"That points to high participation by retail investors, " he said.

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Her instructor, Amanda Eckhardt, testified this week that she stood by the grade, saying Thode failed to behave professionally and thus earned zero out of 25 points in class participation, bumping her down a full letter grade.

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The jobless rate inched down a tenth of a point at 7.7%, as the size of the labor force declined by 496, 000 and participation fell 0.2 percentage points to 63.3%.

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Using reputation points you can improve participation.

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At HBS, class participation and how well students can communicate their points are everything.

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While the unemployment rate fell for all the right treasons, with household employment up by 873, 000 and the labor participation rate inching up 0.1 percentage points, the latter still remains close to its lowest levels in approximately 30 years.

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However, I was struck by the fairly sharp decline in the labor force participation rate, which has shrunk about three percentage points from around 66 percent before the recession to 63 percent currently.

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"Blogs are a global self-publishing phenomenon that connect Internet users with dynamic, diverse points of view while also enabling comment and participation, " said David Krane , Google's director of corporate communication in an e-mail message.

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It points out that the same ideas were rejected during negotiations in Congress on the terms of America's participation in trade agreements forged by the Uruguay round.

ECONOMIST: Trade