Apparent Inconsistency Research Articles

Beat Patterns Determine Inter-Hand Differences in Synchronization Error in a Bimanual Coordination Tapping Task.

A previous study reported the unique finding that people tapping a beat pattern with the right hand produce larger negative synchronization error than when tapping with the left hand or other effectors, in contrast to previous studies that have shown that the hands tap patterns simultaneously without any synchronization errors. We examined whether the inter-hand difference in synchronization error occurred due to handedness or to a specificity of the beat pattern employed in that study. Two experiments manipulated the hand–beat assignments. A comparison between the identical beat to the pacing signal and a beat with a longer interval excluded the handedness hypothesis and demonstrated that beat patterns with relatively shorter intervals were tapped earlier (Experiment 1). These synchronization errors were not local but occurred consistently throughout the beat patterns. Experiment 2 excluded alternative explanations. These results indicate that the apparent inconsistency in previous studies was due to the specificity of the beat patterns, suggesting that a beat pattern with a relatively shorter interval between hands is tapped earlier than beats with longer intervals. Our finding that the bimanual tapping of different beat patterns produced different synchronization errors suggests that the notion of a central timing system may need to be revised.

Wonder and the Marvellous from Homer to the Hellenistic World by Jessica Lightfoot

Reviewed by: Wonder and the Marvellous from Homer to the Hellenistic World by Jessica Lightfoot Maria Gerolemou Wonder and the Marvellous from Homer to the Hellenistic World. By Jessica Lightfoot. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2021. Pp. x, 260. Lightfoot's objective, described in the prologue, is to "open up the subject of ancient wonder as a more comprehensive and coherent field of inquiry in the modern world for the first time" (2). The author discusses various facets of thauma from Homer to the Hellenistic period to highlight its importance both as an aesthetic response and as a philosophical and literary tool. While this approach to wonder is not completely novel, Lightfoot's study on the role that thauma plays in the relationship between the human and the divine, animate and inanimate, near and far, familiar and unfamiliar provides interesting insights. The book does not offer a chronological reading of thaumata; it rather functions as a Wunderkammer, that is, as a repository for various wondrous objects, events, etc., and reveals connections between the uses of thauma in different periods, authors, and genres. [End Page 370] The second and fourth chapter discuss thauma as a model of aesthetic response. To this well-studied aspect,1 the author adds a spatial and a temporal dimension: aesthetic thauma in Plato, she argues, when describing something which is "hidden" and lies "inside," such as the intellect, can prolong perception and lead to curiosity and cognitive advancement (see Theaetetus); on the other hand, thauma which refers to outer appearance is a temporary feeling of bedazzlement (see Charmides). In ekphrastic descriptions of objects, on the other hand, the split between outside and inside collapses: the exterior of the objects described, which are either god- or man-made (see, e.g., Achilles' shield in the Iliad; gems in Posidippus' epigrams), is admired due to its mimetic power, which can go as far as reproducing internal animative forces (e.g., motion). Now, it seems that both the ekphrastic and the philosophical wonder externalise the technê and skills of an artisan or intellectual. The fourth chapter explores cases of acoustic marvels which manage to blur the boundary between the animate and inanimate, gods and mortals. While both chapters offer some interesting insights, a theoretical discussion on the aesthetics and perception of viewing (thauma idesthai) and hearing (thauma akousai), which could have strengthened their arguments, is missing.2 The third chapter is dedicated to the genre of paradoxography, and discusses both the "textual thaumata" found in the Hellenistic library and the oddities of the natural world. According to the author, paradoxography is not about providing enough evidence around a wondrous observation; what guarantees the wonder's veracity in a paradoxographic discourse is the reference to the initial observer of the thauma. The chapter responds convincingly to previous scholarship on paradoxography that describes the genre as merely "popular" rather than scientifically oriented3 by emphasizing exactly the effort of paradoxographers to create "new bodies of purely textual marvels" (57). The chapter also examines how the Herodotean thôma and Aristotle's concept of wonder influence the paradoxographic wonder. The argument presented here is not entirely new.4 The Herodotean type of wonder, argues the author, fosters curiosity about distant lands, customs, objects, etc., that are unfamiliar to Greeks, and tests the boundaries between belief and disbelief, in the same way later paradoxographers do, but unlike Herodotus, they do not present their own judgement on the credibility of thauma. The Aristotelean wonder, moreover, provides the paradoxographer with the material itself. The paradoxographer selectively presents some of these wonders, without giving any context, i.e., without offering "the complicated reasoning which the philosopher builds up to explain away an apparent inconsistency or anomaly" (74). This increases thauma since it recreates for the reader the moment when the quoted author first observed, for instance, "strange and inexplicable zoological specimens or processes" (78). [End Page 371] Chapter Five, which explores wonder both as "an emotional and cognitive response" to recognition (108), is the most stimulating part of the book. Starting with a discussion of the famous scene of the Lytra and the mutual social recognition between Priam and...

