Logical Inconsistencies Research Articles

Taxation, State Formation, and Governmentality: The Historical Development of Alcohol Excise Duties in England and Wales

The use of excise taxation in contemporary Western societies is marked by the curious coexistence of the state's fiscal objective of raising revenue with often-articulated behavioral objectives relating to lowering or altering public consumption of certain commodities. This article uses findings from the first dedicated empirical study of the long-term development of various alcohol excise duties in England and Wales to explain how and why this contemporary situation, of distinct and potentially inconsistent rationalities, came to exist. Orthodox tax history tends to emphasize the importance of tax for state formation generally and/or the more specific establishment of a fiscal-military state in Britain. While important, such accounts relate principally to the fiscal dimensions of taxation and say little about any behavioral aspects. This article draws upon the original analysis of archival government sources dating from 1643 to 1914 that pertain to the excise taxation of various drinks that are today defined as alcoholic. It also involves the innovative application of the Foucauldian concept of governmentality to this history of taxation. The article demonstrates that the historical development of alcohol excise duties in England and Wales has been driven not just by the formation of a fiscal-military state, but also by the emergence of governmentality across the modern period. This original insight into tax history is used to explain the logical inconsistencies within current tax laws. Moreover, by providing the first sustained analysis of its links to taxation, the article advances the developing literature around governmentality within criminology, sociology, and sociolegal studies.

Bell’s Theorem and Instantaneous Influences at a Distance

An explicit model-example is presented to simulate Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiments without invoking instantaneous influences at a distance. The model-example, together with the interpretation of past experiments by Kwiat and coworkers, uncovers logical inconsistencies in the application of Bell's theorem to actual EPR experiments. The inconsistencies originate from topological-combinatorial assumptions that are both necessary and sufficient to derive all Bell-type inequalities including those of Wigner-d'Espagnat and Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt. The model-example circumvents these inconsistencies.

Critical Comments on the Paper “On the Logical Inconsistency of the Special Theory of Relativity”

Special Relativity Theory is more than 110 years aged and during this period it was elaborated until minuscule details. However, there might be some logically deduced discrepancies, which demand a scrupulous study. Nonetheless, every search for inherent contradictions is an uphill task. The author of the considered paper proposed a situation with two series of synchronized clocks. Each series is at rest in its own frame of reference, but one of them is deemed to be stationary and other is moving with a constant relative velocity. The author believes this situation to be contradictable. But really, the suitable mathematical analysis proves that it is none other than a consequence of neglecting the basic tenets of the theory.

The Rationale for Increasing the Theoretical Understanding on the Basic Concepts of Economic Theory

The issues dealing with the process of making rational decisions in the production and consumption, an accurate assessment of results and costs in the economy have been the focus of attention for many generations of economists. Assessment of results and costs in the economy are always associated with consideration of the prices for different types of resources. However, some underlying aspects of prices still require further comprehensive consideration. By now, the economic essence of such basic concepts of economic theory as money, price, and utility have not been studied thoroughly, on an appropriate theoretical level. Therefore, one cannot provide a monistic theoretical justification for many economic phenomena such economic processes as forecasting prices for economic resources, optimization of the market economy operation according to the theories of economic welfare, social (collective) choice, general equilibrium, etc. This study aims to increase the theoretical understanding of the basic concepts of economic theory, which would enable to eliminate inconsistencies and contradictions in their interpretation at the fundamental and applied levels of research. The methods of scientific abstraction, system and comparative analysis of mathematical models aiming to establish their possible inconsistency and incompatibility, a logical method, as well as economic and mathematical modeling were used as a methodological basis of the research. Upon conducting a comparative analysis of economic and mathematical models that describe the foundations of the economy, we identified their logical inconsistency and discrepancies with the underlying nature of prices, money and utility. Having analyzed utility functions and the “function of social or aggregated utility†, we proved the need for changing the traditional form of these functions, the need to introduce new phenomena, both individual utility functions and social utility functions that consider the system (emergent) characteristics of the economy. The authors propose considering the system (emergent) characteristics of the economy as: the matrix structure of the economy and the limited cyclic-temporal potential of its lifespan. We believe that the focus on the system (emergent) content characteristic of the nature of prices will allow a more accurate prediction and regulation of their future dynamics, and this will also enable to overcome one of the main contradictions of economic theory between the theoretical basis of consumer choices that are made according to utility values and the practical basis of these choices which are always made according to cost parameters.

