Just the Two of Us? Civil Conflicts,Pro-State Militants,and the Violence Premium

Quantitative literature discussing violence in civil conflicts tends towards a typical model of engagement between governments and revolutionaries. Whilst recent work has shown the significant impact of multiple anti-government groups, a further feature remains understudied—the role of pro-state militants. This article theorizes a “violence premium” when such groups arise, which leads to all connected groups devoting greater energy to conflict than they would in isolation. Employing duration analysis and data from The Troubles in Northern Ireland, where Republicans act as revolutionary insurgents, Loyalists as pro-state militants, and the British Army as government forces, the violence premium is empirically confirmed. Both Loyalists and Republicans deviate from their underlying strategies to attack more frequently when violence by their rivals increases, with Republicans and the British Army engaging in the same way. An extended analysis, accounting for the status of the victim, shows that the violence premium resulting from interaction between Loyalists and Republicans targeted only the civilian population of Northern Ireland, elucidating the sectarian component of The Troubles. These results show that including all conflict parties and considering how they are linked are important features in studies that aim to determine the net level of violence in civil conflicts.     

A Systematic Approach to Evaluating the Effects of Collaborative Negotiation Training on Individuals and Groups

Negotiation training evaluation tends to be short-term, aspectual and piecemeal; evaluations often focus on only one or two salient outcomes of training. This essay presents a model for negotiation training evaluation research that offers a broad conceptualization of the hypothesized individual and group-level effects of training in collaborative negotiation. The model assesses change at the individual level in conflict-related cognitions, attitudes, affect and behaviors; and at the group level in conflict outcomes and work climate. The Negotiation Evaluation Survey (NES), a time-delayed, multi-source feedback approach to assessment and development, is presented as a means of addressing some of the conceptual and methodological problems inherent in more common methods of training evaluation. An illustrative assessment of one model of collaborative negotiation training for adults, the Coleman/Raider Model, is presented. The results, implications, and future research challenges are discussed.     

Atrocities and armed conflict: state consolidation in Israel, 1948–56

This paper contrasts four cases of atrocity in the early years of the Israeli state and contends that, due to ethnic-cleansing incentives, competitive inducements and outbidding, the stated Israeli ideology of self-restraint had little impact on policy. The article further argues that, during the early periods of democratic state consolidation, democratic states act in very similar ways to authoritarian states and that little restraint is exercised in relation to ‘enemy’ civilians located within the territorial boundaries of the new state. In this respect, arguments that democracies are superior to non-democracies with regard to respect for human rights might be called into question during the initial phases of state consolidation. The paper speci?cally questions how con?ict stalemates impact on the use of violence against noncombatants in order to tip the balance of the war and it argues against the assertion that only paramilitaries would ever use terror against unarmed civilians.     

利用aroA基因建立鸡传染性鼻炎PCR诊断方法

利用aroA基因设计了1对引物,分别对10株标准副鸡嗜血杆菌(HPG)菌株、14株分离的HPG菌株进行PCR扩增,结果均得到了与预期大小一致的片段,而对10株非HPG菌株和3株病毒进行扩增则无相应片段产生;该PCR能检测出10个菌细胞.与常规PCR方法相比,aroA-PCR的敏感性更高.     

The Effects of Neighborhood Context on Exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Among Adolescents Involved in the Juvenile Justice System: Latent Classes and Contextual Effects

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been identified as a key risk factor associated with a wide range of negative life outcomes, including juvenile delinquency. Much less work has explored whether certain combinations of ACEs, or typologies of trauma, exist, and whether or not these subgroups are differentially associated with certain youth-level and/or community-level characteristics. The current study uses latent class analysis to examine ACE typologies among a sample of over 92,000 juvenile offenders between the ages of 10 and 18 in the state of Florida (52% male, 37.3% White, 46.8% Black, 15.9% Hispanic). Multilevel multinomial logistic regression is used to assess the relationship between both individual- and community-level factors and class membership. The findings suggest that a total of five distinct ACE typologies exist among the sample of juvenile offenders, and age, race, and sex were significantly associated with class membership. Additionally, controlling for individual-level characteristics, community-level measures of immigrant concentration, residential instability, and two separate measures of concentrated disadvantage and affluence were significantly related to class membership. This study contributes to the understanding of adverse childhood experiences, and adds to existing knowledge regarding the relationship between contextual factors and childhood abuse, maltreatment, and trauma. The identification of ACE subgroups with distinct characteristics may help guide prevention strategies and tailor treatment provided by the juvenile justice system.     