To maximize or randomize? An experimental study of probability matching in financial decision making.

Probability matching, also known as the "matching law" or Herrnstein's Law, has long puzzled economists and psychologists because of its apparent inconsistency with basic self-interest. We conduct an experiment with real monetary payoffs in which each participant plays a computer game to guess the outcome of a binary lottery. In addition to finding strong evidence for probability matching, we document different tendencies towards randomization in different payoff environments-as predicted by models of the evolutionary origin of probability matching-after controlling for a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic variables. We also find several individual differences in the tendency to maximize or randomize, correlated with wealth and other socioeconomic factors. In particular, subjects who have taken probability and statistics classes and those who self-reported finding a pattern in the game are found to have randomized more, contrary to the common wisdom that those with better understanding of probabilistic reasoning are more likely to be rational economic maximizers. Our results provide experimental evidence that individuals-even those with experience in probability and investing-engage in randomized behavior and probability matching, underscoring the role of the environment as a driver of behavioral anomalies.

A mulher de mais ou menos trinta anos: as idades da Constituição

This paper analyzes a so-called inconsistency in the novel A Woman of Thirty, by Honoré de Balzac: the age of Julie, the supposed leading character, does not fit the chronological framework of the narrative. Even though this inconsistency has been pointed as a possible a flaw in the creative process of the novel, it is hard to believe that, after many editions, Balzac himself would not have noticed the problem. Thus, this paper proposes a new interpretation of this apparent inconsistency, based on a different concept of time, supported by contemporary Physics, which accepts a certain simultaneously of past, present, and future. This concept also allows us to see the Constitution as a significative coexistence of the past we had and the future we wish to have in the present of the legal practice.

Dexamethasone for Severe COVID-19: How Does It Work at Cellular and Molecular Levels?

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by infection of the severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) significantly impacted human society. Recently, the synthetic pure glucocorticoid dexamethasone was identified as an effective compound for treatment of severe COVID-19. However, glucocorticoids are generally harmful for infectious diseases, such as bacterial sepsis and severe influenza pneumonia, which can develop respiratory failure and systemic inflammation similar to COVID-19. This apparent inconsistency suggests the presence of pathologic mechanism(s) unique to COVID-19 that renders this steroid effective. We review plausible mechanisms and advance the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 infection is accompanied by infected cell-specific glucocorticoid insensitivity as reported for some other viruses. This alteration in local glucocorticoid actions interferes with undesired glucocorticoid to facilitate viral replication but does not affect desired anti-inflammatory properties in non-infected organs/tissues. We postulate that the virus coincidentally causes glucocorticoid insensitivity in the process of modulating host cell activities for promoting its replication in infected cells. We explore this tenet focusing on SARS-CoV-2-encoding proteins and potential molecular mechanisms supporting this hypothetical glucocorticoid insensitivity unique to COVID-19 but not characteristic of other life-threatening viral diseases, probably due to a difference in specific virally-encoded molecules and host cell activities modulated by them.

