Mutual Fund Expense Disclosures: A Behavioral Perspective

Mutual funds have enjoyed phenomenal growth with their numbers exceeding the number of public companies and their assets aggregating in excess of $9 trillion. Increasingly they are the investment instrument of choice by the proverbial widows, widowers and orphans, and a few school teachers are included as well. But how are best can that choice be one that is not only informed but informed in a way more likely to elicit a wise decision? This paper examines from a behavioral perspective how regulation can best disclose information related to two key factors for investors to compare competing mutual funds: fund returns and fund expenses. Our analysis reflects that the current disclosure process is deficient because it fails to reflect the insights of research on judgment and decision making, and particularly the need to distinguish between the availability of information and its processability by its user. The message of our article is straightforward: if regulators adhered to the insights provided by our paper, not only investors, but also the fund\u27s directors, would be greatly empowered so that better returns and lower costs could be expected

Quadrupole moment of a magnetically confined mountain on an accreting neutron star: effect of the equation of state

Magnetically confined mountains on accreting neutron stars are promising sources of continuous-wave gravitational radiation and are currently the targets of directed searches with long-baseline detectors like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). In this paper, previous ideal-magnetohydrodynamic models of isothermal mountains are generalized to a range of physically motivated, adiabatic equations of state. It is found that the mass ellipticity drops substantially, from \epsilon ~ 3e-4 (isothermal) to \epsilon ~ 9e-7 (non-relativistic degenerate neutrons), 6e-8 (relativistic degenerate electrons) and 1e-8 (non-relativistic degenerate electrons) (assuming a magnetic field of 3e12 G at birth). The characteristic mass M_{c} at which the magnetic dipole moment halves from its initial value is also modified, from M_{c}/M_{\sun} ~ 5e-4 (isothermal) to M_{c}/M_{\sun} ~ 2e-6, 1e-7, and 3e-8 for the above three equations of state, respectively. Similar results are obtained for a realistic, piecewise-polytropic nuclear equation of state. The adiabatic models are consistent with current LIGO upper limits, unlike the isothermal models. Updated estimates of gravitational-wave detectability are made. Monte Carlo simulations of the spin distribution of accreting millisecond pulsars including gravitational-wave stalling agree better with observations for certain adiabatic equations of state, implying that X-ray spin measurements can probe the equation of state when coupled with magnetic mountain models.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, to be published in MNRA

Empirical Traffic Data and Their Implications for Traffic Modeling

From single vehicle data a number of new empirical results about the temporal evolution, correlation, and density-dependence of macroscopic traffic quantities have been determined. These have relevant implications for traffic modeling and allow to test existing traffic models.Comment: For related work see http://www.theo2.physik.uni-stuttgart.de/helbing.htm

Generalized Wannier functions: a comparison of molecular electric dipole polarizabilities

Localized Wannier functions provide an efficient and intuitive means by which to compute dielectric properties from first principles. They are most commonly constructed in a post-processing step, following total-energy minimization. Nonorthogonal generalized Wannier functions (NGWFs) [Skylaris et al., Phys. Rev. B 66, 035119 11 (2002); Skylaris et al., J. Chem. Phys. 122, 084119 (2005)] may also be optimized in situ, in the process of solving for the ground-state density. We explore the relationship between NGWFs and orthonormal, maximally localized Wannier functions (MLWFs) [Marzari and Vanderbilt, Phys. Rev. B 56, 12847 (1997); Souza, Marzari, and Vanderbilt, ibid. 65, 035109 (2001)], demonstrating that NGWFs may be used to compute electric dipole polarizabilities efficiently, with no necessity for post-processing optimization, and with an accuracy comparable to MLWFs.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. This version matches that accepted for Physical Review B on 4th May 201

Ligand Discrimination in Myoglobin from Linear-Scaling DFT+U

Myoglobin modulates the binding of diatomic molecules to its heme group via hydrogen-bonding and steric interactions with neighboring residues, and is an important benchmark for computational studies of biomolecules. We have performed calculations on the heme binding site and a significant proportion of the protein environment (more than 1000 atoms) using linear-scaling density functional theory and the DFT+U method to correct for self-interaction errors associated with localized 3d states. We confirm both the hydrogen-bonding nature of the discrimination effect (3.6 kcal/mol) and assumptions that the relative strain energy stored in the protein is low (less than 1 kcal/mol). Our calculations significantly widen the scope for tackling problems in drug design and enzymology, especially in cases where electron localization, allostery or long-ranged polarization influence ligand binding and reaction.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. Supplementary material 8 pages, 3 figures. This version matches that accepted for J. Phys. Chem. Lett. on 10th May 201

Gravitational waves from an accreting neutron star with a magnetic mountain

We calculate the amplitude of gravitational waves from a neutron star accreting symmetrically at its magnetic poles. The magnetic field, which is compressed into an equatorial belt during accretion, confines accreted matter in a mountain at the magnetic pole, producing gravitational waves. We compute hydromagnetic equilibria and the corresponding quadrupole moment as a function of the accreted mass, Ma, finding the polarization- and orientation- averaged wave strain at Earth to be h_c = 6.3 × 10^(–25)(M_a/10^(–5)M_☉)(ƒ/0.6kHz)^2(d/1kpc)^(–1) for a range of conditions, where ƒ is the wave frequency and d is the distance to the source. This is ~ 10^2 times greater than previous estimates, which failed to treat the mass-flux distribution self-consistently with respect to flux-freezin