Understanding Mutual Fund and Hedge Fund Styles Using Return Based Style Analysis

We provide an introduction to the use of return based style analysis of Sharpe (1992) in practice. We demonstrate the importance of selecting the right style benchmarks and how the use of inappropriate style benchmarks may lead to wrong conclusions. When style analysis is applied to sector oriented funds such as healthcare, precious metals, energy, technology, etc., the set of benchmarks should include sector or industry indexes. Following Glosten and Jagannathan (1994), Fung and Hsieh (2001), and Agarwal and Naik (2001), we show how to analyze the investment style of hedge fund managers by including the returns on selected option based strategies as style benchmarks. In the examples we consider, return based style analysis provides insights not available through commonly used 'peer' evaluation alone.

Use of Animal Fat as a Symbol of Health in Traditional societies Suggests Humans may be Well Adapted to its Consumption

Background and objectives: Recommendations to limit the dietary consumption of saturated fat have been adopted by public health organizations in most countries. However, recent scientific studies and reviews have questioned the alleged negative health claims regarding saturated fat.This research aims to provide a historical, evolutionary point of view to the debate through a short review of evidence for animal fat consumption by Paleolithic and recent traditional societies, and the discernment of how recent traditional societies perceived animal fat in terms of health and other lifestyle aspects.Methodology: Literature review of the importance of animal fat's dietary consumption in prehistoric and recent traditional societies and scanning of ethnographic records for symbolic use of animal fat in rituals, linguistics and mythology. The contexts of such cultural expressions provide us with the peoples' perception of the analogues quality that animal fat imparts in its use as a symbol.Results: Collection of 200 cases from culturally and geographically diverse traditional societies, reveals that in all three expression forms, there appears to be a clear tendency to associate animal fat with extremely positive meanings like "fertility", "sacredness", "wealth", "health", and even " a source of creation" and life itself.Conclusion: In line with evidence for the importance of dietary animal fat in prehistoric and traditional societies, the studied traditional societies perceived animal fat as a vital component of their diet and a profound source of health rather than an impediment to health as it is presented in many dietary recommendations today

Facing the Ruler, Facing the Village: On the Roads to Complicity Following Mengzi and Benda

In his article, “Facing the Ruler, Facing the Village,” Zvi Ben-Dor Benite seeks to broaden the boundaries of the discussion about complicity by taking it away from late 20th-century and contemporary debates about it. At the same time, he wishes to highlight the many faces that the problem of complicity could have in different historical moments. Following Czesław Miłosz, this article understands that there are many roads to complicity that have been articulated in different ways across time and space. This article is, therefore, an integrated meditation on complicity bringing together two radically distant approaches to the question. Reading the ancient Chinese thinker Mengzi, this article highlights two key situations leading to what we should call “complicity.” The first is concerned with the thorny issue of the intellectual at the court facing the ruler. The second place the intellectual within the people, “the village” in Mengzi\u27s words. Mengzi identifies both of these situations as highly problematic and potentially leading to the deviation from past moral principles to which one must adhere. With this insight, this article turns to Julien Benda\u27s famous, notorious, portrayal of the “treason of the intellectuals,” and discusses it along the parameters articulated by Mengzi

“Como los hebreos en España”: El encuentro de los jesuitas con los musulmanes y el problema del cambio cultural

This essay is concerned with the possibility of cultural change in the writings of Matteo Ricci. In order to elucidate this question, this essay discusses aspects of Matteo Ricci’s perception of Islam and Muslims in China and identifies the moments when they changed. I show that over time Ricci developed a much more nuanced perception of Islam in China, but argue still that his views remained quite limited because of lack of dialogue with Muslims he saw in China. These limitations, I also argue, reflect the limitations of European views of Islam in the early modern Euro-Mediterranean world. Recognizing these limitations, I suggest, might help us to develop new approaches to questions of religion in early modern China.Este trabajo trata de las posibilidades del cambio cultural en los escritos de Matteo Ricci. Para poder conocer mejor esta cuestión, este estudio discute diversos aspectos de la percepción de Matteo Ricci sobre el Islam y los musulmanes en China, identificando los momentos en los que cambia. He podido mostrar cómo, a lo largo del tiempo, Ricci desarrolló una percepción cada vez más matizada del Islam en China, pero sostengo que sus opiniones se mantuvieron bastante fijas debido a su falta de diálogo con los musulmanes de esa zona. Esta percepción tiene mucho que ver con los limitados puntos de vista del Islam en la Europa mediterránea moderna. Conocer estas limitaciones, sugiero, nos podrá ayudar a desarrollar nuevos enfoques sobre la investigación de la religión en China