Reply to "Comment on 'Phase transition in a network model of social balance with Glauber dynamics'".

Recently, we introduced a stochastic social balance model with Glauber dynamics which takes into account the role of randomness in the individual's behavior [Phys. Rev. E 100, 022303 (2019)2470-004510.1103/PhysRevE.100.022303]. One important finding of our study was a phase transition from a balance state to an imbalance state as the randomness crosses a critical value, which was shown to vanish in the thermodynamic limit. In a similar study [Malarz and Kułakowski, Phys. Rev. E 103, 066301 (2021)10.1103/PhysRevE.103.066301], it was shown that the critical randomness tends to infinity as the system size diverges. This led the authors to question the appropriateness of the results in our Monte Carlo simulations, when compared with the non-normalized form, used in their work. The normalized form of energy in our model is, in fact, a common choice when one deals with systems comprising long-range interactions. Here, we show how their probabilistic definition leads to vanishing possibility of forming negative bonds, thus leading to a frozen ordered (paradise) state for any amount of finite randomness (temperature) for large enough system size. On the other hand, in the same large system size limit, our model is unstable to thermal randomness due to global, long-range effect of changing a bond's sign. We also address the rule of different updating mechanisms (synchronous vs sequential) in the two models. We finally discuss the distinction between the balanced states reached by each model and provide arguments for social relevance of our model.

Direct experimental evidences of the density variation of ultrathin polymer films with thickness

Beyond the peculiar glass transition temperature (Tg) studied extensively for over two decades, we have investigated in this work the variation of the mass density of polymer thin films, a key property barely put forward in the literature. We were able to directly measure the mass density of polystyrene (PS) and poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) thin films as a function of their thickness from accurate Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) dissolution experiments. Depending on the chemical nature of the polymers, the results showed an unambiguous variation of the mass density when the film thickness was reduced: an increase for PS and a decrease for PMMA films. In the last part, we measured the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of both polymers to rationalize the apparent inconsistency of an increase/decrease in the mass density with the commonly observed depression/rise of the Tg of PS/PMMA films. Surprisingly, the coefficient of thermal expansion and the mass density showed a similar variation with thickness, pointing out a clear correlation between the glass transition temperature, the coefficient of thermal expansion and the free volume of the polymer.

The inconsistency argument: why apparent pro-life inconsistency undermines opposition to induced abortion

Most opposition to induced abortion turns on the belief that human fetuses are persons from conception. On this view, the moral status of the fetus alone requires those in a...

Linking population-level and microevolutionary processes to understand speciation dynamics at the macroevolutionary scale.

Although speciation dynamics have been described for several taxonomic groups in distinct geographic regions, most macroevolutionary studies still lack a detailed mechanistic view on how or why speciation rates change. To help partially fill this gap, we suggest that the interaction between the time taken by a species to geographically expand and the time populations take to evolve reproductive isolation should be considered when we are trying to understand macroevolutionary patterns. We introduce a simple conceptual index to guide our discussion on how demographic and microevolutionary processes might produce speciation dynamics at macroevolutionary scales. Our framework is developed under different scenarios: when speciation is mediated by geographical or resource‐partitioning opportunities, and when diversity is limited or not. We also discuss how organismal intrinsic properties and different overall geographical settings can influence the tempo and mode of speciation. We argue that specific conditions observed at the microscale might produce a pulse in speciation rates even without a pulse in either climate or physical barriers. We also propose a hypothesis to reconcile the apparent inconsistency between speciation measured at the microscale and macroscale, and emphasize that diversification rates are better seen as an emergent property. We hope to bring the reader's attention to interesting mechanisms to be further studied, to motivate the development of new theoretical models that connect microevolution and macroevolution, and to inspire new empirical and methodological approaches to more adequately investigate speciation dynamics either using neontological or paleontological data.

