Living with No: Political Polarization and Transformative Dialogue

We argue that dispute resolution processes should not be seen as a substitute for the political process, but rather a complement that can help strengthen it. Based on this view, and on the authors’ experience with dialogue work in the former Yugoslavia, as well as in urban and rural settings in the United States, we argue that transformative processes, specifically an approach we call Transformative Dialogue, are best suited to addressing the challenges of political polarization both in the United States and internationally. This is because the primary goal of transformative processes is not to reach agreement or find common ground, but rather to change the quality of conflict interactions from negative and destructive to positive and constructive. Transformative dialogue is about helping people gain their voice and choose identities and interactions that otherwise would be closed to them

No preclinical rationale for IGF1R directed therapy in chondrosarcoma of bone

Background: Chondrosarcoma is a malignant cartilage forming bone tumour for which no effective systemic treatment is available. Previous studies illustrate the need for a better understanding of the role of the IGF pathway in chondrosarcoma to determine if it can be a target for therapy, which was therefore explored in this study. Methods: Expression of mediators of IGF1R signalling and phosphorylation status of IRS1 was determined in chondrosarcoma cell lines by qRT-PCR and western blot. The effect of activation and inhibition of IGF1R signalling on downstream targets was assessed by western blot. Ten chondrosarcoma cell lines were treated with OSI-906 (IGF1R and IR dual inhibitor) after which cell proliferation and migration were determined by a viability assay and the xCELLigence system, respectively. In addition, four chondrosarcoma cell lines were treated with a combination of doxorubicin and OSI-906. By immunohistochemistry, IGF1R expression levels were determined in tissue microarrays of 187 cartilage tumours and ten paraffin embedded cell lines. Results: Mediators of IGF1R signalling are heterogeneously expressed and phosphorylated IRS1 was detected in 67 % of the tested chondrosarcoma cell lines, suggesting that IGF1R signalling is active in a subset of chondrosarcoma cell lines. In the cell lines with phosphorylated IRS1, inhibition of IGF1R signalling decreased phosphorylated Akt levels and increased IGF1R expression, but it did not influence MAPK or S6 activity. In line with these findings, treatment with IGF1R/IR inhibitors did not impact proliferation or migration in any of the chondrosarcoma cell lines, even upon stimulation with IGF1. Although synergistic effects of IGF1R/IR inhibition with doxorubicin are described for other cancers, our results demonstrate that this was not the case for chondrosarcoma. In addition, we found minimal IGF1R expression in primary tumours in contrast to the high expression detected in chondrosarcoma cell lines, even if both were derived from the same tumour, suggesting that in vitro culturing upregulates IGF1R expression. Conclusions: The results from this study indicate that the IGF pathway is not essential for chondrosarcoma growth, migration or chemoresistance. Furthermore, IGF1R is only minimally expressed in chondrosarcoma primary tumours. Therefore, the IGF pathway is not expected to be an effective therapeutic target for chondrosarcoma of bone. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-016-2522-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Elites, youth and informal networks: Explaining ethnic violence in Kenya and Kosovo

After elections in 2007, Kenya experienced some of the worst violence in its history leaving over 1,000 people dead and several hundred thousand displaced. Some towns experienced very high levels of violence while others suffered only low levels of violence, or none at all. In order to account for the sub-national variation in the levels of across Kenya, I introduce a framework that explains the mobilization of ethnic violence. The strategic context within which violence takes place – defined as the goals of political actors along with the institutions and policies where they are active – determines who attacks whom. The challenge of mobilizing violence determines where and how violence is organized. This depends on two factors. First, violence is more likely to occur where attackers are strong and target populations are weak. Second, deadly violence requires violence specialists, people with the skills and opportunity to commit violence. I present evidence from 8 case study locations in Kenya – four places with high levels of violence and four places with low levels of violence. In the locations with high levels of violence I carried out semi-structured interviews with youth who participated in or witnessed violence. In the towns with low levels of violence I interviewed similar youth who did not riot. I show that organized violence occurred in places where there were significant numbers of supporters of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and where violence specialists, either in the form of criminal gangs, or Kalenjin warriors, were present. I also show that in some cases elites, civil society associations and security forces could constrain violence. I also study the March 2004 violence in Kosovo. I present evidence from 4 case studies of towns in Kosovo. In Kosovo too the strategic context determined who attacked whom. Attacks in Kosovo occurred in the attackers\u27 strongholds and deadly violence involved violence specialists. One main difference between the violence in Kenya and the violence in Kosovo is that in Kosovo violence specialists traveled greater distances. This means that their presence does not predict the location of violence in the same way as it does in Kenya

