‘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.

Decisions on investment allocation in the post-keynesian growth model

Neste artigo os modelos de crescimento e alocação de investimento a la Feldman-Mahalanobis são estendidos para considerar a análise de decisões de alocação de investimento no contexto do modelo de crescimento pós-Keynesiano. Ao adotar essa abordagem é possível introduzir características distributivas no modelo de Feldman-Mahalanobis que nos permitem determinar a taxa de alocação de investimentos de acordo com as decisões de equilíbrio entre investimento e poupança. Finalmente, uma condição adicional é adicionada ao modelo de crescimento pós-keynesiano, a fim de caracterizar plenamente o caminho de equilíbrio em uma versão estendida deste, onde bens de capital também são necessários para produzir bens de capital. _________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT

INCLUDING RISK IN ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS:A STOCHASTIC SIMULATION MODEL FOR BLUEBERRY INVESTMENT DECISIONS IN CHILE

ABSTRACT The traditional method of net present value (NPV) to analyze the economic profitability of an investment (based on a deterministic approach) does not adequately represent the implicit risk associated with different but correlated input variables. Using a stochastic simulation approach for evaluating the profitability of blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) production in Chile, the objective of this study is to illustrate the complexity of including risk in economic feasibility analysis when the project is subject to several but correlated risks. The results of the simulation analysis suggest that the non-inclusion of the intratemporal correlation between input variables underestimate the risk associated with investment decisions. The methodological contribution of this study illustrates the complexity of the interrelationships between uncertain variables and their impact on the convenience of carrying out this type of business in Chile. The steps for the analysis of economic viability were: First, adjusted probability distributions for stochastic input variables (SIV) were simulated and validated. Second, the random values of SIV were used to calculate random values of variables such as production, revenues, costs, depreciation, taxes and net cash flows. Third, the complete stochastic model was simulated with 10,000 iterations using random values for SIV. This result gave information to estimate the probability distributions of the stochastic output variables (SOV) such as the net present value, internal rate of return, value at risk, average cost of production, contribution margin and return on capital. Fourth, the complete stochastic model simulation results were used to analyze alternative scenarios and provide the results to decision makers in the form of probabilities, probability distributions, and for the SOV probabilistic forecasts. The main conclusion shown that this project is a profitable alternative investment in fruit trees in Chile.

Voting advice applications : impact on voting decisions in the 2011 Swiss national elections

In most democracies voting Advice Applications (VAAs) advising citizens which candidate or party they should vote for become more and more popular. It is therefore crucial to know more about the functioning and the effects of such tools. After some general remarks about the spread of these tools and their possible effects gathered so far in various studies, this paper presents the latest results from a research conducted in the course of the 2011 Swiss national elections. They confirm that VAAs can lead to better informed voters and are likely to have a positive impact on electoral turnout. Additionally it can be shown that the Swiss VAA smartvote made voters change their voting intention and that they voted for a different party. This was particularly advantageous for the Green Liberal Party. At the moment, only a minority of voters rely on the voting recommendation by smartvote. This might change dramatically with the introduction of e-voting. Once people can vote electronically, there are hardly any possibilities to prevent voters from transferring their selection of candidates based on the recommendation given by a VAA into the official electronic ballot paper. If this is possible, e-voting will become more popular than postal voting.

Asymmetric preferences in investment decisions in the Brazilian financial market

The main objective of this article is to test the hypothesis that utility preferences that incorporate asymmetric reactions between gains and losses generate better results than the classic Von Neumann-Morgenstern utility functions in the Brazilian market. The asymmetric behavior can be computed through the introduction of a disappointment (or loss) aversion coefficient in the classical expected utility function, which increases the impact of losses against gains. The results generated by both traditional and loss aversion utility functions are compared with real data from the Brazilian market regarding stock market participation in the investment portfolio of pension funds and individual investors.

Procurement : multiyear contracting and its impact on investment decisions : report to Congressional requesters /

"B-230457"--p.1.

Impact of weather dependency on planning decisions in the australian national electricity market

A long-term planning method for the electricity market is to simulate market operation into the future. Outputs from market simulation include indicators for transmission augmentation and new generation investment. A key input to market simulations is demand forecasts. For market simulation purposes, regional demand forecasts for each half-hour interval of the forecasting horizon are required, and they must accurately represent realistic demand profiles and interregional demand relationships. In this paper, a demand model is developed to accurately model these relationships. The effects of uncertainty in weather patterns and inherent correlations between regional demands on market simulation results are presented. This work signifies the advantages of probabilistic modeling of demand levels when making market-based planning decisions.

Financial liberalization and dynamics of firm-level financing and investment decisions in the Southeast Asian countries

This thesis examines the dynamics of firm-level financing and investment decisions for six Southeast Asian countries. The study provides empirical evidence on the impacts of changes in the firm-level financing decisions during the period of financial liberalization by considering the debt and equity financing decisions of a set of non-financial firms. The empirical results show that firms in Indonesia, Pakistan, and South Korea have relatively faster speed of adjustment than other Southeast Asian countries to attain optimal debt and equity ratios in response to banking sector and stock market liberalization. In addition, contrary to widely held belief that firms adjust their financial ratios to industry levels, the results indicate that industry factors do not significantly impact on the speed of capital structure adjustments. This study also shows that non-linear estimation methods are more appropriate than linear estimation methods for capturing changes in capital structure. The empirical results also show that international stock market integration of these countries has significantly reduced the equity risk premium as well as the firm-level cost of equity capital. Thus stock market liberalization is associated with a decrease in the cost of equity capital of the firms. Developments in the securities markets infrastructure have also reduced the cost of equity capital. However, with increased integration there is the possibility of capital outflows from the emerging markets, which might reverse the pattern of decrease in cost of capital in these markets.

