Throughout his career, Keith Hossack has made outstanding contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and the philosophy of mathematics. This collection of previously unpublished papers begins with a focus on Hossack's conception of the nature of knowledge, his metaphysics of facts and his account of the relations between knowledge, agents and facts. Attention moves to Hossack's philosophy of mind and the nature of consciousness, before turning to the notion of necessity and its interaction with a priori knowledge. Hossack's views on the nature of proof, logical truth, conditionals and generality are discussed in depth. In the final chapters, questions about the identity of mathematical objects and our knowledge of them take centre stage, together with questions about the necessity and generality of mathematical and logical truths. Knowledge, Number and Reality represents some of the most vibrant discussions taking place in analytic philosophy today.

'If great books encourage you to look at the world in an entirely new way, then Dominion is a very great book indeed . . . Written with terrific learning, enthusiasm and good humour, Holland's book is not just supremely provocative, but often very funny' Sunday Times History Book of the Year Christianity is the most enduring and influential legacy of the ancient world, and its emergence the single most transformative development in Western history. Even the increasing number in the West today who have abandoned the faith of their forebears, and dismiss all religion as pointless superstition, remain recognisably its heirs. Seen close-up, the division between a sceptic and a believer may seem unbridgeable. Widen the focus, though, and Christianity's enduring impact upon the West can be seen in the emergence of much that has traditionally been cast as its nemesis: in science, in secularism, and yes, even in atheism. That is why Dominion will place the story of how we came to be what we are, and how we think the way that we do, in the broadest historical context. Ranging in time from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC to the on-going migration crisis in Europe today, and from Nebuchadnezzar to the Beatles, it will explore just what it was that made Christianity so revolutionary and disruptive; how completely it came to saturate the mind-set of Latin Christendom; and why, in a West that has become increasingly doubtful of religion's claims, so many of its instincts remain irredeemably Christian. The aim is twofold: to make the reader appreciate just how novel and uncanny were Christian teachings when they first appeared in the world; and to make ourselves, and all that we take for granted, appear similarly strange in consequence. We stand at the end-point of an extraordinary transformation in the understanding of what it is to be human: one that can only be fully appreciated by tracing the arc of its parabola over millennia.

Aging Studies and Ecocriticism: Interdisciplinary Encounters argues that both aging studies and ecocriticism address the complex dynamics of individual and collective agency, oppression and dependency, care and conviviality, vulnerability and resistance as well as intergenerationality and responsibility. Yet, even though both fields employ overlapping methodologies and theoretical frameworks and scrutinize “boundary texts� in different literary genres, which have been analyzed from ecocritical perspectives as well as from the vantage point of critical aging studies, there has been little scholarly interaction between ecocritical literary studies and aging studies to date. The contributors in this volume demonstrate the potential of specific genres to narrate relationality and age, and the aesthetic and ethical challenges of imagining changes, endings, and survival in the Anthropocene. As the first step towards putting both fields in conversation, this collection offers new pathways into understanding human and nonhuman ecological relations.

Dynamic Hedging is the definitive source on derivatives risk. It provides a real-world methodology for managing portfolios containing any nonlinear security. It presents risks from the vantage point of the option market maker and arbitrage operator. The only book about derivatives risk written by an experienced trader with theoretical training, it remolds option theory to fit the practitioner's environment. As a larger share of market exposure cannot be properly captured by mathematical models, noted option arbitrageur Nassim Taleb uniquely covers both on-model and off-model derivatives risks.

The author discusses, in plain English, vital issues, including:

• The generalized option, which encompasses all instruments with convex payoff, including a trader's potential bonus.
• The techniques for trading exotic options, including binary, barrier, multiasset, and Asian options, as well as methods to take into account the wrinkles of actual, non-bellshaped distributions.
• Market dynamics viewed from the practitioner's vantage point, including liquidity holes, portfolio insurance, squeezes, fat tails, volatility surface, GARCH, curve evolution, static option replication, correlation instability, Pareto-Levy, regime shifts, autocorrelation of price changes, and the severe flaws in the value at risk method.
• New tools to detect risks, such as higher moment analysis, topography exposure, and nonparametric techniques.
• The path dependence of all options hedged dynamically

Dynamic Hedging is replete with helpful tools, market anecdotes, at-a-glance risk management rules distilling years of market lore, and important definitions. The book contains modules in which the fundamental mathematics of derivatives, such as the Brownian motion, Ito's lemma, the numeraire paradox, the Girsanov change of measure, and the Feynman-Kac solution are presented in intuitive practitioner's language.

