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#5905.

Hi,

2354.

2267) Stockbroker

Gist

Stockbrokers are individuals who buy and sell stocks and other securities for retail and institutional clients, through a stock exchange or over the counter, in return for a fee or a commission.

Summary

Stockbrokers are individuals who buy and sell stocks and other securities for retail and institutional clients, through a stock exchange or over the counter, in return for a fee or a commission. Institutional stockbrokers work with fund managers and other financial institutions, but there are also retail investors.

What does a stockbroker do?

Stockbrokers deal with their clients directly and manage their wealth portfolios. They work with existing clients and develop new businesses.

The role involves:

* Keeping up to date with the latest financial and tax legislation
* Monitoring stock market performances
* Conducting specific market research and analysis.

Most importantly, the role is to ensure to understand the client's needs and make the appropriate suggestions for their investments.

Brokers need to be honest and provide all correct information, including risk. Exaggerating and providing misleading information is not acceptable. They also need to proactively look for clients, sell their firm’s services and manage those relationships. This can be achieved by a combination of networking and cold calling.

Types of stockbrokers

* Full-service brokers - provide a personal service to clients and pass on important exclusive information available to only full-service clients. They deliver personalised research and information on investment
* Online brokers - carry out research and provide investment news, charts and a selection of stocks for clients to consider
* Discount brokers - only follow up orders from their clients. They don’t offer advice, research or analysis services.

Details

A stockbroker is an individual or company that buys and sells stocks and other investments for a financial market participant in return for a commission, markup, or fee. In most countries they are regulated as a broker or broker-dealer and may need to hold a relevant license and may be a member of a stock exchange. They generally act as a financial advisor and investment manager. In this case they may also be licensed as a financial adviser such as a registered investment adviser (in the United States).

Examples of professional designations held by individuals in this field, which affects the types of investments they are permitted to sell and the services they provide include chartered financial consultants, certified financial planners or chartered financial analysts (in the United States and UK), chartered financial planners (in the UK).

In the United States, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority provides an online tool designed to help understand professional designations.

History of stock broking

(...) This enigmatic business [i.e. the inner workings of the stock exchange in Amsterdam, primarily the practice of VOC and WIC stock trading] which is at once the fairest and most deceitful in Europe, the noblest and the most infamous in the world, the finest and the most vulgar on earth. It is a quintessence of academic learning and a paragon of fraudulence; it is a touchstone for the intelligent and a tombstone for the audacious, a treasury of usefulness and a source of disaster, (...) The best and most agreeable aspect of the new business is that one can become rich without risk. Indeed, without endangering your capital, and with out having anything to do with correspondence, advances of money, warehouses, postage, cashiers, suspensions of payment, and other unforeseen incidents, you have the prospect of gaining wealth if, in the case of bad luck in your transactions, you will only change your name. Just as the Hebrews, when they are seriously ill, change their names in order to obtain relief, so a changing of his name is sufficient for the speculator who finds himself in difficulties, to free himself from all impending dangers and tormenting disquietude.

— Joseph de la Vega, in his book Confusión de confusiones (1688), the earliest book about stock trading

The first recorded buying and selling of shares occurred in Rome in the 2nd century BC. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, stockbroking did not become a profession until after the Renaissance, when government bonds were traded in Italian city-states such as Genoa and Venice. In 1602, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (now Euronext Amsterdam) became the first official stock market with trading in shares of the Dutch East India Company, the first company to issue stock. In 1698, the London Stock Exchange opened at the Jonathan's Coffee-House. On May 17, 1792, the New York Stock Exchange opened under a platanus occidentalis (buttonwood tree) in New York City, as 24 stockbrokers signed the Buttonwood Agreement, agreeing to trade five securities under that buttonwood tree.

Additional Information

What Is a Stockbroker?

A stockbroker is a financial professional who executes orders in the market on behalf of clients. A stockbroker may also be known as a registered representative (RR) or an investment advisor. Most stockbrokers work for a brokerage firm and handle transactions for several individual and institutional customers. Stockbrokers are often paid on commission, although compensation methods vary by employer.

Key Takeaways

* A stockbroker is a financial professional who buys and sells stocks at the direction of clients.
* Most buy and sell orders are now made through online discount brokers. This automated process reduces fees.
* Wealthy individuals and institutions continue to use full-service brokers who offer advice, portfolio management services, and complete transactions.

