Threat and imposition of economic sanctions 1945–2005: Updating the TIES dataset

Recent research on economic sanctions has produced significant advances in our theoretical and empirical understanding of the causes and effects of these phenomena. Our theoretical understanding, which has been guided by empirical findings, has reached the point where existing data sets are no longer adequate to test important hypotheses. This article presents a recently updated version of the Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) data set. This version of the data extends the temporal domain, corrects errors, updates cases that were ongoing as of the last release, and includes a few additional variables. We describe the dataset, paying special attention to the key differences in the new version, and we present descriptive statistics for some of the key variables, highlighting differences across versions. Since the major change in the data set was to more than double the time period covered, we also present some simple statistics showing trends in sanctions use over time

Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness: Sensitivity Analysis Using New Data

In the literature on sanctions effectiveness, scholars have identified a number of factors that may contribute to sanctions success. However, existing empirical studies provide mixed findings concerning the effects of these factors. This research note explores two possible reasons for this lack of consistency in the literature. First, informed by the recent theories that suggest threats are an important part of sanctions episodes, we analyze both threats and imposed sanctions. Second, to lessen model dependency of empirical findings, we employ a methodology that permits us to check systematically the robustness of the empirical results under various model specifications. Using the newly released Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions data, our analyses of both threats and imposed sanctions show that two factors—involvement of international institutions and severe costs on target states—are positively and robustly related to sanctions success at every stage in sanctions episodes. Our analyses also identify a number of other variables that are systematically related to sanctions success, but the significance of these relationships depends on the specific model estimated. Finally, our results point to a number of differences at the threat and imposition stages, which suggests specific selection effects that should be explored in future work

Cortical patterning of abnormal morphometric similarity in psychosis is associated with brain expression of schizophrenia-related genes.

Schizophrenia has been conceived as a disorder of brain connectivity, but it is unclear how this network phenotype is related to the underlying genetics. We used morphometric similarity analysis of MRI data as a marker of interareal cortical connectivity in three prior case-control studies of psychosis: in total, n = 185 cases and n = 227 controls. Psychosis was associated with globally reduced morphometric similarity in all three studies. There was also a replicable pattern of case-control differences in regional morphometric similarity, which was significantly reduced in patients in frontal and temporal cortical areas but increased in parietal cortex. Using prior brain-wide gene expression data, we found that the cortical map of case-control differences in morphometric similarity was spatially correlated with cortical expression of a weighted combination of genes enriched for neurobiologically relevant ontology terms and pathways. In addition, genes that were normally overexpressed in cortical areas with reduced morphometric similarity were significantly up-regulated in three prior post mortem studies of schizophrenia. We propose that this combined analysis of neuroimaging and transcriptional data provides insight into how previously implicated genes and proteins as well as a number of unreported genes in their topological vicinity on the protein interaction network may drive structural brain network changes mediating the genetic risk of schizophrenia.This study was supported by grants from the European Commission (PSYSCAN - Translating neuroimaging findings from research into clinical practice; ID: 603196) and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (Mental Health). SEM holds a Henslow Fellowship at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, funded by the Cambridge Philosophical Society. PEV was supported by the Medical Research Council (MR/K020706/1) and an MQ fellowship (MQF17_24) and is a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute funded under the EPSRC grant EP/N510129/1. KJW was funded by an Alan Turing Institute Research Fellowship under EPSRC Research grant TU/A/000017. ETB is supported by a NIHR Senior Investigator Award

The EMBARC European Bronchiectasis Registry:protocol for an international observational study

Bronchiectasis is one of the most neglected diseases in respiratory medicine. There are no approved therapies and few large-scale, representative epidemiological studies. The EMBARC (European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration) registry is a prospective, pan-European observational study of patients with bronchiectasis. The inclusion criterion is a primary clinical diagnosis of bronchiectasis consisting of: 1) a clinical history consistent with bronchiectasis; and 2) computed tomography demonstrating bronchiectasis. Core exclusion criteria are: 1) bronchiectasis due to known cystic fibrosis; 2) age <18 years; and 3) patients who are unable or unwilling to provide informed consent. The study aims to enrol 1000 patients by April 2016 across at least 20 European countries, and 10 000 patients by March 2020. Patients will undergo a comprehensive baseline assessment and will be followed up annually for up to 5 years with the goal of providing high-quality longitudinal data on outcomes, treatment patterns and quality of life. Data from the registry will be available in the form of annual reports. and will be disseminated in conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications. The European Bronchiectasis Registry aims to make a major contribution to understanding the natural history of the disease, as well as guiding evidence-based decision making and facilitating large randomised controlled trials.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dressed for Sex: Red as a Female Sexual Signal in Humans