Dynamic Hedging is an indispensable and definitive reference for market makers, academics, finance students, risk managers, and regulators.

The definitive book on options trading and risk management

"If pricing is a science and hedging is an art, Taleb is a virtuoso." —Bruno Dupire, Head of Swaps and Options Research, Paribas Capital Markets

"This is not merely the best book on how options trade, it is the only book." —Stan Jonas, Managing Director, FIMAT-Société Générale

"Dynamic Hedging bridges the gap between what the best traders know and what the best scholars can prove." —William Margrabe, President, The William Margrabe Group, Inc.

"The most comprehensive, insightful, intuitive work on the subject. It is instrumental for both beginning and experienced traders."—

"A tour de force. That rare find, a book of great practical and theoretical value. Taleb successfully bridges the gap between the academic and the real world. Interesting, provocative, well written. Each chapter worth a fortune to any current or prospective derivatives trader."—Victor Niederhoffer, Chairman, Niederhoffer Investments

The phenomenal international bestseller that shows us how to stop trying to predict everything - and take advantage of uncertainty What have the invention of the wheel, Pompeii, the Wall Street Crash, Harry Potter and the internet got in common? Why are all forecasters con-artists? Why should you never run for a train or read a newspaper? This book is all about Black Swans: the random events that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is huge; they're impossible to predict; yet after they happen we always try to rationalize them. 'Taleb is a bouncy and even exhilarating guide ... I came to relish what he said, and even develop a sneaking affection for him as a person' Will Self, Independent on Sunday 'He leaps like some superhero of the mind' Boyd Tonkin, Independent

This collection of essays gathers innovative and compelling research on intermedial forms of life writing by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars. Among their subjects of scrutiny are biographies, memoirs, graphic novels, performances, paratheatricals, musicals, silent films, movies, documentary films, and social media. The volume covers a time frame ranging from the nineteenth century to the immediate present. In addition to a shared focus on theories of intermediality and life writing, the authors apply to their subjects both firmly established and cutting-edge theoretical approaches from Cultural Narratology, Cultural History, Biographical Studies, Social Media Studies, Performance Studies, and Visual Culture Studies. The collection also features interviews with practitioners in biography who have produced monographs, films, and novels.

Practical Design and Application of Model Predictive Control is a self-learning resource on how to design, tune and deploy an MPC using MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R). This reference is one of the most detailed publications on how to design and tune MPC controllers. Examples presented range from double-Mass spring system, ship heading and speed control, robustness analysis through Monte-Carlo simulations, photovoltaic optimal control, and energy management of power-split and air-handling control. Readers will also learn how to embed the designed MPC controller in a real-time platform such as Arduino (R). The selected problems are nonlinear and challenging, and thus serve as an excellent experimental, dynamic system to show the reader the capability of MPC. The step-by-step solutions of the problems are thoroughly documented to allow the reader to easily replicate the results. Furthermore, the MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) codes for the solutions are available for free download. Readers can connect with the authors through the dedicated website which includes additional free resources at www.practicalmpc.com.

By the author of the modern classic "The Black Swan," this collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses his major ideas in ways you least expect.
"The Bed of Procrustes" takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. It represents Taleb's view of modern civilization's hubristic side effects--modifying humans to satisfy technology, blaming reality for not fitting economic models, inventing diseases to sell drugs, defining intelligence as what can be tested in a classroom, and convincing people that employment is not slavery.
Playful and irreverent, these aphorisms will surprise you by exposing self-delusions you have been living with but never recognized.
With a rare combination of pointed wit and potent wisdom, Taleb plows through human illusions, contrasting the classical values of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness.

