Dynamics of insurgent innovation : how Hezbollah and other non-state actors develop new capabilities

Few issues are more important to security-studies scholars than understanding how violent non-state groups innovate. To shed new light on this subject, we examine Hezbollah’s innovations and the underlying processes that produced them. Based on this case, the most successful violent non-state groups are arguably those that systematically pursue incremental innovation. Although less dramatic than their discontinuous counterparts, a commitment to steadily improve an organizations' tactics and techniques can have dramatic effects. Indeed, even Hezbollah’s remarkable performance during the 2006 Lebanon War is attributable to the perfection of techniques utilized since the organization's inception. While innovations were incremental in character, a bottom-up process of learning and experimentation by field commanders was critical to generating most of these innovations. If generalizable to other violent non-state actors, these findings suggest that the most formidable insurgent and terrorist groups will actually be those that relentlessly pursue incremental innovations in a bottom-up fashion.PostprintPeer reviewe

ENIGMA and global neuroscience: A decade of large-scale studies of the brain in health and disease across more than 40 countries

This review summarizes the last decade of work by the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium, a global alliance of over 1400 scientists across 43 countries, studying the human brain in health and disease. Building on large-scale genetic studies that discovered the first robustly replicated genetic loci associated with brain metrics, ENIGMA has diversified into over 50 working groups (WGs), pooling worldwide data and expertise to answer fundamental questions in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and genetics. Most ENIGMA WGs focus on specific psychiatric and neurological conditions, other WGs study normal variation due to sex and gender differences, or development and aging; still other WGs develop methodological pipelines and tools to facilitate harmonized analyses of "big data" (i.e., genetic and epigenetic data, multimodal MRI, and electroencephalography data). These international efforts have yielded the largest neuroimaging studies to date in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. More recent ENIGMA WGs have formed to study anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behavior, sleep and insomnia, eating disorders, irritability, brain injury, antisocial personality and conduct disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Here, we summarize the first decade of ENIGMA's activities and ongoing projects, and describe the successes and challenges encountered along the way. We highlight the advantages of collaborative large-scale coordinated data analyses for testing reproducibility and robustness of findings, offering the opportunity to identify brain systems involved in clinical syndromes across diverse samples and associated genetic, environmental, demographic, cognitive, and psychosocial factors

Genomic Relationships, Novel Loci, and Pleiotropic Mechanisms across Eight Psychiatric Disorders

Genetic influences on psychiatric disorders transcend diagnostic boundaries, suggesting substantial pleiotropy of contributing loci. However, the nature and mechanisms of these pleiotropic effects remain unclear. We performed analyses of 232,964 cases and 494,162 controls from genome-wide studies of anorexia nervosa, attention-deficit/hyper-activity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and Tourette syndrome. Genetic correlation analyses revealed a meaningful structure within the eight disorders, identifying three groups of inter-related disorders. Meta-analysis across these eight disorders detected 109 loci associated with at least two psychiatric disorders, including 23 loci with pleiotropic effects on four or more disorders and 11 loci with antagonistic effects on multiple disorders. The pleiotropic loci are located within genes that show heightened expression in the brain throughout the lifespan, beginning prenatally in the second trimester, and play prominent roles in neurodevelopmental processes. These findings have important implications for psychiatric nosology, drug development, and risk prediction.Peer reviewe

The unmanned revolution: how drones are revolutionising warfare

Are drones revolutionary? Reading about military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or âdronesâ, one could be led to believe that drones are a revolutionary technology, set to fundamentally change warfare. Their fast proliferation, the association with Science Fiction, combined with the secrecy that surrounds drone use has led many to conclude that the âUnmanned Revolutionâ is upon us. This thesis studies the Unmanned Revolution. It develops a framework based on the concept of the âRevolution in Military Affairsâ and applies it to the study of three countriesâ drone uses and integration into their armed forces. It furthermore explores the role that the designation as revolutionary has played for the integration and use of UAVs in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It shows that drones have proven their worth in military operations and compares the three countriesâ experiences. This thesisâ detailed assessment of how the different countries have adopted drones and what implication this adoption has had, makes it a work of reference, in particular with regard to the German and British case studies. Assessing five types of changes â operational, doctrinal, strategic, organisational, and social and societal â this thesis argues that the most fundamental, and possibly revolutionary, change caused by military drones is social, namely, the fundamentally changed experience of war by combatants. In addition, it highlights country-specific changes. It concludes that the designation of drones as revolutionary has had an important impact in one country, Germany, although in the opposite way than initially expected. Namely, the intense debate around UAVs has hindered drone procurement and doctrinal thinking. In the other two countries, the Unmanned Revolution narrative was less prevalent and hence less influential. As drones are proliferating globally, I hope my thesis can be of use to policy-makers, military decision-makers as well as researchers worldwide.</p

