How the Environment plays a role in Learning Essay Example for Free

How the Environment plays a role in discipline Essay acquirement is a process which touches on al virtually every aspect of humankind life. Surprisingly, it is through learning that the experiences of the past atomic number 18 passed on to the younger generation by p atomic number 18nts as well as educators. It is impossible to get companionship without learning. by from knowledge, learning equips people with skills and abilities that enable them to deal perfectly with the complexities of life. Through learning for instance, individuals get to know about the rules that enable them to interact in their favorable lives. Learning is however not unique.It networks with an individuals friendly life and the environs (Custom Essay, 2009). Richlin in his book, Blue print for learning constructing collage courses to facilitate, access and document learning, acknowledges that Learning does not occur in a vacuum. It massnot occur in isolation either and is dependent on various fa ctors such as the environs (Richlin, 2006). The environment is the tenderness upon which learning is laid upon. It forms the backbone of learning. Environment thus plays a significant role as far as the learning process is concerned.The environment can affect the learning process either positively or negatively. This research paper seeks to look at various environmental factors and the roles they play in the learning process. The Natural Environment Though in the current world on that point is a high rise of technology and people can adjustment the environment to suit their needs, the impact of vivid environment on learning is still so strong and cannot be ignored.For example, people who were brought up in campestral beas are very different from those in urban area. This is in respect to what each has learned. Those from the remote areas are in contact with nature itself-importance. They learn so oftentimes from nature since their dwelling place is so natural and has not bee n contaminated by human activities. On the other hand, a city habitant has no natural environment access and barely learns much from it. He or she is even less concerned with what is happening in the natural environment. Lessons on nature become challenging to city dwellers but remote dwellers learn with ease (Custom Essay, 2009).It is in the natural environment that historical, scientific, and geographical materials for learning are assemble in plenty. These natural features are fun to learn when individuals know what they are learning about. For instance, those located near the ocean or sea ordain bear fun learning about the marine ecosystem. Likewise those in mountainous regions ordain enjoy a geography lesson on types of mountains. Learning in these natural environments is so real, so natural, and so meaningful and students tend to coif better than those who learn in the theoretical way in the cities (Smith, 2010).Social Environment more people do not know that social en vironment plays a fundamental role in the process of learning. Humans are social beings and they can neither live nor learn in an isolated situation. Ones a boor is born, the learning process begins from the social environment. By crying, the child knows that it will be attended to by the society around it. The first people to get in touch with an individual from an proto(prenominal) age are from the family members.The family at this train is the social environment for the child. Basic knowledge is learned from the parents and it becomes the foundation of an individuals future life. The social environment then expands as the individual advances in age. He or she can learn from friends, peers, and influential adults (Custom Essay, 2009). However, different people that an individual comes into contact with, impact differently on his or her learning process. At the early stage of a persons life, parents shape the views, beliefs and equip the person with basic knowledge, skills and t he abilities.The family can affect the child negatively or positively. For instance, statistics reveal that children nether family abuse score less in exams than the ones who mother been raised normally free from abuse. Abused children musical note useless and they develop a negative self image. They undermine their learning ability and hence perform scurvyly in the learning process. In contrast, a family can positively motivate a child by encouraging them to believe they can. Such children build confidence in themselves that enable them to face challenges at home and in school. This positively influences their learning.The time the parents pass away with their children too influences learning. Very committed parents like those in the military have little time for their children and t here(predicate)fore children do not get all the knowledge that they require. Other parents have a high priority for discipline and they will raise-up disciplined children. High level discipline au gers well with learning (Smith, 2010). At the teenaged stage, peers mean everything to an individuals life. An individual develops personality through the interaction with his or her peers (Custom Essay, 2009). Learning can be impaired if the teen chooses a insalubrious social grouping.Anti-social behaviors like drug and substance abuse will no doubt impair a persons learning process. Drug and substance abuse interferes with the activity of the mind in processing information. There is also the interference with the normal functioning of the body. In addition, some people spend much of their time in non-constructive activities like gambling. They therefore do not concentrate in their classroom activities leading to poor performance (Smith, 2010). Despite the fact that roughly of a persons personality has already been shaped by the time they reach adulthood, adults still learn even in old age.The social environment affects the learning process of an adult (Custom Essay, 2009). The Physical Environment The physiological environment also affects the learning process. To start with, the structures in which people, particularly students, spend most of their days will determine the quality of learning. Research has shown that students in shabby schools rarely perform well as compared to those in decent schools. Shabby structures are not attractive to the learners and they do not feel motivated to learn either.They might also be missing some structures such as windows which will pose a danger to learning especially in times of hurricanes and rains. A good physical environment is attractive and cultivates positive attitudes in both(prenominal) learners and teachers. Schools or learning environments should be friendly if at all the desirable learning is going to take place. There should be attractive spaces to give students shelter the way they would in a cafe. Learning is therefore improved with the physical environment improvement. In the classrooms, the arrange ment of desks and spacing all count to the learning process.Studies have revealed that students who are less attentive and barely successful are mostly affected by arrangement of desks. Their queer behaviors will tend to increase when they are in rows rather than around tables. To make sure that all students are monitored, clustering of students should be avoided. This ensures that there is enough space for every student and there is no opportunity for the misconduct of students. The students therefore will be serious and of course learn more in spacious classes (Victorian Institute of Teaching, nd).Other physical aspects that determine the process of learning include climate, noise, and color. Extreme temperatures negatively affect the quality of learning (Victorian Institute of Teaching, nd). Hurricanes will also have their part to play. some other disastrous weather conditions affect learning negatively. The student will spend more time fighting with the disasters than in their studies. Poor weather reduces the level of concentration (Smith, 2010). Noise disrupts the whole process of teaching and learning. Too much noise leads to the impairment of the cognitive function.Most reading and studying problems are associated with noise. moreover it is difficult for a student to hear what the teacher is saying if there is a lot of noise in the environment. Likewise color affects the efficiency and motivation in learning. Choice of colors depends primarily on the learners age and gender. Brighter colors go well with young children and adolescents will be attracted by subdued colors. Males feel at peace with brighter colors but females would like softer colors. Careful considerations should therefore be made when furnishing classrooms to avoid negative influences (Victorian Institute of Teaching, nd).The Cultural Environment Individuals are from different heathen backgrounds. The styles of learning differ from one culture to another. In the developing worlds like Asia and Africa, teachers, mentors and parents insist on the observation of strict discipline in the process of teaching and learning. Children are not given time to air their views. In contrast, in developed countries like US, learning is less controlled and children are allowed to actively participate in learning and teaching processes.This whitethorn go a long way to motivating students for better performance. Restrictions on the other hand will make students hate the whole process of learning and teaching (Smith, 2010). The learning process is also affected by the nature of the cultural environment. Some cultures whitethorn have a special respect when it comes to knowledge acquisition. People who are learned are greatly respected. These people become mentors to the learner and boost their morale. For example, if a child grows up admiring a certain engineer, chances are that he or she will learn more to become that engineer.Additionally, in the developed countries almost everyon e is educated. They also have better resources such as equipped libraries and internet facilities. Their children therefore receive information they require in learning from diverse areas. The more the resources, the more simplified the learning process will be. On the other hand, inadequate resources will always pose a threat to the learning process. In addition, poor countries have a high number of uneducated people and thus do not act as motivators to learning (Smith, 2010). Some cultures also may influence learning by holding a special position in a particular area of study.For along time, there have been negotiation on mathematics, sciences and vocabularys. Certain cultural backgrounds may fail to put weight on the study of language such as in Myanmar. Some tribes here have no records of their written language. Students from such localities are restricted by their cultural environment to learn the language. They will only have few language experiences. Other cultures will put more emphasis on subjects like mathematics. Learning mathematics for students from these environments will not be a difficult task. The cultural environment therefore dictates what is to be learnt and to what extent (Catherine, 2010).Classroom Setting There are different classroom settings all of which affect the process of learning. Learners tend to behold various settings differently. For instance, in comparing the traditional classroom teaching with online learning, traditional though passed by time, provides the best setting. Online learning does not monitor the learners move. Learning therefore is at the mercy of the learners self discipline.More so, there is no reinforcement offered by online learning and there is no educator-recipient direct interaction. In traditional classroom environment, the learners moves are closely monitored, there is teacher-student contact and therefore reinforcement is guaranteed. The teacher is in a position to learn the psychological weakness of a student. Once the problem is known, the student can be helped out. Students of the traditional setting will always perform better academically than online students. The learning process is therefore affected by the kind of setting selected (Smith, 2010).

Math and architecture Essay Example for Free

Math and architecture Es rankGeometry PJ Architecture and Geometry Architecture and geometry are sinless complements of each other they go hand to hand in so many ways lets discuss some of these ways. Architecture has geometry written all all over it if geometry never existed Architecture wouldnt dumbfound existed either. First of all geometry is the argue that we can calculate and measure the sizes and shapes of certain structures for us to use. Geometry allows us pin point merely how much more we may learn or less , without using geometry building stuff would all be guess to what size we may need or the shape well need it in. Geometry is the primary source of all harmony in geometry. Using Pythagoreans and other formulas based off geometry is key to determination solutions to architectures problems dealing finding rite shapes and pieces to lead in a whole structure 2 by 4s things like that are all possible measurements and the reason that they are measured is because o f the work from geometry. 3d shapes such as cylinders and Castles would not be able to create without the work of geometry.Also dealing with painting say if you wanted to aint a structure you would have to know how much paint you would need rite well believe it or not you will not be able to calculate exactly how much paint you will need without geometry. Also say if you wanted to know how much space you have in your structure you will have to find the volume and calculate the mass and finding the height of your structure when it all comes down to it geometry is at the forerunner of it all all the formulas we use for calculating objects and structures rather you know it or not all comes from the works of geometry.Architecture begins with geometry Architecture needs geometry for safety issues calculate about it you qualification a rooftop without the formulas in geometry you will not be able to calculate how much you will need so imagine making the roof too small then your roof wo uld fall down on you and possibly kill you. We use geometrical shapes to decorate our structures which is very important if you want like an appealing building or object.One more way geometry shapes architecture (literally) is the way we build our gardens we wont know how much change or plants can fit like getting a ew piece of land you have to measure that land to know what can fit there and what cant these both are very important and wouldnt be possible to determine without geometry.See so as I basically was formulation geometry shapes architecture. Architecture is possible and only directly through geometry. Creating building finding areas and volumes of structures and finding the safest and honest ways of doing them is done through geometry. The role that geometry plays in architecture is very big and I want to thank you for your time in reading this essay.

