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"Vries, P. H. H"
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State, economy and the great divergence : Great Britain and China, 1680s-1850s
State, Economy and the Great Divergence provides a new analysis of what has become the central debate in global economic history: the 'great divergence' between European and Asian growth. Focusing on early modern China and Western Europe, in particular Great Britain, this book offers a new level of detail on comparative state formation that has wide-reaching implications for European, Eurasian and global history.Beginning with an overview of the historiography, Peer Vries goes on to extend and develop the debate, critically engaging with the huge volume of literature published on the topic to date. Incorporating recent insights, he offers a compelling alternative to the claims to East-West equivalence, or Asian superiority, which have come to dominate discourse surrounding this issue.This is a vital update to a key issue in global economic history and, as such, is essential reading for students and scholars interested in keeping up to speed with the on-going debates.
eBook
Positive predictive value of ultrasound in correctly identifying an inguinal hernia: a single-centered retrospective pilot study
ObjectivesTo determine the clinical utility of preoperative ultrasound imaging for predicting an inguinal hernia in need of surgery. In addition, we aimed to identify factors associated with false positive (FP) ultrasound examinations.MethodsIn this retrospective pilot study, we included all 175 patients who underwent inguinal hernia surgery in our hospital in 2019 and of whom a positive preoperative ultrasound examination of the groin area was available. The positive predictive value (PPV) of the ultrasound examination was determined using inguinal hernia detected during surgery (yes/no) as golden standard. To identify possible predictive factors, we compared the characteristics of patients with a FP ultrasound with patients with a true positive (TP) ultrasound. ResultsPPV of ultrasound examinations to identify an inguinal hernia in need of surgery correctly was 90.9% (159/175). The patients with a FP ultrasound examination had a significantly higher body mass index (BMI) than the patients with a TP ultrasound examination (27.6 ± 4.2 vs 25.8 ± 2.3, p = 0.043). ConclusionsWith a false positive percentage of 9.1%, there is still room for improvement of preoperative diagnostic imaging. Studies with larger cohorts are necessary to establish prediction models that have the potential to reduce FP ultrasound results.
Journal Article
Atlas of Material Life
A comparative history of material life in western Europe
and East Asia. Large-scale comparative economic history of
westernmost and easternmost Eurasia provides insight into our
global history. Atlas of Material Life highlights the main
characteristics of the economic landscape in Great Britain, the
Netherlands, China, and Japan between the fifteenth and nineteenth
centuries. It demonstrates the constraints to which all
pre-industrial economies were subjected but also the different ways
in which the societies discussed dealt with those challenges.
Replete with maps, graphs, and accessible figures, this
transnational study offers fresh insight into the economy of
limited possibilities and humanity's ever-evolving relationship to
resources.
eBook
Governing Growth: A Comparative Analysis of the Role of the State in the Rise of the West
In explaining the fact that Western Europe was the first region in the world with industrial economic growth, numerous authors have referred to the existence of a type of state and a state-system that presumably were uniquely European. In this article this thesis is put to the test through an analysis of how in the early modern period they are supposed to have brought about a \"European miracle\" and through a systematic comparison of the Western European polities and the context in which they operated with those of China, India, the Ottoman Empire, and Japan in the same period. The author concludes that the role of the state in explaining the emergence or non-emergence--in contrast to the diffusing and sustaining--of modern industrial growth has been much smaller and much less self-evident than is often claimed.
