Approximating explicitly the mean reverting CEV process

In this paper we want to exploit further the semi-discrete method appeared in Halidias and Stamatiou (2015). We are interested in the numerical solution of mean reverting CEV processes that appear in financial mathematics models and are described as non negative solutions of certain stochastic differential equations with sub-linear diffusion coefficients of the form $(x_t)^q,$ where $\frac{1}{2}<q<1.$ Our goal is to construct explicit numerical schemes that preserve positivity. We prove convergence of the proposed SD scheme with rate depending on the parameter $q.$ Furthermore, we verify our findings through numerical experiments and compare with other positivity preserving schemes. Finally, we show how to treat the whole two-dimensional stochastic volatility model, with instantaneous variance process given by the above mean reverting CEV process

The Economic Communities of Edinburgh’s August Festivals: An Exclusive ‘Global Sense of Place’ and an Inclusive ‘Local Sense of Space’

This essay proposes to use a cultural materialist analysis and draws upon Doreen Massey’s writings (1991, 1994, 2007, 2012) on place, community and the ‘sense of place’ in order to explore the imagined theatrical communities of Edinburgh’s August Festivals (EAFs). EAFs is used as an umbrella term for the four festivals that take place during that time: the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Free Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Being an academic and theatre maker, this essay is informed by my own empirical experience as a theatre maker performing at the EAFs in 2013. During this experience, I negotiated my belonging and otherness in relation to theatrical communities that were defined not by geography or social relations but by the economy of the EAFs. As an artist, I offered my otherness for consumption and contributed to Edinburgh’s local economy both directly and indirectly. From my position as an entrepreneur and consumer of both culture at the EAFs and also products and services during my everyday interactions, I not only contributed to the local economy but I also economically contributed to the EAFs and the culture of the city. Due to my consumption in Edinburgh, I was granted temporal locality. From a global perspective, my solo show offered an identity representation of a participant with a lower symbolic value and capital. In a certain form it served universal cosmopolitan values of intercultural sharing but it also invited EAFs’ hybrid economic communities to reflect on the ways neoliberal power geometries are established and economic interactions commodify Fringe art

Stepping Forward: An Exploration of Devised Theatre’s Democratic Designs in an Actor-Training Setting

Devised theatre offers an alternative set of practices to those used in standard actor-training. It invites participants to explore different forms of authorship and encourages the emergence of different collaboration dynamics and forms of agency. The assumption is that creative decisions are taken after pitching and voting processes. The prioritising of collective interests over the expression of individual beliefs counters neoliberal logic. However, this becomes particularly complex in actor training: the students cannot opt out from participation when their individual political, religious or moral beliefs are targeted, undermined or ignored by the group. Using methodologies from theatre studies and education, this essay theorises the devised theatre participant as a social and political agent in the light of an analysis of democratic designs in the actor-training space. It illuminates the trainer’s challenge to protect individual rights within devised theatre processes in the context of a neoliberal logic that favours individual and consumer rights over popular sovereignty and voting processes

A screen actor prepares: Self-taping by reversing Stanislavsky’s Method of Physical Actions

The popularity of streaming services, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforced the understanding that screen acting skills should be prioritized, prompting a reimagining of Stanislavsky’s practices to address the needs of the contemporary actor and acting graduate. Screen actors are expected to self-tape using digital technologies to showcase their acting skills independently. This indicates a growing demand for self-reflective abilities on what works or doesn’t work in recorded performances. Aspiring to develop lifelong learning screen actors, this essay argues that Konstantin Stanislavsky’s Method of Physical Actions can be reversed for generating findings from acclaimed screen performances to use in self-taping. The reverse Method of Physical Actions proposes that physical scores are artefacts that can be objectively broken down into psycho-physical gestures and character behaviours that can be appropriated for self-taping etudes, and analysed when reflecting on self-tapes, fostering an ongoing embodied understanding of how acting choices work on screen. The breakdown and examination of two scenes portraying Helen Mirren in The Queen (2006) and Viola Davis in Fences (2016) illustrate how the Method of Physical Actions can be rediscovered for do-it-yourself screen acting. This essay helps actors, students and actor trainers to understand how acclaimed actors create outstanding screen performances

A Brechtian perspective on London Road: Class representations, dialectics and the ‘gestic’ character of music from stage to screen

This article uses Brechtian philosophy to assess the role of music and song in the audience reception of the ‘verbatim musical’ London Road. The first section analyses class representations in London Road, with a particular focus on the dialectics and the ‘gestic’ role of the music and song. The second section explores how the adaptation from stage to screen further affects the dialectics of the musical and, paradoxically, serves key Brechtian aims. I focus on two dramaturgical changes in the adaptation from stage to screen: the chronological order of the narrative and the alternation of interview sections and dramatized sections, which resembles the structure of the popular drama-doc genre. Given that reordering and restaging the original verbatim numbers affected audience reception, I analyse the way the meaning is affected through the Brechtian notions of alienation and the gestic character of music. Throughout, I discuss class representations and relevant dialectical implications