Greeks

The Greeks or Hellenes (Greek: Έλληνες [ˈelines]) are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Turkey, Southern Italy, and other regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.

Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people have always been centered around the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, and Constantinople. Many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, and Constantinople at various periods.

Greeks (finance)

In mathematical finance, the Greeks are the quantities representing the sensitivity of the price of derivatives such as options to a change in underlying parameters on which the value of an instrument or portfolio of financial instruments is dependent. The name is used because the most common of these sensitivities are denoted by Greek letters (as are some other finance measures). Collectively these have also been called the risk sensitivities,risk measures or hedge parameters.

Use of the Greeks

The Greeks are vital tools in risk management. Each Greek measures the sensitivity of the value of a portfolio to a small change in a given underlying parameter, so that component risks may be treated in isolation, and the portfolio rebalanced accordingly to achieve a desired exposure; see for example delta hedging.

The Greeks in the Black–Scholes model are relatively easy to calculate, a desirable property of financial models, and are very useful for derivatives traders, especially those who seek to hedge their portfolios from adverse changes in market conditions. For this reason, those Greeks which are particularly useful for hedging—such as delta, theta, and vega—are well-defined for measuring changes in Price, Time and Volatility. Although rho is a primary input into the Black–Scholes model, the overall impact on the value of an option corresponding to changes in the risk-free interest rate is generally insignificant and therefore higher-order derivatives involving the risk-free interest rate are not common.

Heroscape

Heroscape (stylized as "heroScape" or "HeroScape") is an expandable turn-based miniature wargaming system originally manufactured by Milton Bradley Company, and later by Wizards of the Coast, both subsidiaries of Hasbro, Inc., and discontinued by Hasbro in November 2010. The game is played using pre-painted miniature figures on a board made from interlocking hexagonal tiles that allow for construction of a large variety of 3D playing boards. The game is often noted and lauded by fans for the relatively high production quality of the game materials, in particular the pre-painted miniature figures as well as its interchangeable and variable landscape system.

History

Heroscape was released in 2004. The game designers are Craig Van Ness, Rob Daviau, and Stephen Baker at Hasbro Games. Hasbro's subsidiary, Milton Bradley, also developed HeroQuest and Battle Masters. Heroscape is designed for 2 or more players ages 8 and older, although it can easily be adapted to more players, particularly if more than one master set and expansion sets are used. There are additional expansion sets that can be purchased (see: Master Sets and Expansion Sets, below).