With the student body evolving quickly, and the looming challenge of the "completion agenda," community colleges are facing circumstances like never before in serving all students and propelling them to fulfilling their education aspirations. The Urgency of Now suggests a way forward, with students and their learning at the center of what community colleges, and all of higher education, must do to generate graduates in possession of high quality degrees and credentials. Through considering comprehensive assessment, new roles for accreditation, faculty engagement strategies, and competency-based education, The Urgency of Now describes our current challenges and the ways we might meet those challenges for the 21st century institution.

'Really made me think about how I think' - Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West Tough times don't last. Tough people do. In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. Here Taleb stands uncer tainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resil ient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better. Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls antifragile are things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish. Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world. Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb's message is revolutionary: the antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it. 'The hottest thinker in the world' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times

About this book * Gives the reader hands on example-base experience for simulating dynamical models in MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R) and animating them in VRML * More than 150 images describe each step in the model realizations helping readers to understand them visually * Diverse examples and profound problem treatment enable the reader to animate complex dynamical problems m-files, Simulink models, VRML files and jpegs available for download provide full solutions for the end-of-chapter problems Virtual Reality and Animation for MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) Users demonstrates the simulation and animation of physical systems using the MATLAB (R) Virtual Reality Toolbox (virtual models are created in V-Realm Builder). The book is divided into two parts; the first addresses MATLAB (R) and the second Simulink (R). The presentation is problem-based with each chapter teaching the reader a group of essential principles in the context of a step-by-step solution to a particular issue. Examples of the systems covered include mass-spring-dampers, a crank-slider mechanism and a moving vehicle. The examples are given in ascending level of difficulty and contain MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R) codes deliberately simplified so that readers can focus on: * understanding how to link a 3-d virtual scene to MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R); and * manipulating the 3-d virtual scene in MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R). When studied in sequence, the chapters of this text form a coherent whole enabling the reader to gain a thorough expertise in virtual simulation and animation of dynamical models using MATLAB (R)/Simulink (R). Individual chapters stand on their own, however, so that readers interested in a particular system can concentrate on it easily. Problems are provided in each chapter to give practice in the techniques demonstrated and to extend the range of the systems studied, for example, into the control sphere. Solution code for these problems can be downloaded from insert URL. Whether modeling the dynamics of a simple pendulum, a robot arm or a moving car, animation of a dynamical model can enliven and encourage understanding of mechanical systems and thus contribute to control design. Virtual Reality and Animation for MATLAB (R) and Simulink (R) Users will be instructive and interesting to anyone, researcher or student, working with the dynamics of physical systems. Readers are assumed to have some familiarity with MATLAB (R).

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the "impossible."
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know. He offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.
Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications "The Black Swan" will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. "The Black Swan" is a landmark book-itself a black swan.

"From the Hardcover edition."

The open source phenomenon has attracted an increased interest among commercial firms and governments. It is becoming one of the most influential paradigm shifts not only in software development but in social and economic value creation as well. While software development is perhaps the most prominent example of open source, its principles have now been applied across a wide range of product classes, industries and even scientific disciplines. Decision makers at different levels and in a variety of fields need to improve their understanding of the factors that contribute to the Open Source Software (OSS) effectiveness: approaches, tools, social designs, reward structures and metrics. Successful OSS Project Design and Implementation provides a state-of-the-art analysis of OSS design principles, their emergence and success and how they are extending well beyond the domain of software.

From the bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold book that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility Why should we never listen to people who explain rather than do? Why do companies go bust? How is it that we have more slaves today than in Roman times? Why does imposing democracy on other countries never work? The answer: too many people running the world don't have skin in the game. In his inimitable, pugnacious style, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows that skin in the game applies to all aspects of our lives. It's about having something to lose and taking a risk. Citizens, lab experimenters, artisans, political activists and hedge fund traders all have skin in the game. Policy wonks, corporate executives, theoreticians, bankers and most journalists don't. As Taleb says, "The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that's necessary for fairness and justice, and the ultimate BS-buster," and "Never trust anyone who doesn't have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them".

