The Potential of Auxological Data for Monitoring Economic and Social Well-Being

1982 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Tanner

Auxology, the study of physical growth (from auxein, to increase), has long been pressed into service as a measure of human welfare. In the sixteenth century Levinus Lemnius, doctor and later priest in the Low Countries, castigated “schoolmasters and others that take upon them to teach and boord young boyes (and) pinch their poore Pupils and Boorders by the belly, and allow them meate neither sufficient nor yet wholesome.” “Whereby it cometh to passe,” he continued, That in growth they seldome come to any personable stature, to the use of their full powers, to perfect strength and firmity of their members, or to any handsome feature or composition of bodily proportion: and the cause is for that in their tender and growing age, being kept under by famine and skanted of common meate and drinke, their natural moisture which requireth continuall cherishing and maintenance, was skanted and bebarred of his due nourishment and competent allowance [English translation of 1633, The Touchstone of Complexions, original 1561; see Tanner, 1981: 25].

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
Maarten J. M. Christenhusz

ABSTRACT: A sixteenth century Dutch hortus siccus of Brabantian origin has been rediscovered and is described here. The plants preserved in it are identified and most of its history is revealed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001946622199862
Author(s):  
G G Sajith ◽  
K. Malathi

The tracking of gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of well-being of the society or human-being has been debated by many researchers and economists (Elizabeth, 2007; Abhinav, 2014; Deb, 2015 ) There are many deficiencies in tracking GDP as the economic development indicator, as it does not capture the inequality or true development of Human-being. Noted economist Mehbub ul Haq’s human development project defined a composite matrix which captures the life expectancy, education and per capita indicators in one matrix. This was developed to track as a development indicator of human welfare. In the previous studies, the GDP or GDP per capita was regressed with the Human Development Index (HDI) composite index and indicated a direct correlation between the two variables. However, this article examines the contribution of the income component in the HDI index by recalculating the composite matrix. This article also qualitatively examines the ability of HDI index to measure the human development parameters. JEL Classification Codes: E01, I12, O1


2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 454-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter L. Daniels

PurposeAims to assess the potential for a broad “green” technoeconomic paradigm (TEP) to effectively achieve and sustain higher levels of welfare from economic and environmental sources in manylower income countries (LIC). A green TEP comprises a new socioeconomic system based upon a set of inter‐related technologies that increase human welfare, but focus upon saving material, energy and other environmental resources. TEPs have pervasive social and economic effects that include substantial productivity, trade competitiveness, and environmental quality advantages. The desirability of such economic change must incorporate the general approach of social economics and alternative notions of well‐being.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is largely discursive in nature and provides a systematic identification of the LIC conditions that are likely to promote, and benefit from, the pervasive adoption of material‐ and energy‐saving technologies. Some results of an exploratory cross‐country study of the empirical link between technology capability and the human development index (HDI) are utilized in the discussion.FindingsThe paper concludes that a green TEP may well provide a viable alternative development approach in the LICs. The main advantages are derived from related resource efficiency gains and reductions in the socioeconomic metabolism, and the benefits of a relative production factor shift toward labor (and away from materials, energy, and environment‐intensive capital). The potential for LICs is also facilitated by the positive spillovers and decreasing cost of green TEP‐related knowledge and technology diffusion in the expanding, decentralizing global communication network. The higher income nations would need to play a significant role in this process.Originality/valueEcological modernisation and material and energy‐saving technologies are widely viewed as essential for achieving long‐term economic and social well‐being improvements in the twenty‐first century and beyond. Discussion of this promising approach typically assumes that this transformation is only viable in the technological and economic context of the higher income nations. However, this paper provides a detailed case for the strategic encouragement and adoption of a green TEP for sustainable economic development and environmental conditions in LICs.


2018 ◽  

During the Late Middle Ages a unique type of ‘mixed media’ recycled and remnant art arose in houses of religious women in the Low Countries: enclosed gardens. They date from the time of Emperor Charles V and are unique examples of ‘anonymous’ female art, devotion and spirituality. A hortus conclusus (or enclosed garden) represents an ideal, paradisiacal world. Enclosed Gardens are retables, sometimes with painted side panels, the central section filled not only with narrative sculpture, but also with all sorts of trinkets and hand-worked textiles.Adornments include relics, wax medallions, gemstones set in silver, pilgrimage souvenirs, parchment banderoles, flowers made from textiles with silk thread, semi-precious stones, pearls and quilling (a decorative technique using rolled paper). The ensemble is an impressive and one-of-a-kind display and presents as an intoxicating garden. The sixteenth-century horti conclusi of the Mechelen Hospital sisters are recognized Masterpieces and are extremely rare, not alone at a Belgian but even at a global level. They are of international significance as they provide evidence of devotion and spirituality in convent communities in the Southern Netherlands in the sixteenth century. They are an extraordinary tangible expression of a devotional tradition. The highly individual visual language of the enclosed gardens contributes to our understanding of what life was like in cloistered communities. They testify to a cultural identity closely linked with mystical traditions allowing us to enter a lost world very much part of the culture of the Southern Netherlands. This book is the first full survey of the enclosed gardens and is the result of year-long academic research.


10.54179/2101 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanine De Landtsheer

Famed for his ground-breaking philological, philosophical, and antiquarian writings, the Brabant humanist Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) was one of the most renowned classical scholars of the sixteenth century. In this volume, Marijke Crab and Ide François bring together the seminal contributions to Lipsius’s life and scholarship by Jeanine De Landtsheer (1954-2021), who came to be known as one of the greatest Lipsius specialists of her generation. In Pursuit of the Muses considers Lipsius from two complementary angles. The first half presents De Landtsheer’s evocative life of the famous humanist, based on her unrivalled knowledge of his correspondence. Originally published in Dutch, it appears here in English translation for the first time. The second half presents a selection of eight articles by De Landtsheer that together chart a way through Lipsius’s scholarship. This twofold approach offers the reader a valuable insight into Lipsius’s life and work, creating an indispensable reference guide not only to Lipsius himself, but also to the wider humanist world of letters.


2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-48
Author(s):  
Pieter Martens

In the sixteenth century, chronic wars and a high concentration of towns made the Low Countries one of Europe's prime laboratories for innovations in military architecture and urbanism. The 1553 inspection tour of the region by engineers Giovanni Maria Olgiati and Sebastian van Noyen marked the assimilation of “Italian-style” fortifications into Netherlandish practice and the transition there from defenses with bastions to proper bastioned systems. Olgiati and Van Noyen's joint tour is well documented through a dozen design drawings now held at the Vatican Library, Turin's Archivio di Stato, and Madrid's Palacio Real, as well as a closely related atlas in Turin and complementary archival records. As Pieter Martens discusses in Planning Bastions: Olgiati and Van Noyen in the Low Countries in 1553, these materials, including many hitherto unknown plans, provide new insights into the design process, offer a unique panorama of the Low Countries' border defenses at this critical moment, and illuminate the genesis and spread of bastioned fortifications in Europe.


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