monitoring of clinical interventions, and development of personalized (or precision) medicine. Challenges to the use of biomarkers include optimizing sample collection, processing and storage, validation, and often the need for sophisticated laboratory and bioinformatics approaches. Biomarkers offer better understanding of disease processes and should benefit the early detection, treatment, and management of multiple noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This review will consider the utility of biomarkers in patients with allergic and other immune-mediated diseases in childhood. Typically, biomarkers are used currently to provide mechanistic insight or an objective measure of disease severity, with their future role in risk stratification/disease prediction speculative at best. There are many lessons to be learned from the biomarker strategies used for cancer in which biomarkers are in routine clinical use and industry-wide standardized approaches have been developed. Biomarker discovery and validation in children with disease lag behind those in adults; given the early onset and therefore potential lifelong effect of many NCDs, there should be more studies incorporating cohorts of children. Many pediatric biomarkers are at the discovery stage, with a long path to evaluation and clinical implementation. The ultimate challenge will be optimization of prevention strategies that can be implemented in children identified as being at risk of an NCD through the use of biomarkers.

The 'thin descriptions' of the secondary analyses of PISA

The heavy hammer methods of OECD and PISA in influencing policy through the rankings and through its policy advice are well documented. This speculative paper explores the more subtle and perhaps deeper implications of the development of the PISA database, and of the secondary analysis that is performed using this database. Speculating with concepts from Science and Technology Studies, this paper suggests that PISA deflates “ontologically luxuriant objects” into “ontologically impoverished objects” through standardization and simplification. Freed from their moorings and translated into inscriptions, these ontologically impoverished objects are promiscuous, freely combining with other such objects across spaces and times in different ways to produce lessons for policy and practice. In this paper, I suggest that, while these promiscuous relations may produce mathematically defensible assertions, such findings may be ontologically absurd. Using data from interviews with measurement and policy experts, as well as published secondary analyses, this paper ventures some speculative ideas about how we might understand the PISA database and the use of this database in secondary analysis. The paper argues that secondary analysis is not merely a mathematical or technical exercise but a sociotechnical one, and that, given its influence and reach, it attempts to open up the black boxes of the PISA database and the practices of secondary analysis, and make them available for wider sociological and philosophical examination and critique.