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2022 results in Cambridge Elements

Page 93 of 102

Machine Learning for Asset Managers

Machine Learning for Asset Managers
  • Marcos M. López de Prado
  • Published online:
    04 April 2020
    Print publication:
    30 April 2020
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  • Successful investment strategies are specific implementations of general theories. An investment strategy that lacks a theoretical justification is likely to be false. Hence, an asset manager should concentrate her efforts on developing a theory rather than on backtesting potential trading rules. The purpose of this Element is to introduce machine learning (ML) tools that can help asset managers discover economic and financial theories. ML is not a black box, and it does not necessarily overfit. ML tools complement rather than replace the classical statistical methods. Some of ML's strengths include (1) a focus on out-of-sample predictability over variance adjudication; (2) the use of computational methods to avoid relying on (potentially unrealistic) assumptions; (3) the ability to “learn” complex specifications, including nonlinear, hierarchical, and noncontinuous interaction effects in a high-dimensional space; and (4) the ability to disentangle the variable search from the specification search, robust to multicollinearity and other substitution effects.
Experimental Beckett

Experimental Beckett
  • Contemporary Performance Practices
  • Nicholas E. Johnson, Jonathan Heron
  • Published online:
    28 March 2020
    Print publication:
    30 April 2020
  • How do twenty-first century theatre practitioners negotiate the dynamics of tradition and innovation across the works of Samuel Beckett? Beckett's own tendencies toward fluidity of genre, iteration/repetition, and collaboration – modes that also define the 'experimental' – allow for greater openness than is often assumed. Reading recent performances for creative uses of embodiment, environment, and technology reveals the increasingly interdisciplinary, international, and intermedial character of contemporary Beckettian practice. The experimentation of current practitioners challenges a discourse based on historical controversies, exposing a still-expanding terrain for Beckett in performance.
Technology and the Global Adolescent

Technology and the Global Adolescent
  • Judith L. Gibbons, Katelyn E. Poelker
  • Published online:
    24 March 2020
    Print publication:
    16 April 2020
  • Around the world, adolescents use technology for education, to further their identity and socio-emotional development, to access health information, engage in civic activities, and for entertainment. For many, technological advances, especially social media, have drastically influenced how they communicate with family, friends, and romantic partners. Challenges of technology use include the digital divide, internet addiction, and exposure to cyberbullying. The diversity of adolescents' cultural context results in heterogeneous bidirectional influences of technology and teenagers with respect to education and close relationships. Researchers, parents, and policy makers must consider the role of culture in the complex interactions of teenagers with technology.
Shakespearean Charity and the Perils of Redemptive Performance

Shakespearean Charity and the Perils of Redemptive Performance
  • Todd Landon Barnes
  • Published online:
    23 March 2020
    Print publication:
    09 April 2020
  • This Element examines recent documentaries depicting marginalized youth who are ostensibly redeemed by their encounters with Shakespeare. These films emerge in response to four historical and discursive developments: the rise of reality television and its emphasis on the emotional transformation of the private individual; the concomitant rise of neoliberalism and emotional capitalism, which employ therapeutic discourses to individualize social inequality; the privatization of public education and the rise of so-called “no-excuses” or “new paternalist” charter schools; and the emergence of new modes of address infusing evangelical conversion narratives with a therapeutic self-help ethos.
Converging on Truth

Converging on Truth
  • A Dynamic Perspective on Factual Debates in American Public Opinion
  • James A. Stimson, Emily M. Wager
  • Published online:
    16 March 2020
    Print publication:
    09 April 2020
  • Much of the science of public opinion focuses on individuals, asking if they perceive or misperceive and why. Often this science will emphasize misperceptions and the psychological processes that produce them. But political debates have outcomes in the aggregate. This Element turns to a more systematic approach, emphasizing whole electorates and examining facts through a dynamic lens. It argues public opinion will converge toward truth over time and frequently finds correct views of facts grow stronger under information flow, while misperception recedes.
Agent-Based Models of Polarization and Ethnocentrism

Agent-Based Models of Polarization and Ethnocentrism
  • Michael Laver
  • Published online:
    13 March 2020
    Print publication:
    16 April 2020
  • Building on the Cambridge Element Agent Based Models of Social Life: Fundamentals (Cambridge, 2020), we move on to the next level. We do this by building agent based models of polarization and ethnocentrism. In the process, we develop: stochastic models, which add a crucial element of uncertainty to human interaction; models of human interactions structured by social networks; and 'evolutionary' models in which agents using more effective decision rules are more likely to survive and prosper than others. The aim is to leave readers with an effective toolkit for building, running and analyzing agent based modes of social interaction.
Agent-Based Models of Social Life