The advantages and disadvantages of traditional Absorption costing techniques

The advantages and disadvantages of traditional concentration approaching techniquesIntroductionThrough the years when it comes to planning Managers has highly-developed techniques and manners of forecasting future costs. angiotensin converting enzyme of such(prenominal)(prenominal) methods is Absorption be and activity base be (ABC)What is Absorption cost?Absorption costing is the traditional method of costing and strain evaluation, having been developed around the 1870s to 1920s is widely used by the manufacturing companies. The idea behind tightness costing to spread all overheads of the manufacturing cost centers as well as the direct cost between the finished yields, and treat all non-manufacturing overhead as period costs. CIMA defined Absorption Costing as a method of costing that, in addition to direct costs, assigns all, or a proportion of, point of intersectionion overheads costs to cost units by means of one or to a greater extent number of absorption rates.What is activity establish costing?Is the modern method of cost management having been developed in 1980s. it is the preferred method for the services industry. The CIMA commentary for activity found costing is an approach to the costing and monitoring of activities which involves tracing resource consumption and costing final outputs. Resources ar assigned to activities, and activities to cost objects found on consumption estimates. The latter(prenominal) utilise cost drivers to attach activity costs to outputs.CIMA Official Terminology, 2005 (http//www.cimaglobal.com/Documents/ImportedDocuments/cid_tg_activity_based_costing_nov08.pdf.pdf)AnalysisWhy does the company need either absorption costing or ABC?Its very important for managers to have an idea of the actualcostof processes, departments, operations or product which is the foundation of their budget.and in fellowship to achieve that they need to have a cost accounting system system such as absorption coting or activity base d costing. Here are the advantages of having such systems and their disadvantagesThe advantages of Absorption CostingIt recognizes the importance of fixed costs in productionis method is accepted by Inland Revenue asstockis not undervaluedis method is always used to preparefinancialaccountsWhen production remains constant nevertheless sales fluctuate absorption costing willing show less fluctuation in net profit andThe disadvantages of Absorption CostingAs absorption costing emphasized on measure cost namely both variable and fixed, it is not so useful for management to use to make decision, planning and controlas the managers emphasis is on total cost, the cost volume profit relationship is ignored. The manager needs to use his intuition to make the decision.The advantages of Activity Based CostingMore accuratecosting of products/services, customers, SKUs, distribution channels.Better understandingoverhead.Easier tounderstandfor everyone.Utilizesunit costrather than just total c ost.Integrates well withSix Sigmaand othercontinuous improvement programs.Makes discerniblewasteandnon-value added activities.Supportsperformance management and scorecardsEnables costing ofprocesses, supply chains, and value streamsActivity Based Costingmirrorswayworkis doneFacilitatesbenchmarkingThe disadvantages of activity based costingIt costs a lot to maintain it, it takes a lot of time and resources to collect, check and enter it into the system for the date needed to measure activity based costing.Is not accepted by GAAP (accepted accounting principles) therefor companies need to have a different system when preparing external reports.What are the differences between Absorption costing and ABC?There are many differences between absorption costing and activity based costing.Difference in ApproachOne of such differences is the way it approached. Absorption costing allocates costs to product units, whereas activity based costing traces the costs of product units.Absorption cost ing is the traditional cost accounting method that focuses on the product or service when fixing costs. It works under the simple approach of assigning resources to products or services directly.Activity based costing is a modern cost accounting approach that focuses on activities as the fundamental cost. ABC presumes that products or services consume activities, and activities consume resources. It thus, works to convert indirect costs into direct costs.Difference in MethodologyAbsorption costing divides equally the fixed overhead costs with the number of product units whereas activity based costing identifies the actual proportion of fixed overheads costs incurred by the product unit.Comparing absorption costing and activity based costing, the latter follows a more scientific approach. Price fixation in absorption costing depends on the instrument. The higher the inventory, the lower the product cost and lower the inventory or the higher per-product cost. Price fixation in activ ity based costing bases calculations to derive the actual overheads incurred on a unit, and does not vary with neuter in inventory levels.Activity based costing, however, faces serious challenges in practical application, for appropriating some of the fixed overheads such as the chief executives salary on a per-product usage basis, is next to impossible. Moreover, process of data collection, data entry, anddata analysis requiredto divide the fixed overhead costs among units based on usage, requires unquestionable resources and remains costly to maintain. Absorption costing that divides all fixed overhead costs with the number of units produced is a simple and easy approach and free from such complexities.Legal ValidityAbsorption costing complies with thegenerally accepted accounting principles(GAAP) whereas theFinancialAccounting Standards Board (FASB) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) do not accept ABC for externally published financial statements. Firms that follow activity bas ed costing, therefore, need to maintain two cost systems and accounting books, one for ingrained use, and another for external reports, filings, and statutory compliance.Difference in ScopeAbsorption costing helps ascertain the overall profitability or efficiency of the manufacturing system but fails to provide the real cost of undivided product units.Activity based costing mirrors the functioning of theenterpriseand contributes to strategic decision-making processes. ABC provides the real cost of individual product units and, thereby, helps identify inefficient or non-profitable products that eat into the profitability of other highly profitable products. ABC also helps price products equitably, allowing breaking down of product or service into sub-components or offering top ups based on customer needs.Comparing absorption costing and activity based costing, activity based costing improves the quality of management accounting information, especially in large and multi-product ope rations where conventional overhead allocation methods such as absorption costing may produce misleading results. Absorption costing, however, remains more suitable for small firms andenterpriseswith homogeneous products or services.Recommendation and implementationI recommend to claim activity based costing system as its more suitable for the public service industry.

Immune Responses of Cytokine Adjuvented DNA Vaccine

tolerant Responses of Cytokine Adjuvented deoxyribonucleic acid VaccineKOTLA SIVAREDDYTitle for the Ph.D ThesisStudy on Immune solvents of Cytokine Adjuvented desoxyribonucleic acid vaccine (genes coding for structural proteins) for FMD delivered by cationic PLG micro particles.ObjectivesTo clone gene coding for structural protein of FMDV in eukaryotic verbal expression sender (pC DNA) d feature the stairs CMV promoter.To clone bovine interleukin 18 gene in suitable cloning vector and express the same in Bacterial/ barm expression system for characterization of expressed recombinant protein.To spend a penny a vaccine construct consisting of FMDV P1 (structural), 3C (Viral protease), and Bovine interleukin 18 genes in eukaryotic expression system under CMV promoter (pC DNA).To study the expression of the vaccine constructs in vitro in BHK-21cells.PLG micro particles preparation and characterization.To study the tolerant responses of the DNA vaccine in data-based animals ( dag o pigs / cattle).Foot-and- let out disease (FMD) caused by foot-and mouth disease virus (FMDV) is an infectious disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals, and poses a serious threat for animal health and exacts an economic damage on the livestock industry. FMD viral genome is a positive-sense single stranded RNA of approximately 8.5kb. The viral RNA genome is translated as a single polypeptide precursor that is by and by processed by virus-encoded proteases 2A and 3C to produce the structural and non-structural proteins required for virus assembly and replication. One of the initial polypeptide cleavages, mediated by the 2A protein, is a co-translational cleavage at its own C terminus to release it from the 2B protein. The viral 3C proteinase subsequently processes the structural protein precursor, P1-2A, into the capsid proteins, VP0, VP3, and VP1, and the non structural peptide, 2A. These proteins then self assemble to form empty icosahedral capsid particles that contain 60 copies of separately protein. Immunological studies take a leak identified linear and conformational sites that are present on both empty capsids and virions, and antiserum raised against any form has the same serological specificity. Thus, the structural protein precursor, P1-2A, and the 3C protease of FMDV are desirable immune antigens for new vaccine development. In countries where disease eradication has not been achieved, inoculation plays a crucial role in its control. Although inactivated virus vaccines effectively prevent FMD, they have several limitations like short duration of immunity, in manage viral defusing and virus escape from vaccine producing facilities. As a result, alternative approaches are being investigated, including the construction of modified live virus, subunit vaccines, synthetic peptides, naked DNA plasmids. DNA vaccination which offers several promising features i.e., DNA is convenient to manufacture and store, its production is safe, sequences from cir culating strains can be easily incorporated in the vaccines, and it likewise allows the discrimination of the infected from the vaccinated animals. Several reports have shown the efficiency of DNA vaccination to induce defendive immunity in the mouse model. However, the simple trouble with DNA vaccination is its poor immunogenicity in target species. Cytokines are being used as molecular adjuvants by co administering with DNA vaccines to improve the skill of the vaccine. Cytokines play an important role both in the development of a functional immune system as well as in the responses of the existence to infection. Interleukin18 (IL18) is a potent interferon (IFN) inducing factor (IGIF), enhances Th1 immune responses. Recent studies have shown that IL18 also promote Th-2 type responses and increases dendritic cell (DC) number in lymph nodes in mice. In addition, IL18 has been used as an adjuvant to DNA vaccines for classical swine fever virus, pseudo rabies virus, porcine repr oductive and respiratory syndrome virus.IL18 was co expressed along with FMDV VP1 in Pichia as fusion protein has enhanced humoral responses and marginally the CMI response in mice. Recombinant fowl pox co-expressing FMDV P1 2A3C and IL18 enhanced the immune responses and gave higher protection in swine Many other studies have shown the positive effect of plasmid encoding the IL-18 as a molecular adjuvant on DNA vaccinations. Efficacy of DNA vaccine could be improved by the inclusion of adjuvants and good vaccine delivery systems. Importantly, cationic microparticle with adsorbed DNA induced enhanced immune responses in compare to naked DNA and this enhancement was apparent in all species evaluated, including nonhuman primates. cationic PLG microparticles appear to be effective predominantly as a wake of the efficient delivery of the adsorbed DNA into DC. Following administration, the micro particles are also very effective at recruiting DC to the injection site, and the micro pa rticles also protect adsorbed DNA against degradation in vivo. A second useful property of micro particles is that they can present multiple copies of antigens on their surface, which has been shown to be optimal for B cell activation. The main advantage of this type of association is the efficient immobilisation of plasmid DNA on the microparticle surface without compromising its integrity. Moreover, after administration, the release of cationic DNA complexes from the surface appeared to facilitate the transfection of cells .At this point, it is not completely understood, whether the adsorption