Subjects

This slim book is a reader-friendly overview of the predictability of various systems – physical, biological, economic or weather-related – and explains why it is often simply impossible to expect “certain” scientific forecasts.

Formulating predictions about how a given phenomenon is going to evolve is something everyone falls for: from top-tier media to pub chat, as soon as an event manifests itself it is engulfed in a deluge of predictions, many of them unfounded.

Can scientifically grounded predictions really be made, though? Well, it depends on the system we are considering. Indeed, very few systems can be predicted with a high degree of reliability; for the most part, any prediction is necessarily limited to a probabilistic estimate of multiple possible evolutions.

In addition to the objective difficulties inherent in these systems, there are also subjective unconscious psychological mechanisms that make one a bad predictor. Finally, some systems are unpredictable by their very nature. This is why, very often, simply acknowledging “I don’t know" is the most honest and scientifically grounded answer to the question “What’s going to happen?”.

This is a first-of-its-kind Italian handbook on the music industry that clearly lays out business models, metrics and strategies as well as stories, personalities, innovations and case studies.

Entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer Giampiero Di Carlo presents the music business with the descriptive accuracy of an insider – but adding a pop slant fitting for a subject that is appealing to an increasingly broader audience of professionals and aspiring professionals.

The book thoroughly investigates the industry’s supply chain, offering glimpses into the future that factors such as blockchain technology, NFTs and the metaverse will bring to artists, labels and publishers.

The author’s ground-breaking approach to the subject narrows the gap between theory and practice, making the book equally useful to managers and entrepreneurs in the industry as it is to artists, students and startuppers aiming to make it in the music business.

This atlas is all about the world’s most breath-taking mountains, from Olympus to Ararat. Get ready to plot your perfect tours and travels – even just in your mind.

Mountains have always aroused enormous and sometimes conflicting sensations: astonishment, wonder, power, fear, ambition, holiness and closeness to God, respect or conquest, and even the unknown – but hardly ever indifference. Some mountains are imbued with an aura even higher than their own staggering heights.

They are sacred, mythical, or idealised. No region in the world is without mountains; all peoples have their own. Each mountain has its own story and narration: Olympus, the home of the Gods; Calamita, a place of arcane power; Kailas, a destination for pilgrims; Ararat, the final refuge; or Sinai, the revelation. These mountains are arcane in Leopardi’s sense of the word: the secrecy and mystery surrounding them inspires fascination or attraction.

Written with the same easy-going style of Atlante inutile del mondo, the book features custom cartographic tables and watercolours as well as an appendix which, as in the former publication, functions as an in-depth examination and guide for each destination.

These adventure-packed, stunning and sometimes even dramatic stories show us how astounding and underrated the abilities, intelligence and social skills of so many animals we share our earthly existence with are.

Paul the octopus predicted the outcome of football World Cup matches; Hachikō the dog was the symbol of loyalty to his master; Jumbo the elephant was the undisputed star of the Barnum Circus; Keiko the orca became an international celebrity after starring in the family film Free Willy.

These and many other stories in Lucifredi’s book remind us that animals have often been veritable stars in human history, society and entertainment, helping us to better understand them and boosting our respect for them.

Live life to the fullest invites you to take a stand in life and face the issues of illness and death. With proper awareness, you can learn to recognise the most common fears and refusals as you discover that the preciousness and frailty of life are, in fact, two sides of the same coin.

The book can act as a guide for anyone going through a hard time; for caregivers; and for anyone who feels they don’t have a proper grasp on such a crucial issue and would like to map out a path to awareness and personal growth. Thanks to this book, you will be invited to reflect on how to turn suffering into something with new meaning.

Each chapter features guided reflections, mindfulness exercises and real-life stories to help you live every day to the fullest.

This essay meets the growing urge for major historical summaries and for guidelines on how to address the uncertainty and complexity that characterise our lives, our moods and our work.

Giovanni Siri deals with the subject through the eyes of someone who, having specialised in psychology, has spent his working life in businesses as a strategic consultant and has learnt hands-on how to avoid intellectual diagnosis as well as diagnosis through prescriptions.

Instead, his work is inspired by analysing our “modern mentality”, offering a reading experience that reveals our daily mental patterns, or to what extent the perception of an “age of uncertainty” depends on a flawed perspective, where reality is seen through the lenses of a modernity that has already moved on.

The book is intended for anyone wishing to understand the meaning of the present in order to make responsible choices, particularly readers with professional decision-making tasks such as managers and trainers. The belief is that businesses and training companies are now the launching pad for real change.

This is the fascinating story of ten instruments that changed medicine and our lives forever.

How did Sherlock Holmes single out a doctor in the crowd? What links an eclectic French professor armed with a strange rifle without bullets, running horses and the measurement of blood pressure? What is the relationship between a Pink Floyd album and the development of the pulse oximeter, or between the Beatles and the invention of the CT scan? How do smart watches directly perform an electrocardiogram from the wearer’s wrist?

Page after page of historical anecdotes, scientific curiosities, outstanding discoveries and bizarre experiments, we discover the extraordinary journey behind every medical instrument. Art, science and culture merged in the lives of creative and tenacious women and men who revolutionised their ages and laid the foundations of modern medicine.

Illustrated Fashion is a fully visual volume in three languages – Italian, English and French – designed as a handy reference guide for specific fashion design terms.

With over 2,000 entries and 1,500 technical illustrations, the book is aimed primarily at fashion students and designers, as well as fashion enthusiasts wishing to expand their vocabulary. It includes all the most common clothing-related terms sorted by item. The highly detailed illustrations focus on different clothing features, such as necklines, pockets and sleeves, all of which are thoroughly examined in the appendix.

The book has been designed both as a handbook and a source of inspiration for new hybrid clothing items or fresh takes on the classics.

The book is a practical guide to optimise your business idea, increase its effectiveness and identify the best way to launch it in the market and on the web.

You will learn how to apply the most effective conversion strategy for your business, acquiring all the tools you need to become independent. You will also learn how to analyse your niche market in order to understand its potential and how to assess your budget.

Finally, the book shows you how to enhance your brand positioning with personal branding and the ikigai method and how to adapt your content marketing to all levels of awareness.

The book focuses on neuroselling as a new approach – based on a better understanding of the brain – to sales techniques.

This is the first scientifically sound book about the latest findings on the relationship between brain function and sales techniques.

It is designed to provide the business community with a basic understanding of the human brain and the latest findings on persuasive processes, particularly those based on the brain’s unconscious response mechanisms. For this reason, after a brief presentation of how the brain works and what its secrets are, the authors delve deeper into the processes underlying unconscious decisions, emotions and perceptions, sourcing from the latest neuroscientific research.

The outcome is a scientific and practical handbook, accessible even to beginners; it is a useful application tool for companies and individual professionals working in a topical relational context such as the business world.