Agent-Based Models of Social Life
  • Fundamentals
  • Michael Laver
  • Published online:
    13 March 2020
    Print publication:
    16 April 2020
  • Social interactions are rich, complex, and dynamic. One way to understand these is to model interactions that fascinate us. Some of the more realistic and powerful models are computer simulations. Simple, elegant and powerful, tools are available in user-friendly free software to help you design, build and run your own models of social interactions that intrigue you, and do this on the most basic laptop computer. Focusing on a well-known model of housing segregation, this Element is about how to unleash that power, setting out the fundamentals of what is now known as 'agent based modeling'.
The Guarantee of Perpetual Peace

The Guarantee of Perpetual Peace
  • Wolfgang Ertl
  • Published online:
    04 March 2020
    Print publication:
    26 March 2020
  • This Element addresses three questions about Kant's guarantee thesis by examining the 'first addendum' of his Philosophical Sketch: how the guarantor powers interrelate, how there can be a guarantee without undermining freedom and why there is a guarantee in the first place. Kant's conception of an interplay of human and divine rational agency encompassing nature is crucial: on moral grounds, we are warranted to believe the 'world author' knew that if he were to bring about the world, the 'supreme' good would come about too. Perpetual peace is the condition that enables the supreme good to be realized in history.
Defense, Peace, and War Economics

Defense, Peace, and War Economics
  • Christopher J. Coyne
  • Published online:
    28 February 2020
    Print publication:
    02 April 2020
  • This Element surveys the field of defense, peace, and war economics with particular emphasis on the contributions made by Austrian economists. I first review treatments of defense, peace, and war by the classical economists. I then discuss the rise of a distinct and systematic defense, peace, and war economics field of study starting in the 1960s. Next, I consider the contributions by Austrian economists to the field. This includes the economic analysis of the nature of the war economy, problems with the public good justification for the state-provision of defense, the seen and unseen costs of war, the idea of the liberal peace, and the realities and limitations of foreign intervention. I conclude with a discussion of some open areas for future research.
The Missing Two-Thirds of Evolutionary Theory

The Missing Two-Thirds of Evolutionary Theory
  • Robert N. Brandon, Daniel W. McShea
  • Published online:
    25 February 2020
    Print publication:
    26 March 2020
  • In this Element, we extend our earlier treatment of biology's first law. The law says that in any evolutionary system in which there is variation and heredity, there is a tendency for diversity and complexity to increase. The law plays the same role in biology that Newton's first law plays in physics, explaining what biological systems are expected to do when no forces act, in other words, what happens when nothing happens. Here we offer a deeper explanation of certain features of the law, develop a quantitative version of it, and explore its consequences for our understanding of diversity and complexity.
The Anatomy of Deep Time

The Anatomy of Deep Time
  • Rock Art and Landscape in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia
  • Esther Jacobson-Tepfer
  • Published online:
    22 February 2020
    Print publication:
    12 March 2020
  • Petroglyphic rock art in three valleys of Mongolia's Altai Mountains reveals the anatomy of deep time at the boundary between Central and North Asia. Inscribed over a period of twelve millennia, its subject matter, styles, and manner of execution reflect the constraints of changing geology, climate, and vegetation. These valleys were created and shaped by ancient glaciers. Analysis of their physical environment, projected from the deep past to the present, begins to explain the rhythm of cultural manifestations: where rock art appears, when it disappears, and why. The material and this remote arena offer an ideal laboratory to study the intersection of prehistoric culture and paleoenvironment.
Child Helpers

Child Helpers
  • A Multidisciplinary Perspective
  • David F. Lancy
  • Published online:
    20 February 2020
    Print publication:
    26 March 2020
  • In most of the worlds' distinct cultures, children – from toddlerhood – eagerly volunteer to help others with their chores. Laboratory research in child psychology supports the claim that the helper “stage” is biologically based. This Element examines the development of helping in varied cultural contexts, in particular, reviewing evidence for supportive environments in the ethnographic record versus an environment that extinguishes the drive to be helpful in WEIRD children. In the last section, the benefits of the helper stage are discussed, specifically the development of an ability to work and learn collaboratively.
Uneven Trajectories

Uneven Trajectories
  • Latin American Societies in the Twenty-First Century
  • Gabriela Benza, Gabriel Kessler
  • Published online:
    05 February 2020
    Print publication:
    13 February 2020
  • This Element presents the main characteristics of the current social structure in Latin America. It focuses on demographic trends, migration, families, incomes, education, health and housing, and examine the general policy trends for all of these issues. The main questions are: what is the social structure in Latin America like today? What changes have taken place in recent decades, particularly since the turn of the millennium? The authors argue that although in some dimensions there are continuities, including the persistence of problems from the past, they believe that the Latin American social structure, viewed as a whole, experienced significant transformations.
The Role of Mathematics in Evolutionary Theory

The Role of Mathematics in Evolutionary Theory
  • Jun Otsuka
  • Published online:
    05 February 2020
    Print publication:
    17 October 2019
  • The central role of mathematical modeling in modern evolutionary theory has raised a concern as to why and how abstract formulae can say anything about empirical phenomena of evolution. This Element introduces existing philosophical approaches to this problem and proposes a new account according to which evolutionary models are based on causal, and not just mathematical, assumptions. The novel account features causal models both as the Humean 'uniform nature' underlying evolutionary induction and as the organizing framework that integrates mathematical and empirical assumptions into a cohesive network of beliefs that functions together to achieve epistemic goals of evolutionary biology.
Dependency in the Twenty-First Century?