Journal Article
The nature of the memory trace and its neurocomputational implications
The brain processes underlying cognitive tasks must be very robust. Disruptions such as the destruction of large numbers of neurons, or the impact of alcohol and lack of sleep do not have negative effects except when they occur in an extreme form. This robustness implies that the parameters determining the functioning of networks of individual neurons must have large ranges or there must exist stabilizing mechanisms that keep the functioning of a network within narrow bounds. The simulation of a minimal neuronal architecture necessary to study cognitive tasks is described, which consists of a loop of three cell-assemblies. A crucial factor in this architecture is the critical threshold of a cell-assembly. When activated at a level above the critical threshold, the activation in a cell-assembly is subject to autonomous growth, which leads to an oscillation in the loop. When activated below the critical threshold, excitation gradually extinguishes. In order to circumvent the large parameter space of spiking neurons, a rate-dependent model of neuronal firing was chosen. The resulting parameter space of 12 parameters was explored by means of a genetic algorithm. The ranges of the parameters for which the architecture produced the required oscillations and extinctions, turned out to be relatively narrow. These ranges remained narrow when a stabilizing mechanism, controlling the total amount of activation, was introduced. The architecture thus shows chaotic behaviour. Given the overall stability of the operation of the brain, it can be concluded that there must exist other mechanisms that make the network robust. Three candidate mechanisms are discussed: synaptic scaling, synaptic homeostasis, and the synchronization of neural spikes.
Journal Article
Effects of binding in the identification of objects
The binding problem requires a solution at the level of individual neurons, but no definite mechanism has yet be given. Therefore, the neuronal level is as yet inadequate for modeling cognitive processes in which binding plays a crucial role. Moreover, the neuronal level involves too many details that are unlikely to be essential for understanding cognition. A general model of cognitive brain functioning is described in which cognitive tasks are represented in a network of cell assemblies. In the network, binding is functionally defined in a way that is compatible with the neuronal level. A computer simulation of the model clarifies how the binding of location and identity of a set of simultaneously presented letters takes place and how questions about the location and identity of the letters are answered. From the simulation of the task three predictions on the logistics of neural processes are derived: 1. When the cell assembly representing a letter participates in more than one temporary excitation loop, it will reach its critical threshold faster. At the behavioral level this means that as the number of identical letters in the display increases, responses will be faster. 2. In order to answer questions about the location and identity of presented letters cell assemblies representing the target location and the target identity have to become bound to their appropriate values. As a consequence the facilitatory effect of identical letters will be stronger if they involve the target location or the target identity than when identical non-targets are involved. 3. Negative identifications are more dependent on the presentation time of the letters than positive identifications because the excitation loops involved take more time to reach the critical threshold. Therefore, the facilitatory effect of identical letters is stronger when the external activation is relatively strong, i.e., when presentation time of the letters is sufficiently long. The reaction times obtained in three behavioral experiments support these hypotheses. Effects of binding can therefore be predicted on the basis of the general logistics of neural processes, without assumptions about a specific binding mechanism at the neuronal level.
Journal Article
Targeted proteomics analysis in type 1 diabetes identifies lower agouti-related protein levels in individuals with impaired hypoglycaemia awareness
Impaired awareness of hypoglycaemia (IAH) is a complication of diabetes treatment, whereby individuals are no longer able to feel an oncoming hypoglycaemic event. IAH may be a result of central nervous system adaptation to low recurrent hypoglycaemias, however the precise pathways involved remain unknown. This study employed proteomics analysis to explore potential pathophysiological pathways in IAH, using a nested case-control design within the Dutch Type 1 Diabetes Biomarker study. The Olink
®
Cardiovascular II panel was used for targeted proteomics, comparing 67 individuals with IAH to 108 age- and sex-matched individuals with normal awareness of hypoglycaemia (NAH). Univariate analysis revealed that agouti-related protein (AGRP) levels were significantly lower in individuals with IAH compared to NAH (6.12 NPX vs. 6.44 NPX, FDR-adjusted
P
= 0.012). In multivariate models adjusted for sex and diabetes duration, AGRP remained significant before p-value adjustment (
P
< 0.001) but not after adjusting for false discovery rate (FDR) (
P
= 0.057). AGRP, known for its orexigenic effects and expression in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, is involved in glucose sensing and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stimulation, suggesting its potential role in the pathophysiology of IAH. This study highlights the need for further research to clarify AGRP’s role and its possible implications for managing IAH in diabetes.
Journal Article