Hybrid View Research Articles

Traditional Investment Programs and Absolute-Return Strategies

Some have argued that there is an accelerating convergence between the hedge fund industry and traditional institutional fund management. This article will argue the opposite: that in a very fundamental way, these two investment industries are still quite distinct. This article will argue that the differences between traditional investment programs, which are designed around outperforming benchmarks, and alternative investment programs, which are designed to deliver absolute returns, mainly result from competing views on sources of investment returns. These competing views then result in differing: investment processes; risk management practices; and roles for financial service providers. This article will also maintain that the differing types of absolute-return programs result from varying investor preferences in return-to-risk trade-offs. One can summarize the competing views on sources of investment returns as follows: asset allocation is the dominant performance driver; absolute returns should be expected from each investment; and a hybrid view.

THE MODAL STATUS OF LAWS: IN DEFENCE OF A HYBRID VIEW

Three popular views regarding the modal status of the laws of nature are discussed: Humean Supervenience, nomic necessitation, and scientific/dispositional essentialism. These views are examined especially with regard to their take on the apparent modal force of laws and their ability to explain that modal force. It will be suggested that none of the three views, at least in their strongest form, can be maintained if some laws are metaphysically necessary, but others are metaphysically contingent. Some reasons for thinking that such variation in the modal status of laws exists will be presented with reference to physics. This drives us towards a fourth, hybrid view, according to which there are both necessary and contingent laws. The prospects for such a view are studied.

On Bazargan's 'Hybrid Account' of the Permissibility of Killing Minimally Responsible Threats

Saba Bazargan proposes a novel “hybrid” justification for the killing of minimally responsible threats (MRTs). His account allegedly combines two elements, namely “the complex account of liability” and “the lesser-evil discounting view.” I argue that Bazargan’s conclusion that minimally responsible threats can sometimes be killed as well as certain other conclusions that Bazargan regards as a particular advantage of his hybrid account are single-handedly generated by one element of the “hybrid account,” namely by the lesser-evil discounting view. The lesser-evil discounting view therefore does not need to be combined with “the complex account of liability,” nor, indeed, with any account of liability. Thus, Bazargan’s hybrid view is redundant. Moreover, I will argue that both the hybrid view and the lesser evil discounting view of killing MRTs have strongly counter-intuitive implications and should therefore be rejected.

The Two Waves of Russian-Jewish Migration from the USSR/FSU to Israel: Dissidents of the 1970s and Pragmatics of the 1990s

Drawing on a hybrid view of migrant generations (demographic and historical/political), I examine generational dynamics among Russian-Jewish immigrants in Israel. The first wave of Soviet Jewish migration to Israel in the early 1970s (some 150,000 migrants) was catalyzed by a surge of Zionist sentiment after Israel’s victory in 1967 and enabled by strong political pressure on the USSR from the West. Reflecting their Zionist persuasion, the 1970s arrivals often discarded their former identities, switched to Hebrew, and soon integrated into Israel’s social mainstream. By contrast, the 1990s wave was set in motion by the political turmoil and economic hardships of the postcommunist transition, while Zionist ideals were secondary to most emigres. About 1 million ex-Soviets of Jewish descent migrated to Israel as the most accessible destination throughout the 1990s. They have kept intense and positive ties with their former homeland, in part because one-third of them are Russians married to Jews or mixed ethnics and have family members remaining in the Former Soviet Union. At the same time, their integration in Israel has been fraught with problems. The different attitudes toward the ex-homeland among the parental generations of the 1970s and 1990s have influenced the extent of Russian cultural continuity among their children born in Israel.

The semantics of social constructivism

This essay will examine some rather serious trouble confronting claims that mathematicalia might be social constructs. Because of the clarity with which he makes the case and the philosophical rigor he applies to his analysis, our exemplar of a social constructivist in this sense is Julian Cole, especially the work in his 2009 and 2013 papers on the topic. In a 2010 paper, Jill Dieterle criticized the view in Cole’s 2009 paper for being unable to account for the atemporality of mathematical existents. Cole’s 2013 paper addresses this objection, providing a modification of his 2009 paper allowing for atemporal mathematicalia. An unusual consequence of Cole’s account is that at least some existential claims about mathematicalia used to be false but now have always been true. By examining the semantics of such claims, we demonstrate that social constructivism is in fact, despite Cole’s attempts to rectify matters, incompatible with atemporal mathematicalia. In the course of examining these semantic details, however, an alternative hybrid view of fictionalism and social constructivism emerges. Those tempted by social constructivism, while perhaps disappointed by the negative results of the paper, may be encouraged by how much of their view can be recovered in this alternative account.

