‘Driving Forces of Investment Decisions in Mutual Funds’

Unfortunately, in India it is a fact that most of the investors are not interested in mutual funds. Those who are investing, they are investing only very small amounts. But what is important to be noted here is that when compared to other financial instruments, investments in mutual funds are safer and also yields more returns on the investment portfolio. Moreover as an investment avenue mutual fund is available for those investors who are not willing to take any exposure directly in the security market. It also helps such investors to build their wealth over a period of time. At the retail level, investors are unique and are highly heterogeneous, and the mutual fund schemes' selection will also differ depends on their expectations. Hence, investors’ expectation is a very important factor in this regard that needs to be analysed by all the investment houses. Hence, the factors that drive the investment decisions of individual investors to meet their expectations by investing money in mutual funds need an in-depth analysis. These driving forces include the preference of investors on mutual fund compared to various available avenues of financial investments, risk attitude of investors, influence of characteristics of instruments of mutual funds on investors, the investment specific attitudes of investors, and influence of qualities of fund management on investors. The success of any mutual fund, a popular means of investment, depends on how effectively an Asset Management Company has been able to understand the level of influence of these factors on the decision of investors to invest in mutual funds. For a substantial growth in the mutual fund market, there must be a high level precision in the design and marketing of the products of mutual funds taking into account these driving forces by the Asset Management Companies. Therefore, there is a need to conduct a detailed study on investments in mutual funds in this direction. A review of available literature also revealed that no detailed study on mutual funds has so far been attempted in this direction; hence the present study on Driving Forces of Investment Decisions in Mutual Funds is undertaken.

Driving places - Marc Augé, non-places, and the geographies of England's M1 motorway

In this article I provide a critical account of the 'placing' of England's M1 motor-way. I start by critiquing Marc Auge's anthropological writings on 'non-places' which have provided a common point of reference for academics discussing spaces of travel, consumption and exchange in the contemporary world. I argue that Auge's ethnology of supermodernity results in a rather partial account of these sites, that he overstates the novelty of contemporary experiences of these spaces, and that he fails to acknowledge the heterogeneity and materiality of the social networks bound up with the production of non-places/places. I suggest that, rather than focusing on the presences and absences associated with the polarities of place and non-place, academics should examine the multiple, partial, dynamic and relational 'placings' which arise through the diverse performances and movements associated with travel, consumption and exchange. I then trace the topologies of England's M1 motorway, examining some of the different ways in which the motorway has been assembled, performed and placed over the past 45 years.

The role of eddies in driving the tropospheric response to stratospheric heating perturbations

A simplified general circulation model has been used to investigate the chain of causality whereby changes in tropospheric circulation and temperature are produced in response to stratospheric heating perturbations. Spinup ensemble experiments have been performed to examine the evolution of the tropospheric circulation in response to such perturbations. The primary aim of these experiments is to investigate the possible mechanisms whereby a tropospheric response to changing solar activity over the 11-yr solar cycle could be produced in response to heating of the equatorial lower stratosphere. This study therefore focuses on a stratospheric heating perturbation in which the heating is largest in the tropics. For comparison, experiments are also performed in which the stratosphere is heated uniformly at all latitudes and in which it is heated preferentially in the polar region. Thus, the mechanisms discussed have a wider relevance for the impact of stratospheric perturbations on the troposphere. The results demonstrate the importance of changing eddy momentum fluxes in driving the tropospheric response. This is confirmed by the lack of a similar response in a zonally symmetric model with fixed eddy forcing. Furthermore, it is apparent that feedback between the tropospheric eddy fluxes and tropospheric circulation changes is required to produce the full model response. The quasigeostrophic index of refraction is used to diagnose the cause of the changes in eddy behavior. It is demonstrated that the latitudinal extent of stratospheric heating is important in determining the direction of displacement of the tropospheric jet and storm track.

Risk taking from the participant's perspective: the case of driving and accident risk

Although perceived health risk plays a prominent role in theories of health behavior, its empirical role in risk taking is less clear. In Study 1 (N = 129), 2 measures of drivers' risk-taking behavior were found to be unrelated to self-estimates of accident concern but to be related to self-ratings of driving skill and the perceived thrill of driving. In Study 2 (N = 405), out of a wide range of potential influences, accident concern had the weakest relationship with risk taking. The authors concluded that although health risk is a key feature in many theories of health behavior and a central focus for researchers and policy makers, it may not be such a prominent factor for those actually taking the risk.

Drivers' ratings of different components of their own driving skill: a greater illusion of superiority for skills that relate to accident involvement

Different components of driving skill relate to accident involvement in different ways. For instance, while hazard-perception skill has been found to predict accident involvement, vehicle-control skill has not. We found that drivers rated themselves superior to both their peers and the average driver on 18 components of driving skill (N = 181 respondents). These biases were greater for hazard-perception skills than for either vehicle-control skills or driving skill in general. Also, ratings of hazard-perception skill related to self-perceived safety after overall skill was controlled for. We suggest that although drivers appear to appreciate the role of hazard perception in safe driving, any safety benefit to be derived from this appreciation may be undermined by drivers' inflated opinions of their own hazard-perception skill. We also tested the relationship between illusory beliefs about driving skill and risk taking and looked at ways of manipulating drivers' illusory beliefs.

Driving saccade to pursuit using image motion

Within the context of active vision, scant attention has been paid to the execution of motion saccades—rapid re-adjustments of the direction of gaze to attend to moving objects. In this paper we first develop a methodology for, and give real-time demonstrations of, the use of motion detection and segmentation processes to initiate capture saccades towards a moving object. The saccade is driven by both position and velocity of the moving target under the assumption of constant target velocity, using prediction to overcome the delay introduced by visual processing. We next demonstrate the use of a first order approximation to the segmented motion field to compute bounds on the time-to-contact in the presence of looming motion. If the bound falls below a safe limit, a panic saccade is fired, moving the camera away from the approaching object. We then describe the use of image motion to realize smooth pursuit, tracking using velocity information alone, where the camera is moved so as to null a single constant image motion fitted within a central image region. Finally, we glue together capture saccades with smooth pursuit, thus effecting changes in both what is being attended to and how it is being attended to. To couple the different visual activities of waiting, saccading, pursuing and panicking, we use a finite state machine which provides inherent robustness outside of visual processing and provides a means of making repeated exploration. We demonstrate in repeated trials that the transition from saccadic motion to tracking is more likely to succeed using position and velocity control, than when using position alone.