Understanding the Role of a Stockbroker

Buying or selling stocks requires access to one of the major exchanges, such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the NASDAQ. To trade on these exchanges, you must be a member of the exchange or belong to a member firm. Member firms and many individuals who work for them are licensed as brokers or broker-dealers by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Until recent years, getting access to the stock markets was prohibitively expensive. It was cost-effective only for high net-worth investors or large institutional investors, such as the managers of pension funds. They used full-service brokers and could pay hundreds of dollars for executing a trade.

While an individual investor can buy stock shares directly from the company that issues them, it is much simpler to work with a stockbroker.

However, the rise of the internet and related technological advances paved the way for discount brokers to provide online services with cheap, fast, and automated access to the markets. More recently, apps like Robinhood and SoFi have catered to micro-investors, allowing even fractional share purchases. Most accounts in the markets today are managed by the account owners and held by discount brokers.

Brokerage firms and broker-dealer companies are also sometimes referred to generically as stockbrokers. These include full-service and discount brokers who execute trades but do not offer individualized investing advice. Most online brokers are discount brokers, at least at their basic service levels, in which trades are executed for free or for a small set-price commission. Many online brokers offer robo-advisors that automate the buying and selling process.

Stockbrokers in the 21st Century

Brokers who are employed by discount broker firms may work as over-the-phone agents (known as voice brokers) available to answer brief questions or as branch officers in a physical location. They also may consult with clients subscribing to premium tiers of the online broker.

A comparatively smaller number of stockbrokers work for investment banks or specialized brokerage firms. These companies handle large and specialized orders for institutional clients and high-net-worth individuals (HNWI).

Another recent development in broker services is the introduction of roboadvisers, programs that use algorithmic investing techniques carried out via web or mobile app interfaces. There is minimal individual interaction, keeping fees low.

Hi,

#5904.

2098) Craig Mello

Gist:

Work

RNA has multiple functions. Among these, messenger RNA carries genetic information from DNA to protein formation. RNA is often a single-stranded spiral, but also exists in double-stranded form. In 1998, Craig Mello and Andrew Fire discovered through their studies of the roundworm C. elegans a phenomenon dubbed RNA interference. In this phenomenon, double-stranded RNA blocks messenger RNA so that certain genetic information is not converted during protein formation. This silences these genes, i.e. renders them inactive. The phenomenon plays an important regulatory role within a genome.

Summary

Craig C. Mello (born Oct. 18, 1960, New Haven, Conn., U.S.) is an American scientist, who was a corecipient, with Andrew Z. Fire, of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2006 for discovering RNA interference (RNAi), a mechanism that regulates gene activity.

Mello grew up in northern Virginia, and, as a young boy, he developed an intense curiosity in the living world. His curiosity was largely influenced by his father, James Mello, a paleontologist who had served as the associate director of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Mello was intrigued by fundamental concepts such as evolution. He felt that these concepts encouraged humans to ask questions about the world around them, a belief that led to his rejection of religion at a young age. Mello attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, studying biochemistry and molecular biology and receiving a B.S. degree in 1982. He began his graduate studies in biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he worked in the laboratory of American molecular biologist David Hirsh, who was investigating the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. While conducting research in Hirsh’s lab, Mello was introduced to American molecular biologist Dan Stinchcomb. When Stinchcomb decided to move to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., to start his own research laboratory, Mello decided to follow him. At Harvard Mello became deeply involved in research on C. elegans, and his studies led him to American scientist Andrew Z. Fire, who was working at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Baltimore, Md. Both Mello and Fire were working to find a way to insert DNA into C. elegans, a process known as DNA transformation. After exchanging ideas and elaborating on one another’s experiments, they successfully developed a procedure for DNA transformation in nematodes. In 1990, following the completion of his thesis, C. elegans DNA Transformation, Mello graduated from Harvard with a Ph.D. in biology.

