Mechanisms of behavioral change targeting automatic processes

In order to eliminate unhealthy behaviors, one must find ways to make better choices. Changing preferences is an important strategy in addressing public health concerns such as the obesity epidemic. In this dissertation, I present several lines of research, which all aim to influence choice behavior. First, we developed a novel extensive training paradigm that uses monetary reinforcement to influence choices for less desired palatable foods over initially more preferred foods. We found that, as reinforced training progressed, there was decreased recruitment of a frontoparietal network of brain regions that have been previously associated with cognitive control. We also found neural evidence that suggests formation of a stronger stimulus-response association as reinforced training progressed. These findings demonstrate that it is possible to influence food choices through reinforcement and that training is associated with a decreasing need for top-down frontoparietal control. However, the long term durability of this change in choice behavior is in question. Learning theory predicts a return to choosing the initially more preferred item simply with the passage of time, despite overtraining the new behavior. Thus, we turned our efforts toward targeting automatic processes to achieve a lasting shift in choice behavior. We found that our attempts to interfere with memory traces for an established choice or to train bottom-up inhibition to avoid particular food items were unsuccessful. However, we found that driving sustained attention toward particular food items at behaviorally relevant points in time during cue-approach training robustly influences choice preferences in favor of those items. Imaging results show that value representation for those items in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is amplified. Finally, we found that spacing cue-approach training trials over multiple days benefits the long-term maintenance of the cue-approach choice effect. Results presented in this dissertation lay the groundwork for new insights into mechanisms of behavioral change and value-based decision making more broadly as well as suggest some strategies for developing real-world intervention paradigms to help those seeking to adopt and maintain healthier habits.Neuroscienc

The Last Jihadist Battle in Syria: Externalisation and the Regional and International Responses to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib

This is the final version. Available on open access from MDPI via the DOI in this recordWhen Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized Idlib, it alarmed and disturbed international observers. However, HTS is only one among a number of radical Islamist groups in a part of Syria that has become an incubator of Jihadism. As the last remaining redoubt of the armed opposition in the country, the governorate has become an international concern. Events have now reached an impasse, and the time is thus right for a reappraisal that steps back and considers contemporary developments in the wider context of ongoing events in the governorate. This article also places local developments in a wider context in another sense by considering how regional and international interventions contributed to HTS’s rise in the Idlib governorate. This is particularly important as external interventions by Turkey, Iran, Russia and the US have not only failed to establish a sustainable basis for peace by addressing the root causes of violence but have actually inflamed hostilities and exacerbated the various challenges involved in ending the conflict, which has at times taken on the appearance of a proxy war. In seeking to better theorise externalisation, this article draws on peacebuilding theory. This historical and political contextualisation seeks to contribute to an improved understanding of HTS’s rise and the means through which it can be most effectively combated in the future

Daraa and the Altered Trajectory of the Syrian Crisis

This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this recordDaraa City is widely known as the birthplace of the Syrian uprising. The uprising, which was initially motivated by high-minded ideas and opposition to the arbitrary violence of an authoritarian state, rapidly degenerated into a civil war orientated by external agendas and priorities. In this paper, I want to situate Daraa governorate at the centre of this development, with the intention of highlighting how the course of events in this small part of Syria had vital implications for the development of the Syrian Civil War. In seeking to develop an analysis of the interplay of internal dynamics and external influences, i seek to ‘reconcile’ the ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ dimensions of civil war, and also draw on contributions to the peacebuilding literature, and this enables me to reconceptualise the relationship between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ drivers of conflict

Beyond genocide: Towards an improved analysis and understanding of the Syrian regime's mass atrocity crimes in the Syrian Civil War

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordIn the course of the Syrian Civil War, prominent former Syrian Regime politicians, human rights observers, and foreign observers have accused the Syrian Regime of committing genocide against the country's Sunni majority. This article views these accusations as part of a wider politicization of genocide, and instead progresses beyond them to outline the case for an alternative “framing” of large-scale atrocities committed against civilians. It accordingly proposes strategic displacement, or the deliberate large-scale uprooting and dispersal of established communities for tactical and strategic purposes, as a preferable and more sustainable framework of engagement and analysis, and seeks to more clearly distinguish it from “ethnic cleansing” with the aim of demonstrating and underlining its unique contribution to the analysis and understanding of violent conflict. This has two benefits—first, it provides a different basis for conceptual and theoretical engagement that makes it possible to view mass atrocity as a tactical innovation in response to conflict exigencies; and second, it draws attention to internal displacement, an aspect of the conflict that has been repeatedly overlooked by international observers

L’effet de l’investissement dans la technologie dans une entreprise familiale libanaise

L’investissement dans la technologie s’avère crucial pour qu’une entreprise soit capable d’améliorer ses processus, d’offrir de nouveaux biens et services sur le marché, d’augmenter son efficacité et d’améliorer son rendement. L’objet de cet article est de présenter et d’analyser l’effet de l’investissement dans la technologie d’une entreprise. Les nouvelles théories de la croissance mettent l’accent sur la croissance du potentiel technologique dans le processus de production. Notre étude de cas concerne une petite entreprise familiale libanaise « Rohban Diairies », spécialisée dans la production et la commercialisation des produits laitiers. L’entreprise a investi dans la technologie, par l’achat de deux machines en 2014 et 2016. L’analyse micro-économique et le calcul de plusieurs indicateurs d’activité et de rentabilité confirment que les investissements de « Rohban Diairies » sont rentables

Exclusion Strategy and Sectarianization of the Idlib Governorate in Syria

This is the final version. Available from the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies via the DOI in this recordThe splitting, renaming and merging of factions can lead to the start of new rivalries, or in some cases, end existing ones. A new faction may inherit the original faction's previous rivalries with other groups, and if a faction name change results in a total restructure, it may signal the end of the rivalry. However, this was not the case when Jabhat al-Nusra renamed itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and later Tahrir al-Sham. It was considered a 'cosmetic' and superficial change because it did not develop a new structure. This article will shed light on exclusionary politics and the political ramifications of sectarianism caused by certain jihadist movements, such as Jabhat al-Nusra (presently known as Tahrir al-Sham), enabling us to analyse its practices, especially towards minorities, and sectarian ideologies present in Idlib, and which ultimately led to the expulsion of many who fled outside the governorate. The article also calls attention to the roles of regional and international powers in Idlib against the backdrop of opposition factions, and their physical and ideological influence on Islamist forces that frequently facilitated displacement within and outside the city

The significance of ISIS's state building in Syria

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this record. Researchers and policy makers appear to hold a deeply rooted reluctance to acknowledge, let alone address, the significance of ISIS’s state building. Those who have engaged with this issue have tended to traverse the analytical dead end of legalistic questions and themes, inevitably concluding that ISIS’s efforts fell short of the threshold of statehood. This article sharply diverges from this reasoning and instead focuses on the political extent of ISIS’s state building, which was a reaction to the collapse of authority in Iraq and Syria, and the concomitant failure to protect peoples at risk. The study examines the Islamic State on four dimensions: the stabilization of society, the extraction of income, the politicization of religion, and the use of sectarian divisions. It finds that ISIS’s efforts were internally contradictory and contained a number of elements that impeded its establishing a conventionally defined state and its carrying out of actions expected of such a state