Tamar Frankel

Bio: Tamar Frankel is an academic researcher from Boston University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Securitization & Fiduciary. The author has an hindex of 10, co-authored 61 publications receiving 2212 citations. Previous affiliations of Tamar Frankel include Brooklyn Law School & Washington University in St. Louis.

Of Theory and Practice

Abstract: Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists. The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful to practitioners and those that are less helpful. The Essay concludes that practitioners theorize, and theorists practice. They use these intellectual tools differently because the goals and orientations of theorists and practitioners, and the constraints under which they act, differ. Theory, practice, experience and "gut" help us think, remember, decide and create. They complement each other like the two sides of the same coin: distinct but inseparable.

Trust and Honesty: America's Business Culture at a Crossroad

Abstract: Part I: The Eroding Trust, Truth, and Culture of Honesty 1. The Spreading Abuse of Trust and Deception 2. Old and New Concerns 3. Towards Abuse of Trust and Mistrust 4. Towards Deception 5. Towards a Different American Culture Part II: Rising Opportunities and Temptations and Falling Barriers to Abuse of Trust and Deception 6. Rising Opportunities and Temptations 7. Falling Barriers to Abuse of Trust and Deception: The Shift to Weaker Morality, Weaker Law and Stronger Market Discipline 8. Falling Barriers to Abuse of Trust and Deception: The Hidden Changes in Legal Doctrine and Interpretation 9. The Shift from Professions to Businesses 10. In Markets We Trust 11. Why Did Legal Enforcement Fail to Stem the Avalanche of Fraud? 12. Towards an Honest Society

