Real-time extended psychophysiological analysis of financial risk processing.

We study the relationships between the real-time psychophysiological activity of professional traders, their financial transactions, and market fluctuations. We collected multiple physiological signals such as heart rate, blood volume pulse, and electrodermal activity of 55 traders at a leading global financial institution during their normal working hours over a five-day period. Using their physiological measurements, we implemented a novel metric of trader's "psychophysiological activation" to capture affect such as excitement, stress and irritation. We find statistically significant relations between traders' psychophysiological activation levels and such as their financial transactions, market fluctuations, the type of financial products they traded, and their trading experience. We conducted post-measurement interviews with traders who participated in this study to obtain additional insights in the key factors driving their psychophysiological activation during financial risk processing. Our work illustrates that psychophysiological activation plays a prominent role in financial risk processing for professional traders.

Prognostic roles of the expression of sphingosine-1-phosphate metabolism enzymes in non-small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), a bioactive lipid, is generally increased in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Evidence has shown that the levels of enzymes in S1P metabolism were associated with clinical outcomes in patients with NSCLC. Nevertheless, the roles of mRNA expression of major enzymes (SPHK1, SPHK2 and SGPL1) in S1P metabolism for predicting outcomes in NSCLC patients have not been determined. METHODS: "The Kaplan-Meier plotter" (the KM plotter) is an online database which contains gene expression and clinical data of 1,928 NSCLC patients. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between mRNA expression of major enzymes in S1P metabolism and overall survival (OS) in 1,926 NSCLC patients with the KM plotter. Further analyses stratified by smoking history, non-metastasis patents, clinical stages, negative surgical margin, chemotherapy and radiotherapy were also performed. RESULTS: High SPHK1 mRNA expression [hazard ratio (HR) 1.47, 95% confident interval (CI): 1.28-1.68, P=2.6e-08] was significantly correlated to worse OS, but high SPHK2 (0.66, 95% CI: 0.59-0.75, P=1.9e-10) or SGPL1 (HR 0.64, 95% CI: 0.55-0.75, P=8.7e-09) mRNA expression was in favor of better OS in NSCLC patients. CONCLUSIONS: The mRNA expression of SPHK1, SPHK2, and SGPL1 is potential predictor of outcomes in NSCLC patients.