The Two Waves of Russian-Jewish Migration from the USSR/FSU to Israel: Dissidents of the 1970s and Pragmatics of the 1990s

Drawing on a hybrid view of migrant generations (demographic and historical/political), I examine generational dynamics among Russian-Jewish immigrants in Israel. The first wave of Soviet Jewish migration to Israel in the early 1970s (some 150,000 migrants) was catalyzed by a surge of Zionist sentiment after Israel’s victory in 1967 and enabled by strong political pressure on the USSR from the West. Reflecting their Zionist persuasion, the 1970s arrivals often discarded their former identities, switched to Hebrew, and soon integrated into Israel’s social mainstream. By contrast, the 1990s wave was set in motion by the political turmoil and economic hardships of the post-communist transition, while Zionist ideals were secondary to most émigrés. About 1 million ex-Soviets of Jewish descent migrated to Israel as the most accessible destination throughout the 1990s. They have kept intense and positive ties with their former homeland, in part because one-third of them are Russians married to Jews or mixed ethnics and have family members remaining in the Former Soviet Union. At the same time, their integration in Israel has been fraught with problems. The different attitudes toward the ex-homeland among the parental generations of the 1970s and 1990s have influenced the extent of Russian cultural continuity among their children born in Israel.

The Pont Neuf: A Paris View by Johan Barthold Jongkind Reconsidered

<i>The Pont Neuf</i>: A Paris View by Johan Barthold Jongkind Reconsidered

Limits of Hybrid Modal Realism

The aim of this paper is to point out the limitations of Hybrid Modal Realism as a general theory of modalities, i.e. one that gives an analysis of possibilities as well as impossibilities. To do so we will firstly sketch the goals that theories of impossible worlds should achieve. Secondly we will briefly present the two most popular accounts of impossibilities—Extended Modal Realism and Extended Ersatzism. We will focus on the aspects of both theories which became the motivation for a hybrid view. In the last part of this paper we will analyze Francesco Berto’s Hybrid Modal Realism and present reasons why this account is an insufficient tool for analyzing impossibilities.

Hybrid Views in Meta-ethics: Pragmatic Views

A common starting point for ‘going hybrid’ is the thought that moral discourse somehow combines belief and desire-like aspects, or is both descriptive and expressive. Hybrid meta-ethical theories aim to give an account of moral discourse that is sufficiently sensitive to both its cognitive and its affective, or descriptive and expressive, dimensions. They hold at least one of the following: (i) moral thought: moral judgements have belief and desire-like aspects or elements; (ii) moral language: moral utterances both ascribe properties and express desire-like attitudes. This entry concerns hybrid theories of moral language. The main division within such theories is between those treating the expression of desire-like attitudes (hereafter ‘attitudes’) as semantic and those treating it as pragmatic. This entry exclusively focuses on pragmatic forms of (ii) and examines the prospects for treating moral attitude expression as working via certain standard pragmatic mechanisms. I explain these mechanisms, outline the properties that standardly define them, and test to see whether moral attitude expression matches them. At the end, I briefly explain a more minimal pragmatic alternative. The main conclusions are that we should disregard presupposition and conventional implicature views and that the most plausible options for a pragmatic hybrid view are a generalised conversational implicature view and a more minimal pragmatic view.