The Ponzi Scheme Puzzle: A History and Analysis of Con Artists and Victims

Abstract: PREFACE INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 CON ARTISTS AT WORK A. Three Stories of Ponzi Schemers 1. Charles Ponzi 2. Bernard Madoff 3. Gregory Bell B. The Basic Design 1. Drawing attention to the offer a. High Returns At No Risk b. Stories to Satisfy Investors' Curiosity c. Con Artists' Stories Are Exceptional and Creative. C. Gaining Trust and Concealing the Truth 1. Words Can Be Used to Signal Trust a. Words Can Denote Trustworthiness b. Signals to raise Trustworthiness c. It Depends On How You Say False Things. Specific Promises with Vague Roles d. The Way a Story Is Told Can Signal Truthfulness e. Refusing to Provide the Details of a Scheme Need Not Undermine Trust 2. Familiar Transaction Businesses and Forms Seem to Make Verification Superfluous 3. Hiding Fraud by Actions. Prompt Payments That Spell Trustworthiness, Low Risk, and Much More D. Hiding the Vulnerable Part of the Story: Secrecy and Costly Verification 1. Concealing the True Nature of the Ponzi Business 2. The Use of Justified Secrecy 3. Stories That Are Costly to Verify 4. Details That Hide the Truth by Drowning It a. Details Can Hide the Truth b. Complexity Helps Hide the Truth As Well E. Con Artists Deceptive Friendship, and Seeming Vulnerability by Age and Naivety 1. Deceptive Friendship and Love 2. Deceptive Weakness of Age and Seeming Naivety a. Old Age Can Deceive b. Naivety Can Deceive CHAPTER 2: SELLING THE STORIES A. Advertising 1. The Importance of Advertising 2. Where To Operate And How To Build a Reputation 3. Show Generosity 4. Entertain 5. Draw Attention by Engaging in Attention Drawing Conflicts B. Recruiting Helpers 1. Cooperation, Competition and Congregation Among Con Artists 2. Birds of a Feather Flock Together C. How Do Con Artists Approach Their Victims? 1. From Family and Friends to Institutions to Affinity Groups a. Introduction b. Affinity Groups: Ethnic and Religious Groups c. Religious Institutions d. Hybrid Institutions And Overtones 2. Technology Has a Growing Impact On The Growth Of Ponzi Schemes D. The Sales Force 1. Collecting and Distributing Information 2. Paid Sales Force 3. A Pure Sales Structure: Pyramid Schemes CHAPTER 3 CON ARTISTS' BEHAVIOR SEEMS A " A. Humans Have a Natural Ability To Pretend, Lie, And Influence Others 1. Humans And Even Primates Have Innate Abilities To Lie Convincingly 2. Signs Of Misleading Signals 3. Legitimate Lying 4. Exploiting The Weakness Of The Social System 5. The Slippery Slope: From Honesty To Fraud 6. Ponzi Schemes " Mirror Respectability a. Legitimate Businesses: Banking and Financial institutions b. Stock Market Trading-Following The Trends c. Salespersons And Traders d. Entrepreneurs e. Con Artists Are Believable: They Believe in Their Activities And View Them As Businesses f. Longevity of the Businesses Breeds Respectability CHAPTER 4 A PROFILE OF THE CON ARTISTS AND THEIR VICTIMS A. The Dark Side Of Con Artists (And Some of Their Investors) 1. Con Artists Are Different From Most People 2. On Very Rare Occasions A Con Artist Might Resort To Murder 3. On Very Rare Occasions A Group Of Con Artists Can Be Deadly As Well 4. Con Artists Lack Empathy a. What Does Empathy Mean? b. Lacking Empathy Can Bring Repeat Frauds c. Lacking Empathy Can Render Con Artists More Effective d. People's Empathy Is Socially Important 5. How Do Con Artists Present Themselves? a. Protecting the Weak Ego: We Are Special! 6. Con artists' mechanisms of ego protection and justifications a. Denial b. Blaming The Government c. Blaming The Laws d. Blaming The Victims e. Blaming Others, But Avoiding A Show Of Weakness f. Our Actions Are Justified. Others Are Fraudulent, And We Must Protect Ourselves Against Them By Defrauding First Besides, Everyone Does It g. Our Good Works Testify To The Legitimacy of Our Actions B. The Profile Of The Victims. What Kind of Persons Are the Sophisticated Victims? What Makes Some People More Vulnerable to Ponzi Schemes Than Others? 1. The Dark Side of Some Investors: Lacking Empathy Toward Other Investors And Shared Greed 2. Investors In Ponzi Schemes, Who Suspect Or Know The Nature Of The " Yet Invest. 3. The Element of Greed 4. What Drives the Victims? a. Gullibility b. Risk-Tolerance may cover tolerance to the risk of being caught for illegal activities c. An optimistic nature and outlook on life affects risk tolerance d. Social Status e. The role of education in risk tolerance is unclear f. A Reminder of the Stories in Chapter 1: The Ways Con Artists Make Their Offers 5. The Dark Side of Some Investors and Their Representatives: Lack of Empathy Towards Other Investors and Shared Greed a. Investors in Ponzi schemes, who suspect or know the nature of the " yet invest in it, do not demonstrate empathy with their fellow investors b. How do sophisticated victims of Ponzi schemes view themselves? 6. How Do Some Victims React To the Discovery of Con Artists by the Government? a. The victims' attitude towards the government b. The nature of a Ponzi scheme justifies this view of some investors D. The Issue of Addiction. Ponzi Schemes Are Addictive For Con Artists And For Some of Their Victims. The Slippery Slope to Addiction and Illegality 1. What Is Addiction? 2. What Causes An Insatiable Craving For More, And A Loss Of Self-Control? 3. What Are Con Artists and Perhaps Their Victims Usually Addicted To? 4. Con Artists Are Repeat Offenders CHAPTER 5. HOW DOES THE PUBLIC VIEW THE CON ARTISTS AND THE VICTIMS? A. America Is Ambivalent About Its Con Artists 1. Con Artists That Defrauded Small Investors Are Viewed Somewhat Differently 2. When Con Artists Mimic The Power Elite, They Are Close To, And Live Like, The Very Wealthy And Politically Powerful 3. The " The Benefits of Creative Harm 4. Con Artists Can Be Corrupting Teachers B. How does the Public View the Victims? 1. With Few Exceptions, People View The Victims Of Con Artists Differently Than They View The Victims Of Violent Crimes 2. A Related Reason For Condemning The Victims Is That They Did Not Do Their Homework. C. Are There Available Protections For Sophisticated Potential Victims? 1. Red flag: a very high return-low risk. 2. Red flag: The mystery source of the higher returns. 3. Red flag: Continuous offerings of obligations 4. Red flag: Con artists' activities outside the legal protections 5. Other red flag signals 6. Separating Business, Emotion, And Faith 7. Advice To Investors As Protection Against Affinity Scams Is Similar CHAPTER 6. THE LEGAL AFTERMATH A. Collecting the Assets and Mediating Among the Victims B. The Issues Error! C. Who Collects the Remaining Assets? D. Who, Among the " of Con Artists, Must Pay? 1. Who Helps The Con Artists? 2. What About Suspecting Helpers? E. How To Divide the Remaining Assets? F. Are All Victims Equal? They Are Not 1. Distinguishing between initial investment and profits 2. Markets and stolen goods: Policy issues 3. What about victims that " and decided to withdraw their money after collecting the profits? EPILOGUE

Economics as the Law

Abstract: This Essay represents a version of a chapter in my forth coming book "Trust and Honesty, America's Business Culture at a Crossroad." In designing legal protection from breach of trust and deception lawyers and judges have not only used this branch of economics as an information source but also adopted its objectives in substitution of the law's objectives. The first issue in this Essay relates to the ways in which legal economics simplifies the world. This is the reasons for its attraction and rejection. The second issue in this Essay relates to the autonomy of the law. It raises a concern that the soul and mind of the law are lost in the jargon and approaches of this special form of "imperial economics." It suggests that the place of economics in law is the same as any other discipline. Economic objectives have a modest place in law just as the objectives of other disciplines have not.

