This paper summarizes the impact that wars had on the history of nephrology, both worldwide and in the Ghent Medical Faculty notably on the definition, research and clinical aspects of acute kidney injury. The paper briefly describes the role of 'trench nephritis' as observed both during World War I and II, supporting the hypothesis that many of the clinical cases could have been due to Hantavi...

This paper presents a new model of the war of attrition, based on a geographical or territorial dispute. Both sides try to extend their boundaries, and the level of effort at each time is endogenous. There are two kinds of stationary equilibria, one with fighting to completion, the other with a cessation of hostilities. As a player gets closer to losing, that player's probability of winning bat...

1 The Lancet. The statin wars: why AstraZeneca must retreat. Lancet 2003; 362: 1341. 2 Uretsky BG, Thygesen K, Armstrong PW, et al. Acute coronary findings at autopsy in heart failure patients with sudden death: results from the assessment of treatment with lisinopril and survival (ATLAS) trial. Circulation 2000; 102: 611–16. 3 Krum H, McMurray JJV. Statins and chronic heart failure: do we need...

The culture of economic growth and rapid innovation has led the chemical industry to contaminate tens of thousands of locales with hazardous chemicals that are poorly understood. As a result, the chemical industry finds itself at war with citizens who are troubled by the widespread dissemination of industrial poisons and alarmed by the power and unaccountability of the corporations themselves. ...

On 17 March 1813 King Frederick William III of Prussia issued his appeal “to my people.” It was a call to arms for the struggle against Napoleon, a war of liberation, “...It is the final, decisive struggle that we must endure, for the sake of our existence, our independence, our fortune. There is no way out except an honorable peace, or glorious defeat.” The proclamation appeared in the newspap...

W e get terribly excited about the issue of drugs in sport. The fear of anabolic agents or stimulants producing superhuman performance has dominated Olympic and professional team sports for many years. It seems however that doping has been present virtually since competitive sports began, with apocryphal stories of various potions being used in ancient times just as pharmacological agents are u...

Karl Mannheim’s orientations to time can be plotted between subjectivist and objectivist extremes. The latter corresponds to social engineering, while the former offers the context in which Mannheim uses Hobbes’s primaeval war to imagine the chaotic struggle over time that he hopes to escape. Mannheim’s distinctive achievement is ‘dynamic sociology’, an experimental approach marked by the recog...

Wars are increasingly frequent, and the trend has been steadily upward since 1870. The main tradition of Western political and philosophical thought suggests that extensive economic globalization and democratization over this period should have reduced appetites for war far below their current level. This view is clearly incomplete: at best, confounding factors are at work. Trade and democracy ...

Asymmetries in the abilities of contestants that engage in a protracted competition appear to be more common than symmetric competitions. Why doesn’t the weaker player concede immediately? This paper introduces a model based on the idea that a “war” can only be won by winning a series of battles. There are two kinds of stationary equilibria, one with fighting to completion, the other with a ces...