Evaluationwise strategy-proofness

We consider manipulation of collective decision making rules in a framework where voters not only rank candidates but also evaluate them as “acceptable” or “unacceptable”. In this richer informational setting, we adopt a new notion of strategy-proofness, called evaluationwise strategy-proofness, where incentives of manipulation exist if and only if a voter can replace an outcome which he finds unacceptable with an acceptable one. Evaluationwise strategy-proofness is weaker than strategy-proofness. However, we establish the prevalence of a logical incompatibility between evaluationwise strategy-proofness, anonymity and efficiency. On the other hand, we show possibility results when either anonymity or efficiency is weakened.

Some Issues Relating to the Application of Hong Kong’s CRS Rules

In this article, the author contrasts terminology used in the OECD Common Reporting Standard and the Hong Kong rules to adopt it, which are set out in amendments to the Inland Revenue Ordinance in 2016 and 2017. The article discusses the inconsistencies in logic in the Hong Kong terminology. The author also compares the legislative practices of other offshore finance centres on the use of the same terminology, and advocates legislative amendment to rectify the discrepancies.

Some Problems of Asset Income Conversion in Means-test Method

우리나라의 사회보장제도에서는 지원 대상을 선정하기 위한 소득-자산 조사의 방법으로 자산을 소득으로 환산하여 소득에 합산하는 방식이 매우 광범위하게 활용되고 있다. 흔히 소득인정액 방식이라고 지칭되는 이 방식은 지나치게 복잡하여 잠재적 대상자들로 하여금 제도에 대한 접근을 제약할 우려가 있고, 이중 기준선 방식과 비교할 때 효율성의 손실을 초래한다. 주거급여 제도에서는 주거자산에 대한 해석에서 제도 내 모순을 초래하기도 한다. 이러한 문제점을 해소하면서도 자산의 소득환산이 갖는 긍정적 측면을 유지하려면 소득과 자산의 이중 기준선 방식을 적용하되 소득구간별로 자산기준을 차등화하거나 수급연차별로 자산기준을 차등화하는 방안을 고려할 필요가 있다. 아울러 주거용 자산에 대해서는 훨씬 높은 자산기준을 적용하는 것이 바람직하다(JEL분류: H2, H5, I3).The aim of this research is to suggest how to reform the asset test asset limits and how to apply asset test criteria in Korea. The main feature of asset test in Korean Social Security System is that most of benefits with asset test use asset-income conversion method. Because the current asset-income conversion system has some inefficiency problem and logical inconsistency, and play almost no practical role, it needs to be replaced with modified dual (income and asset) cut-off system. Setting different asset limits according to income zone or beneficiary years, for example, could be an alternative for conversion rule. Classification among asset type should be more simplified. But even in that case, distinction between housing and non-housing asset is still necessary and limit of housing asset should be increased.

The language deficit: a comparison of the critical thinking skills of Asian students in first and second language contexts

With a growing number of Asian students attending Western universities, the difficulties they seem to face in adapting to a new academic environment has provoked much discussion amongst educators, particularly with regard to the critical thinking (CT) skills. Many educators have claimed that, as a result of their cultural and educational backgrounds, Asian students lack the CT skills essential for academic tasks such as essay writing and debates. Other researchers, however, have argued this is due simply to the disadvantages of carrying out studies in a foreign language. In fact, there have been surprisingly few studies directly comparing Asian students’ CT skills in their first compared to their second languages. Those that have been done have tended to employ standardised CT tests which, in their discrete, short-answer format, do not accurately reflect the tasks students carry out in university courses. In this study, therefore, two classes of Japanese university students, all with TOEFL scores high enough to enter Western universities, were asked to carry out an oral and written debate, one class in Japanese and the other in English. Evaluations of their performances by independent raters revealed stark differences between the two classes in their ability to construct and deconstruct arguments, find logical inconsistencies and express themselves clearly and persuasively.

Logical inconsistencies in time trade-off valuation of EQ-5D-5L health states: Whose fault is it?