on cationic micro particles can protect plasmid DNA from cleavage through with(predicate) endonucleases after administration in vivo. Nevertheless, release of cationic DNA complexes is expected to provide better protection as compared to release of free DNA. Beside their inherent guard duty and ease of administration, they improve the DNA capture by antigen presenting cells (APC) and stimu late APC maturation. DNA delivery via PLG has been successfully used to vaccinate against several infections in mice, guinea pigs and even in macaques models.1. AMPLIFICATION and cloning of gene sequence coding for P12A 3CFMDV serotype Asia1 gene coding for the polyprotein, P1-2A (2.3 kb) was amplified from viral genome, of the serotype Asia1 polyprotein gene, using VP4L (Bac) and 2AR (E.coR1) primers. Cloned in to pC DNA at E.co R I, BamHI sites. Ligated and transformed in to DH alpha 5 cells. Transformants are screened by colony PCR by using close in specific primers. Orientation was checked by PCR. Insert release was confirmed by RE digestion by using E.co R I, Bam HI. 3C coding sequences were amplified from clone available in lab. 0.6 Kb was amplified .The purified amplicon was digested and ligated in to p C DNA and transferred in to competent DH5 cells upon screening by PCR and by re digestion positive clones were conformed.2. Cytokine amplification (IL18) and cloning in prok aryotic / yeast pC DNA expression vector and characterization of expressed protein.Interleukin 18 (IL18) modulates immune functions by inducing interferon(IFN-) production and promoting Th1 immune responses. In the present study I amplified and cloned the sequence (582 bp) encoding full length bovine IL18 from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) stimulated with Phytohaemoglutinin (PHA). Nucleotide and the deduced amino acid sequence of the cloned IL18 showed an identity of 86-98% with IL 18 sequences of the other ruminants compared. The insert was sub cloned in to eukaryotic expression vector (PcDNA) .The specificity of the expressed IL 18 was confirmed by western blotting. The insert was sub cloned in to pET 32a vector and expressed in E.Coli as fusion protein of 42kDa. The specificity of the expressed IL 18 was confirmed by western blotting. The biological activity of the purified protein was analysed for its ability to induce IFN- production in PBMC as measured by Enzyme l inked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). IL18 anti FMD viral activity was conformed in vitro in BHK-21 cells by using plaque assay viral replication was quantified by Real time PCR, ELISA and titration assays.3. Study of the expression of the constructs in vitro in BHK-21 CellsExpression of cloned P12A3C and IL18 genes were studied in mammalian expression system for confirming the frame and intactness. The P12A3C, IL18 genes cloned under Eukaryotic promoter was transfected in BHK 21 cells with lipid based lipofectamine. Subsequently, the proteins were confirmed by Western blotting by using using anti FMDV serotype Asia, serum from experimentally infected cattle. IL18 transfected cell lysate showed 18 KDa by using human IL18 Mab.4. PLG microparticles preparation and characterizationThe PLG/CTAB micro particles were prepared using a solvent evaporation technique essentially as described previously and briefly, the micro particles were prepa red by emulsifying 10ml of a 6% (w/v) polymer solution in methylene chloride with 1ml of TE buffer at high speed using an soniprep. The primary emulsion was then added to 50ml of distilled water containing CTAB (0.5%, w/v). This resulted in the formation of a water/oil/water emulsion which was stirred at 6000rpm for 12h at mode temperature, allowing the methylene chloride to evaporate. The resultingmicro particles were washed in distilled water by centrifugation at 10,000 g and freeze dried. The plasmid construct was adsorbed onto the microparticles by incubating deoxycytidine monophosphate mg of cationic microparticles with 100 mgs (1 mg/ml solution) of plasmid DNA at 40C for 6 h. The cover microparticles were then separated washed with TE and freeze-dried. Amount of plasmid adsorbed on PLG particles was quantified by eluting the DNA by 0.2 N NaOH (incubation for 10 h at 4 0C and measuring the Optical Density (OD) at 260 nm. Blank PLG micro particles controls were run simultane ously to deduct background value. The size distribution of the micro particles was determined using a particle size analyzer and electron microscopy.5.A. Evaluation of the Immunological response of heterogeneous DNA vaccine constructs in guinea pigs.Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) can be controlled by regular vaccination and restricting the try of animals infected in the endemic countries.. DNA vaccine construct was made with P1-2A3C coding sequences of serotype Asia1 in p C DNA. To evaluate the optimal demigod of the construct in guinea pigs, the plasmid was coat on cationic Poly Lacto-co-Glycolide (PLG) micro particles was injected in to guinea pigs at 2,5,10,15,20,30 ug doses intramuscularly. Sera samples collected from the vaccinated animals at twenty-first dpv were evaluated for immune response by Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), blood serum neutralization test (SNT) and MTT assay. Maximum ELISA / SNT titers and MTT stimulation indices were observed at 10 g dose whic h also gave 83% protection when the guinea pigs were challenged with homologues virus. 10ug was found to be the optimal dose to guinea pigs.P12A3CpCDNA and bovine IL-18 pcDNA plasmids were constructed under CMV promoter and the coated with Cationic PLG microparticle, immune response of the co administered constructs was evaluated in guinea pigs. Both the plasmids constructed under CMV promoter and 10gs each of the plasmids were inoculated intra muscularly in guinea pigs with a maven dose at 21st day post vaccination (dpv). Both humoral and cellular immune response were analysed by IgG1, IgG2 enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Serum neutralization test (SNT) and MTT assay. Th1, Th2 cytokine visibleness was analysed by real time PCR and the phenotyping of T cell sub population in the peripheral blood was performed by flowcytometry. The results have sown importantly higher humoral and cell mediated immune responses in P12A3CIL18+PLG group than P12A3C IL18, and inactivated vir us vaccine inoculated groups. Similarly, higher CD4, CD8 population and Th1, Th2 cytokine levels were seen in causation group. P12A3CIL18+PLG vaccine protected all the six animals when challenged with homologous virus compared to five in inactivated virus vaccine group respectively. These results have shown that the plasmid encoding for P12A3C pcDNA when co inoculated with IL18 and PLG induce higher and protective immune responses, suggesting rBoIL-18 and Micro particles has a potential to enhance the efficacy of vaccine against FMD.5. B Evaluation of the Immunological response of various DNA vaccine constructs in Cattle.Healthy male cattle calves of local breed ( Hallikar Breed) of 6 months to one year age group were purchased from local liquidation shandy( cattle market). These animals were housed in healthy animal shed facilities available at IVRI Animal experimental station at Yelahanka , Bangalore. After initial quarantine the animals were bled and the sera were screened for FMDV antibodies for serotype Asia 1 by SNT.The FMD antibody free animals were divided in to 6 groups of six animals each namely Group I to Group IV. All the group were vaccinated with each construct with 200 ug injected by intramuscularly except conventional vaccine group injected with 2 ml of FMDV Inactivated vaccine. One group kepted for control group (vaccinated with PBS) .After 21 st days of first vaccination with same amount booster dose was injectedP12A3CpCDNA and bovine IL-18 pcDNA plasmids were constructed under CMV promoter and the coated with Cationic PLG microparticle, immune response of the co administered constructs was evaluated in guinea pigs. Both the plasmids constructed under CMV promoter and 200gs each of the plasmids were inoculated intra muscularly in calves with a booster dose at 21st day post vaccination (dpv). Both humoral and cellular immune response were analysed by IgG1, IgG2 enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Serum neutralization test (SNT) and M TT assay. Th1, Th2 cytokine profile was analysed by real time PCR (IFN, IL4, IL2, IFN, IL12, IL25,TLR-4,TLR3,TLR-2,IL8,IL10) and the phenotyping of T cell sub population (CD4 and CD8) and intracellular cytokine molecules (IFN, IL4, IL2) in the peripheral blood was performed by flowcytometry. The results have sown significantly higher humoral and cell mediated immune responses in P12A3CIL18+PLG group than P12A3C IL18, and inactivated virus vaccine inoculated groups. Similarly, higher CD4, CD8 population and Th1, Th2 cytokine levels were seen in former group. P12A3CIL18+PLG vaccine protected four out of six animals when challenged with homologous virus compared to 3 in inactivated virus vaccine group respectively. Non structural proteins,ELISA conformed in challenged animals.These results have shown that the plasmid encoding for P12A3C pcDNA when co inoculated with IL18 and PLG induce higher and protective immune responses, suggesting rBoIL-18 and Micro particles has a potential to en hance the efficacy of vaccine against FMDJournal papers and conference/seminar papers from Doctoral research work1. Expression of Bovine (Bos indicus) interleukin-18 inEscherichia coli and its biological activity.Kotla shibah Reddy, Dowlathabad. Muralidhar Rao, Hosur Joyappa Dechamma,Veluvarthy V.S. Suryanarayana and Golla Ramalinga Reddy.Published in Microbiology and Immunology 2010 54 564567.2. Enhancement of DNA vaccine (P12A3C-pcDNA) efficacy against Foot- andMouth Disease by co-administration of Interleukin-18 expressing (IL18pcDNA) plasmid in Guinea Pigs. Siva Reddy .K. Muralidhar Rao.D., Badrinaryana.M. Suryanaryana.VVS. and Reddy G.R. Accepted in FEMS Immunology and Medical Microbiology. Dec -2010 19.3. Dose optimization of Cationic PLG micro particle coated DNA vaccine against Foot and Mouth Disease in Guinea pigs. Siva Reddy, K.,Rashmi., B.R., Muralidhar Rao, D., Dechamma H.J., Banumathi .N., Suryanarayana V.V.S and Reddy .G.R. accepted in J.of Life science.(Article in p ress)4. Cytokine profile studied by Real time PCR in FMDV antigen stimulated Bovine PBMC cells. Siva Reddy .K., Muralidhar Rao,D.,PrabhuDas,K., Suryanaryana.VVS., Reddy ,G.R. Accepted in Journal of Biotechnology , Bio engineering and Bio Informatics. (Article in press).5. Bos indicus Interleukin 18 complete coding sequence published in NCBI Gen bank .SivaReddy,K., Muralidhar Rao,D., Dechamma,H., Banumathi,N.,Suryanaryana,V. and Reddy,G. Acc.No. FJ9857716. Enhancement of DNA vaccine (P12A3C-pcDNA) efficacy against Foot- andMouth Disease by co-administration of Interleukin-18 expressing (IL18pcDNA) plasmid in Guinea Pigs. Siva Reddy .K. Muralidhar Rao.D., Badrinaryana.M. Suryanaryana.VVS. and Reddy G.R. Presented in Society for applied biotech biotechnology (SAB) annual conference at Dharmapuri Dec 17,187.Bovine Interleukin -18 inhibits Foot-and-Mouth Disease virus Replication in BHK- 21 cells. K. Siva Reddy, D.Murali Dhar Rao, Kakoli Ahmed, H.J Dechamma N.Bhanumathi ,VVS Suryanarayan a ,G.R Reddy presented at VIROCON 2010 XIX National Conference novel TRENDS IN VIRAL DISEASE PROBLEMS AND MANAGEMENT SVU Tirupathi, Mar 18-20 ,2010 .8. Cationic Micro Particle (PLG) coated DNA vaccination Induces a long term immune response and Protective Immunity against Foot and-Mouth disease virus. K. Siva Reddy, Rashmi Dechamma N.Bhanumathi ,VVS Suryanarayana ,G.R Reddy Presented at VIROCON 2010 XIX National Conference RECENT TRENDS IN VIRAL DISEASE PROBLEMS AND MANAGEMENT SVU Tirupathi, Mar 18-20 ,2010.9. Dose response studies of ID- p VAC (SECRETORY VECTOR CONSTRUCT) coated on cationic PLG micro particles against FMDV in guinea pigs. Siva Reddy K., Reddy G.R. Presented at SBC Annual conference Impact of Basic and Translational Research on Medicine, Agriculture and Industry, IIT Madras 18-20 DEC -2008.Communicated Articles1. Cationic Micro Particle (PLG) coated DNA vaccination induces a long term immune response and Protective Immunity against FMD in GuineaPigs. Siva Reddy ,K ., MuraliDhar Rao,D.,Rashmi, B.R., Dechamma H,J., Banumathi.,N., Suryanarayana V.V.S and Reddy G.R Communicated in to Vet Immunology and Immunopathology(Under review).2. Bovine Interleukin 18 inhibits Foot and mouth disease virus replication in BHK-21 Cells. K. Siva Reddy, D.MuraliDhar Rao, K.PrabhuDas, VVS Suryanarayana,G.R Reddy communicated in to Biotechnology and Applied Biochemistry.3. Enhanced efficacy of a Foot and mouth disease DNA vaccine (P12A3CpcDNA) by adsorption onto cationic PLG microparticle in guinea pigs .K. Siva Reddy, D.MuraliDhar Rao, K.PrabhuDas, VVS Suryanarayana ,G.R Reddy communicated into International journal of Immunopharmacology.

