Mutual Fund Investment Style Consistency and Risk-adjusted Performance

While it is commonly agreed on that a mutual fund´s investment style influences its returns to investors, academia has not fully explored the relationship between a mutual fund´s consistency with its stated investment style and risk-adjusted performance. The study at hand employs a novel consistency ratio by means of the return-based style analysis for U.S. equity mutual funds to investigate that relationship. Based on their consistency scores, mutual funds are subsequently divided into quintiles and compared for their risk-adjusted performance. Evidence is found that investment style consistency does influence risk-adjusted returns and that the financial crisis had a major impact on that relation. While a convex curve describes the relationship between style consistency and fund performance before the financial crisis, it reversed into a concave curve afterwards. This study contributes to current research by going beyond a linear relationship between mutual fund investment style consistency and risk-adjusted performance, commonly assumed in prior studies

Theory of Diversification and Cross-subsidy for Eurobonds

In the face of excessive yield spreads on sovereign bonds in the European Monetary Union, the issuance of joint debt commonly known as Eurobonds has been proposed to ease the access to credit for fiscally struggling countries. This paper is the first to consider Eurobonds in terms of diversification and cross-subsidy benefits. It shows that the risk-sharing nature of Eurobonds lowers sovereign default probability in a non-replicable way for investors thereby lowering investment losses on a macro-level. Countries benefit as well from lower default probability that prevents sovereign bankruptcy costs. On a micro-level, fiscally strong countries have to weigh the benefits of Eurobonds against the two-fold costs of higher interest payments and financial support for defaulting countries. With further research, the argument brought forward in this paper will contribute to a more comprehensive debate about the benefits and costs of Eurobonds

Unvermögen als Fessel: Ein Sammelband widmet sich den ambivalenten Effekten des Kindeswohls als Rechtsgut

Ferdinand Sutterlüty / Sabine Flick (Hg.): Der Streit ums Kindeswohl. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa 2017. 978-3-7799-3686-

Nitronylnitroxid- und Iminonitroxid-Radikale als Bausteine für molekulare Magnete

Die Dissertation Nitronylnitroxid- und Iminonitroxid Radikale als Bausteine für molekulare Magnete befasst sich mit der Planung, Synthese und Charakterisierung stabiler Radikale. Diese wurden als spintragende Untereinheiten in molekularen Magneten eingesetzt. Die Planung und Synthese der in dieser Arbeit vorliegenden Nitronylnitroxide und Imino-nitroxide wurde unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Ausnutzung nichtkovalenter Wechselwirkun-gen, insbesondere Wasserstoffbrückenbindungen, zur Lenkung der räumlichen Struktur der spintragenden Einheiten durchgeführt. Dieses Prinzip bewirkt bei grosser räumlicher Nähe der Spinträger starke Wechselwirkungen der ungepaarten Spins und somit starke intermolekulare magnetische Kopplungen. Die Charakterisierung der neuen Radikale erfolgte insbesondere mithilfe der ESR-Spektroskopie, SQUID-Magnetometrie und Röntgenstrukturanalyse. Zum besseren Verständnis von intermolelularen magnetischen Austauschwechselwirkungen sollten Cokristalle mit Nitronylnitroxid-Radikalen erzeugt werden. Es wurden eine Vielzahl von Partnern für Cokristallisationen in unterschiedlichen Lösungsmitteln ausprobiert. In keinem Fall konnten für Röntgenstrukturuntersuchungen geeignete Cokristalle erhalten werden. Hochspinsysteme sind von besonderen Interesse, da sie neben inter- auch intramolekulare magnetische Wechselwirkungen aufweisen können. Aus diesem Grunde wurden neue Hochspinsysteme auf Nitroxid-Basis synthetisiert und hinsichtlich ihres Grundzustandes untersucht. Eine Verteilung der Spindichte und Abschätzung der Grundzustandsenergien erfolgte mithilfe von DFT-Rechnungen. Es wurde eine effiziente Synthese für das unsubstituierte Bisnitronylnitroxid ausgearbeitet und der Grundzustand durch SQUID-Messungen bestimmt. Das Molekül liegt im Singulett-Grundzustand vor

Improved bounds for noisy group testing with constant tests per item

The group testing problem is concerned with identifying a small set of infected individuals in a large population. At our disposal is a testing procedure that allows us to test several individuals together. In an idealized setting, a test is positive if and only if at least one infected individual is included and negative otherwise. Significant progress was made in recent years towards understanding the information-theoretic and algorithmic properties in this noiseless setting. In this paper, we consider a noisy variant of group testing where test results are flipped with certain probability, including the realistic scenario where sensitivity and specificity can take arbitrary values. Using a test design where each individual is assigned to a fixed number of tests, we derive explicit algorithmic bounds for two commonly considered inference algorithms and thereby naturally extend the results of Scarlett \& Cevher (2016) and Scarlett \& Johnson (2020). We provide improved performance guarantees for the efficient algorithms in these noisy group testing models -- indeed, for a large set of parameter choices the bounds provided in the paper are the strongest currently proved

Donna J. Haraway

Donna J. Haraway ist eine US-amerikanische Biologin, Wissenschaftsphilosophin und Literaturwissenschaftlerin, die an den Departments History of Consciousness und Feminist Studies der University of California lehrte. In dieser Position hatte sie die erste explizit der Feministischen Theorie gewidmete Professur in den USA inne. Haraways Arbeiten bewegen sich in einem thematischen Schnittfeld von feministischer Erkenntniskritik, Cultural Studies, politischer Theorie und Biowissenschaften

Universität und Polizei: Jacques Rancière über intellektuelle Emanzipation

Tests and exams are more or less unquestioned parts of academic life. In his book on the „ignorant schoolmaster“, the French educator Joseph Jacotot, Jacques Rancière argues for a radical critique of the disciplinary effects of these instruments of state education and thereby also rejects on anarchist grounds all progressive attempts of educational reform. In this early text, he already fully formulates the principle of „axiomatic equality“, which will play a fundamental role in his later writings. My paper reconstructs Rancière’s position, partly by tracing it back to its Foucauldian roots, and argues that although it is too spontaneist and thus voluntarist, Rancière’s intervention poses an important challenge for every reflection on critical educational practice today