IntroductionInconsistency in the time trade-off (TTO) task in EQ-5D-5L occurs when a respondent gives a higher value to a logically worse health state, the occurrence of inconsistency compromises the quality of the data. It is not yet clear which factors are associated with individual level inconsistency. Relating inconsistency to the characteristics of the respondent, interviewer, and the interview process could be helpful in understanding the causes of inconsistency. The objective of this paper is to discover the factors associated with individual level inconsistencies.MethodsTwenty interviewers interviewed 1,296 respondents and each respondent valued 10 health states using the EQ-VT platform in 5 cities in China. At the respondent level, inconsistency was identified in terms of severity and quantity and related to the respondent’s background characteristics, the time and iterations spent on the wheelchair example task, and the formal TTO tasks, using multilevel multinomial regression analyses. Interviewers’ impact on inconsistencies was analyzed using single level multinomial regression analyses.ResultsIn the full dataset, slight inconsistency was more related to the interview process (Time spent on TTO task: RRR = 1.246 with 95%CI: 1.076,1.441; time spent on Wheelchair example: RRR = 0.815 with 95%CI:0.699,0.952) while severe inconsistency was more related to respondent’s gender (Gender: RRR = 2.347 with 95%CI:1.429,3.855). One Interviewer (Interviewer 7: RRR = 7.335 with 95%CI:1.908,28.195) and interviewer’s experience (Sequence: RRR = 0.511 with 95%CI:0.385,0.678) in general showed strong influence over inconsistency in the TTO task.ConclusionIn conclusion, logical inconsistency in the valuation of EQ-5D-5L health states is associated not only with respondents’ characteristics but also with interviewers’ performance and the interview process. The role of interviewers and the importance of interviewer training may be more crucial than hitherto believed. This finding could be generalizable to other interviewer-administered health-state valuation study.

TOPOLOGICAL RELATIONS-BASED DETECTION OF SPATIAL INCONSISTENCY IN GLOBELAND30

Abstract. Land cover is one of the fundamental data sets on environment assessment, land management and biodiversity protection, etc. Hence, data quality control of land cover is extremely critical for geospatial analysis and decision making. Due to the similar remote-sensing reflectance for some land cover types, omission and commission errors occurred in preliminary classification could result to spatial inconsistency between land cover types. In the progress of post-classification, this error checking mainly depends on manual labour to assure data quality, by which it is time-consuming and labour intensive. So a method required for automatic detection in post-classification is still an open issue. From logical inconsistency point of view, an inconsistency detection method is designed. This method consist of a grids extended 4-intersection model (GE4IM) for topological representation in single-valued space, by which three different kinds of topological relations including disjoint, touch, contain or contained-by are described, and an algorithm of region overlay for the computation of spatial inconsistency. The rules are derived from universal law in nature between water body and wetland, cultivated land and artificial surface. Through experiment conducted in Shandong Linqu County, data inconsistency can be pointed out within 6 minutes through calculation of topological inconsistency between cultivated land and artificial surface, water body and wetland. The efficiency evaluation of the presented algorithm is demonstrated by Google Earth images. Through comparative analysis, the algorithm is proved to be promising for inconsistency detection in land cover data.

Using a Discrete-Choice Experiment Involving Cost to Value a Classification System Measuring the Quality-of-Life Impact of Self-Management for Diabetes

ObjectivesTo describe the use of a novel approach in health valuation of a discrete-choice experiment (DCE) including a cost attribute to value a recently developed classification system for measuring the quality-of-life impact (both health and treatment experience) of self-management for diabetes. MethodsA large online survey was conducted using DCE with cost on UK respondents from the general population (n = 1497) and individuals with diabetes (n = 405). The data were modeled using a conditional logit model with robust standard errors. The marginal rate of substitution was used to generate willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for every state defined by the classification system. Robustness of results was assessed by including interaction effects for household income. ResultsThere were some logical inconsistencies and insignificant coefficients for the milder levels of some attributes. There were some differences in the rank ordering of different attributes for the general population and diabetic patients. The WTP to avoid the most severe state was £1118.53 per month for the general population and £2356.02 per month for the diabetic patient population. The results were largely robust. ConclusionsHealth and self-management can be valued in a single classification system using DCE with cost. The marginal rate of substitution for key attributes can be used to inform cost-benefit analysis of self-management interventions in diabetes using results from clinical studies in which this new classification system has been applied. The method shows promise, but found large WTP estimates exceeding the cost levels used in the survey.

Contextuality, Pigeonholes, Cheshire Cats, Mean Kings, and Weak Values

The Kochen–Specker (KS) theorem shows that noncontextual hidden variable models of reality that allow random choice are inconsistent with quantum mechanics. Such noncontextual models predict certain outcomes for specific experiments that are not observed in practice, and this is how the theorem is proved. A realist hidden-variable model suggested by the Aharonov–Bergmann–Lebowitz reformulation of quantum mechanics is introduced to explain why those outcomes are never observed. Just as the KS theorem requires them due to noncontextuality, this model requires independent truth-value assignments for each observable, but now allows that the entire set of assignments depends on both the pre-selected and post-selected quantum states in a time-symmetric manner. Using sets that prove the KS theorem, along with pre- and post-selected states, we find that particular projectors within the set cannot be assigned logically consistent truth-values, and furthermore that the weak values of these projectors have a corresponding signature. The contextual behavior has effectively been confined to a particular context by the pre- and post-selection. This inconsistency is never observed because it is never in the pre-selected or post-selected quantum state, but its signature can be experimentally revealed through weak measurements. We also show that for specific cases where the logical inconsistency is in a ‘classical basis,’ this gives rise to the quantum pigeonhole effect. As a related issue, we show using weak values that any KS set can be used to ensure that the Mean King always wins the game.

