Morningstar ratings and performance of mutual funds

ix, 184 leaves ; 29 cmIn this study, we examine the predictive power of Morningstar’s new ratings for mutual funds’ future performance and compare its predictive power with four competing predictors. We also examine Morningstar’s new ratings’ predictive power in bull and bear periods. Furthermore, we compare the predictive power of the new and old star-ratings. We perform all these tests for both U.S. and Canadian equity funds. We use a regression model and non-parametric tests in this study. The results suggest Morningstar’s new ratings accurately rank funds and predict out-of-sample performance of only five-star rated complete funds for short- and medium-terms for U.S., and for medium-term only for Canada. Also, predictive power of Morningstar’s new ratings is low compared to four alternative predictors for both countries. Further, the new star ratings accurately predicts for bear period for both markets. The old ratings (new ratings), however relatively predict better for U.S. funds (Canadian funds)

Nano Layers of 2D Graphene Versus Graphene Oxides for Sensing Hydrogen Gas

Hydrogen is one of the most useful but dangerous gases because of its broad combustion range and small ignition temperature. Currently, there is a great need for hydrogen detectors with selectivity, high sensitivity and reliable operations in view of its safe production, storage, transportation and other applications. In this regard, nano thin films of two dimensional materials like graphene, graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) have immense promise because their material attributes can be exceptionally tuned to achieve the desired characteristics. Also graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide serve as potential sensing hosts due to the presence of functional groups on their surfaces. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to compare the work done in the field of hydrogen sensors using pure graphene and graphene derivatives such as graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide. The response parameters like sensitivity, stability, selectivity, response time, recovery time, detection limit, linearity, dynamic range, and working temperatures for various graphene based sensors have been elaborately compared. Finally, a conclusion and future outlook on nano scale thin film of graphene and graphene oxides for gas sensing have been briefly discussed

Correlation of Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography Scan with Smoking, Tumor Size, Stage and Differentiation in Head and Neck Cancer Patients

The goal of this study was to identify associations between positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) in patients presenting with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) with tumor site, size, histologic differentiation, smoking, and diabetes. Charts of patients with oropharyngeal and laryngeal SCC who underwent 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT scans were reviewed between May 2007 and August 2013. Statistical analyses included modeling log-transformed SUVmax values by tumor site, size, histologic differentiation, smoking status, and diabetes using unadjusted linear regressions. Differences were considered statistically significant for P\u3c 0.05. A total of 111 patients (54 with oropharynx and 57 with larynx cancers) were included, 83 men and 28 women with an average age of 57.5 years old. There was a significantly higher pack-year smoking history (P = 0.005) in the larynx cancer group. While tumor T-stage was found to be significantly different (P \u3c 0.0001), there was no difference in tumor size between the two groups: 3.16 cm and 3.58 cm in the oropharynx and larynx, respectively (P = 0.55). In the oropharynx cohort, SUVmax was associated with both tumor size (P = 0.0001) and stage (P \u3c 0.0002). Interestingly, SUVmax differed by tumor differentiation in the larynx (P = 0.04) but not the oropharynx (P = 0.71). Finally, there was no significant difference in SUVmax relative to diabetes and smoking status. PET/CT SUVmax correlated with both tumor size and stage in oropharyngeal cancer patients, and it correlated only with tumor differentiation but not the size or stage in the larynx. There were no significant differences in SUVmax by diabetes or smoking status

An Introduction to the Spectral Analysis of the QGP

This is an introduction to the study of the in-medium behavior of quarkonia and its application to the quark-gluon plasma search in high energy nuclear collisions.Comment: 17 pages, 20 figures; Lecture given at the QGP Winter School Jaipur 2008 (QGPWS08), Feb 1st-3rd, 2008, Jaipur, Indi

Specification Enforcing Refinement for Convertibility Verification

International audienceProtocol conversion deals with the automatic synthesis of an additional component, often referred to as an adaptor or a converter, to bridge mismatches between interacting components, often referred to as protocols. A formal solution, called convertibility verification, has been recently proposed, which produces such a converter, so that the parallel composition of the protocols and the converter also satisfies some desired specification. A converter is responsible for bridging different kinds of mismatches such as control, data, and clock mismatches. Mismatches are usually removed by the converter by disabling undesirable paths in the protocol composition (similar to controllers in supervisory control of Discrete Event Systems (DES)). We generalize this convertibility verification problem by using a new refinement called specification enforcing refinement (SER) between a protocol composition and a desired specification. The existence of such a refinement is shown to be a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a suitable converter. We also synthesize automatically the converter if a SER refinement relation exists. The proposed converter is capable of the usual disabling actions to remove undesirable paths in the protocol composition. In addition, the converter can perform forcing actions when disabling alone fails to find a converter to satisfy the desired specification. Forcing allows the generation of control inputs in one protocol that are not provided by the other protocol. Forcing induces state-based hiding, an operation not achievable using DES control theory