How Reflection Works in Transformative Dialogue/Mediation: A Preliminary Investigation

Transformative dialogue and mediation (TD/M) is an approach to conflict resolution used in mediation and inter-group dialogues about social justice and race, political polarization, and ethnopolitical conflict. TD/M practitioners believe their approach supports the agency of participants and helps them interact with greater confidence, self-awareness, and understanding of the perspectives of others. However, previous research on TD/M has not yet addressed how it achieves those outcomes. This pilot study works to fill that gap by investigating how reflection, the most commonly used TD/M technique, is utilized in a facilitated meeting of the steering committee of a non-profit organization. We conduct a qualitative sequential analysis of a video-recorded interaction to investigate how TD/M reflection is done. We show how the TD/M facilitator of the meeting reflects participants’ statements with the techniques of mirroring, substituting, and omitting and how the participants respond to those reflections with agreement or repair. The results of the analysis are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding how TD/M facilitation works

Twitter Response to Munich July 2016 Attack: Network Analysis of Influence

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.3389/fdata.2019.00017Social Media platforms in Cyberspace provide communication channels for individuals, businesses, as well as state and non-state actors (i.e., individuals and groups) to conduct messaging campaigns. What are the spheres of influence that arose around the keyword #Munich on Twitter following an active shooter event at a Munich shopping mall in July 2016? To answer that question in this work, we capture tweets utilizing #Munich beginning 1 h after the shooting was reported, and the data collection ends approximately 1 month later1. We construct both daily networks and a cumulative network from this data. We analyze community evolution using the standard Louvain algorithm, and how the communities change over time to study how they both encourage and discourage the effectiveness of an information messaging campaign. We conclude that the large communities observed in the early stage of the data disappear from the #Munich conversation within 7 days. The politically charged nature of many of these communities suggests their activity is migrated to other Twitter hashtags (i.e., conversation topics). Future analysis of Twitter activity might focus on tracking communities across topics and time

Living with No: Political Polarization and Transformative Dialogue

We argue that dispute resolution processes should not be seen as a substitute for the political process, but rather a complement that can help strengthen it. Based on this view, and on the authors’ experience with dialogue work in the former Yugoslavia, as well as in urban and rural settings in the United States, we argue that transformative processes, specifically an approach we call Transformative Dialogue, are best suited to addressing the challenges of political polarization both in the United States and internationally. This is because the primary goal of transformative processes is not to reach agreement or find common ground, but rather to change the quality of conflict interactions from negative and destructive to positive and constructive. Transformative dialogue is about helping people gain their voice and choose identities and interactions that otherwise would be closed to them

Living with No: Political Polarization and Transformative Dialogue

We argue that dispute resolution processes should not be seen as a substitute for the political process, but rather a complement that can help strengthen it. Based on this view, and on the authors’ experience with dialogue work in the former Yugoslavia, as well as in urban and rural settings in the United States, we argue that transformative processes, specifically an approach we call Transformative Dialogue, are best suited to addressing the challenges of political polarization both in the United States and internationally. This is because the primary goal of transformative processes is not to reach agreement or find common ground, but rather to change the quality of conflict interactions from negative and destructive to positive and constructive. Transformative dialogue is about helping people gain their voice and choose identities and interactions that otherwise would be closed to them

External Rebel Sponsorship and Civilian Abuse: A Principal-Agent Analysis of Wartime Atrocities.”

the editors and anonymous reviewers at International Organization for comments on previous drafts

Additional file 3: Figure S1. of No preclinical rationale for IGF1R directed therapy in chondrosarcoma of bone

Addition of IGF1 to the medium does not influence chondrosarcoma cell viability. Cells were treated with RPMI 1640 with 10 % FBS, in the presence of absence of IGF1 (50 ng/ml). (PDF 863 KB

Additional file 2: Table S2. of No preclinical rationale for IGF1R directed therapy in chondrosarcoma of bone

Primers sequences (5’→3’) and positive control tissues. (DOCX 13 kb