Myopic investment view of the Indian mutual fund industry

This paper examines the investment behavior of Indian mutual fund industry. Since the majority of investors who invest in mutual funds are salaried individuals or individuals that own SMEs, the Indian Mutual Fund industry should have a long term investment horizon. However, the data from all mutual funds for the periods December 2007 to May 2008 and December 2008 to May 2009 reveals that the mutual fund industry has adjusted its position on a short term basis in tandem with the short term volatility of the market. The findings substantiate the SEBI Chairman’s observation that there is an urgent need to set up investment norms with regard to the holding period for stocks owned by the Indian mutual fund industryMutual Fund, short term volatility, asset under management, investment churn.

Visual outcome of cataract surgery with pupillary sphincterotomy in eyes with coexisting corneal opacity

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the visual outcome following cataract surgery with pupillary sphincterotomy in eyes with coexisting corneal opacity. METHODS: Patients with leucomatous corneal opacity with significant cataract were enrolled for the study. The uncorrected visual acuity and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) were recorded and the anterior segment was thoroughly evaluated by a slit lamp biomicroscope before the surgery. Only those patients who had some amount of clear peripheral cornea were selected. Posterior segment pathology was ruled out by indirect ophthalmoscopy after pupillary dilatation, if possible, or by B-scan ultrasonography. Conventional extracapsular cataract extraction with pupillary sphincterotomy was performed and an intraocular lens was implanted. Postoperatively, the eyes were evaluated on day 1, and 1 week and 6 weeks following surgery for similar parameters. RESULTS: Fourteen eyes of 14 patients were included in the study, of which 13 (92.85%) patients were male. The mean age of the patients was 47.85 ± 7.37 years. All the eyes had a dense central leucomatous corneal opacity. Twelve (85.71%) eyes had two or more quadrants of deep vascularisation. Sphincterotomy was performed mostly (71.42%) in the nasal or inferonasal quadrant. The intraocular lens was implanted in 13 (92.85%) eyes, and one (7.1%) eye was left aphakic due to the occurrence of a large posterior capsular tear. Preoperatively, all eyes had BCVA < 6/60. At 6 weeks after surgery, all eyes had BCVA ≥ 6/60 and four (28.57%) eyes had BCVA ≥ 6/18. The mean BCVA preoperatively in these eyes was 0.015 ± 0.009, which changed to 0.249 ± 0.102 at 6 weeks following surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Extracapsular cataract extraction and intraocular lens implantation with pupillary sphincterotomy provides ambulatory and useful vision to patients of cataract with coexisting central leucomatous corneal opacity

Innovative Technologies, Institutions and Policies for Successful Value Chains for Tur Farmers: A Case Study of NCDEX Spot

The electronic spot exchange provides synergy among the existing marketing systems in the country with its improvised technology and reach through the online system as it brings a variety of benefits to the existing system such as price transparency, better price realization for farmers and lot of arbitrage opportunities for trader community. These exchanges are aimed at enhancing efficiencies of the existing value chain of commodities by developing appropriate platforms for modern spot markets, financing of commodities based on credible warehouse management arrangements, reducing transaction costs, supporting Futures Exchanges, regulators and the Government with standardized and structured spot markets for compulsory delivery in all agri-commodities. Successful operation of such technologiesdriven initiatives require congenial policy support as these are largely governed under the state laws of APMC. From the case study of NCDEX SPOT market in the Gulbarga district of Karnataka state, it has been observed that for facilitating the small and marginal farmers in participating in new age marketing system, it is required that all the stakeholders work seamlessly in an integrated manner, which are state agencies (warehousing, APMC, Mandi, Board, etc.), financial institutions, other infrastructural facilities, etc. With the help of NCDEX SPOT, tur grower-farmers in the Karnataka states are able to reduce the marketing cost by 50-70 per cent and are also able to sell their produce, whenever they want by paying a small charge for warehousing. It is also evident that the farmers could realize, on an average, 5-10 per cent higher price for their produce as compared to traditional APMC market. Although the business model seems to be working successfully and showing reasonable confidence to all the stakeholders, requires for upscaling across the board customization according to the law of land of respective states. However, it is a win-win proposition for the farmers-state governments-NCDEX SPOT-banks, etc, as its creates values at every stages of value chain.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Transition from radiatively inefficient to cooling dominated phase in two temperature accretion discs around black holes