Sigrid af Forselles and ‘The Development of the Human Soul’

The five-part relief series The Development of the Human Soul (c.1887–1903) by the Finnish sculptor Sigrid af Forselles is a monumental work consisting of five large plaster reliefs. The artist’s esoteric interests have been noted in previous research, but their impact on her art has not been properly analysed. The first part of the relief series, which has for its subject a theme from Scandinavian mythology, belongs to the collections of the Finnish National Gallery, while the other parts, with seemingly Christian content, are situated in the Kallio Church in Helsinki. The separation of the parts and the apparent inconsistency in the thematic structure of the series has caused confusion among those who have attempted to interpret it as a whole, although occasionally a possible Ttheosophical inspiration has been suggested. This article presents the first attempt at a more profound, esoteric interpretation of the series, arguing that its main theme is a spiritual evolution that attaches itself to the idea of progress and liberation through art. The narrative evolves from materiality and physical strength towards spirituality and immateriality.

News Portrayals of Child Sexual Abuse in China: Changes from 2010 to 2019

ABSTRACT This study investigated how the news media in China – a country influenced by collectivism, authoritarianism, and Confucianism – portrayed child sexual abuse to the public over the past decade. A content analysis of 501 newspaper articles published over that time period revealed how news portrayals of child sexual abuse changed following notable abuse cases and refinements in relevant laws in China. The results indicated that media attention to child sexual abuse increased dramatically after 2013, and a trend of shaping child sexual abuse as a social problem began in 2015. This study also found an interesting cultural difference in the application of framing theory. The Chinese news stories of child sexual abuse were more likely to present individual cause frames but societal solution frames. This apparent inconsistency was not seen in previous research with U.S. media and may be attributable to a cultural preference for victim blame and collective solutions. The findings provide insights into news portrayals of child sexual abuse in a developing society. In addition, this study points out potential problems in Chinese news reports on child sexual abuse and offers suggestions for journalists and advocates for children.

Average internal rate of return for risky projects

The average internal rate of return (AIRR) fixes many deficiencies associated with the traditional internal rate of return (IRR), including apparent inconsistency with net present value (NPV). The AIRR approach breaks down project NPV into scale (the capital invested) and economic efficiency (the AIRR), and maintains NPV consistency for accept/reject decisions. Here we examine extensions of the AIRR to risky capital asset projects, a domain where the IRR appears intractable. We show that one can uniquely break down a risky NPV into a risk-sensitive project scale and a risk-sensitive extended AIRR, representing risky project efficiency, so that consistency with NPV for accept/reject decisions is maintained in the certainty-equivalent sense, in direct analogy to the deterministic case. This novel breakdown gives managerial insight by helping determine a risky project’s locus of uncertainty, be it the project scale, or economic efficiency, or both. In this way, risky features of competing projects can be explored in more detail, leading to insights substantiating the NPV ranking. We also show that under risk neutrality, the expected AIRR is equal to the AIRR of the expected cash flow, a property that notoriously fails for the stochastic IRR.

Histone H4 Tails in Nucleosomes: a Fuzzy Interaction with DNA

The interaction of positively charged N-terminal histone tails with nucleosomal DNA plays an important role in chromatin assembly and regulation, modulating their susceptibility to post-translational modifications and recognition by chromatin-binding proteins. Here, we report residue-specific 15 N NMR relaxation rates for histone H4 tails in reconstituted nucleosomes. These data indicate that H4 tails are strongly dynamically disordered, albeit with reduced conformational flexibility compared to a free peptide with the same sequence. Remarkably, the NMR observables were successfully reproduced in a 2-μs MD trajectory of the nucleosome. This is an important step toward resolving an apparent inconsistency where prior simulations were generally at odds with experimental evidence on conformational dynamics of histone tails. Our findings indicate that histone H4 tails engage in a fuzzy interaction with nucleosomal DNA, underpinned by a variable pattern of short-lived salt bridges and hydrogen bonds, which persists at low ionic strength (0-100 mM NaCl).