Critical Hopefulness Among Urban High School Students

Psychological empowerment encompasses several key aspects of youth civic and sociopolitical development. Most research has focused on psychological empowerment’s emotional component, which entails learned hopefulness about one’s own ability to participate in and lead community change efforts. Fewer studies have assessed critical awareness of how social power operates—psychological empowerment’s cognitive component. The confluence of these two components has been termed critical hopefulness. A complex relationship exists between these two components, and previous research has found relatively small proportions of participants reporting both high levels of critical awareness and simultaneously high levels of hopefulness about their ability to exert influence in the sociopolitical domain. The current study of urban high school students in the Northeastern U.S. (n?=?389; 53.5% female) investigates heterogeneity according to these two components of psychological empowerment. Latent class cluster analyses were conducted and seven distinct groups of participants emerged. Students identifying as Hispanic/Latinx were more likely to be classified into a profile group exhibiting critical hopefulness. Differences were observed between psychological empowerment profile groups on self-reported levels of psychological sense of community, civic engagement, and social justice orientation. Furthermore, a larger proportion of this overall sample was classified into groups that exhibited critical hopefulness than in a previous study of adults. These findings provide useful insights for efforts to engage young people in civic life and to promote sociopolitical development.     

Eliminating ill-founded eliminations in handwriting comparison cases.

Document examiners sometimes eliminate writers on the basis of differences which are given too much weight. This article is an attempt to explain some conditions whereby differences in the writing of one individual are misinterpreted as significant differences, when they are actually caused by conditions which are unknown to the examiner.     

Postmortem changes in the level of calcium pumping adenosine triphosphatase in rat heart sarcoplasmic reticulum

The activity of calcium pumping adenosine triphosphatase (Ca2+-ATPase) in cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum plays a pivotal role in myocardiac contraction-relaxation. The Ca2+-ATPase activity is controlled by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of a sarcoplasmic reticulum protein "phospholamban" in response to neurotransmitters and drugs. To clarify the role of Ca2+-ATPase in the development of cardiac rigor mortis, we examined the changes of cardiac rigidity and cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase activity up to 5 h after the decapitation of rats. Fifteen minutes after decapitation, the rats showed a cardiac rigidity on left ventricles. After 30 min, rigidity was obvious over the whole heart. After 1 h, the rigidity reached a high degree which was maintained for the rest of the observation period. On the other hand, the Ca2+-ATPase activity controlled by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of phospholamban did not change for the whole observation period (5 h). Another Ca2+-ATPase activity representing the total amount of Ca2+-ATPase in sarcoplasmic reticulum gradually decreased. The data suggest that no significant phosphorylation or dephosphorylation of phospholamban occurs for a short time, at least for 5 h, after death and that the Ca2+-ATPase tends to relax the myocardium against the development of cardiac rigor mortis.     

The morphogenesis of electrically and heat-induced dermal changes in pig skin

In order to establish pathological evidence in dermis for distinguishing between sequelae of electrical torture and those of other superficial injuries, the skin of eleven fully anaesthetized Danish Landrace pigs have been exposed to heat and electrical energy from either 50 Hz alternating current (a.c.) or direct current (d.c.) via 12 mm large contact knobs or via a pointed 0.5 mm large electrode (only 50 Hz a.c.). The lesions have been examined from 1 to 126 days after the injury. While heat lesions exposed to energy lower than 60 joule only gave minor changes, heat lesions exposed to more than 60 joule showed changes in both collagen fibres (basophilic or eosinophilic fibres without any birefringence or coarse cross-striation in polarized light, respectively) and dermal cells (granular cytoplasm). Areas exposed to 50 Hz a.c. via 0.5 mm. electrode showed basophilic collagen fibres and in a few biopsies on day 7 calcium salts on collagen fibres. Using 12 mm large electrodes the changes were minor, but basophilic and eosinophilic collagen fibres with no birefringence or with fine/coarse cross-striation respectively were seen. Even cells with 'vesicular nuclei' were seen on day 1 and 2 after the injury. The changes in the anode area showed resemblance to that of heat lesions (basophilic collagen fibres). Eosinophilic collagen fibres with fine densely spaced cross-striation in polarized light and 'vesicular nuclei' as well as collagen fibres with calcium salts were seen in the cathode lesions. It is concluded that the dermal changes in the cathode area are specific for electrical injury from day 1 to 14. However, earlier studies have demonstrated dermal changes specific for electrical injury at day 0 and the presence of calcified collagen fibres up to 2 months after injury. The dermal changes in anode lesions were non specific and could not be differentiated from those found in heat lesions. Alternating current lesions (50 Hz) were specific from day 1 to day 7, when the pointed electrode was used, but only in a few days when the energy was transferred via the 12-mm electrodes.