Necessities and Luxuries in Early-Modern Textile Consumption: Real Values of Worsted Says and Fine Woollens in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries

If mankind’s three basic necessities have always been food, clothing, and shelter, whose production, trade, and consumption have rightly been a primary focus of economists and economic historians for many generations, we may ask this vital question: how do they distinguish between necessities and luxury products? Indeed, any examination of later-medieval, early-modern commodity prices soon reveals that for all three of these basic categories there was a seamless continuum from the very cheapest to the most expensive goods sold on the market, so that making clear cut divisions becomes virtually impossible. How, when, where, and why did the consumption of food and drink, for example, shift from being a basic necessity to ensure survival to become a luxury that enhances and enriches the quality of life? Obviously the very same considerations apply also to clothing. For many people, if only for a much smaller segment of the population, chiefly to be found in the aristocracy, the higher clergy, and wealthy bourgeoisie, clothing has also served and still serves other wants, in terms of luxury consumption: for decoration and for the assertion of personal values, and especially of one’s social status. Indeed, for such people, luxury textiles may have been deemed as personal ‘necessities’. This study is based upon two statistical tables, for the southern Low Countries, in the early to mid-sixteenth century, which, together permit us to make such a valid contrast between the nature, forms, and relative values of two major types of textiles. Representing ‘necessities’ in clothing are light-weight, coarse, relatively cheap worsted-type says (from the leading producer, Hondschoote, in Flanders); and representing ‘luxuries’ are the heavy-weight, very fine, and very costly woollen broadcloths from Ghent (dickedinnen) in the county of Flanders and Mechelen (Rooslaken) in the neighbouring duchy of Brabant. Table 1 provides the technical features of the composition of the cloths, the type of wools used, warp-counts, the dimensions, and weights, and finally the weight per square metre in grams. The luxury woollen broadcloths in Table 2 were all made uniquely from the finest English wools, then the world’s best; but Table 1 also provides, for comparison, a fine but cheaper woollen (from Armentières) made from a mixture of Spanish merino and English wools. The other textiles in Tables 1 are worsteds and semi-worsted says from several towns in sixteenth-century Flanders (including Hondschoote) and England. Table 2 presents the prices, in pounds groot Flemish for two types of Hondschoote says, and for the luxury woollens of Ghent and Mechelen for the decade 1535 - 1544. Two measures have been adopted in order to calculate the ‘real values’ of these textiles: (1) a comparison of the prices (nominal money-of-account values) of these textiles with the value of a ‘basket of consumables’, the one used to compute the Van der Wee Consumer Price Index for Brabant (Antwerp region); and (2) the purchasing power of wages: i.e., the number of days’ wages that a master mason in Antwerp would have had to spend to acquire each one of these textiles; and more particularly to buy 12 square metres of cloth, for a man’s annual clothing requirement. In terms of the latter measure, the average number of days’ wages required to purchase that same quantity of cloth would have been: 13.725 days for a Hondschoote single say; 16.958 days for a Hondschoote double say; and 5.4 times as many days, 91.413 for a Ghent dickedinnen, and 74.144 days for a Mechelen Rooslaken. That is certainly a much greater gulf in values that would be found today between every-day clothing and luxury apparel, for men at least. Consider that in Toronto, in July 2008, a journeymen carpenter earns a minimum of $33.07 per hour. In 91.413 days (i.e., the number of days’ wages to purchase that Ghent dickedinnen), at 8 hrs a day, that carpenter would earn$24,184 CAD (about € 15,115) and would never spend even 10 percent of that on clothing.luxuries, necessities, clothing, wools, woollen broadcloths, worsteds, says, serges, Flanders, Brabant, Antwerp, Hondschoote, masons, wages.

Urinary chitinase 3-like protein 1 for early diagnosis of acute kidney injury : a prospective cohort study in adult critically ill patients

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) occurs frequently and adversely affects patient and kidney outcomes, especially when its severity increases from stage 1 to stages 2 or 3. Early interventions may counteract such deterioration, but this requires early detection. Our aim was to evaluate whether the novel renal damage biomarker urinary chitinase 3-like protein 1 (UCHI3L1) can detect AKI stage >= 2 more early than serum creatinine and urine output, using the respective Kidney Disease vertical bar Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria for definition and classification of AKI, and compare this to urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (UNGAL). Methods: This was a translational single-center, prospective cohort study at the 22-bed surgical and 14-bed medical intensive care units (ICU) of Ghent University Hospital. We enrolled 181 severely ill adult patients who did not yet have AKI stage >= 2 based on the KDIGO criteria at time of enrollment. The concentration of creatinine (serum, urine) and CHI3L1 (serum, urine) was measured at least daily, and urine output hourly, in the period from enrollment till ICU discharge with a maximum of 7 ICU-days. The concentration of UNGAL was measured at enrollment. The primary endpoint was the development of AKI stage >= 2 within 12 h after enrollment. Results: After enrollment, 21 (12 %) patients developed AKI stage >= 2 within the next 7 days, with 6 (3 %) of them reaching this condition within the first 12 h. The enrollment concentration of UCHI3L1 predicted the occurrence of AKI stage >= 2 within the next 12 h with a good AUC-ROC of 0.792 (95 % CI: 0.726-0.849). This performance was similar to that of UNGAL (AUC-ROC of 0.748 (95 % CI: 0.678-0.810)). Also, the samples collected in the 24-h time frame preceding diagnosis of the 1st episode of AKI stage >= 2 had a 2.0 times higher (95 % CI: 1.3-3.1) estimated marginal mean of UCHI3L1 than controls. We further found that increasing UCHI3L1 concentrations were associated with increasing AKI severity. Conclusions: In this pilot study we found that UCHI3L1 was a good biomarker for prediction of AKI stage >= 2 in adult ICU patients