Constitutional limits and the public sphere: A critical study of Bentham's legal and constitutional theory

This thesis is a reconstruction of Jeremy Bentham's legal and constitutional theory. It is based on a close reading of Bentham's unpublished and newly published texts, as well as on a re-reading of his better known works. It is argued that an analysis of constitutionally limited government formed a central theme of Bentham's theoretical arguments, whilst the establishment of a constitutionally limited government, based on representative democracy, was a major practical concern for him. The theme of constitutional limits brings together many of Bentham's specific preoccupations during his lifetime. Scholarship in legal, constitutional, and political theory, has hitherto failed to establish a unified conception of Bentham's thought. The main argument of this thesis is that, for Bentham, constitutional limits were socially dynamic in nature. These limits were determined and effectuated by a popular collective judgement with regard to the imposition of obligations within a given community. The people themselves demarcated the extent to which centralised coercion might be exercised. A popular collective judgement also signified a change in the locus of obligations from centralised institutions to the community. It is argued that the connection between constitutional limits and the public sphere constituted the common, unifying rationale of Bentham's legal and political enterprise. Constitutional limits were established as a result of an interaction between, on the one hand, officials, who were responsible for enacting a system of legislation and rules, and, on the other hand, the people, who passed judgement on the activities of these officials. This interaction determined the social justification, and hence the limits, of authority in any social group. The limits of authority, in turn, determined the sphere of individual inviolability. The relationship between constitutional limits and the public sphere is discussed in relation to Bentham's ideas about sovereignty, the duty to obey the law, and the dichotomy between legislation and private ethics. The connections which are established and defended between constitutional limits and private ethics, as well as between private ethics and communal consensus formation, are novel for legal and political theory in general, and for Bentham scholarship in particular. The idea of constitutional limits is, moreover, discussed in the context of the potential evolution of communities. In this context, constitutional limits are conceived as a medium through which a community might evolve from being a community of law into what Bentham called a "community of sympathy", the latter being largely based on self-government

AI in Adjudication and Administration

The use of artificial intelligence has expanded rapidly in recent years across many aspects of the economy. For federal, state, and local governments in the United States, interest in artificial intelligence has manifested in the use of a series of digital tools, including the occasional deployment of machine learning, to aid in the performance of a variety of governmental functions. In this paper, we canvas the current uses of such digital tools and machine-learning technologies by the judiciary and administrative agencies in the United States. Although we have yet to see fully automated decision-making find its way into either adjudication or administration, governmental entities at all levels are taking steps that could lead to the implementation of automated, machine-learning decision tools in the relatively near future. Within the federal and state court systems, for example, machine-learning tools have yet to be deployed, but other efforts have put in place digital building blocks toward such use. These efforts include the increased digitization of court records that algorithms will need to draw upon for data, the growth of online dispute resolution inside and outside of the courts, and the incorporation of non-learning risk assessment tools as inputs into bail, sentencing, and parole decisions. Administrative agencies have proven much more willing than courts to use machine-learning algorithms, deploying such algorithmic tools to help in the delivery of public services, management of government programs, and targeting of enforcement resources. We discuss already emerging concerns about the deployment of artificial intelligence and related digital tools to support judicial and administrative decision-making. If artificial intelligence is managed responsibly to address such concerns, the use of algorithmic tools by governmental entities throughout the United States would appear to show much future promise. This status report on current uses of algorithmic tools can serve as a benchmark against which to gauge future growth in the use of artificial intelligence in the public sector