Mello worked at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wash., from 1990 to 1994. He continued studying C. elegans, though his focus had shifted to identifying genes involved in regulating nematode development. In 1994 Mello joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He became interested in an RNA injection technique used to silence genes. Silencing genes in C. elegans enabled Mello to identify the functions of the genes he had discovered while working in Seattle. He soon found that some nematode embryos that had been injected with RNA to silence certain genes were able to transmit the silencing effect to their offspring. Mello and Fire worked in collaboration to uncover the cellular mechanism driving this active silencing phenomenon and discovered that the genes were being silenced by double-stranded RNA. Known as RNAi, this mechanism regulates gene activity and helps defend against viral infection. In 1998 they published their findings, for which they later received the Nobel Prize. RNAi has proved a valuable research tool, enabling scientists to block genes in order to uncover the basic functions and roles of genes in disease. RNAi can also be used to develop new treatments for a number of diseases, including AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis. Following the RNAi publication, Mello focused his research on applying the silencing technique to the study of embryonic cell differentiation in C. elegans. In 2000 Mello was awarded the title of Howard Hughes Medical Investigator because of his significant contributions to science.

Details

Craig Cameron Mello (born October 18, 1960) is an American biologist and professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Andrew Z. Fire, for the discovery of RNA interference. This research was conducted at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and published in 1998. Mello has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 2000.

Early life

Mello was born in New Haven, Connecticut on October 18, 1960. He was the third child of James and Sally Mello. His father, James Mello, was a paleontologist and his mother, Sally Mello, was an artist. His paternal grandparents immigrated to the US from the Portuguese islands of Azores. His parents met while attending Brown University and were the first children in their respective families to attend college. His grandparents on both sides withdrew from school as teenagers to work for their families. James Mello completed his Ph.D. in paleontology from Yale University in 1962. The Mello family moved to Falls Church in northern Virginia so that James could take a position with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Washington, DC. He was raised as Roman Catholic.

After a brief stay in Falls Church, the family moved to Fairfax, Virginia, when James Mello switched from the USGS to a position as assistant director at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Among Craig's fondest early memories were field trips with his father and the whole family to Colorado and Wyoming and more frequent trips to the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia.

The Mello family had a very strong tradition of discussions around the dinner table and this experience was very important to young Mello. He learned to argue, to listen, and to admit it when he was wrong about something. At a time when young Mello was not performing so well in school, these daily discussions helped to build his confidence and self-esteem. Mello struggled during the first few years of grade school. He started first grade at the age of five in a local private school because he was too young to enter first grade in the public system. He doesn't know if he was a slow learner, or just not interested, but he did not do well in school until the seventh grade. In second grade, Mello only pretended that he could read and he was embarrassed by being called on in class. He much preferred playing outdoors, in the woods and creeks, to time spent in the classroom. Meanwhile, his older siblings were model students, raising the teacher's expectations for him. During these early years, Mello had no doubt that he would be a scientist when he grew up. He is now the father of two daughters and a step-daughter and step-son.

Education

Mello attended Fairfax High School (Fairfax, Virginia). After receiving his high school diploma, Mello attended Brown University as a biochemistry and molecular biology major. Mello would never let Miller finish a lecture without asking him for more references, questions, or evidence for concepts discussed in the lecture. He received his Bachelor of Science from Brown in 1982.

Mello attended the University of Colorado, Boulder for graduate studies in molecular, cellular and developmental biology with David Hirsh. After Hirsh decided to take a position in industry, Mello moved to Harvard University where he could continue his research with Dan Stinchcomb. Mello completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1990. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the laboratory of James Priess.

Nobel prize

In 2006, Mello and Fire received the Nobel Prize for work that began in 1998, when Mello and Fire along with their colleagues (SiQun Xu, Mary Montgomery, Stephen Kostas, and Sam Driver) published a paper  in the journal Nature detailing how tiny snippets of RNA fool the cell into destroying the gene's messenger RNA (mRNA) before it can produce a protein - effectively shutting specific genes down.

In the annual Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scientific Meeting held on November 13, 2006 in Ashburn, Virginia, Mello recounted the phone call that he received announcing that he had won the prize. He recalls that it was shortly after 4:30 am and he had just finished checking on his daughter, and returned to his bedroom. The phone rang (or rather the green light was blinking) and his wife told him not to answer, as it was a prank call. Upon questioning his wife, she revealed that it had rung while he was out of the room and someone was playing a bad joke on them by saying that he had won the Nobel prize. When he told her that they were actually announcing the Nobel prize winners on this very day, he said "her jaw dropped." He answered the phone, and the voice on the other end told him to get dressed, and that in half an hour his life was about to change.