The Big Concepts Paper: A Defence of Hybridism

The renewed interest in concepts and their role in psychological theorizing is partially motivated by Machery’s claim that concepts are so heterogeneous that they have no explanatory role. Against this, pluralism argues that there is multiplicity of different concepts for any given category, while hybridism argues that a concept is constituted by a rich common representation. This article aims to advance the understanding of the hybrid view of concepts. First, we examine the main arguments against hybrid concepts and conclude that, even if not successful, they challenge hybridism to find a robust criterion for concept individuation and to show an explanatory advantage for hybrid concepts. Then we propose such a criterion of individuation, which we will call ‘functional stable coactivation’. Finally, we examine the prospects of hybridism to understand what is involved in recent approaches to categorization and meaning extraction. 1 The Heterogeneity of Conceptual Representations 2 Two Challenges for Hybrid Concepts: Individuation and Explanation 2.1 The coordination criterion 2.2 Concepts as constituents of thoughts 3 Individuating Hybrids: Functional Stable Coactivation 4 The Explanatory Power of Hybrid Concepts 4.1 Categorization 4.2 Meaning extraction 4.2.1 Linguistic comprehension and rich lexical entries 4.2.2 Polysemy and hybrid concepts 5 Conclusion

Cotton GhMPK6a negatively regulates osmotic tolerance and bacterial infection in transgenic Nicotiana benthamiana, and plays a pivotal role in development

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades play important roles in the perception of external signals and the generation of suitable responses. Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is an important fibre-producing and oil-producing crop worldwide. However, few MAPKs and their interaction partners have been functionally characterized in cotton. In the present study, the group A MAPK G. hirsutum (Gh)MPK6a was identified and characterized. GhMPK6a expression can be induced through multiple defence-related signal molecules and abiotic and biotic stresses. The ectopic expression of GhMPK6a in Nicotiana benthamiana reduced drought and salt tolerance, with elevated malondialdehyde content, higher reactive oxygen species content and lower abscisic acid content than in wild-type plants. Moreover, plants overexpressing GhMPK6a were sensitive to the bacterial pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum. Histochemical analysis of β-glucuronidase activity revealed that GhMPK6a showed tissue-specific expression during postgermination development, mixed bud differentiation, and pollination. Most importantly, GhMPK6a interacts with the upstream MAPK kinase GhMKK4, as shown by the use of yeast two-hybrid and bimolecular fluorescence complementation systems, compensating for a deficiency of MAPK interaction partners in cotton crops. Taken together, these results suggest that GhMPK6a negatively regulates osmotic stress and bacterial infection, and plays an important role in developmental processes. These results provide useful information for elucidating the roles of MAPK cascades in cotton crops. GhMPK6a physically interacts with GhMPK4 by two hybrid (View interaction) GhMPK6a and GhMPK4 physically interact by bimolecular fluorescence complementation (View interaction).

Contingentism about Individuals and Higher-Order Necessitism

Necessitism about individuals claims that necessarily every individual necessarily exists. An analogous necessitist thesis attributes necessary existence to properties and relations. Both theses have been defended by Williamson. Furthermore, Williamson specifically argues against the hybrid conjunction of first-order contingentism (the negation of necessitism about individuals) and higher-order necessitism; a combination that would bring about additional drawbacks. I work out a defence of the hybrid combination, including some replies to Williamson's additional objections. Considerations of ontological parsimony and pre-theoretical intuitions favour the hybrid view over necessitism at all orders (which Williamson mainly defends by invoking considerations of simplicity).

Edge‐driven mechanical microplate models of strike‐slip faulting in the Tibetan plateau

AbstractThe India‐Asia collision zone accommodates the relative motion between India and Eurasia through both shortening and pervasive strike‐slip faulting. To gain a mechanical understanding of how fault slip rates are driven across the Tibetan plateau, we develop a two‐dimensional, linear elastic, two‐stage, deformable microplate model for the upper crust based on the behavior of an idealized earthquake cycle. We use this approach to develop a suite of simple India‐Asia collision zone models, differing only in boundary conditions, to determine which combination of edge forces and displacements are consistent with both the slip rate measurements along major Tibetan faults as well as the geodetically observed extrusion of crustal material toward Southeast Asia. Model predictions for the Altyn Tagh (1–14 mm/yr), Kunlun (3–10 mm/yr), Karakorum (5–12 mm/yr), and Haiyuan (3–5 mm/yr) faults are in agreement with geologically and geodetically inferred slip rates. Further, models that accurately reproduce observed slip rate gradients along the Altyn Tagh and Kunlun faults feature two critical boundary conditions: (1) oblique compressive displacement along the Himalayan range front west of the Shillong plateau, and (2) forcing in Southeast Asia. Additionally, the ratio of internal‐block potency rate to the total potency rate for each microplate ranges from 28% to 79%, suggesting a hybrid view of deformation in Tibet as simultaneously localized on major faults and distributed at length scales &lt;500 km.