Performance of Hedge Fund Relatively in UK

Performance of evade enthronement firm Relatively in UK1.1- IntroductionHedge pecuniary resource be actively managed portfolios that hold positions in publicly traded securities. Gaurav S. Amin and Harry M. cat (2000) stated on their publish that A flurry descent is typically defined as a pooled coronation vehicle that is in private organized, administ set outd by professional coronation managers, and not colossally available to the public. It charges both a execution of instrument fee and a centering fee. It allows a flexible investment money for a bantam number of large investors (usually the minimum investment is $1 million) can hold high jeopardize techniques. 1Now divisions it is truly clear that in the matter of alternative investment unwashed storage is not performing well. As a high autocratic gets and typically have features such as hurdle rates and incentive fees with high watermark provision surround depot r closureers a break dance set to t he touchingnesss of managers and investors. 2More everyplace vernacular notes typically do a commodious- b arly deal-and-hold type schema on standard asset classes, which help to capture s government issue premia associate with truth encounter, interest rate lay on the line, default take a chance etc. However, they ar not very subservient in capturing luck premia associate with dynamic trading strategies. That is wherefore hedging memory comes into the picture.In the year of 2009, this takes the greatest score of the world in the drawing century. In the year of 2008 the world precept the greatest blood line mass of the world economy. Lots of people missing their jobs, lots of company were stopped. The world economy faced the highest losses in the history. These all occurrenceors ar demonstrate just ace way to makeover from that greatest d bearfall that is hedging. 3The last couple of decades have witnessed a rapidly growth in the deflect cash. Relative t o handed-downistic investment portfolios put off property exhibit many unique characteristics they atomic number 18 flexible with respect to the types of securities they hold and the type of the position they take.1 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2000). Multi- consequence deed tenaciousness abbreviation of besiege lineage s. The journal of financial and quantitative analysis. Vol. 35, No,3. PP-327.2 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004). Risks and portfolio decisions involving evaderow property. The re clear of financial studies, Vol. 17, No.1. PP-64.3 Journal of banking and finance 32(2008) 741-753- Hedge investment firm price and Model Uncertainty by Spyridan D. Vrontos, Ioannis D. Vrontos, Daniel Giomouridies.Since the earliest 1990s, ring gold have get going an increasingly popular asset class. The amount invested globally in fudge property rose from approximately $50 billion in 1990 to approximately $1 trillion by the end of 2004. And because these monetary resource characteristically use stantial leverage, they come across a far to a greater extent definitive role in the global securities marketplaceplaces than the surface of their net assets indicates. Moreover, investments in ring notes have become an historic voice of the asset mix of institutions and ever wealthy individual investors (Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005).4The number of FOHFs increase by 40% among 2001 and 2003, and now comprised al intimately cardinal trine of the $650 billion invested in the USAs escape fund market. Due to its nature it is tough to estimate the contemporary size of beleaguer fund industry. 5Van Hedge Fund Advisors estimates that by the end of 1998 there were 5380 fudge fund managing $311 in capital, with flirtween $800 billion and $1 trillion in total assets, which indicates the higher number of young hot entries. So far, table fund is based on American phenomena. About 90% hedge fund managers argon based in the US, 9% in Europe and 1% in Asia and elsewhere. Now a days near 5883 hedge funds ar trading around the world. (*Barclay Hedge selective informationbase). map 1 Assets of Hedge fund industry from 1997 to 2009.Source http//www.barclayhedge.com/research/indices/ghs/mum/Hedge_Fund.htmlAccording to the Barclay hedge database the asset of hedge fund industry is $1205.6 billion dollar.4 monetary times, 29th October, 2003.www.vanhedge.comhttp//www.barclayhedge.com/products/hedge-fund-directory.html1.2- Research questionsSpecifically in this bill card, I want to address cardinal chief(prenominal) questions. initial one is what is the performance of hedge fund and FTSE100 over the period of 2001 to 2008? To judge the performance I use three traditional happen adjusted performance amountment model. To give a better mind and matter of easily understand I use the Sharp ratio, the Treynor ratio, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). However, the rectitude market index is not ineluctably the castigate b enchmark for hedge funds, therefore, market importants and abnormal returns may not be the appropriate metres for risks and lettuce. To mitigate this problem, I calculate sharp ratios, which are defined as the ratio of the comely bare(a) fund returns over the standard deviation.Second question is does hedge funds gives better return from UK honor market (FTSE100)? To make this comparison I use regression analysis where the correlation go forth luff how the hedge funds act against the FTSE 100.1.3- Objective of the disciplineThe main objective of this guinea pig is to find out the performance of Hedge fund relatively with the UK equity market FTSE 100. In addition, I address in this written report four major hedge funds performance correlation with FTSE100. As a result an individual investor can easily understand which portfolio will give better return at their investment perspective. This study focuses on UK investors perspective only.In the olden several years, lots of studies had been done on this playing area wish well Park and Staum (1998), Brown et al. (1999), Agarwal and Naik (2000), Herzberg and Mozes (2003), Capocci and Hubner (2004), and Malkiel and Saha (2005) analysis the hedge fund performance. approximately of the statistical methodology is on the regression with equity markets and rest of all are in the cross product ratio. Above all they tried to find out the return of polar types of hedge fund depending on the market risk and market return.So finally, the purpose of this writing is cl previous(predicate) naturalized, that is to understand hedge fund performance over the UK equity market (FTSE100).1.5- Over tidy sum of the methodologyIn this division I would handle(p) to find out an overview of my methodology. To find out the hedge fund performance and the FTSE100 markets performance I use three traditional risk-adjusted performance bar models. First one is the Sharpe ratio, secondly, the Treynor ratio and finally, the Ca pital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). I address the Sharpe ratio and the Treynor ratio because these two gives better easy view for an investor to try the hedge fund performance by themselves. However, the Sharpe ratio and the Treyneo ratio measure the excess return of per unit of risk for an investment asset. These two are apply to understand how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken. When comparing two assets each with the anticipate return of fund against the same benchmark with risk cease return, the asset with the higher Sharpe ratio gives more than return for the same risk. As a result investor can easily understand where to invest.In this paper I use total 287 funds including different types of hedge funds like- Event driven (31), Hedge fund (54), orbicular macro (37) and Market inert (165). As a benchmark I use FTSE100 and for the risk free rate I use UK 10 year exchequer gravel. All data were amass from the DataStream which is run by Thomson Reuters the worlds leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals (http//thomsonreuters.com/).1.6- Definition of the key termsHedge fundIn the early study by Francis C.C. Koh, Winston T.H. Koh , David K.C. Lee, Kok Fai Phoon (2004) stated in their report that Hedge silver are innovative investment structures that were for the beginning(a) time named more than 50 years ago by Alfred Winslow Jones. He established a fund with the following features(a) He set up hedges by investing in securities that he determined as undervalued and reinforcement these positions part by pickings pathetic positions in overvalued securities, creating a market neutral position(b) He also designed an incentive fee honorarium arranging in which he was paid a percentage of the profits realized from his clients assets and(c) He invested his own investment capital in the fund, ensuring that his incentives and those of his investors were aligned and forming an investm ent partnership. Most modern hedge funds possess the above listed features, and are set up as curb partnerships with a lucrative incentive-fee structure. In most hedge funds, managers also often have a significant portion of their own capital invested in the partnerships. The term hedge fund has been generalized to describe investment strategies that range from the original market-neutral style of Jones to some another(prenominal)(prenominal) strategies and opportunistic situations, including global/macro investing.On the other report by Liang, B. (1999) stated on his report that there are two major types of hedge funds, one is inshore and another is offshore. Onshore funds are limited partnerships of no more than viosterol investors. Offshore funds are limited liability corporations or partnerships established in the tax neutral jurisdictions that allow investors an opportunity to invest extraneous their own country and minimize their tax liabilities.Due to the large variety o f hedge fund investing strategies, there is no standard method to elucidate hedge funds smartly. There are at least 8 major databases set up by data vendors and fund advisors. I follow the compartmentalisation used by Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998), which relied on the MAR/Hedge database. Under this classification, there are 8 categories of hedge funds with 7 differentiated styles and a fund-of-funds category. For my paper I chose three different categories, which are as follows(a) Event driven funds. These are funds that take positions on corporate events, such as taking an arbitraged position when companies are undergoing re-structuring or mergers. For example, hedge funds would purchase bank debt or high yield corporate bonds of companies undergoing re-organization (often referred to as di disquieted securities). some other event-driven system is merger arbitrage. These funds seize the opportunity to invest just after a takeover has been announced. They purchase the shares of the target companies and short the shares of the acquiring companies.(c) Global/ large funds refer to funds that rely on macroeconomic analysis to take bets on major risk factors, such as currencies, interest rates, telephone line up indices and commodities. Opportunistic trading manager that makes profits from falsifys in global economies typically based in major interest rate shifts. To make profits managers uses leverage and derivatives.