Violent Dissent and Rebellion in Africa

This article analyzes how the selection process for the executive affects the risk of rebellion and insurgencies in sub-Saharan Africa between 1971 and 1995. Four executive recruitment processes are distinguished, which are characteristic for the African context: (1) a process without elections, (2) single candidate elections, (3) single party, multiple candidate elections, and (4) multiparty executive elections. The results suggest that single candidate elections and multiparty elections substantially reduce the risk of insurgencies compared to systems without any kind of executive elections. They further show that during times of political instability the risk of large-scale violent dissent increases substantially. The article supports findings of the civil war literature that higher levels of income are associated with a lower risk of intrastate violence, while oil-exporting countries are at a higher risk of rebellion. In short, this article further strengthens the need to use more specific measures of elements of political regimes, which also take into account regional particularities, in order to paint a more informative picture of how political structures influence the risk of internal violence

Assessing ecological sensitivities of marine assets to oil spill by means of expert knowledge

__Abstract__ Existing methodologies to assess risk due to vessel traffic often do not account for damages to marine assets in case of oil or chemical spills from ships. While some socio-economic damages can be quantified in monetary terms, expert knowledge is often the only way to assess potential damages to the marine ecology. The use of expert knowledge introduces a source of uncertainty. We propose a method which minimizes recognized flaws in subjective assessments by eliciting sensitivity ratings from multiple assessors and recognizing their differences of opinion as a source of uncertainty. We also explore various scoring options to reflect overall expert opinions. We develop and apply the methodology to the Victorian coastline in Australia and believe that improved assessment can assist policy makers of any maritime nation to make better informed decisions

The life, death and diversity of pro-government militias: The fully revised pro-government militias database version 2.0

This article presents version 2.0 of the Pro-Government Militias Database (PGMD). It is increasingly clear that it is untenable to assume a unified security sector, as states often rely on militias to carry out security tasks. The PGMD 2.0 provides new opportunities for studying questions such as when states rely on militias, how they chose among different types and the consequences for stability and peace. We detail how the PGMD 2.0 provides new information on the characteristics, behaviour, life cycle and organization of 504 pro-government militias across the globe between 1981 and 2014

Jumping on the Bandwagon: Differentiation and Security Defection during Conflict

When confronted with mass uprisings, governments deploy their security forces for crowd control or repression. However, sometimes security agencies choose to side with the opposition movement. Recent work shows that “fragmentation” contributes to defection: fragmenting the security forces into parallel units leads to oversight problems and grievances among soldiers, which raises the risk of members of the security forces defecting to the opposition movement. However, I argue that the effect on defection is strongly moderated by the circumstances under which states choose to fragment their military: fragmentation for the purpose of security specialization, called “differentiation,” even decreases its risk. Employing Bayesian multilevel modeling, the findings corroborate this distinction. The study contributes to the fundamental discussion on civil–military relations, shedding light on why some conflict situations see security defections while others do not. Understanding this phenomenon is a pivotal element to explaining how conflicts develop, escalate, and end

