Peter, I am not surprised that other investment firms (including yours) researched applications of Ensemble Methods considering how universally accepted the algorithms are. Hopefully your firm's research was considered constructive.

I can certify though that EAM is far from mainstream at this point. This paper has been referred to as "groundbreaking," "provocative," and "eye opening" from industry professionals. And as my firm has been in the marketplace discussing EAM, it is almost universally a new topic to most.

We have been working with the CFA Institute for several years now, as this is the 3rd paper published by them that I have either authored or co-authored, and the CFA has consistently been very receptive to concepts that are still emerging (rather than proven). In my opinion, what distinguishes this version from prior papers is that there is finally enough live EAM Portfolio performance to begin validating the concept -- and the CFA is the first publication in the world to set to print both the blueprint of how EAM works, as well as the validating live data.