We investigate the transition of a radiatively inefficient phase of a viscous two temperature accreting flow to a cooling dominated phase and vice versa around black holes. Based on a global sub-Keplerian accretion disc model in steady state, including explicit cooling processes self-consistently, we show that general advective accretion flow passes through various phases during its infall towards a black hole. Bremsstrahlung, synchrotron and inverse Comptonization of soft photons are considered as possible cooling mechanisms. Hence the flow governs a much lower electron temperature ~10^8 - 10^{9.5}K compared to the hot protons of temperature ~10^{10.2} - 10^{11.8}K in the range of the accretion rate in Eddington units 0.01 - 100. Therefore, the solutions may potentially explain the hard X-rays and the gamma-rays emitted from AGNs and X-ray binaries. We finally compare the solutions for two different regimes of viscosity and conclude that a weakly viscous flow is expected to be cooling dominated compared to its highly viscous counterpart which is radiatively inefficient. The flow is successfully able to reproduce the observed luminosities of the under-fed AGNs and quasars (e.g. Sgr A*), ultra-luminous X-ray sources (e.g. SS433), as well as the highly luminous AGNs and ultra-luminous quasars (e.g. PKS 0743-67) at different combinations of the mass accretion rate and ratio of specific heats.Comment: 13 pages including 8 figures; couple of typos corrected; to appear in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysic

A Mellin space approach to the conformal bootstrap

We describe in more detail our approach to the conformal bootstrap which uses the Mellin representation of $CFT_d$ four point functions and expands them in terms of crossing symmetric combinations of $AdS_{d+1}$ Witten exchange functions. We consider arbitrary external scalar operators and set up the conditions for consistency with the operator product expansion. Namely, we demand cancellation of spurious powers (of the cross ratios, in position space) which translate into spurious poles in Mellin space. We discuss two contexts in which we can immediately apply this method by imposing the simplest set of constraint equations. The first is the epsilon expansion. We mostly focus on the Wilson-Fisher fixed point as studied in an epsilon expansion about $d=4$. We reproduce Feynman diagram results for operator dimensions to $O(\epsilon^3)$ rather straightforwardly. This approach also yields new analytic predictions for OPE coefficients to the same order which fit nicely with recent numerical estimates for the Ising model (at $\epsilon =1$). We will also mention some leading order results for scalar theories near three and six dimensions. The second context is a large spin expansion, in any dimension, where we are able to reproduce and go a bit beyond some of the results recently obtained using the (double) light cone expansion. We also have a preliminary discussion about numerical implementation of the above bootstrap scheme in the absence of a small parameter.Comment: 69 pages, 4 figures, Mathematica notebook included with submissio

Conformal Bootstrap in Mellin Space

We propose a new approach towards analytically solving for the dynamical content of Conformal Field Theories (CFTs) using the bootstrap philosophy. This combines the original bootstrap idea of Polyakov with the modern technology of the Mellin representation of CFT amplitudes. We employ exchange Witten diagrams with built in crossing symmetry as our basic building blocks rather than the conventional conformal blocks in a particular channel. Demanding consistency with the operator product expansion (OPE) implies an infinite set of constraints on operator dimensions and OPE coefficients. We illustrate the power of this method in the epsilon expansion of the Wilson-Fisher fixed point by reproducing anomalous dimensions and, strikingly, obtaining OPE coefficients to higher orders in epsilon than currently available using other analytic techniques (including Feynman diagram calculations). Our results enable us to get a somewhat better agreement of certain observables in the 3d Ising model, with the precise numerical values that have been recently obtained.Comment: 5 pages+appendices. v2:Added--matching of HS current anomalous dimension to O(\epsilon^3); references; minor changes, v3: comparison with numerics updated, typos fixed. v4: Published versio

Managing a Fleet of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) using Cloud Robotics Platform