The Nobel citation, issued by Sweden's Karolinska Institute, said: "This year's Nobel Laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information."

Mello and Fire's research, conducted at the Carnegie Institution for Science (Fire) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (Mello), had shown that in fact RNA plays a key role in gene regulation. According to Professor Nick Hastie, director of the Medical Research Council's Human Genetics Unit, said: "It is very unusual for a piece of work to completely revolutionize the whole way we think about biological processes and regulation, but this has opened up a whole new field in biology."

Involvement in RNAi biotechnology industry

Mello is involved in several RNAi-based biotechnology companies. He is a co-founder of RXi Pharmaceuticals where he Chairs the Scientific Advisory Board. In June 2010, he joined the Technology Advisory Board of Beeologics, a company focused on development of RNAi products for honeybee health and various veterinary and agricultural applications, which, according to Mello, "could very well be the first company to obtain FDA approval for an RNAi therapy". In September 2011 Monsanto acquired Beeologics.

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#2738. What does the medical term Eclabium mean?

Hi,

2352.

2266) Opera (Web browser)

Gist

Opera is a multi-platform web browser developed by its namesake company Opera. The current edition of the browser is based on Chromium. Opera is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS (Safari WebKit engine).

Summary

A Web browser for Windows, Mac, Linux and mobiles from Opera Software, Oslo, Norway. Developed at Telenor (Norwegian Telecom) in 1994 and commercialized by Opera in 1995, it is noted for its fast rendering of Web pages. Opera was the first browser to offer a host of unique features such as enlarging text and graphic elements on the page and displaying multiple windows with only one instance of the program running. In 2005, the paid version was made free. In 2013, Opera switched from its Presto architecture to Chromium.

Details

Opera is a multi-platform web browser developed by its namesake company Opera. The current edition of the browser is based on Chromium. Opera is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS (Safari WebKit engine). Two mobile versions are still active, called Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. Opera also has a news aggregator app called Opera News with Aria, an AI-based search engine.

Opera was first released on Monday, April 10th 1995, making it one of the oldest desktop web browsers to ever exist. It was commercial software for its first ten years and had its own proprietary layout engine, Presto. In 2013, it switched from the Presto engine to Chromium. In 2016, Opera, developed in Norway, became a subsidiary of an investment group led by a Chinese consortium. In 2018, Opera Software went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange. By the end of 2022, the consortium sold all of its shares, and Opera in turn committed to repurchase all of its American Depository Shares to reestablish its corporate autonomy. As of the end of 2023, Opera Software was 72.4% owned by Kunlun, a Chinese public company, making it a subsidiary of that company. Opera CEO James Yahui Zhou is a controlling shareholder in Kunlun.

In 2019, Opera introduced Opera GX, a browser marketed towards gamers, claiming to have better performance with a built-in tracker and ad blocker and also having a CPU and RAM usage limiter.

History

In 1994, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsøy started developing the Opera web browser while working at Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunications company.

In 1995, they founded Opera Software AS. Opera was initially released on 10 April 1995, and then it was released publicly in 1996 with version 2.10, which ran on Microsoft Windows 95. Development for mobile device platforms started in 1998.

Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new cross-platform core that facilitated the creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms.

To this point, Opera was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period. With version 5.0, released in 2000, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying ads to users who had not paid for it. Subsequent versions have given users the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text ads from Google.

With version 8.5, released in 2005, the ads were completely removed, and the browser's primary financial support came through revenue from Google (by contract, Opera's default search engine).

Among new features introduced in version 9.1, released in 2006, was fraud protection using technology from GeoTrust, a digital certificate provider, and PhishTank, an organization that tracks known phishing web sites. This feature was further expanded in version 9.5, when GeoTrust was replaced with Netcraft, and malware protection from Haute Secure was added.

In 2006, Opera Software ASA was released as well as Nintendo DS Browser and Internet Channel for Nintendo's DS and Wii gaming systems, respectively, which were Opera-based browsers.

A new JavaScript engine, called Carakan (after the Javanese alphabet), was introduced with version 10.50. According to Opera Software, it made Opera 10.50 more than seven times faster in SunSpider than Opera 10.10.

On 16 December 2010, Opera 11 was released, featuring extensions, tab stacking (where dragging one tab over another allowed creating a group of tabs), visual mouse gestures and changes to the address bar. Opera 12 was released on 14 June 2012.

