Search results

To analyze and identify the key findings from the April 8, 2020, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (the “SEC”) recently approved rule amendments (“Adopted Rules”) extended to business development companies (“BDCs”) and registered closed-end funds and an Exemptive Order providing regulatory flexibility to BDCs.

Discusses the key takeaways and implications from the Adopted Rules and Exemptive Order.

The Adopted Rules provide BDCs and registered closed-end funds some of the more efficient registration, reporting, offering, and communication requirements currently applicable to operating companies. The Exemptive Order provides BDCs additional flexibility with respect to (1) the issuance and sale of senior securities and (2) the participation in certain joint transactions.

Firms and their representatives should heed the trends in both the substantial restitution FINRA is ordering and the related enforcement issues in the cases FINRA has brought.

Expert analysis and guidance from experienced asset management lawyers.

To explain a guidance update recently issued by the USA Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Division of Investment Management that furthers the SEC’s goal of clear and concise, user-friendly disclosure by focusing on certain specified requirements of Form N-1A and the rules under the Securities Act of 1933.

Discusses five areas where the SEC staff had been providing significant numbers of comments related to mutual fund disclosure after the adoption of the amendments to Form N-1A in 2009 by summarizing the applicable instructions of Form N1-A and/or rule and the SEC staff’s observations with respect to such instruction or rule.

Funds should ensure that during their next annual update they review their prospectus disclosure in light of this guidance update and make necessary changes so that the disclosure is clear and concise and not overly technical.

A concise summary of the SEC’s guidance update from experienced investment management lawyers.

From time immemorial until about a generation ago, the UAE desert-roaming Bedouins were living in tents (hair houses) which they themselves had innovated, constructed and elaborated. They had done this in such a way as to ensure that their practical need for accommodation was met, that the constraints of their physical environment were taken into account, and that their own social and religious obligations could be discharged. Then almost overnight the tents disappeared and with them the way of life they represented.

As a consequence of the UAE government's policy in the early urbanization and resettlement of the country's nomadic population, the previous occupants of the hair houses found themselves residents of the so-called “housing areas” on the outskirts of the UAE cities and towns. The problems arising from this sudden transformation are the focus of this study which aims to demonstrate that while the resettled Bedouins turned to embrace the modern life in their new homes, they were mentally and emotionally drawn to their past lifestyle in which the hair house, more than merely providing accommodation, was an expression of personality and culture.

To this end, this study documents and analyzes the southern version of the hair house (otherwise known as the “winter house”), previously the most common in the UAE desert. The study will consider not only that the hair house was a masterpiece of innovative construction suited to the Bedouin's environment and culture but also, as comparison at different levels shows, the inadequacy of the urban cement house as the Bedouin's current-day accommodation. Consequently, the study recommends that future housing projects targeted at the resettled Bedouins should be designed with a view to harmonizing the needs and requirements of contemporary life with the rich heritage of the Bedouins.

In carrying out this study, the researcher has utilized a combination of research tools, primarily theoretical, descriptive and analytical together with field visits and personal interviews with former residents of the hair houses and the curators of the Heritage Village in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital. In contrast, as the “housing areas” are still in existence, the scope of the study is limited to the hair house which it tries to recover and reconstruct as a point of reference for the thesis of the study.

Describes Standard and Poor’s (S&P: USA) star ranking system for firm performance and presents a study of the impact of ranking changes on share prices. Outlines previous research on the effect of ranking changes and examines the share prices for 70 days before and after S&P ranking change announcements 1993‐1995 to assess abnormal returns. Explains the methodology and presents the results, which show significant changes in abnormal returns around the announcement dates, especially where the change is “in leaps rather than in steps”.

Metadata and information technology staff in libraries that are building digital collections typically extract and manipulate MARC metadata sets to provide access to digital content via non‐MARC schemes. Metadata processing in these libraries involves defining the relationships between metadata schemes, moving metadata between schemes, and coordinating the intellectual activity and physical resources required to create and manipulate metadata. Actively managing the non‐MARC metadata resources used to build digital collections is something most of these libraries have only begun to do. This article proposes strategies for managing MARC metadata repurposing efforts as the first step in a coordinated approach to library metadata management. Guided by lessons learned from Cornell University library mapping and transformation activities, the authors apply the literature of data resource management to library metadata management and propose a model for managing MARC metadata repurposing processes through the implementation of a metadata management design.

Is the carrot of more money for greater output per man hour the best way of improving productivity? Companies that believe this are likely to fall far short of their goals. They will certainly miss a golden opportunity to lift the performance of their organisations to a new level that brings long‐term benefits. David Young, head of the Human Resource Division of PA Management Consultants, believes that the key is to make full use of the untapped potential within the workforce. It is a formula that might sound over simple, but, on the basis of PA's experience within a range of companies in different industries, its validity can be seen in terms of better performance, hard cash savings and other measurable improvements.

Few indulgences are more welcome to the contemplative mind on a cold, inclement day than to lie amid the centrally‐heated, air‐conditioned, electronically serviced ambience of a contemporary habitat and thus to invoke the fondly imagined felicities of life in time‐distance merrie England. New and old, practical and romantic, utilitarian and aesthetic is a combination of irresistible appeal to the British character, and it accounts for the prosperity of those of our ancient inns which have added all mod cons to their heritage of open hearths, ancient beams, latticed windows, undulating floors and four‐posters in which Good Queen Bess once slept the sleep of an innocent virgin.

Using visual materials to understand a social object requires the researcher to know that object's purpose, and this is true whether the object is an artifact, a restricted event, a small social world, or something as massive as the modern city. I argue that the purpose of the city as a settlement is driven by the need to safely sleep in peace at night while satisfying other basic biophysical needs during the day as conveniently as possible. An examination of these needs identifies 10 functional prerequisites for human settlement, entangling its inhabitants in involuntary community with entities and events other than themselves, whether they like it or not. In addition, the rise of the modern city exacerbates the challenge of living in a reluctant community and pressures its inhabitants to come to terms with the consequences for how these relationships affect daily life. I highlight nine challenges posed as questions that have been particularly salient in American urban history since the mid-nineteenth century. How these challenges have been addressed indicates not only what it takes to make a modern city a settlement suitable for satisfying human needs, but also just how deeply invested its residents are in making the city work. Finally, the 10 functional prerequisites and nine moral challenges not only provide a framework for researching the city, but also suggest a coherent outline for imagining a “shooting script” or guide for conducting visual research.

Limited, dated information is available to school administrators concerning the influence that the built learning environment has on academic achievement. Given the population increases, volatile standardized test scores, demand for new schools, and deplorable conditions of school facilities in the United States, it is timely to investigate this neglected aspect of educational research. In the face of radical technological changes and curriculum innovations, much of the new public school architectural design is tied firmly to past and outdated practices. Currently reform advocates push for program change to occur, while voicing minimal concern for the often obsolete and shabby physical environments of the schools where the program improvement is to evolve. With these problems representing the educational need, the specific purpose of this study was to determine how school architectural design factors might influence student achievement scores in elementary schools. A total of seven design factors were found to correlate with student learning outcomes.