DE-CENTERING CHINESE HISTORY

What would Chinese history look like if we were to examine it from the perspective of the peoples living along China's periphery? How might a non-Chinese perspective challenge the dominant themes in Chinese historiography, themes which represent Chinese history as a linear narrative arising from the Central Plain and its original inhabitants, the Han Chinese? If, for example, we rely solely on Chinese sources to tell us about Chinese-Jurchen/Manchu relations during the first half of the seventeenth century, we will have privileged Chinese sources, affirmed the authority of the Chinese perspective, and suppressed voices that might offer an alternative perspective. Only an aggressive deconstruction of such “authoritative” Chinese texts can expose biases and logical inconsistencies, unpack cultural tensions that demand more rigorous scrutiny, and tease out into the open silenced voices from spaces buried deep in the text. Those historians who engage in such a methodological approach, however, run the risk of being accused of applying fanciful postmodernist conjecture or presentist interpretations to the past. This is why the recent (since the 1980s) addition of Manchu language sources to our examination of Qing history (1636–1912) has had such a seismic impact on the field.

The paradigm that dare not speak its name: Canadian Foreign Policy’s uneasy relationship with realist IR theory

This article examines the place that “realism” occupies in the debates over International Relations theory and Canadian Foreign Policy. Argued here is the claim that realism is far from being a dominant paradigm in the Canadian academy, which in itself is hardly a surprising finding. However, realism’s relative absence from the scholarship on Canadian Foreign Policy disguises a more important finding: there has been a fairly longstanding Canadian approach to foreign policy analysis bearing many of the hallmarks of structural-realist formulations, an approach that puts great emphasis on Canada’s “relative capability” as a “middle power” in the international system. Although few in the country would embrace the realist label explicitly, many have heeded the structural-realist injunction that foreign policy analysis should start with an assessment of the country’s relative standing in the international pecking order. In the Canadian case, this empirical emphasis on relative capability has become suffused with normative significance of a decidedly “non-realist” kidney, summed up in the disputed concept “middlepowermanship.” The article concludes that, to the extent realism is to continue to be a presence in Canadian Foreign Policy scholarship, it will likely be the non-structural variant known today as “neoclassical realism,” in no small measure due to the logical inconsistencies of the earlier, structuralist, paradigm.

Valuing EQ-5D-5L health states ‘in context’ using a discrete choice experiment

In health state valuation studies, health states are typically presented as a series of sentences, each describing a health dimension and severity 'level'. Differences in the severity levels can be subtle, and confusion about which is 'worse' can lead to logically inconsistent valuation data. A solution could be to mimic the way patients self-report health, where the ordinal structure of levels is clear. We develop and test the feasibility of presenting EQ-5D-5L health states in the 'context' of the entire EQ-5D-5L descriptive system. An online two-arm discrete choice experiment was conducted in the UK (n=993). Respondents were randomly allocated to a control (standard presentation) or 'context' arm. Each respondent completed 16 paired comparison tasks and feedback questions about the tasks. Differences across arms were assessed using regression analyses. Presenting health states 'in context' can significantly reduce the selection of logically dominated health states, particularly for labels 'severe' and 'extreme' (χ2=46.02, p<0.001). Preferences differ significantly between arms (likelihood ratio statistic=42.00, p<0.05). Comparing conditional logit modeling results, coefficients are ordered as expected for both arms, but the magnitude of decrements between levels is larger for the context arm. Health state presentation is a key consideration in the design of valuation studies. Presenting health states 'in context' affects valuation data and reduces logical inconsistencies. Our results could have implications for other valuation tasks such as time trade-off, and for the valuation of other preference-based measures.