On 12 February 2013, Opera Software announced that it would drop its own Presto layout engine in favor of WebKit as implemented by Google's Chrome browser, using code from the Chromium project. Opera Software planned as well to contribute code to WebKit. On 3 April 2013, Google announced it would fork components from WebKit to form a new layout engine, Blink. That day, Opera Software confirmed it would follow Google in implementing Blink.

On 28 May 2013, a beta release of Opera 15 was made available, the first version based on the Chromium project. Many distinctive Opera features of the previous versions were dropped, and Opera Mail was separated into a standalone application derived from Opera 12.

In 2016, Opera was acquired by an investment group led by a Chinese consortium, the consortium included several Chinese companies such as Kunlun Tech and Qihoo 360. On July 27, 2018, Opera Software went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange, raising $115 million in its initial public offering. Opera began repurchasing its shares in 2022 following the closure of 360 Security Technology Inc. that year.

In January 2017, the source code of Opera 12.15, one of the last few versions still based on the Presto layout engine, was leaked.

To demonstrate how radically different a browser could look, Opera Neon, dubbed a "concept browser", was released in January 2017. PC World compared it to demo models that automakers and hardware vendors release to show their visions of the future. Instead of a Speed Dial Browsing feature it displays the frequently accessed websites in resemblance to a desktop with computer icons scattered over it in an artistic formation.

On 10 May 2017, Opera 45 was released. Notably this was the last version of the browser compatible with 32-bit Linux distributions, with later versions requiring a 64-bit Linux distribution. This version, inspired by the previous Opera Neon design, was called "Opera Reborn" and which redoes parts of the user interface, such as adding light and dark modes, and integrates the messenger applications Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Additionally, new ad-blocking settings were added along with security changes.

On 4 January 2018, Opera 50 was released. This version updated the browser to utilize the built-in ad blocker to provide cryptocurrency mining protection that stops sites from running scripts that attempt to use the CPU to mine cryptocurrency. Additionally the browser added Chromecast support, VR support enhancements, saving pages as PDFs, and improved VPN performance with region-based locations rather than country-based.

On 9 April 2019, Opera 60 was released. This version, codenamed Reborn 3, focused on moving the browser towards a more minimal design, further improving the free VPN service, and was marketed as being the "World's first Web3 ready browser", as it included out of the box integrations with blockchain and cryptocurrency applications.

On 21 May 2019, Opera GX is announced and opened for early access. The only information available in this announcement is that the browser would be a special version of the browser aimed at those who play games. The early-access program was opened on 11 June 2019.

On 24 June 2021, Opera 77, codenamed Opera R5, was released. As one of the larger updates to the browser, it added more music streaming services in the sidebar, integrating native support for Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Tidal, SoundCloud, and Gaana. The "Pinboards" feature was also added, letting users create a shareable collection of websites, images, links, and notes in a visual form. A video popout feature was also added for video conferencing, which happens automatically when switching tabs, popping out of the window when navigating away and popping back in when navigating back. Later, in Opera 83 released on 19 January 2022, this feature would be implemented for all video players, not just video conferencing platforms.

On 31 Jan 2023, Opera announced that given the discontinuation of support for Windows 7 and 8.1 by Microsoft, Chromium based browsers are also ending support, so Opera will no longer get updates on those versions, but older versions will continue to function on those versions of Windows.

On 22 March 2023, Opera and Opera GX incorporated features with AI-powered tools. These features include AI Prompts that are suggested to the user, and sidebar access to ChatGPT and ChatSonic. The prompts show up on sites that contain content like articles, offering to shorten the text or summarize them.

On 20 June 2023, Opera launched Opera 100, codenamed Opera One, a version of the browser built from the ground up around AI which was unveiled on 25 April 2023. This browser includes a native AI called Aria, a GPT-based AI engine that was developed collaboratively with OpenAI that sifts through web information, generates text and code, and much more in the browser. Tab islands were also introduced, allowing browser tabs to be grouped together, bookmarked, collapsed, and more. Major UI changes were made, and a Multithreaded Compositor was introduced, allowing the browser to function and render in animations much smoother than it was previously capable.

Hi,

#10109. What does the term in Biology RNA polymerase mean?

#10110. What does the term in Biology Ribonucleic acid (RNA) mean?