Hybrid TRCs and national reconciliation in Sierra Leone and Peru

This thesis examines the contribution of Truth Commissions (TCs) to national reconciliation and peace-building in post-conflict societies, via the case studies of Sierra Leone and Peru. While TCs have become a rapidly proliferating form of transitional justice, the thesis argues that there is still insufficient understanding of the functions and impact of TCs and the contexts within which they are established. In contrast to earlier Cold War TCs, which were established during regime transitions from authoritarian rule to democracy, recent hybrid Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs), as in Sierra Leone, East Timor, and Peru, were established in contexts of protracted social conflict and civil war. Whereas earlier Cold War TCs, were set up by domestic civil society as instruments of human rights against strong states, hybrid TRCs focused on democratization and peace-building in fragile states and often with global support. This thesis offers a typology of TCs, distinguishing participatory TRCs and didactic TCs from recent hybrid TRCs. It that hybrid TRCs integrate rigorous fact-finding and public testimony, focusing their work on the civic sphere. The thesis offers a theoretical conception of national reconciliation. Utilizing extensive qualitative research carried out in Sierra Leone and Peru, the thesis argues that hybrid TRCs in Sierra Leone and Peru had an important normative and discursive impact on procedural reconciliation. In both contexts, hybrid TRCs mobilized civil society, raised awareness, and altered norms of engagement. At the same time, the thesis argues that mechanisms of transitional justice are endogenous to their contexts. The nature of the conflicts, particularly a long backdrop of political and economic marginalization, the legacies of violence in remote areas, and the lack of implementation of hybrid TRCs’ recommendations, undermined their contributions. The thesis concludes that durable reconciliation requires a deeper level of public commitment and social justice. It raises implications for future research and practice, specifically the risk of institutional overstretch in current holistic transitional justice and the importance of a long-term transformative approach

Genomics and proteomics in liver fibrosis and cirrhosis

Genomics and proteomics have become increasingly important in biomedical science in the past decade, as they provide an opportunity for hypothesis-free experiments that can yield major insights not previously foreseen when scientific and clinical questions are based only on hypothesis-driven approaches. Use of these tools, therefore, opens new avenues for uncovering physiological and pathological pathways. Liver fibrosis is a complex disease provoked by a range of chronic injuries to the liver, among which are viral hepatitis, (non-) alcoholic steatohepatitis and autoimmune disorders. Some chronic liver patients will never develop fibrosis or cirrhosis, whereas others rapidly progress towards cirrhosis in a few years. This variety can be caused by disease-related factors (for example, viral genotype) or host-factors (genetic/epigenetic). It is vital to establish accurate tools to identify those patients at highest risk for disease severity or progression in order to determine who are in need of immediate therapies. Moreover, there is an urgent imperative to identify non-invasive markers that can accurately distinguish mild and intermediate stages of fibrosis. Ideally, biomarkers can be used to predict disease progression and treatment response, but these studies will take many years due to the requirement for lengthy follow-up periods to assess outcomes. Current genomic and proteomic research provides many candidate biomarkers, but independent validation of these biomarkers is lacking, and reproducibility is still a key concern. Thus, great opportunities and challenges lie ahead in the field of genomics and proteomics, which, if successful, could transform the diagnosis and treatment of chronic fibrosing liver diseases

Violations of the heart : parental harm in war and oppression

This article examines ‘parental harm’ – a harm that occurs when a parent loses or faces the threat of losing a child. We contend that the manipulation and severing of relationships between parents and children has played a central role in war and oppression across historical contexts. Parental harm has long-term and pervasive effects and results in complex legacies for carers and their communities. Despite its grave impact, there is little research within International Relations into parental harm and understanding of its effects. We conceptualise parental harm through two frames – the ‘harm of separation’ and ‘harm to the ability to parent’ – and theorise gendered dimensions of how it is perpetuated and experienced. As such, we advance feminist understandings of family as a gendered institution that shapes the conduct of war and institutionalises racialised oppression. Our conception of parental harm offers novel insights into the relationship between intimate relations, the family, and state power and practices. We illustrate our conceptual arguments through two examples: the control and manipulation of family in antebellum slavery in the United States and the targeting of Tamil children in disappearances in Sri Lanka. These examples demonstrate the pervasiveness of parental harm across contexts and forms of violence

Ten years on: transitional justice in post conflict Sierra Leone: report and analysis of a conference held at Goodenough College, London

Sierra Leone’s civil conflict caused 70,000 casualties and left 2.6 million people displaced. The war was known for widespread atrocities, including forced recruitment of child soldiers, rape and sexual slavery, and amputations of limbs. Ten years since the end of its eleven-year civil war, Sierra Leone is again in the international news. The recent sentencing of Charles Taylor in The Hague marks the first international trial of an African Head of State. Meanwhile, within Sierra Leone, democratic elections on November 17, 2012 mark a critical evaluation point for the country’s transition to peace. This symposium takes stock of Sierra Leone’s post-conflict transition. Termed by William Schabas as a successful example of the “two-track” approach to transitional justice, Sierra Leone has been a site of multiple international and domestic mechanisms of transitional justice. The Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and ongoing community reconciliation processes have all sought to address the legacies of violence and put the country on a more secure footing. The symposium invites scholars, in the context of recent elections, to examine the impact of transitional justice in Sierra Leone. Do transitional justice approaches present short-term solutions or do they work towards long-term peace, stability, and development? Do transitional justice mechanisms address the visible legacies of conflict (victims, justice for atrocities, and in this case, child soldiers), or conflict’s long-term drivers (economic, social and political)? To what extent have transitional justice approaches complemented each other, as some have claimed, or are they in tension? Ten years on, to what extent has transitional justice been transformative within Sierra Leone

Grasping Kinematics from the Perspective of the Individual Digits: A Modelling Study

Grasping is a prototype of human motor coordination. Nevertheless, it is not known what determines the typical movement patterns of grasping. One way to approach this issue is by building models. We developed a model based on the movements of the individual digits. In our model the following objectives were taken into account for each digit: move smoothly to the preselected goal position on the object without hitting other surfaces, arrive at about the same time as the other digit and never move too far from the other digit. These objectives were implemented by regarding the tips of the digits as point masses with a spring between them, each attracted to its goal position and repelled from objects' surfaces. Their movements were damped. Using a single set of parameters, our model can reproduce a wider variety of experimental findings than any previous model of grasping. Apart from reproducing known effects (even the angles under which digits approach trapezoidal objects' surfaces, which no other model can explain), our model predicted that the increase in maximum grip aperture with object size should be greater for blocks than for cylinders. A survey of the literature shows that this is indeed how humans behave. The model can also adequately predict how single digit pointing movements are made. This supports the idea that grasping kinematics follow from the movements of the individual digits

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data