Integrated testing strategies can be optimal for chemical risk classification

There is an urgent need to refine strategies for testing the safety of chemical compounds. This need arises both from the financial and ethical costs of animal tests, but also from the opportunities presented by new in-vitro and in-silico alternatives. Here we explore the mathematical theory underpinning the formulation of optimal testing strategies in toxicology. We show how the costs and imprecisions of the various tests, and the variability in exposures and responses of individuals, can be assembled rationally to form a Markov Decision Problem. We compute the corresponding optimal policies using well developed theory based on Dynamic Programming, thereby identifying and overcoming some methodological and logical inconsistencies which may exist in the current toxicological testing. By illustrating our methods for two simple but readily generalisable examples we show how so-called integrated testing strategies, where information of different precisions from different sources is combined and where different initial test outcomes lead to different sets of future tests, can arise naturally as optimal policies.

Diagnostic of students' misconceptions using the Biological Concepts Instrument (BCI): A method for conducting an educational needs assessment.

Concept inventories, constructed based on an analysis of students’ thinking and their explanations of scientific situations, serve as diagnostics for identifying misconceptions and logical inconsistencies and provide data that can help direct curricular reforms. In the current project, we distributed the Biological Concepts Instrument (BCI) to 17-18-year-old students attending the highest track of the Swiss school system (Gymnasium). Students’ performances on many questions related to evolution, genetics, molecular properties and functions were diverse. Important common misunderstandings were identified in the areas of evolutionary processes, molecular properties and an appreciation of stochastic processes in biological systems. Our observations provide further evidence that the BCI is efficient in identifying specific areas where targeted instruction is required. Based on these observations we have initiated changes at several levels to reconsider how biological systems are presented to university biology studies with the goal of improving student’s foundational understanding.

Ethics in rehearsal

In this essay we explore a rather spare kind of meeting: a conversation between three people with minimal facilitating equipment. The stakes are high because these are meetings in which the barrister in an asylum or immigration case first meets with a client who is at risk of deportation. We focus on two dimensions of these encounters. First, we identify the aesthetic that configures and animates most asylum cases: the aesthetic of inconsistency. The meetings we observed were all about inconsistency; about working out how to respond to actual and anticipated challenges to the coherence of a refugee or migrant's personal narrative. The logic of inconsistency is so persistent and so corrosive that the exercise of anticipation – ‘rehearsal’ – is essentially open‐ended. This leads to the second dimension of our meetings. Barristers who work in this area of law develop a particular style or ethos, which allows them to accompany vulnerable clients through the rehearsal and also to make sense of their own involvement in the machinery of deportation. In these two aspects we find the basic choreographic principles of our meetings: the articulations which shape their material and affective ecology, and which inform the barrister's interpretation and performance of his or her professional role.

Widerspruch als Erzählprinzip in der Vormoderne?

Abstract In premodern narratives contradictions are omnipresent – conflicting concepts, logical inconsistencies, acts of objection. In a narratological perspective ›contradiction‹ – conflicts of incompatible knowledges and narrative patterns; inconsistencies in or between speech (by narrator or characters) and action; contradictory or inconsistent information and motivation – is apt to subvert, complicate, or enrich the textual production of meaning. The project ›Contradiction as a Narrative Principle in Premodern Narrative‹ (University of Bremen) explores different types of contradictions in medieval epic and romance.

Moving Away from High-Level Theories: A Market-Driven Analysis of FRAND

There is a large strand of legal and economic literature suggesting the FRAND regime is broken and that standardization is at risk given “hold-up and “royalty stacking” problems. A variety of proposals have been made to address these alleged problems, most of which seeking to decrease the bargaining power of essential patent holders to the benefit of standard implementers. The hold up and royalty stacking conjectures have been questioned by a number of authors essentially on the ground that these theories contained logical inconsistencies, but also that they were not based on sufficient empirical support to warrant policy reforms. Against this background, this paper explains why hold up and royalty stacking only occur in rare circumstances given the private solutions that are available to standard implementers to avoid paying license fees that are not FRAND or that would aggregate to a level that would render the implementation of the standard more difficult or even impossible. Given the dearth of empirical evidence over hold up and royalty stacking, this paper also looks at the evolution of the mobile communication sector in the past decade to see whether the alleged adverse consequences (in terms of harm to standard implementation, innovation and investment and the continuity of the standardization process) that would be created by hold up and royalty stacking can actually be observed. The available data suggests that the mobile communication device markets are healthy despite the fact that these markets have been said to be harmed by regular SEP-related abuses. Although it could be argued that these markets would be even healthier “but for” SEP abuses, the available data should give pause to those claiming that significant reforms should be made to the FRAND regime. In fact, the high degree of competition in the above markets and the presence of highly successful entrants that do not have a track record in the development of mobile communication technologies strongly suggest that the FRAND regime has largely worked in that it has stimulated the broad licensing of SEPs while maintaining a fair balance between the interests of SEP holders and standard implementers.