(d) Market neutral funds refer to funds that bet on relative price movements utilizing strategies such as long-short equity, stock index arbitrage, translatable bond arbitrage and fixed income arbitrage. Long-short equity funds use the strategy of Jones by taking long positions in selective stocks and going short on other stocks to limit their exposure to the stock market. Stock index arbitrage funds trade on the spread between index futures contracts and the underlying basket of equities. transmutable bond arbitrage funds typically capit alize on the embedded option in these bonds by purchasing them and shorting the equities. Fixed income arbitrage bet on the convergence of prices of bonds from the same issuer exclusively with different maturities over time. This is the second largest grouping of hedge funds after the Global category.Source Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998).2.1.2- Current scenario of hedge fundsChapter twoLiterature review2.1- History of hedge fundDespite the increasing interest and recent organic evolution, few studies have been carried out on hedge funds comparing to other investment tools like mutual funds. An analysis of Hedge Fund performance 1984-2000 by Capocci Daniel using one of the greatest hedge fund database ever used on his working paper (2796 individual funds including 801 dissolved), to investigate hedge funds performance using diverse asset-pricing models, including an telephone extension from of Carharts (1997) model combined with Fama and French (1998), Agarwal and Naik (2000) models that take into cover the fact that some hedge funds invest in emerging market bond. At the end they institute that their model does a better job describing hedge funds behaviour. That appears particularly good for the Event Driven, Global Macro, US Opportunistic, Equity non-Hedge and domain funds.Since the early 1990s, when around 2000 hedge funds were managing assets totalling capital of $60 billion, the subsequent growth in the number and asset base of hedge funds has never in reality been refuted. The industry only suffered from a relative slowdown in 1998, but since then has enjoyed a renewed vitality with an estimated total of 10,000funds managing more than a trillion US dollars by the end of 2006. The growing apparent movement of the sector remained remarkably sustained during the stock market collapse that started in March 2000, when the NASDAQ intricate might reached an all-time high of 5,132 and finished three years later with a floor level of 1,253. In the me antime, the global met asset value (NAV) of hedge funds continued to grow at a steady rate of 10.6% (Van Hedge Funds Advisors International, 2002), contrasting with a decrease of 2.7% in the worldwide mutual fund industry ( Investment Company Institute, 2003). In 2001, Capocci and Hubner(2004) estimated that there were 6,000 hedge fund managing around $400 billion. In 2007, Capocci, Duquenne and Hubner (2007) estimated that there were 10,000 hedge funds managing around $1 trillion. This is a growth of 11% in the number of funds and 26% in assets over six years (6PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci). different studies from practitioners Hennessee (1994), and Oberuc (1994) also showed an evidence of superior performance in the case of hedge funds. Ackernann and Al. (1999) and Liang (1999) who compared the performance of hedge funds to mutual funds and several indices, found that hedge funds constantly obtained better performance than mutual funds. Their performance was not better than the performance of the market indices considered. They also indicated that the returns in hedge funds were more unstable than both the returns of mutual funds and those of market indices. According to Brown and Al. (1997) hedge funds showing good performance in the first part of the year reduce the volatility of their portfolio in the second half of the year (Capocci Daniel- An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984-2000). Taking all these results into account hedge funds seems a good investment tool.6 PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci. Electronic copy available at http//ssrn.com/abstract=1008319.2.1.1- Facts and determination of development in hedge fundsAs a result of flexible investment strategies, a better manager inventive alignment, modern investors, and limited irregular regulations hedge funds have gained incredible popularity. In the report of Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004) stated that it is well accepted that the world of financial securities is a multifact or world consisting of different risk factors, each associated with its own factor risk premium, and that no single investment strategy can span the entire risk factor space. thence investors wish to earn risk premia associated with different risk factors need to apply different kinds of investment strategies. Sophisticated investors, like endowments and pension funds, seem to have accepted this fact as their portfolios consist of mutual funds as well as hedge funds.1 Mutual funds typically employ a long-only buy-and-hold-type strategy on standard asset classes, and help capture risk premia associated with equity risk, interest rate risk, default risk, etc. However, they are not very helpful in capturing risk premia associated with dynamic trading strategies or spread-based strategies. This is where hedge funds come into the picture. Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds are not evaluated against a mum benchmark and therefore can follow more dynamic trading strategies. Moreover, th ey can take long as well as short positions in securities, and therefore can bet on capitalization spreads or value-growth spreads. As a result, hedge funds can offer exposure to risk factors that traditional long-only strategies cannot.However, investor can create exposure like hedge funds by trading on their own account, in practice they encounter many frictions callable to incompleteness of markets like the publicly traded derivatives market and the financing market. Moreover, the derivatives market for standardized contracts has grown a great deal in recent years, still it is very costly for an investor to create a customized payoff on individual securities. The same is true for the financing market as well, where investors encounter difficulties shorting securities and obtaining leverage. These frictions make it difficult for investors to create hedge fund-like payoffs by trading on their own accounts.According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) in 1990, the ent ire hedge fund industry was estimated at some US$20 billion. At of 2004, there are close to 7000 hedge funds worldwide, managing more than US$830 billion. Additionally, about US$200-300 billion is estimated to be in privately managed accounts. season high net worth individuals remain the main source of capital, hedge funds are becoming more popular among institutional and retail investors. Funds of hedge funds and other hedge fund-linked products are increasingly being marketed to the retail market. While hedge funds are well established in the United States and Europe, they have only begun to grow aggressively in Asia. According to Asia Hedge magazine, there are more than 300 hedge funds operate in Asia (including those in Japan and Australia), of which 30 were established in year 2000 and 20 in 2001. In 2003, 90 new hedge funds were started in Asia, compared with 66 in 2002, according to an estimate by the Bank of Bermuda. In 2004 more than US$15 billion, hedge fund investments in Asia are expected to grow rapidly. Several factors support this view. Asian hedge funds currently account for a tiny slice of the global hedge fund pie and a mere trickle of the total financial wealth of high net worth individuals in Asia.Hedge funds have posted pleasing returns. From 1987 to 2001, the Hennessee Hedge Fund Index posted annualised returns of 18%, higher than the SPs 13.5%. Hedge funds are seen as a natural hedge for controlling downside risk because they employ exotic investment strategies believed to generate returns that are uncorrelated to traditional asset classes. Hedge funds deviate in their strategies. So-called macro funds, such as Quantum Fund, generally take a directional view by betting on a particular bond market, say, or a currency movement. former(a) funds specialize in corporate events, such as mergers or bankruptcies, or simply look for pricing anomalies the stock markets. Hedge funds vary widely in both their investment strategies and the amou nt of financial leverage. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)There are a number of factors behind the meteoric rise in inquire for hedge funds. The unprecedented bull-run in the US equity markets during the 1990s expanded investment portfolios. This led an increased awareness on the need for diversification. The bursting of the engine room and lucre bubbles, the string of corporate scandals that hit corporate America and the uncertainties in the US economy have led to a general decline in stock markets worldwide. This in turn provided fresh impetus for hedge funds as investors searched for absolute returns. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)Unlike registered investment companies, hedge funds are not needed to publicly disclose performance and holdings information that might be construed as solicitation materials. Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing interest in the use of hedge funds amongst both institutional and high net worth individuals. D ue to their private nature, it is difficult to obtain adequate information about the trading operations of individual hedge funds and reliable summary statistics about the industry as a whole. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)Hedge funds are known to be growing in size and diversity. As at the end of 1997, the MAR/Hedge database recorded more than 700 hedge fund managing assets of US$90 billion. This is only a partial picture of the industry, as many funds are not listed with MAR/Hedge. In practical terms, it is not easy to estimate the current size of the hedge fund industry un little all funds are regulated or obligated to register their operations with a common authority. suffer and Kat (2001) estimated that, as at April 2001, there are around 6000 hedge funds with an estimated US $400 billion in capital under focusing and US $1 trillion in total assets. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) thr ee interesting features differentiate hedge funds from other forms of managed funds. Most hedge funds are small and organized around a few experienced investment professionals. In fact, more than half of U.S Hedge Funds manage amounts of slight than US$25 million. Further, most hedge funds are leveraged. It is estimated that 70 per cent of hedge funds use leverage and about 18% borrowed more than one dollar for every dollar of capital. (See Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998). Another peculiar feature is the short action span of hedge funds. Hedge funds have an average life span of about 3.5 years (See Stefano Lavinio (2000) pp 128). Very few have a track record of more than 10 years. These features lead many to view hedge funds, as risky and opportunistic.In the early study by Fung and Hsieh (2001), they use option like payoffs to view the risks of trend following hedge funds. They saw that the trend following are typically commodity trading advisors (CTAs) who attempt to profit fro m trends in commodity prices using technical indicators. According to Fung and Hsieh (2001) trend followers are particularly interesting in that not only are their returns uncorrelated with the standard equity, bond, currency, and commodity indices, but their returns persist to exhibit option like features. They tend to be large and positive during the best and strap performing months of world equity indices. They cite evidence by Fung and Hsieh (1997) who show that if one split up the states of the world into five states based on the return on the MSCI equity world index, trend followers tend to outperform when the MSCI equity return is at its lowest and highest. The consanguinity between trend followers and the equity market is non-linear and U-shaped. Although returns of trend following funds have a low beta against equities on average, the state-dependent betas tend to be positive in up-markets and negative in down markets.As a result, Fung and Hsieh (2001) assume that the s implest trend following strategy has the same payout as a structured option known as the look back vagabond. The owner of a look back call option has the right to buy the underlying asset at the lowest price over the life of the option. Similarly, a look back put option allows the owner to dole out at the highest price. The combination of these two options is the look back straddle, which delivers the ex-post maximum payout of any trend following strategy. Fung and Hsieh (2001) then demonstrate empirically that look back straddle returns correspond the returns of trend following hedge funds.Building on this pioneer work, Fung and Hsieh (2004) propose seven factors that explain aggregate hedge fund returns. These seven factors take the excess return on the SP 500 index, the Wilshire small cap minus large cap index return, the term spread, the credit spread, and trend following factors for bonds, currencies, and commodities. They show that their seven factor model well explains v ariation in aggregate hedge fund returns. In addition, they find that equity long/short hedge funds tend to load positively on the SP 500 index factor and the small cap minus large cap factor. These results are tenacious with the contemplation that equity long/short hedge funds typically have a small positive exposure to stocks and tend to be long small stocks and short large stocks. Fung and Hsieh (2004) also find that fixed income funds on the other hand tend to load negatively on the change in the credit spread, where the credit spread is measured as the difference between the yield on Moodys Baa bonds and the yield on the 10-year constant maturity Treasury bond. The reason is that fixed income funds typically buy bonds with lower credit ratings and/or less liquidity and then hedge the interest rate risk by shorting US Treasury bonds, which have the highest credit rating and are more liquid.However, Agarwal and Naik (2004) also propose a multi-factor model to explain hedge fun d risks. They find that non-linear option like payoffs are not restricted to trend followers and risk arbitrageurs, but are an integral feature of payoffs for a wide range of hedge fund strategies. In particular they observe that the payoffs on a large number of hedge fund strategies look like those from indite a put option on the equity index. These strategies include risk arbitrage, distressed debt, convertible arbitrage, and relative value arbitrage. Consistent with the exposure of these strategies to the risks borne by sellers of equity index put options, Agarwal and Naik (2004) find that these