Setting control of completely recyclable concrete with slag and aluminate cements

A completely recyclable concrete (CRC) is designed to have a chemical composition equivalent to the one of general raw materials for cement production. By doing so, this CRC can be used at the end of its service life in cement manufacturing without the need for ingredient adjustments. In one of the designed CRC compositions, blast-furnace slag cement (BFSC) was combined with calcium aluminate cement (CAC), which resulted in fast setting. In an attempt to control this fast setting, different retarders and/or the combination of lime and calcium sulfate were added to the system. The workability (slump and flow), setting time (ultrasonic transmission measurements and Vicat), strength development (compressive strength tests), and hydration behavior (isothermal calorimetry) were studied. It was found that the combined addition of lime and calcium sulfate results in a workable mixture that becomes even more workable if a retarder is also added to the system

Highlights from the HIV Cure and Reservoir Symposium, 11-12 September 2017, Ghent, Belgium

For the second time, the HIV Cure Research Center (HCRC) at Ghent University organised the HIV Cure and Reservoir Symposium, in Ghent, Belgium, where in this two-day conference, virologists, molecular biologists, immunologists and clinicians presented the most recent achievements in the field of HIV cure, including data on therapeutic vaccines, HIV remission strategies such as 'shock and kill' or 'block and lock', benefits of early ART and potential of haematopoietic stem cell transplant in achieving cure. Furthermore, methods to characterise and quantify the HIV reservoir were discussed along with HIV reservoir characterisation in different body parts, including the central nervous system. An HIV activist and representative of a patients' agency also presented the patients' perspective on HIV cure. This report is a summary of all topics discussed during this symposium

The Flemish connection: socio-cultural news from London in the Ghendtsche post-tydingen (1667-1723)

The two case studies in this essay call attention to the Ghent newspaper Ghendtsche Post-tydingen (1667-1723) as a neglected source of information, not only on English theatrical matters but also-and primarily-on the political significance of such news items. Evidently, Ghendtsche Post-tydingen evinced a lively interest in developments both on the macro level (i.e. national and international politics) and on the micro level (i.e. socio-cultural news). Focusing on two sets of items published around the watershed Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, we argue that the seemingly trivial "human interest stories'' that find their way into GP offer us unsuspected but valuable insights into the sympathies and allegiances of particular groups of people in the Low Countries. As such, these news reports from London on the socio-cultural display surrounding different types of entertainment actually functioned as veiled indicators of political agency

Primary intestinal aspergillosis resulting in acute intestinal volvulus after autologous stem cell transplantation in a patient with relapsed non-Hodgkin lymphoma : report on a rare infectious complication and a review of the literature

Objectives: Since primary intestinal aspergillosis is a severe infectious complication with a high morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients, we want to draw attention to this rare entity and the importance of early recognition. Methods: We report a case of documented primary intestinal aspergillosis in a patient receiving an autologous stem cell transplantation (SCT). Furthermore, this article gives a short reflection on the occurrence of invasive aspergillosis in autologous SCT and the value of serum galactomannan levels based on literature search and linked with the case. Results: In this case the patient presented on day +8 after autologous SCT for a relapsed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with an acute abdomen with urgent need for surgical intervention. Biopsy revealed the presence of fungal colonies due to aspergillosis and voriconazole was started. Until that day the systematically taken serum galactomannan tests were all negative or pending. Initially there was some resistance to perform surgery in the presence of neutropenia and thrombocytopenia but in the end it provided the definitive diagnosis and should not be delayed. Until now this patient is in good health and retains a complete remission. Conclusion: With this case, we would like to emphasize that early recognition of primary intestinal aspergillosis is of the utmost importance as it is a rare but serious infectious complication. It should be included in the differential diagnosis of neutropenic patients with sudden onset abdominal pain and ongoing fever, even in the absence of a positive serum galactomannan

Mitigating autogenous shrinkage by means of superabsorbent polymers : effect on concrete properties

(Ultra-)high performance concrete ((U)HPC) is very prone to autogenous shrinkage cracking. These cracks can create preferential pathways for the ingress of harmful substances which can facilitate the corrosion process of the steel reinforcement, resulting in a decreased durability and structural integrity of the concrete structure. Superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) can reduce or even mitigate autogenous shrinkage as they absorb water in the fresh concrete mix and provide it to the cement particles at the right moment in the hydration process, acting as internal curing agent for the concrete. To study the mitigation of autogenous shrinkage by SAPs, five different superabsorbent polymers based on the copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) with dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) were synthesized at Ghent University. This paper focusses on the compatibility tests aiming at evaluating the effect of these SAPs on initial flow and slump life (rheology), hydration kinetics (reactivity) and mechanical properties (3, 7 and 28 days strength). The most promising SAPs will be further studied on their effect to mitigate autogenous shrinkage

De sacra militia contra iconomachos : civic strategies to counter iconoclasm in the Low Countries (1566)

Although the iconoclastic scare must have been enormous and the actual impact of the attacks of summer and autumn 1566 can hardly be exaggerated, the Beeldenstorm was not as comprehensive as it seemed to contemporaries and subsequent historians. Indeed, a considerable number of important cities in the Habsburg Netherlands actually managed to ward off destruction, but until now their role has hardly been studied. The aim of this article is twofold: first, it seeks to chart the cities in question. Second, it analyses the preventive measures that they took against the violence. In so doing, it nuances the idea of the Beeldenstorm as an all-destructive wave, and provides insights into the dynamics of the Iconoclastic Fury. More specifically, the cliché that the passivity of magistrates was the main reason for all losses seems in need of considerable revision