Dependency in the Twenty-First Century?
  • The Political Economy of China-Latin America Relations
  • Barbara Stallings
  • Published online:
    27 January 2020
    Print publication:
    06 February 2020
  • The way external forces influence political and economic outcomes in developing countries is an ongoing concern of scholars and policymakers. In the 1970s and 1980s, dependency analysis was a popular way of approaching this topic, but it later fell into disrepute. This Element argues that it may be useful to revamp dependency to interpret China's new relationships with developing countries, including Latin America. Economic links with China have become important determinants of the region's development. Stallings discusses the dependency debates, reviews the way dependency operated in the US-Latin American case, and analyzes the growing Chinese presence within a dependency framework.
Contractarianism

Contractarianism
  • Michael Moehler
  • Published online:
    24 January 2020
    Print publication:
    13 February 2020
  • This Element provides a systematic defense of moral contractarianism as a distinct approach to the social contract. It elucidates, in comparison to moral conventionalism and moral contractualism, the distinct features of moral contractarianism, its scope, and conceptual and practical challenges that concern the relationship between morality and self-interest, the problems of assurance and compliance, rule-following, counterfactualism, and the nexus between morals and politics. It argues that, if appropriately conceived, moral contractarianism is conceptually coherent, empirically sound, and practically relevant, and has much to offer to contemporary moral philosophy.
The Politics of Transitional Justice in Latin America

The Politics of Transitional Justice in Latin America
  • Power, Norms, and Capacity Building
  • Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos
  • Published online:
    18 January 2020
    Print publication:
    06 February 2020
  • How has Latin America pioneered the field of transitional justice (TJ)? Do approaches vary across the region? This Element describes Latin American innovations in trials and truth commissions, and evaluates two influential models that explain variation in TJ outcomes: the Huntingtonian and Justice Cascade approaches. It argues that scholars should complement these approaches with one that recognizes the importance of state capacity building and institutional change. To translate domestic/international political pressure and human rights norms into outcomes, states must develop 'TJ capabilities'. Not only should states be willing to pursue these highly complex policies, they must also develop competent bureaucracies.
Games in the Philosophy of Biology

Games in the Philosophy of Biology
  • Cailin O'Connor
  • Published online:
    18 January 2020
    Print publication:
    13 February 2020
  • This is an Element surveying the most important literature using game theory and evolutionary game theory to shed light on questions in the philosophy of biology. There are two branches of literature that the book focuses on. It begins with a short introduction to game theory and evolutionary game theory. It then turns to working using signaling games to explore questions related to communication, meaning, language, and reference. The second part of the book addresses prosociality - strategic behavior that contributes to the successful functioning of social groups - using the prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and bargaining games.
Philosophy of Immunology

Philosophy of Immunology
  • Thomas Pradeu
  • Published online:
    17 January 2020
    Print publication:
    13 February 2020
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  • Immunology is central to contemporary biology and medicine, but it also provides novel philosophical insights. Its most significant contribution to philosophy concerns the understanding of biological individuality: what a biological individual is, what makes it unique, how its boundaries are established and what ensures its identity through time. Immunology also offers answers to some of the most interesting philosophical questions. What is the definition of life? How are bodily systems delineated? How do the mind and the body interact? In this Element, Thomas Pradeu considers the ways in which immunology can shed light on these and other important philosophical issues. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The Challenge of Evolution to Religion

The Challenge of Evolution to Religion
  • Johan De Smedt, Helen De Cruz
  • Published online:
    17 January 2020
    Print publication:
    13 February 2020
  • This Element focuses on three challenges of evolution to religion: teleology, human origins, and the evolution of religion itself. First, religious worldviews tend to presuppose a teleological understanding of the origins of living things, but scientists mostly understand evolution as non-teleological. Second, religious and scientific accounts of human origins do not align in a straightforward sense. Third, evolutionary explanations of religion, including religious beliefs and practices, may cast doubt on their justification. We show how these tensions arise and offer potential responses for religion. Individual religions can meet these challenges, if some of their metaphysical assumptions are adapted or abandoned.

Page 93 of 102