▪ Abstract Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.

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On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61690-6.pdf

Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

/pdf/agricultural-sustainability-and-intensive-production-1h98l920tu.pdf

Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices

We review in detail a number of approaches that have been adopted to try and explain the remarkable observation of our accelerating universe. In particular we discuss the arguments for and recent progress made towards understanding the nature of dark energy. We review the observational evidence for the current accelerated expansion of the universe and present a number of dark energy models in addition to the conventional cosmological constant, paying particular attention to scalar field models such as quintessence, K-essence, tachyon, phantom and dilatonic models. The importance of cosmological scaling solutions is emphasized when studying the dynamical system of scalar fields including coupled dark energy. We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations allowing us to confront them with the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure and demonstrate how it is possible in principle to reconstruct the equation of state of dark energy by also using Supernovae Ia observational data. We also discuss in detail the nature of tracking solutions in cosmology, particle physics and braneworld models of dark energy, the nature of possible future singularities, the effect of higher order curvature terms to avoid a Big Rip singularity, and approaches to modifying gravity which leads to a late-time accelerated expansion without recourse to a new form of dark energy.

Dynamics of dark energy

The object of this paper is to see whether we can make some general remarks about the nature and types of techniques of production that are likely to give what might be considered ‘desirable’ results in the so-called under-developed countries, particularly of East Asia. Before we proceed to examine the relevant economic information, we should perhaps say a few words on the nature of the problem itself.

Choice of Techniques of Production: with Special Reference to East Asia

The Concept of Wealth

A Note on the Mahalanobis Model of Sectoral Planning

Preambule Une fois n’est pas coutume : avant de passer a la troisieme personne, dont l’usage est attendu de tout semioticien « qui se respecte », je m’autorise un bref preambule a la premiere personne. Les propositions qui suivent pourront paraitre en effet surprenantes sous la plume d’un semioticien, moimeme en l’occurrence, qui a pu donner l’impression de rester plonge (confortablement) pendant plus de deux decennies dans les profondeurs des affects et des passions, et dans les arcanes formelles de la tensivite. Ce moi-meme en cacherait-il un autre, un soi-meme qui se serait peu a peu affirme et qui ferait aujourd’hui surface a la surprise generale (y compris de « moi-meme » !) ? Pendant toutes ces annees, ou je m’occupais (moi-meme) de passions, de tensivite et d’elaborations theoriques diverses et obstinees, j’exercais parallelement d’autres metiers que celui de semioticien, ou plutot d’autres fonctions ou le semioticien etait appele a mettre en œuvre sa semiotique autrement : dans la gestion des affaires publiques universitaires, dans la negociation avec des professionnels de la politique, et pour finir, dans l’echange intense avec les eminents representants de ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler les « grands corps de l’Etat ». C’est ainsi que se constituait un « soi » dans l’engagement meme du « moi ». Ce parcours (toutes fonctions confondues, il a dure presque vingt ans) est maintenant acheve, et je m’efforce d’en tirer quelques consequences pour ce a quoi je n’ai jamais renonce, pour ce qui m’a toujours anime : le souci de l’avenir de la semiotique comme projet scientifique. Tout au long de ce parcours, en meme temps que je m’efforcais de participer aux avancees de la semiotique en tant que programme de recherche, j’ai assiste – et participe – a l’evolution des « manieres » de faire de la recherche. Qu’on en pense du bien ou du mal, les conditions d’exercice de la recherche, et meme les conditions d’existence des disciplines de recherche, se sont profondement transformees en quelques decennies. Au milieu du XXe siecle, le grand partage entre les sciences (les sciences de la nature et les humanites) pouvait etre percu comme clair et durable, et semblait meme proteger les secondes de ce qu’on appelait alors « la demande sociale ». En France, la domination sans partage du structuralisme, au moment meme ou les sciences sociales se mettaient en place et se developpaient, a d’une certaine

La sémiotique face aux grands défis sociétaux du XXI e siècle1

The author discusses the ways in which two normative concepts, individual freedom and political liberty, are different and complementary. From this starting point he tries to show the similarities rather than the discrepancies between Asian and Western cultural traditions with the aim of fostering mutual understanding. Thus, he does not point to the disagreements said to exist between them, specially the Asian defense of order and the state in contrast to pluralism and human rights, so valued by the western enlightenment. On the contrary, he emphasizes that in the Asian tradition, so rich, varied and complex, there can also be discerned the existence of a line of defense of individual freedom that, although it cannot be confused with political liberty, nevertheless advances the possibility of its realization.

https://revistaseug.ugr.es/index.php/acfs/article/download/5175/4984

Amartya Sen

Papers

Choice of Techniques of Production: with Special Reference to East Asia

The Concept of Wealth

A Note on the Mahalanobis Model of Sectoral Planning

La sémiotique face aux grands défis sociétaux du XXI e siècle1

Derechos humanos y valores asiáticos