Histone H4 Tails in Nucleosomes: a Fuzzy Interaction with DNA

AbstractThe interaction of positively charged N‐terminal histone tails with nucleosomal DNA plays an important role in chromatin assembly and regulation, modulating their susceptibility to post‐translational modifications and recognition by chromatin‐binding proteins. Here, we report residue‐specific 15N NMR relaxation rates for histone H4 tails in reconstituted nucleosomes. These data indicate that H4 tails are strongly dynamically disordered, albeit with reduced conformational flexibility compared to a free peptide with the same sequence. Remarkably, the NMR observables were successfully reproduced in a 2‐μs MD trajectory of the nucleosome. This is an important step toward resolving an apparent inconsistency where prior simulations were generally at odds with experimental evidence on conformational dynamics of histone tails. Our findings indicate that histone H4 tails engage in a fuzzy interaction with nucleosomal DNA, underpinned by a variable pattern of short‐lived salt bridges and hydrogen bonds, which persists at low ionic strength (0–100 mM NaCl).

Examining the presence of ocean literacy principles in Greek primary school textbooks

This study aims to add to the mapping of the presence of ocean sciences issues in national curricula and textbooks worldwide, investigating the inclusion of ocean literacy principles and their fundamental concepts in Greek primary science textbooks according to the Ocean Literacy Framework. Content analysis was implemented in both textual and pictorial material. The textbook analysis revealed that although all Ocean Literacy Principles are presented to some extent in the textbooks under study, most of their supporting fundamental concepts are absent for most of the principles. Only principles 1 and 6 are well represented, while principles 4 and 7 show the weakest appearance. The alignment of the principles and concepts in the textbooks with the Scope and Sequence of the Ocean Literacy Framework showed an apparent inconsistency, revealing that they are partially represented and superficially introduced. The implications of this study add to this mapping and aim to help curriculum designers and marine educators worldwide to cooperate for the inclusion of ocean literacy topics into the curricula which will potentially lead to students’ improved knowledge about the marine environment and the enhancement of their ocean literacy and responsible environmental behavior concerning ocean conservation.

Unravelling surface and subsurface carbon sinks within the early Martian crust

Understanding the climate history of Mars, one of our closest planetary neighbours, has important implications for understanding the environmental evolution of Earth and other rocky planets in general. The widespread recognition of an extensive sedimentary record modified, at least in part, by liquid water holds much promise to provide evidence about Mars' past. However, unravelling the pressure and compositional history of Mars' Noachian atmosphere has remained problematic. Based on expected outgassing behaviour, observed atmospheric isotope ratios, and climate models, carbon dioxide is widely considered a main constituent of the early Martian atmosphere. If this was indeed the case, it is surprising that carbonate minerals, the expected sinks for this carbon, are only abundant in a few isolated localities across the Martian surface. Three broad possibilities may account for this apparent inconsistency: (1) carbonates formed under pCO2 higher than present but were buried, or subsequently destroyed; (2) Noachian atmospheric pCO2 was significantly lower than current estimates; or (3) low-temperature carbonate formation was kinetically controlled under the aqueous conditions that characterised much of the early Martian surface. While orbital spectroscopic investigations have yielded an increasing inventory of isolated carbonate-bearing deposits, their relative rarity at the near-surface has prompted suggestions that the Noachian atmosphere was commonly characterised by low pCO2. Without a more complete investigation of the carbonate-forming processes occurring within the ancient crust, no hypothesis can be tested robustly. Here, we examine the controls on Fe(II)-carbonate precipitation in low-temperature, anoxic water-rock systems as a function of pCO2. In experiments lasting up to 85 days, no measurable Fe(II)-carbonate precipitation occurred within the limits of analytical detection, despite significant and sustained supersaturation with respect to siderite. These observations are quantitatively consistent with recent investigations highlighting a significant supersaturation threshold for Fe(II)-carbonate nucleation. Reaction path models that incorporate these constraints indicate that Fe(II)-carbonate supersaturation thresholds would have been commonly met in low water:rock ratio systems isolated from the Noachian atmosphere as opposed to high water:rock ratio, open-systems exposed at the near surface. These results suggest the rarity of carbonates exposed at or near the surface of Mars may be controlled, at least in part, by a lack of deep crustal exposures and lack of the geochemical conditions conducive to carbonate formation, rather than insufficient atmospheric pCO2. Such geochemical constraints are in turn consistent with available orbital data indicating that carbonates may be more abundant within the deep crust, potentially representing a significant subsurface carbon sink.