The unmanned revolution: how drones are revolutionising warfare

Are drones revolutionary? Reading about military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or ‘drones’, one could be led to believe that drones are a revolutionary technology, set to fundamentally change warfare. Their fast proliferation, the association with Science Fiction, combined with the secrecy that surrounds drone use has led many to conclude that the ‘Unmanned Revolution’ is upon us. This thesis studies the Unmanned Revolution. It develops a framework based on the concept of the ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ and applies it to the study of three countries’ drone uses and integration into their armed forces. It furthermore explores the role that the designation as revolutionary has played for the integration and use of UAVs in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. It shows that drones have proven their worth in military operations and compares the three countries’ experiences. This thesis’ detailed assessment of how the different countries have adopted drones and what implication this adoption has had, makes it a work of reference, in particular with regard to the German and British case studies. Assessing five types of changes – operational, doctrinal, strategic, organisational, and social and societal – this thesis argues that the most fundamental, and possibly revolutionary, change caused by military drones is social, namely, the fundamentally changed experience of war by combatants. In addition, it highlights country-specific changes. It concludes that the designation of drones as revolutionary has had an important impact in one country, Germany, although in the opposite way than initially expected. Namely, the intense debate around UAVs has hindered drone procurement and doctrinal thinking. In the other two countries, the Unmanned Revolution narrative was less prevalent and hence less influential. As drones are proliferating globally, I hope my thesis can be of use to policy-makers, military decision-makers as well as researchers worldwide.</p

Dynamics of insurgent innovation:how Hezbollah and other non-state actors develop new capabilities

Few issues are more important to security-studies scholars than understanding how violent non-state groups innovate. To shed new light on this subject, we examine Hezbollah’s innovations and the underlying processes that produced them. Based on this case, the most successful violent non-state groups are arguably those that systematically pursue incremental innovation. Although less dramatic than their discontinuous counterparts, a commitment to steadily improve an organizations' tactics and techniques can have dramatic effects. Indeed, even Hezbollah’s remarkable performance during the 2006 Lebanon War is attributable to the perfection of techniques utilized since the organization's inception. While innovations were incremental in character, a bottom-up process of learning and experimentation by field commanders was critical to generating most of these innovations. If generalizable to other violent non-state actors, these findings suggest that the most formidable insurgent and terrorist groups will actually be those that relentlessly pursue incremental innovations in a bottom-up fashion

ENIGMA and Global Neuroscience: A Decade of Large-Scale Studies of the Brain in Health and Disease across more than 40 Countries

This review summarizes the last decade of work by the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium, a global alliance of over 1,400 scientists across 43 countries, studying the human brain in health and disease. Building on large-scale genetic studies that discovered the first robustly replicated genetic loci associated with brain metrics, ENIGMA has diversified into over 50 working groups (WGs), pooling worldwide data and expertise to answer fundamental questions in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and genetics. Most ENIGMA WGs focus on specific psychiatric and neurological conditions, other WGs study normal variation due to sex and gender differences, or development and aging; still other WGs develop methodological pipelines and tools to facilitate harmonized analyses of “big data” (i.e., genetic and epigenetic data, multimodal MRI, and electroencephalography data). These international efforts have yielded the largest neuroimaging studies to date in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. More recent ENIGMA WGs have formed to study anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behavior, sleep and insomnia, eating disorders, irritability, brain injury, antisocial personality and conduct disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Here, we summarize the first decade of ENIGMA’s activities and ongoing projects, and describe the successes and challenges encountered along the way. We highlight the advantages of collaborative large-scale coordinated data analyses for testing reproducibility and robustness of findings, offering the opportunity to identify brain systems involved in clinical syndromes across diverse samples and associated genetic, environmental, demographic, cognitive and psychosocial factors

ENIGMA and global neuroscience: A decade of large-scale studies of the brain in health and disease across more than 40 countries

This review summarizes the last decade of work by the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium, a global alliance of over 1400 scientists across 43 countries, studying the human brain in health and disease. Building on large-scale genetic studies that discovered the first robustly replicated genetic loci associated with brain metrics, ENIGMA has diversified into over 50 working groups (WGs), pooling worldwide data and expertise to answer fundamental questions in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, and genetics. Most ENIGMA WGs focus on specific psychiatric and neurological conditions, other WGs study normal variation due to sex and gender differences, or development and aging; still other WGs develop methodological pipelines and tools to facilitate harmonized analyses of “big data” (i.e., genetic and epigenetic data, multimodal MRI, and electroencephalography data). These international efforts have yielded the largest neuroimaging studies to date in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, epilepsy, and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. More recent ENIGMA WGs have formed to study anxiety disorders, suicidal thoughts and behavior, sleep and insomnia, eating disorders, irritability, brain injury, antisocial personality and conduct disorder, and dissociative identity disorder. Here, we summarize the first decade of ENIGMA’s activities and ongoing projects, and describe the successes and challenges encountered along the way. We highlight the advantages of collaborative large-scale coordinated data analyses for testing reproducibility and robustness of findings, offering the opportunity to identify brain systems involved in clinical syndromes across diverse samples and associated genetic, environmental, demographic, cognitive, and psychosocial factors