hedge funds suffer from significant left tail risk which tends to coincide with severe market downturns.The performance of hedge fund in 2008 was very shocking like more than ten years ago. Teo, M (2009) stated that in the month of August 1998 alone LTCM bemused 45% of its capital in the wake of the massive liquidity event triggered by the Russian rubble default. Lots of academic litera ture has shown that the year 2007 and 2008 was the worst performance of hedge fund. As we know that hedge fund managers make portfolio by taking position in equity market and another fund, but unfortunately the world equity market goes downside. As a result investors who wish to weather future financial maelstroms should take note of the non-linear relationship between hedge fund returns and the equity market.2.3- Limitations (previous)With respect to lightly regulated investment vehicles with great treading flexibility, hedge funds often pursue highly sophisticated investment strategies. Hedge funds promise absolute returns to their investor leading to a belief that they hold factor-neutral portfolios. With this in mind, hedge funds have some limitations. In the early studies many researchers discussed and explain that obstacles.First of all if we consider the measurement model of hedge funds performance, most of the researcher use traditional performance measure model like, Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen alpha which are not adequate for the performance evaluation of hedge funds. Fung and Hsieh (2000) and Roy (2003) stated that is incorrect to use these performance measures t evaluate the hedge funds strategies. Brooks and Kat (2002), Kat (2003), Mahdavi (2004) and Murguia and Umemoto (2004) also mentioned that the Sharpe ratio does not represent the true performance of hedge funds because it does not take into consideration the asymmetry returns of these funds. As a result Perello (2007) propose to use the downside risk framework like Sortino ratio, the upside potential ratio and zee measure as alternative performance measure. Moreover, Chung, Rosenberg and Tomeo (2004) and Scherer (2004) showed that Sortino ratio makes it possible to the investors to evaluate the risk and the performance of the hedge funds more sustainably than Sharpe ratio.Secondly, according to Ackermann et al. (1999) and to Fung and Hsieh (2000), two up(a) predeterminees perso nify in the case of hedge funds. They do not exist in the case of mutual funds, and they both have an opposite impact to the survivorship bias. Survivorship bias is an important issue in hedge funds performance studies (see Carhart and al. 2000). This bias is present when a database contains only funds that have data for the whole period studies. In this case, there is a risk of overestimating the mean performance because the funds that would have ceased to exist because of their bad performance would not be taken into account. The two upward(a) biases exist because, since hedge funds are not allowed to advertise, they consider inclusion in a database primarily as a marketing tool. The first phenomenon stressed by Ackermann and al. (1999) and called the self-selection bias is present because funds that realize good performance have less incentive to report their performance to data providers in roam to attract new investors. Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005) stated in their report th at Databases available at any point in time tend to reflect the returns earn by currently existing hedge funds but they do not include the returns from hedge funds that existed at some time in the past but are presently not in existence (i.e., the truly dead funds) or exist but no longer report their results (the defunct funds). Unsuccessful hedge funds have difficulties obtaining new assets. Hence, they tend to close, leaving only the more successful funds in the database. But some funds stop reporting not because they are unsuccessful but because they do not want to attract new investment.The second point called insistent history bias or backfilled bias (Fung and Hsieh 2000) occurs because after inclusion a funds performance history is backfilled. This may cause an upward bias because funds with less satisfactory performance history are less likely to apply for inclusion than funds with good performance history (Capocci Daniel 2001, An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984- 20 00).Performance of Hedge Fund Relatively in UKPerformance of Hedge Fund Relatively in UK1.1- IntroductionHedge funds are actively managed portfolios that hold positions in publicly traded securities. Gaurav S. Amin and Harry M. Kat (2000) stated on their report that A hedge fund is typically defined as a pooled investment vehicle that is privately organized, administrated by professional investment managers, and not widely available to the public. It charges both a performance fee and a management fee. It allows a flexible investment for a small number of large investors (usually the minimum investment is $1 million) can use high risk techniques. 1Now days it is very clear that in the matter of alternative investment mutual fund is not performing well. As a high absolute returns and typically have features such as hurdle rates and incentive fees with high watermark provision hedge fund gives a better align to the interests of managers and investors. 2Moreover mutual funds typically use a long-only buy-and-hold type strategy on standard asset classes, which help to capture risk premia associate with equity risk, interest rate risk, default risk etc. However, they are not very helpful in capturing risk premia associate with dynamic trading strategies. That is why hedge fund comes into the picture.In the year of 2009, this takes the greatest history of the world in the following century. In the year of 2008 the world saw the greatest fall down of the world economy. Lots of people missing their jobs, lots of company were stopped. The world economy faced the highest losses in the history. These all factors are showing only one way to makeover from that greatest downfall that is hedging. 3The last couple of decades have witnessed a rapidly growing in the hedge funds. Relative to traditional investment portfolios hedge funds exhibit some unique characteristics they are flexible with respect to the types of securities they hold and the type of the position they take.1 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2000). Multi-period performance persistence analysis of hedge fund s. The journal of financial and quantitative analysis. Vol. 35, No,3. PP-327.2 Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004). Risks and portfolio decisions involving hedge funds. The review of financial studies, Vol. 17, No.1. PP-64.3 Journal of banking and finance 32(2008) 741-753- Hedge Fund Pricing and Model Uncertainty by Spyridan D. Vrontos, Ioannis D. Vrontos, Daniel Giomouridies.Since the early 1990s, hedge funds have become an increasingly popular asset class. The amount invested globally in hedge funds rose from approximately $50 billion in 1990 to approximately $1 trillion by the end of 2004. And because these funds characteristically use stantial leverage, they play a far more important role in the global securities markets than the size of their net assets indicates. Moreover, investments in hedge funds have become an important part of the asset mix of institutions and ever wealthy individual investors (Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005).4The number of FOHFs increase by 40% between 2001 and 2003, and now comprised almost two third of the $650 billion invested in the USAs hedge fund market. Due to its nature it is difficult to estimate the current size of hedge fund industry. 5Van Hedge Fund Advisors estimates that by the end of 1998 there were 5380 hedge fund managing $311 in capital, with between $800 billion and $1 trillion in total assets, which indicates the higher number of recent new entries. So far, hedge fund is based on American phenomena. About 90% hedge fund managers are based in the US, 9% in Europe and 1% in Asia and elsewhere. Now a days around 5883 hedge funds are trading around the world. (*Barclay Hedge database).Chart 1 Assets of Hedge fund industry from 1997 to 2009.Source http//www.barclayhedge.com/research/indices/ghs/mum/Hedge_Fund.htmlAccording to the Barclay hedge database the asset of hedge fund industry is $1205.6 billion dollar.4 Financial times, 29th October, 2003.www.vanhedge.comhttp//www.barclayhedge.com/products/hedge-fund-directory.html1.2- Research questionsSpecifically in this paper, I want to address two main questions. First one is what is the performance of hedge fund and FTSE100 over the period of 2001 to 2008? To evaluate the performance I use three traditional risk adjusted performance measurement model. To give a better idea and matter of easily understand I use the Sharp ratio, the Treynor ratio, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). However, the equity market index is not necessarily the right benchmark for hedge funds, therefore, market betas and abnormal returns may not be the appropriate measures for risks and profits. To mitigate this problem, I calculate sharp ratios, which are defined as the ratio of the average excess fund returns over the standard deviation.Second question is does hedge funds gives better return from UK equity market (FTSE100)? To make this comparison I use regression analysis where the correlation will show how the hedge funds act against the FTSE 100.1.3- Objective of the studyThe main objective of this study is to find out the performance of Hedge fund relatively with the UK equity market FTSE 100. In addition, I address in this paper four major hedge funds performance correlation with FTSE100. As a result an individual investor can easily understand which portfolio will give better return at their investment perspective. This study focuses on UK investors perspective only.In the past several years, lots of studies had been done on this area like Park and Staum (1998), Brown et al. (1999), Agarwal and Naik (2000), Herzberg and Mozes (2003), Capocci and Hubner (2004), and Malkiel and Saha (2005) analysis the hedge fund performance. Most of the statistical methodology is on the regression with equity markets and rest of all are in the cross product ratio. Above all they tried to find out the return of different types of hedge fund depending on the market risk and market return.So finally, the purpose of this paper is clearly established, that is to understand hedge fund performance over the UK equity market (FTSE100).1.5- Overview of the methodologyIn this section I would like to describe an overview of my methodology. To find out the hedge fund performance and the FTSE100 markets performance I use three traditional risk-adjusted performance measurement models. First one is the Sharpe ratio, secondly, the Treynor ratio and finally, the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). I address the Sharpe ratio and the Treynor ratio because these two gives better easy view for an investor to evaluate the hedge fund performance by themselves. However, the Sharpe ratio and the Treyneo ratio measure the excess return of per unit of risk for an investment asset. These two are used to understand how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken. When comparing two assets each with the expected return of fund against the same benchmark with risk free return, the asset with the higher Sharpe ratio gives more return for the same risk. As a result investor can easily understand where to invest.In this paper I use total 287 funds including different types of hedge funds like- Event driven (31), Hedge fund (54), Global macro (37) and Market neutral (165). As a benchmark I use FTSE100 and for the risk free rate I use UK 10 year Treasury bond. All data were collected from the DataStream which is run by Thomson Reuters the worlds leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals (http//thomsonreuters.com/).1.6- Definition of the key termsHedge fundIn the early study by Francis C.C. Koh, Winston T.H. Koh , David K.C. Lee, Kok Fai Phoon (2004) stated in their report that Hedge Funds are innovative investment structures that were first created more than 50 years ago by Alfred Winslow Jones. He established a fund with the following features(a) He set up hedges by investing in securities tha t he determined as undervalued and funding these positions partly by taking short positions in overvalued securities, creating a market neutral position(b) He also designed an incentive fee compensation arrangement in which he was paid a percentage of the profits realized from his clients assets and(c) He invested his own investment capital in the fund, ensuring that his incentives and those of his investors were aligned and forming an investment partnership. Most modern hedge funds possess the above listed features, and are set up as limited partnerships with a lucrative incentive-fee structure. In most hedge funds, managers also often have a significant portion of their own capital invested in the partnerships. The term hedge fund has been generalized to describe investment strategies that range from the original market-neutral style of Jones to many other strategies and opportunistic situations, including global/macro investing.On the other report by Liang, B. (1999) stated on hi s report that there are two major types of hedge funds, one is inshore and another is offshore. Onshore funds are limited partnerships of no more than 500 investors. Offshore funds are limited liability corporations or partnerships established in the tax neutral jurisdictions that allow investors an opportunity to invest outside their own country and minimize their tax liabilities.Due to the large variety of hedge fund investing strategies, there is no standard method to classify hedge funds smartly. There are at least 8 major databases set up by data vendors and fund advisors. I follow the classification used by Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998), which relied on the MAR/Hedge database. Under this classification, there are 8 categories of hedge funds with 7 differentiated styles and a fund-of-funds category. For my paper I chose three different categories, which are as follows(a) Event driven funds. These are funds that take positions on corporate events, such as taking an arbitraged position when companies are undergoing re-structuring or mergers. For example, hedge funds would purchase bank debt or high yield corporate bonds of companies undergoing re-organization (often referred to as distressed securities). Another event-driven strategy is merger arbitrage. These funds seize the opportunity to invest just after a takeover has been announced. They purchase the shares of the target companies and short the shares of the acquiring companies.