Богоявление в Мамре и гостеприимство Авраама в Великом каноне: идентификация путников и истоки экзегезы

This report examines the origins of the exegesis in the Great Penitential Canon of the episode of Abraham’s mysterious encounter with three travelers at Mamre (Gen. 18:1-11). The saintly author of the Canon interprets them in the troparion of Ode 3 as angels, while in his Canon for the Presentation of the Lord – as God the Word with two angels. This apparent inconsistency is probably connected with a possible imitation of Heb. 13:2 (“be not forgetful to entertain strangers”) in the first Canon. The idea of the Patriarch’s hospitality as an example of entertaining strangers is also found in the homilies on the book of Genesis by St. John Chrysostom. Saint Andrew, as it seems, creatively reworked them, as is apparent from his use of words that are cognate with ἡ φιλοξενία and τό θήρημα, his reference to Heb. 13:2, and the causal link between the meeting of Abraham and the promise of the birth of a child.

The use of whereas and whereas-clauses in Swift's The Drapier's Letters

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was actively involved in the political affairs of the Ireland of his life-time. Even though he belonged to the higher social classes, namely, the Anglo-Irish ruling minority, he sought to make the whole of the Irish population aware of their economic and political conditions, so that his “Countrymen” or “Fellow-Servants” (as he addressed the whole of the Irish) may pursue to improve their situation. In order to become closer to his intended audience, he decided to use several personae or fictional characters. One of these was the drapier, as the identity chosen in most of the series of seven Letters known as The Drapier’s Letters (1724). Although he adopted many colloquial expressions and the register that a shop-keeper would employ, he was fully aware of the legal implications both of the whole issue at large and also of the particular proposals that he was making. This apparent inconsistency was meant to provide the Irish with the tools which he found necessary for them in their struggle to attain better political and economic conditions. It may be hypothesized that one of the aspects illustrating Swift’s use of both colloquial language and the legal register is the connector whereas: on the one hand, as a discourse marker with its everyday meanings; on the other hand, with legal senses. The present paper seeks to explore and systematise these uses.

Editorial: Conciliar Trinitarianism

Much recent work in analytic theology concerned with Trinitarian doctrine has been limited both by: (1) a narrow focus on the apparent inconsistency of the doctrine and (2) little regard for the historical context in which the doctrine developed. This special issue represents an effort to overcome these limitations in two ways. First, following Timothy Pawl’s definition of “Conciliar Christology,” we define “Conciliar Trinitarianism” as the conjunction of claims about the Trinity in the first seven Ecumenical Councils. Rather than speculative attempts at reconciling, say, sentences taken from the Athanasian Creed, or the common parlance of contemporary, Western Christians, the papers in this issue all address specifically Conciliar Trinitarianism. Second, the special issue brings together both analytic philosophers and patristics scholars in a format in which, in several cases, a scholar from one field responds to a scholar from another. We hope that this will help to jump-start some further conversations between scholars in analytic philosophy and in patristics, as we believe both fields can benefit from a deeper mutual engagement in the study of Conciliar Trinitarianism.

Cognitive Dissonance in Higher Education: Inflating Grades and Not Feeling Guilty

Although there has been growing interest in recent years in investigating the phenomena of grade inflation in higher education, little has focused on the actual psychological processes through which professors may engage in inflating grades without feeling guilty or perceiving this behavior as problematic. Social psychology has focused on the apparent inconsistency between stated attitudes and actual behavior; specifically, cognitive dissonance theory provides insights into why people may behave immorally. By outlining the role of cognitive dissonance in the grade inflation process we provide greater understanding as to how professors cope with the negative psychological arousal associated with grade inflation.