HSF2BP represses BNC1 transcriptional activity by sequestering BNC1 to the cytoplasm

Basonuclin (BNC1), a zinc finger transcriptional factor, is essential for mouse spermatogenesis. However, the regulatory mechanisms of BNC1 in spermatogenesis are poorly understood. In this study, we identified HSF2BP, a testis-specific binding protein of HSF2, as a binding partner of BNC1 by using yeast two-hybrid screening. HSF2BP could interact with and inhibit BNC1 transcriptional activity without affecting its expression level. Moreover, coexpression of HSF2BP with BNC1 resulted in a striking redistribution of BNC1 to the cytoplasm. These data suggest that HSF2BP may play a pivotal role in regulating BNC1 transcriptional activity and subcellular localization during spermatogenesis. Structured summary of protein interactionsBnc1physically interacts with HSF2BP by two hybrid (View interaction)Bnc1 and HSF2BPcolocalize by fluorescence microscopy (View interaction)Bnc1physically interacts with HSF2BP by anti tag coimmunoprecipitation (View Interaction: 1, 2)

Historicism, Non-historicism, or a Mix?

This paper revisits the issue of whether responsibility is essentially historical. Roughly, the leading question here is this: Do ways in which we can acquire pertinent antecedents of action, such as beliefs, desires, and values, have an essential bearing on whether we are responsible for actions that are suitably related to these antecedents? I argue, first, that Michael McKenna’s interesting case for nonhistoricism is indecisive, and, second, his brand of modest historicism, while highly insightful, yields results concerning responsibility that ought to be resisted. I conclude by motivating a hybrid view: it implies that responsibility does not require that one have a past, but should one have a past, it must be a past of a certain sort.

Traces of Consequentialism and Non-Consequentialism In Bodhisattva Ethics

Barbra Clayton and Charles Goodman have recently proposed interpretations of Mahāyāna philosophy that take its fundamental ethical commitments to be consequentialist. There are aspects of the bodhisattva ideal, however, that result in a distinctive constraint on what might otherwise amount to a commitment to consequentialist maximization. Though the doctrinal provenance of this constraint is unique, the constraint itself is in some ways akin to a feature of Kant's ideal of the kingdom of ends. This does not make Mahāyāna ethics proto-Kantian, but it does suggest that its complexity does not rule out an analysis in terms of familiar consequentialist and non-consequentialist theoretical elements.

The corepressor activity of Alien is controlled by CREB‐binding protein/p300

The regulation of gene repression by corepressors is a controlled process. Surface-enhanced laser desorption ionization MS proteomic analysis and a yeast two-hybrid screen showed independently that the corepressor Alien interacts with the CREB-binding protein (CBP) coactivator. This interaction was further confirmed by coimmunoprecipitation and glutathione S-transferase pull-down experiments, suggesting that Alien interacts in vivo and in vitro with the histone acetyltransferase (HAT) coactivators CBP and its paralog p300. Acetylation detection experiments indicated that Alien is acetylated in vivo. Furthermore, Alien interacts with the central region of CBP/p300 containing the HAT domain and becomes acetylated in vitro. When an inhibitor of CBP/p300 HAT activity was employed, the Alien-mediated silencing was enhanced. Thus, these findings suggest crosstalk between corepressors and coactivators, and indicate fine-tuning of corepressor function by post-translational modification through corepressor acetylation. p300 binds to Alien &#x03B1; by pull down (View interaction) Alien &#x03B1; physically interacts with CBP by two hybrid (View interaction) Alien &#x03B1; physically interacts with MLK2 by two hybrid (View interaction) p300 acetylates Alien &#x03B1; by acetylation assay (View interaction) Alien &#x03B1; physically interacts with NAP1 by two hybrid (View interaction) Alien &#x03B1; physically interacts with TAFI68 by two hybrid (View interaction) Alien &#x03B1; physically interacts with CBP by anti bait coimmunoprecipitation (View Interaction: 1, 2, 3) Alien &#x03B1; binds to CBP by pull down (View interaction).