Recent advances with liposomes as pharmaceutical carriers.

Abstract: Liposomes — microscopic phospholipid bubbles with a bilayered membrane structure — have received a lot of attention during the past 30 years as pharmaceutical carriers of great potential. More recently, many new developments have been seen in the area of liposomal drugs — from clinically approved products to new experimental applications, with gene delivery and cancer therapy still being the principal areas of interest. For further successful development of this field, promising trends must be identified and exploited, albeit with a clear understanding of the limitations of these approaches.

The security of practical quantum key distribution

Abstract: Quantum key distribution (QKD) is the first quantum information task to reach the level of mature technology, already fit for commercialization. It aims at the creation of a secret key between authorized partners connected by a quantum channel and a classical authenticated channel. The security of the key can in principle be guaranteed without putting any restriction on an eavesdropper's power. This article provides a concise up-to-date review of QKD, biased toward the practical side. Essential theoretical tools that have been developed to assess the security of the main experimental platforms are presented (discrete-variable, continuous-variable, and distributed-phase-reference protocols).

Some basic cryptographic requirements for chaos-based cryptosystems

Abstract: In recent years, a large amount of work on chaos-based cryptosystems have been published. However, many of the proposed schemes fail to explain or do not possess a number of features that are fundamentally important to all kind of cryptosystems. As a result, many proposed systems are difficult to implement in practice with a reasonable degree of security. Likewise, they are seldom accompanied by a thorough security analysis. Consequently, it is difficult for other researchers and end users to evaluate their security and performance. This work is intended to provide a common framework of basic guidelines that, if followed, could benefit every new cryptosystem. The suggested guidelines address three main issues: implementation, key management and security analysis, aiming at assisting designers of new cryptosystems to present their work in a more systematic and rigorous way to fulfill some basic cryptographic requirements. Meanwhile, several recommendations are made regarding some practical aspects of analog chaos-based secure communications, such as channel noise, limited bandwith and attenuation.

Using Fourier transform IR spectroscopy to analyze biological materials

Abstract: IR spectroscopy is an excellent method for biological analyses. It enables the nonperturbative, label-free extraction of biochemical information and images toward diagnosis and the assessment of cell functionality. Although not strictly microscopy in the conventional sense, it allows the construction of images of tissue or cell architecture by the passing of spectral data through a variety of computational algorithms. Because such images are constructed from fingerprint spectra, the notion is that they can be an objective reflection of the underlying health status of the analyzed sample. One of the major difficulties in the field has been determining a consensus on spectral pre-processing and data analysis. This manuscript brings together as coauthors some of the leaders in this field to allow the standardization of methods and procedures for adapting a multistage approach to a methodology that can be applied to a variety of cell biological questions or used within a clinical setting for disease screening or diagnosis. We describe a protocol for collecting IR spectra and images from biological samples (e.g., fixed cytology and tissue sections, live cells or biofluids) that assesses the instrumental options available, appropriate sample preparation, different sampling modes as well as important advances in spectral data acquisition. After acquisition, data processing consists of a sequence of steps including quality control, spectral pre-processing, feature extraction and classification of the supervised or unsupervised type. A typical experiment can be completed and analyzed within hours. Example results are presented on the use of IR spectra combined with multivariate data processing.

A niche for neutrality.

Abstract: Ecologists now recognize that controversy over the relative importance of niches and neutrality cannot be resolved by analyzing species abundance patterns. Here, we use classical coexistence theory to reframe the debate in terms of stabilizing mechanisms (niches) and fitness equivalence (neutrality). The neutral model is a special case where stabilizing mechanisms are absent and species have equivalent fitness. Instead of asking whether niches or neutral processes structure communities, we advocate determining the degree to which observed diversity reflects strong stabilizing mechanisms overcoming large fitness differences or weak stabilization operating on species of similar fitness. To answer this question, we propose combining data on per capita growth rates with models to: (i) quantify the strength of stabilizing processes; (ii) quantify fitness inequality and compare it with stabilization; and (iii) manipulate frequency dependence in growth to test the consequences of stabilization and fitness equivalence for coexistence.