Modern Investment Management and the Prudent Man Rule
In recent years the field of finance has exploded with innovation. New products, services and techniques abound. The risks of inflation, the volatility of interest rates, the deregulation of financial intermediaries and the unbundling of financial services have combined to present investment managers with challenges and opportunities far greater than in the past. For trustees and managers of pension, trust, endowment, and similar funds, the task of meeting the challenges and exploiting the opportunities is much more difficult.
The human being aspires to the best possible performance. Both individuals and enterprises are looking for optimal - in other words, the best possible - solutions for situations or problems they face. Most of these problems can be expressed in mathematical terms, and so the methods of optimization undoubtedly render a significant aid.
Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution
In recent years, evolutionary theorists have come to recognize that the reductionist, individualist, gene-centered approach to evolution cannot sufficiently account for the emergence of complex biological systems over time. Peter A. Corning has been at the forefront of a new generation of complexity theorists who have been working to reshape the foundations of evolutionary theory.
Leon Battista Alberti (1404¬–1472) was a highly prolific polymath of the fifteenth century. Although his contributions to architecture and the visual arts are well known and available in good English editions, as are many of his literary and social writings, his mathematical works are not well represented. This present volume was planned to fill that gap, with entirely new English translations and critical commentaries making the works easily accessible for a wide readership of specialists and non-specialists alike. Four texts are included here.
Innovation and Empire in Turkey, Sultan Selim III and the Modernisation of the Ottoman Navy
Ottoman naval technology underwent a transformation under the rule of Sultan Selim III. New types of sailing warships such as two- and three-decked galleons, frigates and corvettes began to dominate the Ottoman fleet, rendering the galley-type oared ships obsolete. This period saw technological innovations such as the adoption of the systematic copper sheathing of the hulls and bottoms of Ottoman warships from 1792-93 onwards and the construction of the first dry dock in the Golden Horn.