A global analysis of Y-chromosomal haplotype diversity for 23 STR loci

In a worldwide collaborative effort, 19,630 Y-chromosomes were sampled from 129 different populations in 51 countries. These chromosomes were typed for 23 short-tandem repeat (STR) loci (DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385ab, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635, GATAH4, DYS481, DYS533, DYS549, DYS570, DYS576, and DYS643) and using the PowerPlex Y23 System (PPY23, Promega Corporation, Madison, WI). Locus-specific allelic spectra of these markers were determined and a consistently high level of allelic diversity was observed. A considerable number of null, duplicate and off-ladder alleles were revealed. Standard single-locus and haplotype-based parameters were calculated and compared between subsets of Y-STR markers established for forensic casework. The PPY23 marker set provides substantially stronger discriminatory power than other available kits but at the same time reveals the same general patterns of population structure as other marker sets. A strong correlation was observed between the number of Y-STRs included in a marker set and some of the forensic parameters under study. Interestingly a weak but consistent trend toward smaller genetic distances resulting from larger numbers of markers became apparent.Fil: Corach, Daniel. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Servicio de Huellas Digitales Genéticas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Caputo, Mariela. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Servicio de Huellas Digitales Genéticas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Marino, Miguel Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Laboratorio de Analisis de ADN; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Purps, Josephine. Charité-Universitätsmedizin; AlemaniaFil: Siegert, Sabine. University of Cologne; AlemaniaFil: Willuweit, Sascha. Charité-Universitätsmedizin; AlemaniaFil: Nagy, Marion. Charité-Universitätsmedizin; AlemaniaFil: Alves, Cíntia. Universidad de Porto; PortugalFil: Salazar, Renato. Universidad de Porto; PortugalFil: Angustia, Sheila M. T.. Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory; FilipinasFil: Santos, Lorna H.. Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory; FilipinasFil: Anslinger, Katja. Universitat Genzentrum Der Ludwing-maximilians; AlemaniaFil: Bayer, Birgit. Universitat Genzentrum Der Ludwing-maximilians; AlemaniaFil: Ayub, Qasim. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: Wei, Wei. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: Xue, Yali. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: Tyler Smith, Chris. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute; Reino UnidoFil: Baeta Bafalluy, Miriam. Universidad de Zaragoza; EspañaFil: Martínez Jarreta, Begoña. Universidad de Zaragoza; EspañaFil: Egyed, Balazs. Eotvos University, Budapest; ArgentinaFil: Balitzki, Beate. Universidad de Basilea; SuizaFil: Tschumi, Sibylle. Universidad de Basilea; SuizaFil: Ballard, David. King; Reino UnidoFil: Syndercombe Court, Denise. King; Reino UnidoFil: Barrantes, Xinia. Poder Judicial, Forensic Sciences Department; Costa RicaFil: Bäßler, Gerhard. Landeskriminalamt Baden-Württemberg; AlemaniaFil: Berger, Burkhard. Universidad de Innsbruck; AustriaFil: Niederstätter, Haral. Universidad de Innsbruck; AustriaFil: Parson, Walther. Universidad de Innsbruck; Austria. University Park; Estados UnidosFil: Davis, Carey. Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics; Estados Unidos. Institute of Applied Genetics; Estados UnidosFil: Furfuro, Sandra. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Laboratorio de Análisis de ADN; ArgentinaFil: Locarno, Laura. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Laboratorio de Análisis de ADN; Argentin

Wolbachia endobacteria depletion by doxycycline as antifilarial therapy has macrofilaricidal activity in onchocerciasis: a randomized placebo-controlled study

In a randomized, placebo-controlled trial in Ghana, 67 onchocerciasis patients received 200-mg/day doxycycline for 4–6 weeks, followed by ivermectin (IVM) after 6 months. After 6–27 months, efficacy was evaluated by onchocercoma histology, PCR and microfilariae determination. Administration of doxycycline resulted in endobacteria depletion and female worm sterilization. The 6-week treatment was macrofilaricidal, with >60% of the female worms found dead, despite the presence of new, Wolbachia-containing worms acquired after the administration of doxycycline. Doxycycline may be developed as second-line drug for onchocerciasis, to be administered in areas without transmission, in foci with IVM resistance and in areas with Loa co-infections

A framework for ensemble modelling of climate change impacts on lakes worldwide : the ISIMIP Lake Sector

Empirical evidence demonstrates that lakes and reservoirs are warming across the globe. Consequently, there is an increased need to project future changes in lake thermal structure and resulting changes in lake biogeochemistry in order to plan for the likely impacts. Previous studies of the impacts of climate change on lakes have often relied on a single model forced with limited scenario-driven projections of future climate for a relatively small number of lakes. As a result, our understanding of the effects of climate change on lakes is fragmentary, based on scattered studies using different data sources and modelling protocols, and mainly focused on individual lakes or lake regions. This has precluded identification of the main impacts of climate change on lakes at global and regional scales and has likely contributed to the lack of lake water quality considerations in policy-relevant documents, such as the Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Here, we describe a simulation protocol developed by the Lake Sector of the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP) for simulating climate change impacts on lakes using an ensemble of lake models and climate change scenarios for ISIMIP phases 2 and 3. The protocol prescribes lake simulations driven by climate forcing from gridded observations and different Earth system models under various representative greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCPs), all consistently bias-corrected on a 0.5 degrees x 0.5 degrees global grid. In ISIMIP phase 2, 11 lake models were forced with these data to project the thermal structure of 62 well-studied lakes where data were available for calibration under historical conditions, and using uncalibrated models for 17 500 lakes defined for all global grid cells containing lakes. In ISIMIP phase 3, this approach was expanded to consider more lakes, more models, and more processes. The ISIMIP Lake Sector is the largest international effort to project future water temperature, thermal structure, and ice phenology of lakes at local and global scales and paves the way for future simulations of the impacts of climate change on water quality and biogeochemistry in lakes.Peer reviewe