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of "The Black Swan" and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world.
Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls "antifragile" is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.
In "The Black Swan, "Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In "Antifragile, " Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better.
Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call "efficient" not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the "Titanic" save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear.
"Antifragile" is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world.
Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb's message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it.
Praise for "Antifragile"
"Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining."--"The Economist"
"A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives."--"Newsweek"
" "
"Revelatory . . . Taleb] pulls the reader along with the logic of a Socrates."--"Chicago Tribune"
"Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides . . . I will have to read it again. And again."--Matt Ridley, "The Wall Street Journal"
"Trenchant and persuasive . . . Taleb's insatiable polymathic curiosity knows no bounds. . . . You finish the book feeling braver and uplifted."--"New Statesman"
"Antifragility isn't just sound economic and political doctrine. It's also the key to a good life."--"Fortune"
" "
"At once thought-provoking and brilliant.""--Los Angeles Times"

"From the Hardcover edition."

Everyone wants to succeed in life. But what causes some of us to be more successful than others? Is it really down to skill and strategy - or something altogether more unpredictable? This book is the bestselling sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. It is all about luck: more precisely, how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the markets - we hear an entrepreneur has 'vision' or a trader is 'talented', but all too often their performance is down to chance rather than skill. It is only because we fail to understand probability that we continue to believe events are non-random, finding reasons where none exist. 'One of the smartest books of all time' Fortune 'An iconoclastic tour de force ... nothing escapes his Exocets' Evening Standard 'Brilliant' John Kay 'Excellent and thought-provoking ... an entertaining book' Financial Times 'Wall Street's principal dissident' Malcolm Gladwell

This collection of essays gathers innovative and compelling research on intermedial forms of life writing by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars. Among their subjects of scrutiny are biographies, memoirs, graphic novels, performances, paratheatricals, musicals, silent films, movies, documentary films, and social media. The volume covers a time frame ranging from the nineteenth century to the immediate present. In addition to a shared focus on theories of intermediality and life writing, the authors apply to their subjects both firmly established and cutting-edge theoretical approaches from Cultural Narratology, Cultural History, Biographical Studies, Social Media Studies, Performance Studies, and Visual Culture Studies. The collection also features interviews with practitioners in biography who have produced monographs, films, and novels.

What is a safe haven? What role should they play in an investment portfolio? Do we use them only to seek shelter until the passing of financial storms? Or are they something more? Contrary to everything we know from modern financial theory, can higher returns actually come as a result of lowering risk? In Safe Haven, hedge fund manager Mark Spitznagel—one of the top practitioners of safe haven investing and portfolio risk mitigation in the world—answers these questions and more. Investors who heed the message in this book will never look at risk mitigation the same way again.

Mega-budget, special-effects packed action adventure sci-fi epic directed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Stargate), in which global warming and the greenhouse effect have given rise to abrupt climate change - with cataclysmic consequences for the entire planet. Dennis Quaid stars as Professor Adrian Hall, a paleoclimatologist who is fighting to save the world from a second ice age and all the natural disasters that herald it: floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes to name but a few. But first, Hall must complete a more personal mission: his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is stranded in New York City where he was taking part in a school competition when the catastrophe began. As well as facing a perpetual onslaught of natural catastrophes, Hall must fight his way through the mass of humanity fleeing south into warmer climes... but can he reach his son in time to save him?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of "The Black Swan" and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world.
Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls "antifragile" is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.
In "The Black Swan, "Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In "Antifragile, " Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better.
Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call "efficient" not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the "Titanic" save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear.
"Antifragile" is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world.
Erudite, witty, and iconoclastic, Taleb's message is revolutionary: The antifragile, and only the antifragile, will make it.
Praise for "Antifragile"
"Ambitious and thought-provoking . . . highly entertaining."--"The Economist"
"A bold book explaining how and why we should embrace uncertainty, randomness, and error . . . It may just change our lives."--"Newsweek"
" "
"Revelatory . . . Taleb] pulls the reader along with the logic of a Socrates."--"Chicago Tribune"
"Startling . . . richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides . . . I will have to read it again. And again."--Matt Ridley, "The Wall Street Journal"
"Trenchant and persuasive . . . Taleb's insatiable polymathic curiosity knows no bounds. . . . You finish the book feeling braver and uplifted."--"New Statesman"
"Antifragility isn't just sound economic and political doctrine. It's also the key to a good life."--"Fortune"
" "
"At once thought-provoking and brilliant.""--Los Angeles Times"