On the Biological Standard of Living of Eighteenth-Century Americans: Taller, Richer, Healthier

This study analyses the physical stature of runaway apprentices and military deserters based on advertisements collected from 18th-century newspapers, in order to explore the biological welfare of colonial and early-national Americans. The results indicate that heights declined somewhat at mid-century, but increased substantially thereafter. The findings are generally in keeping with trends in mortality and in economic activity. The Americans were much taller than Europeans: by the 1780s adults were as much as 6.6 cm taller than Englishmen, and at age 16 American apprentices were some 12 cm taller than the poor children of London

The free association narrative interview method

This encyclopaedia entry describes the characteristics of the method given in the title

Institutions and Rules.

This short statement has three aims. First, it suggests that rules and institutionsare a convenient and productive entrypoint for analysing capitalism and mainstream proposals for its reform. But it also suggests that analyses cannot stop there if adequate critiques and alternative strategies are to be developed. Above all we need to move beyond rules and institutions to examine the microfoundations of institutions in particular subjectivities, cognitive frames, modes of calculation, norms of conduct, and forms of embodiment; and to study the macro-contexts that emerge from interaction among institutions and shape this interaction in a complex dialectic of path-shaping and path-dependency. It also suggests how to move beyond rules and institutions. Second, this statement proposes a distinctive theoretical approach based on a combination of trans- and post-disciplinary modes of inquiry. It argues that these can inform both our collective intellectual endeavours and also provide the basis for a critical popular pedagogy. And, third, it identifies some key issues for a research agenda on the political and ethical dimensions of contemporary economic activities. In the spirit of the PEKEA project, our statement is not concerned to provide yet another critique of orthodox economics (for which, see Hodgson 1989; North 1990; Rutherford 1994). Instead we emphasize the socially embedded, socially regularized nature of market economies and address changing economic norms and modes of calculation. This leads us to approach capitalism very broadly in terms of the overall ensemble of socially embedded, socially regularized and strategically selective institutions, organizations, social forces and actions that are involved in sustaining the wage-relation, a labour process and more general system of production organized in terms of profitand- loss, and a complex balance between competition and cooperation among different capitals. Seen in these terms capitalist relations of production are not just economic but is also (always, necessarily) extra-economic. In pursuing these ideas should help to provide a clearer account of the inherently political aspects of contemporary capitalism

Cosmological solutions for model with a 1/H21/H^{2} term

We drive the cosmological solutions of five-dimensional model with $1/H^{2}$ term $(H^{2}\equiv H_{MNPQ}H^{MNPQ})$, where $H_{MNPQ}$ is 4-form field strength. The behaviors of the scale factors and the scalar potential in effective theory are examined.As a consequence, we show that the universe changes from decelerated expansion to accelerated expansion in Einstein frame of the four-dimensional theory.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, version to appear in JCA

On the Biological Standard of Living of Eighteenth-Century Americans: Taller, Richer, Healthier

This study analyses the physical stature of runaway apprentices and military deserters based on advertisements collected from 18th-century newspapers, in order to explore the biological welfare of colonial and early-national Americans. The results indicate that heights declined somewhat at mid-century, but increased substantially thereafter. The findings are generally in keeping with trends in mortality and in economic activity. The Americans were much taller than Europeans: by the 1780s adults were as much as 6.6 cm taller than Englishmen, and at age 16 American apprentices were some 12 cm taller than the poor children of London.Anthropometrics; Living Standards; 18th century; colonial US

Upper large deviations for the maximal flow in first passage percolation

We consider the standard first passage percolation in $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$ for $d\geq 2$ and we denote by $\phi_{n^{d-1},h(n)}$ the maximal flow through the cylinder $]0,n]^{d-1} \times ]0,h(n)]$ from its bottom to its top. Kesten proved a law of large numbers for the maximal flow in dimension three: under some assumptions, $\phi_{n^{d-1},h(n)} / n^{d-1}$ converges towards a constant $\nu$. We look now at the probability that $\phi_{n^{d-1},h(n)} / n^{d-1}$ is greater than $\nu + \epsilon$ for some $\epsilon >0$, and we show under some assumptions that this probability decays exponentially fast with the volume of the cylinder. Moreover, we prove a large deviations principle for the sequence $(\phi_{n^{d-1},h(n)} / n^{d-1}, n\in \mathbb{N})$.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures; small changes of notation