Paradoxical State Research Articles

The Status of Palestinians in Jordan and the Anomaly of Holding a Jordanian Passport

The shared history of Palestinians and Jordanians has been an amalgamation of triumphs and failures, peace and violence. Forces both internal and external, have contributed to keep the two groups in a paradoxical state somewhere between dependence and resentment. Currently, and since 1988 when Jordan disengaged from the West Bank, these tensions have resulted in the disenfranchisement of many of Jordan’s citizens who are of Palestinian origin. In this paper I explore both the harsh new realities that face those Palestinians who have been stripped of their Jordanian citizenship, as well as the tumultuous history between Palestinians and Jordanians that has led to the current state of affairs between them. On the practical level this paper attempts to explain the anomaly-a counterintuitive result whereby the holders of a National Passport without a national number on it have no rights compared to the holder of a mere Jordanian Identity Card, which includes a national number. As this paper will highlight, this seemingly minute distinction between the two documents allows for significant differences in the application of basic legal rights between the holders of these two documents and for the violation of certain basic legal rights for one of them.

Paradoxical State Anxiety and Working Memory in a Patient with Acute Stroke

In view of the negative impact of anxiety on working memory, we induced anxiety in 26 patients with acute stroke and 33 healthy controls, and studied how the anxiety affected their emotional reactivity and how the reactivity affected their verbal and visuospatial working memory. We compared the overall findings with those in 1 of our patients (C.B.) who had presented with an abnormally high level of state anxiety. We gave verbal and visuospatial 1-back tasks under both neutral and anxiogenic conditions, and we compared participants' working memory scores, self-reported levels of state anxiety, and electrodermal activity. When comparing performance in the neutral condition, the control and patient groups exhibited disrupted verbal working memory, which was associated with greater electrodermal activity and higher state anxiety during the anxiogenic condition. Although patient C.B. also had heightened electrodermal activity during the anxiogenic condition, she experienced a significant reduction in her state anxiety. Her verbal working memory was better during the anxiogenic than the neutral condition. Because of the phonological (subvocal speech) nature of verbal working memory, a higher level of anxious apprehension could explain the increase in state anxiety and the corresponding disruption of verbal working memory in our patient and control groups during the anxiogenic condition. C.B.'s lower state anxiety and selective improvement in verbal working memory during the anxiogenic condition suggest that she felt less anxious apprehension.

The green paradox of the economics of exhaustible resources

The green paradox states that an increasing tax on emissions of carbon dioxide, consonant with the expected increase in their marginal damages, may induce oil producers to shift their production toward the present and thereby to exacerbate the problem of climatic change. The model is based on Hotelling models of resource use that do not take the natural and technical features of oil production into account. Natural features include the decline of production through time according to a decline curve. Technical features include the requirement to sink investment in productive capacity. A model of a profit-maximizing firm indicates that, if these features are taken into account, the prediction of the green paradox is unlikely.

The Easterlin Paradox: An Interpretation

The paradox of happiness or the Easterlin paradox (Easterlin, 74) states there is no time-series relationship between happiness and income. The aim of this paper is to try to give a different interpretation of this paradox by resorting to the philosophical view of the ancient Greeks, and in particular to the strong conflict between the Sophists and Plato on the nature of the asset. According to the Sophists pleasure coincides with the good because, as stated Protagoras, Man is the measure of all things. Plato points out such a distinction between pleasure and the good that will set in the history of Western thought, at least until the affirmation of Utilitarianism, which will indirectly draw inspiration itself from the sophist school. Plato's Gorgias contains a positive, detailed analysis of the problem. Its conclusion is that the good is different from pleasure, and who associates it with pleasure lies a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. Another Greek myth, the story of Prometheus, just tells us how men have resorted to the techne, or technology, in order to overcome its limits and to try to remove that sense of dissatisfaction. If it is true, it is dissatisfaction or unhappiness that force the man to work, to be efficient and create income; thus the causal link between happiness and income turns upside down as it is exactly dissatisfaction and unhappiness to generate income. The existing differences between the two schools of thought originate two antithetical views of the world. The first enhances individualism and techne, while the second highlights sociability, ethics and politics. The empirical evidence found by Easterlin states the inability of the economic growth and/or of the technical progress of making man happy. That is the reason why, in the technological society, it is named a paradox.

A video mnemonic: Consciousness research through creative practice

Abstract This article describes an artwork in progress; a digital video of synchronized visual patterns based in part on rhythmic practices that are said to reliably lead to a shifted state of consciousness. The artwork is being developed to further understand the correlation of rhythm and consciousness. The investigation is based on a comparative study of the following practices: ‘The Art of Memory’ and Raymon Llull’s thirteenth-century diagrammatic mnemonics, the Lucid Dreaming exercises developed at Stanford University and the African Yoruba rhythms of ritualized possession. Throughout history, states of extreme lucidity, whether described as ‘ah-ha’ moments or life-transforming epiphanies, have been described with striking consistently and with such frequency that, rather than extraordinary, they seem to be fundamental to the human condition. The paradoxical state of lucid dreaming has been scientifically identified at Stanford University as a state of wakeful awareness that occurs during REM sleep, while dreaming. We might anticipate in the near future, the identification of a wakeful state of lucidity, a state as distinct from normal wakeful awareness as the state of dreaming. Those who have experienced altered states of consciousness can lend unique perspective and insight into the nature of consciousness. Analysis of practices that lead to such states add further insight. From running, to rhythmic breathing, to the circular movement of pilgrims at Mecca, to circular mosh pits, rhythmic activity is prevalent among practices that are said to lead to a shifted state of consciousness. The research suggests that in addition to rhythm itself, the relationship between rhythms is a significant factor corresponding to shifted states of consciousness. The digital video artwork discussed in this article might be thought of as a visualization of such rhythmic sequencing, and its development a creative method of inquiry.

Rhythmic alternating patterns of brain activity distinguish rapid eye movement sleep from other states of consciousness.

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep constitutes a distinct "third state" of consciousness, during which levels of brain activity are commensurate with wakefulness, but conscious awareness is radically transformed. To characterize the temporal and spatial features of this paradoxical state, we examined functional interactions between brain regions using fMRI resting-state connectivity methods. Supporting the view that the functional integrity of the default mode network (DMN) reflects "level of consciousness," we observed functional uncoupling of the DMN during deep sleep and recoupling during REM sleep (similar to wakefulness). However, unlike either deep sleep or wakefulness, REM was characterized by a more widespread, temporally dynamic interaction between two major brain systems: unimodal sensorimotor areas and the higher-order association cortices (including the DMN), which normally regulate their activity. During REM, these two systems become anticorrelated and fluctuate rhythmically, in reciprocally alternating multisecond epochs with a frequency ranging from 0.1 to 0.01 Hz. This unique spatiotemporal pattern suggests a model for REM sleep that may be consistent with its role in dream formation and memory consolidation.

Cumulative Carbon Emissions and the Green Paradox

The green paradox states that a gradually more ambitious climate policy such as a renewables subsidy or an anticipated carbon tax induces fossil fuel owners to extract more rapidly and accelerate global warming. However, if extraction becomes more costly as reserves are depleted, such policies also shorten the fossil fuel era, induce more fossil fuel to be left in the earth, and thus curb cumulative carbon emissions. These consequences are relevant, as global warming depends primarily on cumulative emissions. There is no green paradox for a specific carbon tax that rises at less than the market rate of interest. Because this is the case for the growth of the optimal carbon tax, the green paradox is a temporary second-best phenomenon. There is also a green paradox if there is a chance of a breakthrough in renewables technology occurring at some random future date. However, there will also be less investment in opening up fossil fuel deposits, and thus cumulative carbon emission will be curbed.

Catholic anthropologism in the context of socio-cultural realities of Ukraine

Socio-cultural realities of the beginning of the XXI century predetermine the need for another return to the consideration of the phenomenon of man. The world created by the world of powerful technologies, which was supposed to improve and facilitate its life, did not realize the expected, but deep and comprehensive influence on its spirituality, world outlook, on the main direction of activity and creativity. Philosophers, theologians and religious leaders pay attention to the paradoxical state of modern anthropocentric society, which, with the center of a person, begins to act against it. Modern technologies open up diverse opportunities for the development of intellectual potential, and at the same time simplify the manipulation of consciousness, promote individualization of society and the growth of loneliness, undermine the notion of human uniqueness and uniqueness, depreciate the value of human life and transform people into an element of commodity relations. Understanding a person by the modern Catholic Church is extremely relevant not only for religious studies, but also for the modern Ukrainian society as a whole, as the socio-cultural situation in the country undergoes a profound anthropological crisis.

A new version of Edgeworth's taxation paradox

Edgeworth’s taxation paradox states that a unit tax can decrease the market price of a good. This paper presents a new version of the paradox in which a tax reduces price — and increases industry output — because it attracts additional entry into the market. It is particularly striking that the demand conditions under which cost pass-through exceeds 100% for a …xed number of …rms are also those for which passthrough can turn negative with endogenous entry. A novel application to the environment shows that a Pigouvian emissions tax can lead to an increase in industry emissions. A basic principle of environmental policy therefore fails under the conditions of the paradox.

Operational risk assessments by supply chain professionals: Process and performance

We consider the “process-performance paradox” in the assessment of operational risks by professionals in the field of operations and supply chain management (OSCM). The paradox states that although professionals with more expertise tend to decide in different ways, they often do not make better assessments than those with less expertise. We first replicate that this paradox exists in a context of the assessment of operational supply risks, and then show how the paradox can be understood as the consequence of process characteristics mediating the relation between expertise and assessment performance.Using an experimental setup, we had 234 OSCM-professionals assess the operational risk in two series of different business cases, and measured several characteristics of their decision-making process. The strength of our approach lies in the fact that the business cases were real-life cases from our database of purchasing transactions in the area of IT-purchasing. This allows a comparison of the risk assessments of the professionals with the actual supply risk as was known from the survey database. Our findings show that, contrary to what is often assumed, the OSCM-professionals with more expertise do not use less information while assessing, nor are they faster. Instead, our results show that specialized expertise goes with increased certainty about the assessments, and general expertise goes with an increased use of intuitive judgment. However, the net effects of these expertise characteristics on assessment performance are zero. In the case of specialized expertise this is because specialized expertise is itself negatively related to performance. In the case of general expertise this is because the net effects of the use of intuition on performance are zero.

Increased insulin receptor substrate 2 expression is associated with steatohepatitis and altered lipid metabolism in obese subjects

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether dysregulation of molecules involved in FOXO1-dependent insulin signaling in the liver is associated with de novo lipogenesis (DNL) and altered lipid metabolism in severely obese subjects. Observational retrospective study. We considered 71 obese subjects (age 20-68 years; body mass index (BMI)>40 kg m(-2) or BMI>35 kg m(-2) in the presence of metabolic complications) classified into three groups according to liver histology: normal liver (n=12), simple steatosis (n=27) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH; n=32). Key nodes in insulin signaling and gene expression of molecules implicated in insulin-dependent glucoregulatory pathway and DNL were evaluated by quantitative real-time PCR and western blotting. Patients with steatosis had decreased phosphorylation of the insulin kinase AKT1, mediating insulin receptor signaling, and the transcription factor FOXO1, which was therefore more active mediating insulin resistance at transcriptional level. Despite no changes in insulin receptor substrate (IRS)1 mRNA levels, the mRNA and protein levels of the FOXO1 target IRS2 increased progressively with the severity of steatosis from normal liver to NASH. IRS2 expression was correlated with the severity of steatosis, dyslipidemia and liver damage. In patients with NASH, upregulation of IRS2 was associated with preserved activation of AKT2, mediating the stimulating effect of insulin on DNL, and overexpression of its target sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1c (SREBP1c), inducing DNL at transcriptional level. Both FOXO1 and SREBP1c overexpression converged on upregulation of glucokinase, providing substrates for DNL, in NASH patients. Differential regulation of IRS1 and IRS2 and of their downstream effectors AKT1 and AKT2 is consistent with upregulation of FOXO1 and may justify the paradoxical state of insulin resistance relative to the glucoregulatory pathway and augmented insulin sensitivity of the liporegulatory pathway typical of steatosis and the metabolic syndrome in obese patients.

The Black Atlantic Revisited, The Body Reconsidered: On Lingering, Liminality, Lies, and Disability

Sovereignty is a myth, the law is incoherent, and freedom is a lie—these are the truths of slavery and emancipation. The study of the black Atlantic reckons with these tenets, revealing the bleak state of things not only as they were then but also as they are now. Whether explicitly, the critics studied in this essay write from within frameworks of human states of exception in their discussions of literature, law, and visual culture. Their titles vivify the liminal and at times paradoxical states of being, which generations descending from the black Atlantic inhabit: of lingering, being neither/nor, and acquiring a horrible gift. Influencing much of the discourse around human, legal, and cultural conditions of indistinction is the work of Giorgio Agamben. The process of conceptualizing such indistinct states of being, particularly in light of the power structures producing them, can conjure a craving for discourses of subjectivity that are more promising, or, frankly, less depressing—a desire to seek forms of black resistance and agency within such liminal subjectivities that counter apparatuses of white power circulating during slavery and still today. As hope seems to run almost cyclically through black Atlantic studies, these books suggest that we are currently in one of the more pessimistic phases. We seem to want—as Marcus Wood insists we should—“to shift [our] emphases” (356), to complicate our concentration on the limitations of white systems of rule and regulation and their renderings of black subjectivity toward modes of black expression, creativity, and activism, and their critique, negotiation, and subversion of structures of power, domination, and subjugation.

Road Safety Education: A Paradoxical State for Children in a Rural Primary School in South Africa

The study explores the response of rural primary school children to road safety education programmes. In this qualitative research project, we employed an interpretivist paradigm to investigate and understand children’s responses to road safety education in one school in the Moloto Village, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. Drawing on various participatory activities done by the child participants, as well as non-participant observation by the researchers through ‘photo voice’, the researchers posit their findings. The key finding is that the children theoretically know what to do when using the road as pedestrians but that they do not apply road safety rules as the community’s unsafe road use behaviour undermines all road safety skills the children have learnt at school. The paradox between what the literature on road safety education prescribes and what the national curriculum of South Africa promotes regarding road safety, and what the children apply in their daily lives, is apparent and noteworthy.

Hyperfiltration and effect of nitric oxide inhibition on renal and endothelial function in humans with uncomplicated type 1 diabetes mellitus

Studies of experimental diabetes mellitus (DM) suggest that increased nitric oxide (NO) bioactivity contributes to renal hyperfiltration. However, the role of NO in mediating hyperfiltration has not been fully elucidated in humans. Our aim was to examine the effect of NO synthase inhibition on renal and peripheral vascular function in normotensive subjects with uncomplicated type 1 DM. Renal function and brachial artery flow-mediated vasodilatation (FMD) were measured before and after an intravenous infusion of the NO synthase inhibitor N(G)-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester (l-NMMA) in 21 healthy control and 37 type 1 DM patients. Measurements in DM participants were made under clamped euglycemic conditions. The effect of l-NMMA on circulating and urinary NO metabolites (NO(x)) and cGMP and on urinary prostanoids was also determined. Baseline characteristics were similar in the two groups. For analysis, the DM patients were divided into those with hyperfiltration (DM-H, n = 18) and normal glomerular filtration rate (GFR) levels (DM-N, n = 19). Baseline urine NO(x) and cGMP were highest in DM-H. l-NMMA led to a decline in GFR in DM-H (152 ± 16 to 140 ± 11 ml·min(-1)·1.73 m(-2)) but not DM-N or healthy control participants. The decline in effective renal plasma flow in response to l-NMMA (806 ± 112 to 539 ± 80 ml·min(-1)·1.73 m(-2)) in DM-H was also exaggerated compared with the other groups (repeated measures ANOVA, P < 0.05), along with declines in urinary NO(x) metabolites and cGMP. Baseline FMD was lowest in DM-H compared with the other groups and did not change in response to l-NMMA. l-NMMA reduced FMD and plasma markers of NO bioactivity in the healthy control and DM-N groups. In patients with uncomplicated type 1 DM, renal hyperfiltration is associated with increased NO bioactivity in the kidney and reduced NO bioactivity in the systemic circulation, suggesting a paradoxical state of high renal and low systemic vascular NO bioactivity.

Efficient methods for selfish network design

Intuitively, Braess’s paradox states that destroying a part of a network may improve the common latency of selfish flows at Nash equilibrium. Such a paradox is a pervasive phenomenon in real-world networks. Any administrator who wants to improve equilibrium delays in selfish networks, is facing some basic questions:–Is the network paradox-ridden?–How can we delete some edges to optimize equilibrium flow delays?–How can we modify edge latencies to optimize equilibrium flow delays? Unfortunately, such questions lead to NP-hard problems in general. In this work, we impose some natural restrictions on our networks, e.g. we assume strictly increasing linear latencies. Our target is to formulate efficient algorithms for the three questions above. We manage to provide: –A polynomial-time algorithm that decides if a network is paradox-ridden, when latencies are linear and strictly increasing.–A reduction of the problem of deciding if a network with (arbitrary) linear latencies is paradox-ridden to the problem of generating all optimal basic feasible solutions of a Linear Program that describes the optimal traffic allocations to the edges with constant latency.–An algorithm for finding a subnetwork that is almost optimal wrt equilibrium latency. Our algorithm is subexponential when the number of paths is polynomial and each path is of polylogarithmic length.–A polynomial-time algorithm for the problem of finding the best subnetwork which outperforms any known approximation for the case of strictly increasing linear latencies.–A polynomial-time method that turns the optimal flow into a Nash flow by deleting the edges not used by the optimal flow, and performing minimal modifications on the latencies of the remaining ones. Our results provide a deeper understanding of the computational complexity of recognizing the most severe manifestations of Braess’s paradox, and our techniques show novel ways of using the probabilistic method and of exploiting convex separable quadratic programs.

Does the prevention paradox apply to various alcohol habits and problems among Swedish adolescents?

The prevention paradox states that a majority of alcohol-related problems in a population come from moderate drinkers because they are more numerous than heavy drinkers, although the latter have a higher individual risk of adverse outcomes. We examined the extent to which the prevention paradox applies to the relationship between alcohol consumption, heavy episodic drinking (HED) and alcohol-related problems in adolescents; an area in which studies are lacking. A total of 7288 alcohol-consuming adolescents aged 13-17 years were examined. The proportions (%) of problems related to drinking measures [the upper 10% and bottom 90% of drinkers by annual alcohol intake, and those with frequent (monthly), less frequent, and no heavy drinking episodes] were calculated. The bottom 90% of consumers by annual intake accounted for a large majority of the alcohol-related problems among boys and girls at all ages. The share of problems accounted for by monthly HEDs increased with age, from ∼10% among those aged 13 years to >50% among those aged 17 years. Attributable proportions for the top 10% alcohol consumers ranged between 22% and 37%. Our analyses suggest that the prevention paradox is valid for adolescent boys and girls aged ≥15 years and applies to a large range of alcohol-related problems of varying severity. Our results imply that not only that prevention directed at all adolescents is essential, but also that HED should be particularly noticed.

Obesity and energy balance: is the tail wagging the dog?

The scientific study of obesity has been dominated throughout the twentieth century by the concept of energy balance. This conceptual approach, based on fundamental thermodynamic principles, states that energy cannot be destroyed, and can only be gained, lost or stored by an organism. Its application in obesity research has emphasised excessive appetite (gluttony), or insufficient physical activity (sloth), as the primary determinants of excess weight gain, reflected in current guidelines for obesity prevention and treatment. This model cannot explain why weight accumulates persistently rather than reaching a plateau, and underplays the effect of variability in dietary constituents on energy and intermediary metabolism. An alternative model emphasises the capacity of fructose and fructose-derived sweeteners (sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup) to perturb cellular metabolism via modification of the adenosine monophosphate (AMP)/adenosine triphosphate (ATP) ratio, activation of AMP kinase and compensatory mechanisms, which favour adipose tissue accretion and increased appetite while depressing physical activity. This conceptual model implicates chronic hyperinsulinaemia in the presence of a paradoxical state of 'cellular starvation' as a key driver of the metabolic modifications inducing chronic weight gain. We combine evidence from in vitro and in vivo experiments to formulate a perspective on obesity aetiology that emphasises metabolic flexibility and dietary composition rather than energy balance. Using this model, we question the direction of causation of reported associations between obesity and sleep duration or childhood growth. Our perspective generates new hypotheses, which can be tested to improve our understanding of the current obesity epidemic, and to identify novel strategies for prevention or treatment.

‘‘ HipHopKhasene: a Marriage between Hip hop and Klezmer’’

Jewish identity is increasingly fluid in Canada, as evidenced by new developments in Jewish culture. Klezmer music—traditionally associated with Jewish wedding celebrations—has experienced a mass revival and entry into the mainstream and has become firmly entrenched within Yiddish culture, including the emergence of new unions with genres such as hip hop. This close study of a bilingual Yiddish—English track called ‘‘Kale bazetsn’’ (Veiling the Bride) by Canadian artist DJ Socalled (a.k.a. Josh Dolgin) on his 2003 album HipHopKhasene situates it within the paradoxical state of secular Yiddish culture today: while the Yiddish language is facing global attrition, there is renewed interest in its culture among young musicians and audiences.

Psychological Tasks Associated with Divorce: Eat, Pray, Love (2010), An Unmarried Woman (1978), and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

The dependency paradox (Feeney) states that independence actually can result from being in a nurturing relationship. Those who divorce often have the opposite notion that independence will occur without a relationship. The movies Eat, Pray, Love, An Unmarried Woman, and Kramer vs. Kramer examine divorce from different angles. The protagonists in all three movies grow through the process of divorce, each achieving a level of autonomy that seemed unattainable within their marriage. This paper aims to explore the concept of divorce in light of the dependency paradox by examining the self-differentiation achieved and the consequences of such independence for both the individual and, in Kramer vs. Kramer, for the child involved.

Stances of (in)visibility of the female Negro body: focusing on portinari’s pictorial aesthetics

Current analysis investigates the manner identity constitution and black female’s visual representation in Portinari’s iconography is shown within the theoretical presuppositions of the French Discourse Analysis in alignment with the theoretical bases of Peirce’s Semiotics, the History of the Body and Cultural Studies. The social and the political factors are understood through an interpretative stance, within the paradoxical state of intangible significant materiality. The descriptive, interpretative, archeological and genealogical movement showed that the half-naked body is presented as erotic, perceived as exotic and treated as profane. The movement also showed that sensuality is signified and re-signified by the marginal since it works with discursive memory which conceives the exotic as an order opposed to existence, namely the profane order, and the place in which the subjects of difference encounter one another