(c) Global/Macro funds refer to funds that rely on macroeconomic analysis to take bets on major risk factors, such as currencies, interest rates, stock indices and commodities. Opportunistic trading manager that makes profits from changes in global economies typically based in major interest rate shifts. To make profits managers uses leverage and derivatives.(d) Market neutral funds refer to funds that bet on relative price movements utilizing strategies such as long-short equity, stock index arbitrage, convertible bond arbi trage and fixed income arbitrage. Long-short equity funds use the strategy of Jones by taking long positions in selective stocks and going short on other stocks to limit their exposure to the stock market. Stock index arbitrage funds trade on the spread between index futures contracts and the underlying basket of equities. Convertible bond arbitrage funds typically capitalize on the embedded option in these bonds by purchasing them and shorting the equities. Fixed income arbitrage bet on the convergence of prices of bonds from the same issuer but with different maturities over time. This is the second largest grouping of hedge funds after the Global category.Source Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998).2.1.2- Current scenario of hedge fundsChapter twoLiterature review2.1- History of hedge fundDespite the increasing interest and recent development, few studies have been carried out on hedge funds comparing to other investment tools like mutual funds. An analysis of Hedge Fund performance 1984-2000 by Capocci Daniel using one of the greatest hedge fund database ever used on his working paper (2796 individual funds including 801 dissolved), to investigate hedge funds performance using various asset-pricing models, including an extension from of Carharts (1997) model combined with Fama and French (1998), Agarwal and Naik (2000) models that take into account the fact that some hedge funds invest in emerging market bond. At the end they found that their model does a better job describing hedge funds behaviour. That appears particularly good for the Event Driven, Global Macro, US Opportunistic, Equity non-Hedge and Sector funds.Since the early 1990s, when around 2000 hedge funds were managing assets totalling capital of $60 billion, the subsequent growth in the number and asset base of hedge funds has never really been refuted. The industry only suffered from a relative slowdown in 1998, but since then has enjoyed a renewed vitality with an estimated total of 10,000funds managing more than a trillion US dollars by the end of 2006. The growing trend of the sector remained remarkably sustained during the stock market collapse that started in March 2000, when the NASDAQ composite Index reached an all-time high of 5,132 and finished three years later with a floor level of 1,253. In the meantime, the global met asset value (NAV) of hedge funds continued to grow at a steady rate of 10.6% (Van Hedge Funds Advisors International, 2002), contrasting with a decrease of 2.7% in the worldwide mutual fund industry ( Investment Company Institute, 2003). In 2001, Capocci and Hubner(2004) estimated that there were 6,000 hedge fund managing around $400 billion. In 2007, Capocci, Duquenne and Hubner (2007) estimated that there were 10,000 hedge funds managing around $1 trillion. This is a growth of 11% in the number of funds and 26% in assets over six years (6PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci).Other studies from practitioners Hennessee (1994), and Oberuc (1994) also showed an evidence of superior performance in the case of hedge funds. Ackernann and Al. (1999) and Liang (1999) who compared the performance of hedge funds to mutual funds and several indices, found that hedge funds constantly obtained better performance than mutual funds. Their performance was not better than the performance of the market indices considered. They also indicated that the returns in hedge funds were more unstable than both the returns of mutual funds and those of market indices. According to Brown and Al. (1997) hedge funds showing good performance in the first part of the year reduce the volatility of their portfolio in the second half of the year (Capocci Daniel- An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984-2000). Taking all these results into account hedge funds seems a good investment tool.6 PhD thesis paper by Daniel P.J. Capocci. Electronic copy available at http//ssrn.com/abstract=1008319.2.1.1- Facts and finding of development in hedge fundsAs a result o f flexible investment strategies, a better manager inventive alignment, sophisticated investors, and limited SEC regulations hedge funds have gained incredible popularity. In the report of Agarwal, V. and Naik, N. (2004) stated that it is well accepted that the world of financial securities is a multifactor world consisting of different risk factors, each associated with its own factor risk premium, and that no single investment strategy can span the entire risk factor space. Therefore investors wishing to earn risk premia associated with different risk factors need to employ different kinds of investment strategies. Sophisticated investors, like endowments and pension funds, seem to have recognized this fact as their portfolios consist of mutual funds as well as hedge funds.1 Mutual funds typically employ a long-only buy-and-hold-type strategy on standard asset classes, and help capture risk premia associated with equity risk, interest rate risk, default risk, etc. However, they ar e not very helpful in capturing risk premia associated with dynamic trading strategies or spread-based strategies. This is where hedge funds come into the picture. Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds are not evaluated against a passive benchmark and therefore can follow more dynamic trading strategies. Moreover, they can take long as well as short positions in securities, and therefore can bet on capitalization spreads or value-growth spreads. As a result, hedge funds can offer exposure to risk factors that traditional long-only strategies cannot.However, investor can create exposure like hedge funds by trading on their own account, in practice they encounter many frictions due to incompleteness of markets like the publicly traded derivatives market and the financing market. Moreover, the derivatives market for standardized contracts has grown a great deal in recent years, still it is very costly for an investor to create a customized payoff on individual securities. The same is true f or the financing market as well, where investors encounter difficulties shorting securities and obtaining leverage. These frictions make it difficult for investors to create hedge fund-like payoffs by trading on their own accounts.According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) in 1990, the entire hedge fund industry was estimated at about US$20 billion. At of 2004, there are close to 7000 hedge funds worldwide, managing more than US$830 billion. Additionally, about US$200-300 billion is estimated to be in privately managed accounts. While high net worth individuals remain the main source of capital, hedge funds are becoming more popular among institutional and retail investors. Funds of hedge funds and other hedge fund-linked products are increasingly being marketed to the retail market. While hedge funds are well established in the United States and Europe, they have only begun to grow aggressively in Asia. According to Asia Hedge magazine, there are more than 300 hedg e funds operating in Asia (including those in Japan and Australia), of which 30 were established in year 2000 and 20 in 2001. In 2003, 90 new hedge funds were started in Asia, compared with 66 in 2002, according to an estimate by the Bank of Bermuda. In 2004 more than US$15 billion, hedge fund investments in Asia are expected to grow rapidly. Several factors support this view. Asian hedge funds currently account for a tiny slice of the global hedge fund pie and a mere trickle of the total financial wealth of high net worth individuals in Asia.Hedge funds have posted attractive returns. From 1987 to 2001, the Hennessee Hedge Fund Index posted annualised returns of 18%, higher than the SPs 13.5%. Hedge funds are seen as a natural hedge for controlling downside risk because they employ exotic investment strategies believed to generate returns that are uncorrelated to traditional asset classes. Hedge funds vary in their strategies. So-called macro funds, such as Quantum Fund, generally take a directional view by betting on a particular bond market, say, or a currency movement. Other funds specialize in corporate events, such as mergers or bankruptcies, or simply look for pricing anomalies the stock markets. Hedge funds vary widely in both their investment strategies and the amount of financial leverage. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)There are a number of factors behind the meteoric rise in demand for hedge funds. The unprecedented bull-run in the US equity markets during the 1990s expanded investment portfolios. This led an increased awareness on the need for diversification. The bursting of the technology and Internet bubbles, the string of corporate scandals that hit corporate America and the uncertainties in the US economy have led to a general decline in stock markets worldwide. This in turn provided fresh impetus for hedge funds as investors searched for absolute returns. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)Unlike registered invest ment companies, hedge funds are not required to publicly disclose performance and holdings information that might be construed as solicitation materials. Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing interest in the use of hedge funds amongst both institutional and high net worth individuals. Due to their private nature, it is difficult to obtain adequate information about the operations of individual hedge funds and reliable summary statistics about the industry as a whole. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)Hedge funds are known to be growing in size and diversity. As at the end of 1997, the MAR/Hedge database recorded more than 700 hedge fund managing assets of US$90 billion. This is only a partial picture of the industry, as many funds are not listed with MAR/Hedge. In practical terms, it is not easy to estimate the current size of the hedge fund industry unless all funds are regulated or obligated to register their operations with a common authority. Brooks and Ka t (2001) estimated that, as at April 2001, there are around 6000 hedge funds with an estimated US $400 billion in capital under management and US $1 trillion in total assets. (Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004)According to Koh, F., Koh,W,. Lee, D,. and Phoon, K. (2004) three interesting features differentiate hedge funds from other forms of managed funds. Most hedge funds are small and organized around a few experienced investment professionals. In fact, more than half of U.S Hedge Funds manage amounts of less than US$25 million. Further, most hedge funds are leveraged. It is estimated that 70 per cent of hedge funds use leverage and about 18% borrowed more than one dollar for every dollar of capital. (See Eichengreen and Mathieson (1998). Another peculiar feature is the short life span of hedge funds. Hedge funds have an average life span of about 3.5 years (See Stefano Lavinio (2000) pp 128). Very few have a track record of more than 10 years. These features lead many to view hedge funds, as risky and opportunistic.In the early study by Fung and Hsieh (2001), they use option like payoffs to view the risks of trend following hedge funds. They saw that the trend followers are typically commodity trading advisors (CTAs) who attempt to profit from trends in commodity prices using technical indicators. According to Fung and Hsieh (2001) trend followers are particularly interesting in that not only are their returns uncorrelated with the standard equity, bond, currency, and commodity indices, but their returns tend to exhibit option like features. They tend to be large and positive during the best and worst performing months of world equity indices. They cite evidence by Fung and Hsieh (1997) who show that if one divided up the states of the world into five states based on the return on the MSCI equity world index, trend followers tend to outperform when the MSCI equity return is at its lowest and highest. The relationship between trend followers and t he equity market is non-linear and U-shaped. Although returns of trend following funds have a low beta against equities on average, the state-dependent betas tend to be positive in up-markets and negative in down markets.As a result, Fung and Hsieh (2001) assume that the simplest trend following strategy has the same payout as a structured option known as the look back straddle. The owner of a look back call option has the right to buy the underlying asset at the lowest price over the life of the option. Similarly, a look back put option allows the owner to sell at the highest price. The combination of these two options is the look back straddle, which delivers the ex-post maximum payout of any trend following strategy. Fung and Hsieh (2001) then demonstrate empirically that look back straddle returns resemble the returns of trend following hedge funds.Building on this pioneer work, Fung and Hsieh (2004) propose seven factors that explain aggregate hedge fund returns. These seven fa ctors include the excess return on the SP 500 index, the Wilshire small cap minus large cap index return, the term spread, the credit spread, and trend following factors for bonds, currencies, and commodities. They show that their seven factor model well explains variation in aggregate hedge fund returns. In addition, they find that equity long/short hedge funds tend to load positively on the SP 500 index factor and the small cap minus large cap factor. These results are consistent with the observation that equity long/short hedge funds typically have a small positive exposure to stocks and tend to be long small stocks and short large stocks. Fung and Hsieh (2004) also find that fixed income funds on the other hand tend to load negatively on the change in the credit spread, where the credit spread is measured as the difference between the yield on Moodys Baa bonds and the yield on the 10-year constant maturity Treasury bond. The reason is that fixed income funds typically buy bonds with lower credit ratings and/or less liquidity and then hedge the interest rate risk by shorting US Treasury bonds, which have the highest credit rating and are more liquid.However, Agarwal and Naik (2004) also propose a multi-factor model to explain hedge fund risks. They find that non-linear option like payoffs are not restricted to trend followers and risk arbitrageurs, but are an integral feature of payoffs for a wide range of hedge fund strategies. In particular they observe that the payoffs on a large number of hedge fund strategies look like those from writing a put option on the equity index. These strategies include risk arbitrage, distressed debt, convertible arbitrage, and relative value arbitrage. Consistent with the exposure of these strategies to the risks borne by sellers of equity index put options, Agarwal and Naik (2004) find that these hedge funds suffer from significant left tail risk which tends to coincide with severe market downturns.The performance of hedge fund in 2008 was very shocking like more than ten years ago. Teo, M (2009) stated that in the month of August 1998 alone LTCM lost 45% of its capital in the wake of the massive liquidity event triggered by the Russian rubble default. Lots of academic literature has shown that the year 2007 and 2008 was the worst performance of hedge fund. As we know that hedge fund managers make portfolio by taking position in equity market and another fund, but unfortunately the world equity market goes downside. As a result investors who wish to weather future financial maelstroms should take note of the non-linear relationship between hedge fund returns and the equity market.2.3- Limitations (previous)With respect to lightly regulated investment vehicles with great treading flexibility, hedge funds often pursue highly sophisticated investment strategies. Hedge funds promise absolute returns to their investor leading to a belief that they hold factor-neutral portfolios. With this in mind, hedge fu nds have some limitations. In the early studies many researchers discussed and explain that obstacles.First of all if we consider the measurement model of hedge funds performance, most of the researcher use traditional performance measure model like, Sharpe ratio, Treynor ratio and Jensen alpha which are not adequate for the performance evaluation of hedge funds. Fung and Hsieh (2000) and Roy (2003) stated that is incorrect to use these performance measures t evaluate the hedge funds strategies. Brooks and Kat (2002), Kat (2003), Mahdavi (2004) and Murguia and Umemoto (2004) also mentioned that the Sharpe ratio does not represent the true performance of hedge funds because it does not take into consideration the asymmetry returns of these funds. As a result Perello (2007) propose to use the downside risk framework like Sortino ratio, the upside potential ratio and Omega measure as alternative performance measure. Moreover, Chung, Rosenberg and Tomeo (2004) and Scherer (2004) showed that Sortino ratio makes it possible to the investors to evaluate the risk and the performance of the hedge funds more sustainably than Sharpe ratio.Secondly, according to Ackermann et al. (1999) and to Fung and Hsieh (2000), two upward biases exist in the case of hedge funds. They do not exist in the case of mutual funds, and they both have an opposite impact to the survivorship bias. Survivorship bias is an important issue in hedge funds performance studies (see Carhart and al. 2000). This bias is present when a database contains only funds that have data for the whole period studies. In this case, there is a risk of overestimating the mean performance because the funds that would have ceased to exist because of their bad performance would not be taken into account. The two upward biases exist because, since hedge funds are not allowed to advertise, they consider inclusion in a database primarily as a marketing tool. The first phenomenon stressed by Ackermann and al. (1999) and ca lled the self-selection bias is present because funds that realize good performance have less incentive to report their performance to data providers in order to attract new investors. Malkiel, B. and Saha, A. (2005) stated in their report that Databases available at any point in time tend to reflect the returns earned by currently existing hedge funds but they do not include the returns from hedge funds that existed at some time in the past but are presently not in existence (i.e., the truly dead funds) or exist but no longer report their results (the defunct funds). Unsuccessful hedge funds have difficulties obtaining new assets. Hence, they tend to close, leaving only the more successful funds in the database. But some funds stop reporting not because they are unsuccessful but because they do not want to attract new investment.The second point called instant history bias or backfilled bias (Fung and Hsieh 2000) occurs because after inclusion a funds performance history is backfil led. This may cause an upward bias because funds with less satisfactory performance history are less likely to apply for inclusion than funds with good performance history (Capocci Daniel 2001, An analysis of hedge fund performance 1984- 2000).

Celebrities in the American Media Essays -- Celebrity

American Media The Bliss of the Public or the Bane of Celebrities?Throughout history, the media has caught some of the nearly horrific scenes on camera. While it is great that these events were documented, one cannot help but wonder how much is too much when prying into the lives of public figures. Even celebrities charter a time to grieve yet that time seems limited when they are constantly being harassed by men with cameras trying to give the outperform account of the situation. Since the introduction of the television, and possibly before, news broadcasters have been concerned with one objective relaying the most interesting and informative report of the breaking story, regardless of the do of their curiosity. In most cases of tragedy, the media coverage makes the situation worse. There is a photograph by Elliott Erwitt of Jackie Kennedy at President Kennedys funeral, which really embodies the effects of broadcasting tragedies. In the picture, Mrs. Kennedys face seems fr ozen in a state of disbelief and grief as a man behind her stands unaffected with a microphone around his ear. Millions of Americans sat in front of their TV sets watching the funeral, and through all of this Mrs. Kennedy was barely able to relax and reflect since it was her duty to plan the complete procession. After the funeral, she still could not find the time to grieve. Because she was the first lady, Jackie Kennedy had an obligation to the public so even under the greatest stress imaginable the leave behind was receiving the guests who had come to her husbands funeral (Mayo, 84). By being the wife of a public figure, she too feels the stress of being a celebrity. The media, as well as the members of the public have forced her to remain active... ... without creating a rivalry between them or false pretences against them. In an age when media is such a big lay out of Americans lives, it is necessary to take into account the effects that the stories will have on the pe ople in them. Works CitedBaughman, Cynthia. Women on Ice Feminist Responses to Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle. newborn York, New York Routledge, 1995. Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink. New York, New York Little, Brown and Company, 2005.Mayo, John B. Bulletin From Dallas The President Is Dead. New York, New York Exposition Press, 1967.Semple, Robert B., ed. Four Days in November. New York, New York St. Martins Press, 2003. Triplett, William. Alive. American Journalism Review. October 1994. Questia. Questia Online Library. University of Miami. 28 September 2006. .

Pokers Popularity Grows Among Teenagers :: essays research papers

In Chicago, Illinois, among many other cities across the nation, a new trend has swept teenagers like a plague. Poker, or the newly named Texas Holdem, has been the new hobby to most kids, boys in particular. Since the football season has been over, one boy even turned his dining room, a arse for family time and bonding, into a full fledged poker parlor with chips, and plenty of decks of cards.      Texas Holdem came about sometime in the beginning of the decade, and has become more an more frequent among teenagers. Launched from TV competitions between everyday people and even celebrities, kids from even our community have become hooked. In fact, some parents condone it. They regain that the game teaches strategy, critical-thinking, and mathematics attainments. One parent even compared it to smoking pot, saying hed rather have his clawren play Holdem than not know where they are. Its "safer" because unlike drugs that impair your judgments, the chil d is occupied with something that, if developed, can be cured by just taking it away. Josh Kohnstamm, father of Josh in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, says "its become the perfect break off for his studious 16-year-old son, Josh, who takes everything too seriously. Allowing him to whoop the schools best athletes -- computer geek that he is -- and come away feeling lucky when that is a sensation that rarely happens in his everyday life." But I could only wonder if the game was more about self-fulfillment and confidence, or critical thinking and math skills? Either way, the child is gaining, isnt he?      But then again there are also the adults who think that the game is a bad habit, and develops bad romp habits. "Its fun. Its exciting. Its glamorized on TV and in the media in a way that other addictions are not," says Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. "Theres the impression that through skill you can b eat the odds. But randomness is always going to have a bigger factor in determining the outcome than your skill." The fact is, is that gambling is an addiction and has been known to be hard to overcome. However, I dont think that anyone can actually say that it is forbidden because I really think that no matter what, every person takes a chance which can be considered gambling.      Im not sure where I stand on this issue.