Studies on terpenes solubility in water and deep eutectic solvents diagrams for biomedical applications

The main objectives of this work are the measurement of terpenes solubility in water at different temperatures, and the formulation of Deep Eutectic Solvents based on choline chloride and polycarboxylic acids, that can be used as hydrotropes of aqueous solutions in terpenes, replacing conventional organic solvents. In this work a new experimental methodology was implemented, using dialysis membranes, for the measurement of terpenes solubility in water. Concerning the deep eutectic diagrams formulation, the determination of the melting points of the eutectic mixtures was performed using a visual method. The method used for determining solubilities was previously validated using a well-studied model compound, toluene. The experimental results of terpenes solubilities in water resulted in a very satisfactory coefficients of variation, always below 6%. The experimental solubility data were analysed and the temperature dependence is also studied in a thermodynamic perspective. The compound with the largest solubility dependence with the temperature is geraniol, while thymol presents the smallest. The phase diagrams of DES formulated were quite satisfactory, presenting always eutectic points below to 373.15 K. For some compositions, the systems composed by choline chloride and lactic, or malonic, or myristic acid were liquid at room temperature. In the case of monocarboxylic acids, eutectic is formed at 60% mol of the acid, to dicarboxylic acid is formed at 50% mol of the acid and for tricarboxylic acid these point is formed at 30% mol of the acid. In the future, it will be important to study the effect of DES as hydrotropes in aqueous solutions of terpenes. Furthermore, it would be interesting to study more terpenes in order to assess the effect of the size of the alkyl chain and the structures of the compounds.

Serological studies on shistosomiasis mansoni in the Northeast Brasil

Sera from the patients (N = 10) with schistosomiasis mansoni of the hospital of Federal University of Pernambuco, the Schistosoma mansoni egg-positive (N = 51) and -negative (N = 452) inhabitants in Cabo City area, out-patients (N = 37) of the IMIP hospital and Japanese immigrants (N = 127) in Petrolina City area of northeast Brazil as well as Japanese healthy subjects (N = 30) were examined by serological tests including an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with antigens prepared from eggs (ELISA-egg) and adult worms (ELISA-adult). The ELISA with egg or adult antigen correctly identified 100% of the uninfected individuals lived in non-endemic area of schistosomiasis. Moreover, when examined cross-reactivity of our ELISA with sera isolated from 78 subjects infected with various intestinal parasitic infections, only one of these sera reacted with the egg and adult antigens. On the examination of 51 sera from the egg-positive subjects, the ELISA-egg revealed the highest sensitivity (98.0%), whereas a large number of false negative reactions of ELISA-adult, Ouchterlony method using adult antigen, circumoval precipitation and immediate intradermal skin test were observed. A low sensitivity of these serologic tests except for ELISA-egg appears to be primarily due to their inability to detect antibody in the sera from egg-positive infantiles. There was no positive correlation between the absorbance values of these two types of ELISA among the sera isolated from ELISA-positive subjects. Rather, by the reactivity of these sera to egg or adult antigen, they could be divided into two subgroups; one reacted more positively with egg antigen and the other with adult antigen. Moreover, it was confirmed that the sera from young subjects (under 20 years old) appear to be highly reactive to the egg antigen than did aged ones. These data suggest that the ELISA with egg antigen, but not with the adult antigen, appears to be useful for the serological survey of schistosomiasis mansoni in the endemic area of northeast Brazil.

Spectroscopy studies on conservation issues in modern and contemporary paintings

Dissertation presented to the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of New University of Lisbon in fulfilment of the requirements for the Master’s degree in Conservation and Restoration Specialization in easel painting

Studies on skeleton formation in reptiles. Olivier Rieppel.

n.s. no.68(1992)

Studies on antimicrobial activity, in vitro, of Physalis angulata L. (Solanaceae) fraction and physalin B bringing out the importance of assay determination

Complex physalin metabolites present in the capsules of the fruit of Physalis angulata L. have been isolated and submitted to a series of assays of antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 29213, S. aureus ATCC 25923, S. aureus ATCC 6538P, Neisseria gonorrhoeae ATCC 49226, Escherichia coli ATCC 8739; E. coli ATCC 25922, Candida albicans ATCC 10231 applying different methodologies such as: bioautography, dilution broth, dilution agar, and agar diffusion techniques. A mixture of physalins (pool) containing physalins B, D, F, G inhibit S. aureus ATCC 29213, S. aureus ATCC 25923, S. aureus ATCC 6538P, and N. gonorrhoeae ATCC 49226 at a concentration of 200 mg/µl, using agar dilution assays. The mixture was inactive against P. aeruginosa ATCC27853, E. coli ATCC 8739; E. coli ATCC 25922, C. albicans ATCC 10231 when applying bioautography assays. Physalin B (200 µg/ml) by the agar diffusion assay inhibited S. aureus ATCC 6538P by ± 85%; and may be considered responsible for the antimicrobial activity.

Studies on grain boundaries in nanocrystalline silicon grown by Hot-Wire CVD

The use of a tantalum wire in hot-wire chemical vapour deposition (HWCVD) has allowed the deposition of dense nanocrystalline silicon at low filament temperatures (1550 °C). A transition in the crystalline preferential orientation from (2 2 0) to (1 1 1) was observed around 1700 °C. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images, together with secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) measurements, suggested that no oxidation occurred in materials obtained at low filament temperature due to the high density of the tissue surrounding grain boundaries. A greater concentration of SiH 3 radicals formed at these temperatures seemed to be responsible for the higher density.