CACTIN is an essential nuclear protein in Arabidopsis and may be associated with the eukaryotic spliceosome

CACTIN is a conserved eukaryotic protein without known functional domains. Previous research revealed that CACTIN is essential in animals and protists and that it may function in inflammation pathways in animals; however, these pathways are not as broadly conserved as CACTIN. Therefore, the ancestral molecular function of CACTIN remains unknown. Our studies using Arabidopsis show that CACTIN is required for embryogenesis. Fluorescently tagged CACTIN localizes to nuclear speckles and colocalizes with known splicing proteins. In yeast-two-hybrid studies, we found that CACTIN binds to a putative component of the spliceosome. These findings support a possible role for CACTIN in splicing. Structured summary of protein interactionsCactin and SR45colocalize by fluorescence microscopy (View interaction)Cactin and RSP31colocalize by fluorescence microscopy (View interaction)Cactin and AT5G63440physically interacts withby two hybrid (View Interaction: 1, 2, 3)Cactin and AT5G63440colocalize by fluorescence microscopy (View interaction)ATG7physically interacts with ATG12A by two hybrid (View Interaction: 1, 2)

ECHS1 interacts with STAT3 and negatively regulates STAT3 signaling

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is a critical transcriptional factor in a variety of cellular processes, and is frequently over-activated in a range of human tumors. However, the processes that regulate STAT3 activation need to be further clarified. With a yeast two-hybrid screening, we identified enoyl-CoA hydratase short chain 1 (ECHS1) as a novel STAT3 binding protein. We further confirmed the interaction between STAT3 and ECHS1 by GST-pull down and co-immnunoprecipitation. Importantly, we found that ECHS1 specifically represses STAT3 activity and negatively regulates the expression of several target genes of STAT3 through inhibiting STAT3 phosphorylation. Therefore, our findings will provide new insights into the mechanism of STAT3 signaling regulation. Structured summary of protein interactionsSTAT3physically interactswithECHS1bypull down(View interaction)STAT3physically interactswithECHS1bytwo hybrid(View Interaction:1,2)ECHS1physically interactswithSTAT3byanti tag co immunoprecipitation(View Interaction:1,2)STAT3physically interactswithECHS1byanti bait co immunoprecipitation(View interaction)

Grounding practical normativity: going hybrid

In virtue of what is something a reason for an agent to perform some action? In other words, what makes a consideration a reason for an agent to act? This is a prima facie metaphysical or meta-normative question about the grounding of reasons for action and not a normative question about the circumstances or conditions under which, normatively speaking, one has a reason to do something. The normative question is answered by normative theory, as when one says that such-and-such feature of an action is a reason to perform that action because bringing about that feature would maximize happiness. The metaphysical question asks instead for the metaphysical determinant of something’s being a reason. When we ask for the ground of a reason’s normativity, we ask what metaphysically makes something have the action-guidingness of a reason: where does the normativity of a practical reason come from? As Christine Korsgaard puts it somewhat more poetically what is the ‘source’ of a reason’s normativity? This paper takes a synoptic approach to the question of source, and from this broad perspective explores the idea that the source of practical normativity might best be understood as a hybrid of more traditional views of source. The paper begins with a survey of three leading non-hybrid answers to the question of a practical reason’s normative ground or source (Sect. 1). It then recapitulates one or two of the supposedly most difficult problems for each, suggesting along the way a new objection to one of the leading views (Sect. 2). It ends with a sketch of an alternative, hybrid view about source—what I call ‘hybrid voluntarism’—(Sect. 3) which, as it turns out, avoids each of the main problems faced by the three leading ‘pure’ views (Sect. 4). Hybrid voluntarism grounds practical normativity in a structured relation of two sources, one of which is willing. The view that willing is a ground of normativity has not had many defenders because it is widely thought to suffer from two fatal