University of Massachusetts Boston

About: University of Massachusetts Boston is a education organization based out in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 6541 authors who have published 12918 publications receiving 411731 citations. The organization is also known as: UMass Boston.

Professional identity development theory and doctoral education

Abstract: This chapter explores the benefits of enhancing doctoral students' abilities to exploit the synergies among their multiple academic identities.

Relationships among time, frequency, and duration of flowering in tropical rain forest trees

Abstract: Flowering patterns are defined by the timing, duration, and frequency of flowering. Plants, particularly in the tropics, vary enormously with respect to these main variables of flowering. We used data from 302 tree species in a wet tropical forest to test a series of predictions regarding timing, duration, and frequency of flowering and examined the effect of each variable on the other two. Because timing, duration, and frequency of flowering can be constrained by phylogeny, we analyzed the data before and after considering phylogenetic effects at the level of family. Flowering activity peaked in the first wet season from May to July, refuting our prediction of peak flowering during the dry season. Our prediction that most species should flower several times a year was supported when species flowering more or less continually throughout the year were included in this category. Our prediction that supra-annually flowering species should be the least frequent was also supported with some qualifications. As we predicted, species flowering several times a year bloomed relatively briefly per flowering episode. Our prediction of shorter flowering duration for species flowering in the dry season and for those with a temporal separation between flowering and vegetative growth was also supported. Furthermore, supra-annually flowering species flowered for a shorter duration than annually flowering species and had a higher probability of flowering in the dry season compared to episodically or annually flowering species. Phylogeny significantly constrained variation in flowering frequency, but not in flowering time or duration, among confamilial species.

The performance of global bond mutual funds

Abstract: This paper studies the risk and return characteristics of global bond mutual funds during 1988–95. These actively managed funds did not demonstrate superior performance, net of expenses, against a wide range of benchmarks and performance was negatively related to fund expenses. During the sample period, returns on global bond funds were sensitive to exchange rate movements, even after controlling for local currency returns on country bond indices. The funds had high exposure to the European, the Canadian, and the US bond markets and were least sensitive to the Japanese Bond index and movements in Japanese Yen. The funds did not outperform a US Bond index, suggesting that expenses might have outweighed diversification benefits during the sample period.