In this paper, we provide details of implementing a system for managing a fleet of autonomous mobile robots (AMR) operating in a factory or a warehouse premise. While the robots are themselves autonomous in its motion and obstacle avoidance capability, the target destination for each robot is provided by a global planner. The global planner and the ground vehicles (robots) constitute a multi agent system (MAS) which communicate with each other over a wireless network. Three different approaches are explored for implementation. The first two approaches make use of the distributed computing based Networked Robotics architecture and communication framework of Robot Operating System (ROS) itself while the third approach uses Rapyuta Cloud Robotics framework for this implementation. The comparative performance of these approaches are analyzed through simulation as well as real world experiment with actual robots. These analyses provide an in-depth understanding of the inner working of the Cloud Robotics Platform in contrast to the usual ROS framework. The insight gained through this exercise will be valuable for students as well as practicing engineers interested in implementing similar systems else where. In the process, we also identify few critical limitations of the current Rapyuta platform and provide suggestions to overcome them.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, journal pape

Geochemistry and petrogenesis of early cretaceous sub-alkaline mafic dykes from Swangkre-Rongmil, East Garo Hills, Shillong plateau, Northeast India

Numerous early Cretaceous mafic and alkaline dykes, mostly trending in N-S direction, are emplaced in the Archaean gneissic complex of the Shillong plateau, northeastern India. These dykes are spatially associated with the N-S trending deep-seated Nongchram fault and well exposed around the Swangkre-Rongmil region. The petrological and geochemical characteristics of mafic dykes from this area are presented. These mafic dykes show very sharp contact with the host rocks and do not show any signature of assimilation with them. Petrographically these mafic dykes vary from fine-grained basalt (samples from the dyke margin) to medium-grained dolerite (samples from the middle of the dyke) having very similar chemical compositions, which may be classified as basaltic-andesite/andesite. The geochemical characteristics of these mafic dykes suggest that these are genetically related to each other and probably derived from the same parental magma. Although, the high-field strength element (+rare-earth elements) compositions disallow the possibility of any crustal involvement in the genesis of these rocks, but Nb/La, La/Ta, and Ba/Ta ratios, and similarities of geochemical characteristics of present samples with the Elan Bank basalts and Rajmahal (Group II) mafic dyke samples, suggest minor contamination by assimilation with a small amount of upper crustal material. Chemistry, particularly REE, hints at an alkaline basaltic nature of melt. Trace element modelling suggests that the melt responsible for these mafic dykes had undergone extreme differentiation (~ 50%) before its emplacement. The basaltic-andesite nature of these rocks may be attributed to this differentiation. Chemistry of these rocks also indicates ~ 10-15% melting of the mantle source. The mafic dyke samples of the present investigation show very close geochemical similarities with the mafic rocks derived from the Kerguelen mantle plume. Perhaps the Swangkre-Rongmil mafic dykes are also derived from the Kerguelen mantle plume

Transition from radiatively inefficient to cooling dominated phase in two temperature accretion discs around black holes

We investigate the transition of a radiatively inefficient phase of a viscous two temperature accreting flow to a cooling dominated phase and vice versa around black holes. Based on a global sub-Keplerian accretion disc model in steady state, including explicit cooling processes self-consistently, we show that general advective accretion flow passes through various phases during its infall towards a black hole. Bremsstrahlung, synchrotron and inverse Comptonization of soft photons are considered as possible cooling mechanisms. Hence the flow governs a much lower electron temperature ~10^8 - 10^{9.5}K compared to the hot protons of temperature ~10^{10.2} - 10^{11.8}K in the range of the accretion rate in Eddington units 0.01 - 100. Therefore, the solutions may potentially explain the hard X-rays and the gamma-rays emitted from AGNs and X-ray binaries. We finally compare the solutions for two different regimes of viscosity and conclude that a weakly viscous flow is expected to be cooling dominated compared to its highly viscous counterpart which is radiatively inefficient. The flow is successfully able to reproduce the observed luminosities of the under-fed AGNs and quasars (e.g. Sgr A*), ultra-luminous X-ray sources (e.g. SS433), as well as the highly luminous AGNs and ultra-luminous quasars (e.g. PKS 0743-67) at different combinations of the mass accretion rate and ratio of specific heats.Comment: 13 pages including 8 figures; couple of typos corrected; to appear in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysic