Studying Vicious Circles to Learn about Reforms

Explaining the anti-export bias of trade policy requires a model in which there is some asymmetry between protection of the import competing and export sectors. One asymmetry is that export subsidies require government expenditure, while import tariffs raise revenue for the government. A model is developed where lobbying for export subsidies is treated as a revenue-seeking activity. In contrast with the import-competing sector, it is found that there is no presumption that 'vicious circles' exist in the export sector, where a 'vicious circle' refers to the tendency for exogenous political shocks to be amplified by an endogenous lobbying response.

PurposeDry Eye Disease (DED) is a complex alteration of the ocular surface. Typical are self‐enforcing mechanisms that drive the condition are termed ′Vicious Circles′ (VC). It is generally believed that ′a vicious circle′ occurs in DED that is driven by inflammation .MethodsA NLM PubMed based review of the literature review was performed and pathogenetic mechanisms were analyzed according to patho‐physiology.ResultsThis approach in DED indicates that Basic primary causative factors are (A) deficiency of tear SECRETION by the ocular secretory glands (aqueous lacrimal gland, oily Meibomian glands, single conjunctival goblet cell mucin glands) and (B) deficiency in FORMATION of a stable tear FILM by the eye lids & blinking. The two main pathologies are (1) tear film deficiency and (2) tissue damage. Several VC in DED were identified: One important VC is destruction of the surface epithelium by insufficient wetting due to a deficient tear film which, in turn, further reduces the tissue wettability and thus tear film stability. Surface destruction leads to induction of inflammatory pathways that drive VS for progression of disease. Since the destruction of the tissue also impairs the ocular glands, large VC of gland destruction (Pathological Carousels) occur wherein tissue destruction increasingly impairs gland secretion which, in turn, drives further surface destruction. Other VC are hidden in the gland pathology of Meibomian Gland Dysfunction (MGD) and Lacrimal Gland Dysfunction (LGD).ConclusionsA holistic dynamic analysis of DED can identify, In contrast to present over‐simplified models, that Vicious Circles do not necessarily depend on inflammation and that there are in fact several, different, interacting vicious circles instead of just one. The relevant VC must be identified in the individual patient to allow an effective therapy.

Poverty is one of the most controversial issues in the academic discourse. The numerous theories and their different interpretations make theoretical approaches to poverty applicable to achieve different goals but not the one of its eradication. The politization of the problem and the motivation of political actors to harness the issue of poverty result in significant restrictions for objective assessment of the situation. Central Asia has been facing the problem of poverty for a long time, but this issue remains unresolved. The state of affairs differs a lot from one state to another in the region, however all of them are exposed to high risks since poverty in Central Asia has acquired the character of a systemic phenomenon. The abovementioned theses determine adaptation of the existing academic findings to regional specifics. The article hypothesizes that in Central Asian countries the factors of poverty persistence are linked to each other in vicious circles, the rupture of which is possible through systemic solutions in three public spheres – education, labor market and development institutions. To verify this hypothesis, the nature of poverty is put under test for consistency, the key characteristics of the problem for each of the Central Asian countries are highlighted. The major factors, contributing to the preservation of poverty are analyzed; the most important of them are revealed and logically connected to the three public spheres mentioned. The latter proves to be the most significant for the regional approach to poverty issues. The combination of statistical data, the poor quality of which represent a major limitation of the study, and the results of empirical conclusions has made it possible to identify the existence of two related “vicious circles” of poverty in the region – a vicious circle of factors of poverty persistence and a vicious circle of poverty and its consequences. Based on the data obtained through econometric modeling, a number of recommendations aimed at further reducing the severity of the problem in the Central Asian states have been developed. The proposed recommendations are formed considering the complexity and unrealizability of complex and simultaneous solutions to the problem of poverty and are designed to launch a mechanism for assessing the situation and its initial resolution.

This thesis examines the adequacy of the assimilation/culture - contact/culture – continuum framework on which much research into urban/ rural Aboriginal groups has been based. Chapters I and II outline the concepts underlying this approach and propose that a theoretical orientation amalgamating the principles of cultural ecology, cognitive and psychiatric anthropology within a framework of distal and proximal environmental, personal and behavioural attributes would prove a more fruitful and comprehensive theoretical orientation. Inherent in such an approach is the concept of adaptation. Delineation of the processes of adaptation in terms of such a framework is based on qualitative rather than quantitative methods of data collection. Consequently Chapter III carefully examines the strengths and weaknesses of participant observation as well as the whole qualitative method. It indicates that, although this method of data collection has many strengths, particularly in relation to cognitive and psychiatric anthropology, it would be misleading to attempt to evaluate it according to purely scientific principles.Chapter IV begins evaluation of ethnographic data about Aboriginal people in Rural Town in terms of the proposed adaptive theoretical framework by examining the history of settlement, the nature and changes of land use, the development of European society, the conflict between European and Aboriginal groups in the area and the latter's resultant decimation and subjugation.Chapter V delineates the present Aboriginal population in Rural Town, their interrelationships, permanency of residence, patterns of movement and the housing situation. Results indicate that the present organization within the Aboriginal minority is related to its economic situation, the history of contact and settlement in the region and present relationships with the dominant European majority. This theme is elaborated in Chapters VI and VII which present data on interactions between Europeans and Aborigines as well as in-group activity among the dark people in Rural Town. Evidence again suggests that present patterns result from historical developments as well as European perceptions of Aborigines which have helped to shape Aboriginal perceptions of themselves as second-class people.Thus, in terms of Myrdal's (1965) concept of cumulative causation, data collected in Rural Town indicate that the Aboriginal community is operating within a vicious circle of prejudice, segregation and discrimination involving cultural exclusion and social disintegration.Chapters VIII and IX, concerning societal pressures on the Aboriginal community, such as social class and economic position, examine the way in which these have shaped the Aboriginal household, relationships within the household, concepts underlying socialization, education and employment patterns. Again, data suggest that the principles and processes underlying these patterns arise out of Myrdal's second vicious circle determined by poverty, low social status, poor housing and lack of employment possibilities.The cumulative effects of these two vicious circles have resulted in tensions and pressures with which many Aboriginal people of Rural Town cannot cope. The factors underlying this inability to cope or adapt successfully are not related to any misunderstanding of European values or to existence in a culture-contact / culture-vacuum situation. Rather, they are a product of chronic poverty and Aboriginal people's frustrations in trying to establish their worth and equality in a white society from which they have been excluded since first European settlement in South West Queensland.

Introduction and objectivesIdiopathic chronic cough patients have symptoms that persist despite trials of empirical treatment with no underlying cause found. Higher-order brain processes are involved in modulating the cough reflex,...

Oxidative stress is thought to play a key role in the initiation and progression of cardiovascular diseases. Increased formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) leads to endothelial dysfunction through the breakdown of NO, promotes proinflammatory gene expression, and increases the sympathetic tone. A multitude of stimuli including inflammation, cardiovascular risk factors like hypertension and cigarette smoke as well as a broad spectrum of hormones increase the systemic oxidative stress. Among these elements, however, angiotensin II is probably the most robust stimulus for ROS, which derive from Nox1- and Nox2-containing NADPH oxidases. In fact, angiotensin II activates and induces these ROS-generating enzymes. Angiotensin II is also the classic stimulus for the release of aldosterone. Interestingly, also aldosterone is an independent stimulus for vascular ROS production. This steroid hormone induces components of the NADPH oxidase like p47phox1 and p22phox and acutely increases ROS production in vascular cells2 probably through EGF receptor transactivation. Importantly, ROS may be mandatory for the deleterious effects of aldosterone in the cardiovascular system: for example, genetic deletion of the Nox2-containing NADPH oxidases prevents the aldosterone-induced interstitial fibrosis in the mouse heart.3 Furthermore, antioxidants prevent the aldosterone-induced expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 and MCP-1 as well as tumor …

Vicious Circles in Sociology and their Treatment D. B. ArmstrongM. D. CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.6.2.173-c Published Online: August 30, 2011

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common and a particularly aggressive form of glial primary brain tumors. This malignancy accounts for ca. 70% of all diagnosed cases. Unfortunately, average survival of glioma patients does not exceed one year from diagnosis. Specific vascularization pattern (presence of numerous microvessels and glomerular vessels) and exceptional invasiveness are characteristic features of glioblastoma tumors. Both of these features reflect complex underlying processes forming two vicious circles. Common to both of these circles is the state of tumor underoxygenation. Hypoxia that occurs in the vicinity of abnormal tumor blood vessels stimulates formation of novel microvessels and invasiveness of tumor cells. In their essence, both of the vicious circles are processes allowing tumor cells to adapt to an underoxygenated tumor milieu. These processes play an important role in tumor progression, which reflects a specific type of evolution of cancer cells. Late effects of this evolution include appearance of highly aggressive, chemo- and radiotherapy resistant neoplastic cells. Increased adaptation capabilities of such cancer cells have a negative influence on the therapeutic process. Effective therapeutic strategies should not be directed against single cancer cell markers; instead, they should be targeted so as to break both vicious cycles. Herein we discuss several such strategies. In our opinion, effective therapeutic approaches must include a combination of several agents that recognize and simultaneously break both vicious cycles, i.e. vascularization and invasiveness. Also, agents that decrease hypoxia in cancer cells, for example drugs inhibiting activity of HIF-1α, might also prove therapeutically effective in such approaches.

Successful teams tend to be highly cohesive and team cohesion to be particularly helpful in allowing teams and their members to sustain their success even in the most challenging times. One disillusioning consequence of this reciprocity between cohesion and performance would suggest that failures made by teams and/or their members likely jeopardize their success by preventing them from capitalizing on such virtuous circles associated with team cohesion. Yet, many teams uphold their performance despite the failures they have to cope with, suggesting that the potential vicious circles can be overcome. This chapter aims at illuminating the vicious and virtuous circles associated with team cohesion that are induced by either collective failures of teams or individual failures of their members. It therefore offers a multilevel perspective not only on the emergence and diffusion of failures at the individual and team levels, but also on the critical role that team cohesion plays for a team’s (dys)functional coping across these levels. It is theorized that collective failures triggered exogenously can help build team cohesion, and that whether endogenously-triggered collective failures bring about the vicious or the virtuous circles of team cohesion depends on whether the individual failures developing into collective failures are triggered endogenously or exogenously. The implications of this conceptual work are discussed in light of the literatures on error/failure management and group cohesiveness.

AbsrtactPurposeDry Eye Disease (DED) is still insufficiently understood because it is a complex alteration of the functional anatomy of the ocular surface. Current concepts are often oversimplified and a new realistic model is developed that reflects all relevant aspects.Methods. A NLM PubMed based review of the literature on DED was performed. Pathogenetic mechanisms were identified and arranged in a patho‐physiologic hierarchy of causative relations that reflects clinical findings but is independent of assumed ′importance′.ResultsBasic primary causative factors for DED are structural and functional alterations of the ocular surface integrity. This concerns a deficiency of (A) tear component SECRETION by the secretory elements and of (B) tear FILM FORMATION by the eye lids and blinking mechanism. Together this leads to the two main pathologies of (1) TEAR FILM DEFICIENCY and thus insufficient permanent wetting of the interpalpebral surface that causes (2) the well‐known SURFACE TISSUE DAMAGE that gives rise to signs and symptoms. Both pathologies are governed by several interacting secondary pathogenetic factors. Typical for the complex disease mechanism are self‐enforcing vicious circles ‐ in contrast to present over‐simplified models they do not necessarily depend on inflammation and there are in fact several, different, interacting vicious circles instead of just one. The disease process is influenced by an impairment of regulatory systems (innervation, endocrine system, immune system) of the body & by negative internal and external risk factors.ConclusionsThis new holistic dynamic concept on the pathophysiology DED incorporates long established as well as new mechanisms in the pathophysiological order. It is complex but not complicated ‐ intuitively understandable and suitable to assist basic scientist, patients, and clinical practitioner alike.

Cardiovascular pathology is one of the frequent comorbidities in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, due to both genetic predisposition and common risk factors (smoking, senile age, male gender, sedentary lifestyle, obesity). The article shows that development of endothelial dysfunction is one of the earliest phases of pathogenesis in this setting. Endothelial dysfunction mechanisms are defined and characterized, including an imbalance of vasoconstricting and vasodilating agents with the emergence of "vicious circles" that violate hemo-vascular homeostasis. The role of nitric oxide, endothelin-1, intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in the development of endothelial dysfunction in COPD patients is discussed. The article defines the concept of oxidative stress, the most potent oxidants and mechanisms of their damaging effect arebeing listed. A particular attention is paid to 8-isoprostane as a golden standard in assessment of oxidative stress in patients with COPD.

This paper examines narratives relating to the development of National Geo Information Infrastructures (NGII) in ethnographic research on a Dutch NGII project which was monitored throughout its course. We used an approach which focuses on narratives concerning the environment, groups and practice to elicit sense-making processes. We assert that narratives are relatively fixed and that they only change under specific circumstances. Moreover, the fixing of or change in narratives takes place in practice, so our research approach aimed at analysing narratives of practice, which we label ‘storyboards’. For this purpose, project meetings and conferences were observed, key persons both within and outside the project environment were interviewed, and an analysis of relevant documents and video footage was undertaken. Storyboards are created by actors as a result of day-to-day challenges related to project goals, technology and infrastructure. In our research we found that these storyboards occur as vicious circles from which actors cannot escape. In the specific case analysed, our interpretation of the narrative storyboards suggested that these vicious circles are caused by the inability of project participants to distinguish between infrastructure and innovation requirements in their daily work.

Despite optimistic post-pandemic forecasts, retail space occupancy in some city centres has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. This study explores how the dynamics among various actors across different levels of the retail system might affect retail vacancy in a medium-sized Finnish city. The retail environment consists of multiple actors interacting in complex ways, which calls for new approaches to understand the issue of vacant spaces. Layton’s Marketing Systems Theory acknowledges the complexity of such systems and provides a framework for examining multilevel dynamics. To support Layton’s commitment to link theory with practice, we apply Masuch’s model of vicious and virtuous circles to analyse actor interactions. By examining the actors’ dynamics through applying this model in real-world settings, we contribute to Layton’s aim ‘to propose new answers to questions relating to marketing system design and performance … and the importance of transcending a narrow marketing point of view in responding to system wide concerns’ (2015). Inspired by Layton’s question: ‘What are the underlying causal processes that might lead to possible failure or breakdown in system outcomes?’, we argue that identifying system-level challenges requires a multilevel approach. Managerial actions at the meso-level are both influenced by and influential upon the macro-level (e.g. global norms) and the micro-level (e.g. consumer behaviour). We selected four cases to illustrate how vicious and virtuous circles are formed within the actors’ dynamics. Our multilevel analysis shows that actors can collaborate to reverse vicious circles, thereby improving retail space occupancy. This process demonstrates actors’ willingness to solve a problem, i.e. taking the ownership of change.

This is a conference paper. © ACM, 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ICIC' 12: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Intercultural Collaboration, Bangalore, India, pp. 107 - 118. The definitive version is available from the ACM Digital Library at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2160881.2160898

Prior research has shown that the success of offshoring is affected by relational behaviours of the employees involved in an offshoring collaboration. However, hardly anything is known about the attitudes that onshore colleagues hold towards offshoring, and how such offshoring attitudes affect relational behaviours towards offshore colleagues. We therefore present an interpretivist, qualitative case study that explores the offshoring attitudes of German information technology developers. We found that offshoring attitudes affected relational behaviours towards Indian offshore colleagues, in terms of (1) treating Indian colleagues as fellow team members as opposed to suppliers; (2) spending more or less effort in communication and knowledge transfer; and (3) supporting vs. avoiding the task transfer. These relational behaviours fed back into participants' offshoring attitudes, leading to vicious and virtuous circles. The circles created two contrasting configurations of offshoring attitudes and relational behaviours, driven by opposing forces within the departmental context. Our findings highlight the value of taking a configurational perspective for understanding offshoring success and for identifying drivers that need to be managed in order to achieve favourable configurations. We suggest that future research should further expand the typology of attitude‐behaviour configurations and could apply theories of efficacy, self‐reinforcing spirals and planned behaviour.