Background: In many non-human primate species, a display of red by a female serves as a sexual signal to attract male conspecifics. Red is associated with sex and romance in humans, and women convey their sexual interest to men through a variety of verbal, postural, and behavioral means. In the present research, we investigate whether female red ornamentation in non-human primates has a human analog, whereby women use a behavioral display of red to signal their sexual interest to men. Methodology/Principal Findings: Three studies tested the hypothesis that women use red clothing to communicate sexual interest to men in profile pictures on dating websites. In Study 1, women who imagined being interested in casual sex were more likely to display red (but not other colors) on their anticipated web profile picture. In Study 2, women who indicated interest in casual sex were more likely to prominently display red (but not other colors) on their actual web profile picture. In Study 3, women on a website dedicated to facilitating casual sexual relationships were more likely to prominently exhibit red (but not other colors) than women on a website dedicated to facilitating marital relationships. Conclusions/Significance: These results establish a provocative parallel between women and non-human female primates in red signal coloration in the mating game. This research shows, for the first time, a functional use of color in women’s sexual self-presentation, and highlights the need to extend research on color beyond physics, physiology, and preference to psychological functioning

Accurate Prediction of Secreted Substrates and Identification of a Conserved Putative Secretion Signal for Type III Secretion Systems

The type III secretion system is an essential component for virulence in many Gram-negative bacteria. Though components of the secretion system apparatus are conserved, its substrates—effector proteins—are not. We have used a novel computational approach to confidently identify new secreted effectors by integrating protein sequence-based features, including evolutionary measures such as the pattern of homologs in a range of other organisms, G+C content, amino acid composition, and the N-terminal 30 residues of the protein sequence. The method was trained on known effectors from the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae and validated on a set of effectors from the animal pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) after eliminating effectors with detectable sequence similarity. We show that this approach can predict known secreted effectors with high specificity and sensitivity. Furthermore, by considering a large set of effectors from multiple organisms, we computationally identify a common putative secretion signal in the N-terminal 20 residues of secreted effectors. This signal can be used to discriminate 46 out of 68 total known effectors from both organisms, suggesting that it is a real, shared signal applicable to many type III secreted effectors. We use the method to make novel predictions of secreted effectors in S. Typhimurium, some of which have been experimentally validated. We also apply the method to predict secreted effectors in the genetically intractable human pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis, identifying the majority of known secreted proteins in addition to providing a number of novel predictions. This approach provides a new way to identify secreted effectors in a broad range of pathogenic bacteria for further experimental characterization and provides insight into the nature of the type III secretion signal

Sequencing of the Sea Lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) Genome Provides Insights into Vertebrate Evolution

Lampreys are representatives of an ancient vertebrate lineage that diverged from our own ∼500 million years ago. By virtue of this deeply shared ancestry, the sea lamprey (P. marinus) genome is uniquely poised to provide insight into the ancestry of vertebrate genomes and the underlying principles of vertebrate biology. Here, we present the first lamprey whole-genome sequence and assembly. We note challenges faced owing to its high content of repetitive elements and GC bases, as well as the absence of broad-scale sequence information from closely related species. Analyses of the assembly indicate that two whole-genome duplications likely occurred before the divergence of ancestral lamprey and gnathostome lineages. Moreover, the results help define key evolutionary events within vertebrate lineages, including the origin of myelin-associated proteins and the development of appendages. The lamprey genome provides an important resource for reconstructing vertebrate origins and the evolutionary events that have shaped the genomes of extant organisms

Combined Effects of Rotation and Age Spreads on Extended Main-Sequence Turn Offs

The extended main-sequence turn offs (eMSTOs) of several young to intermediate age clusters are examined in the Magellanic Clouds and the Milky Way. We explore the effects of extended star formation (eSF) and a range of stellar rotation rates on the behavior of the color–magnitude diagram, paying particular attention to the MSTO. We create synthetic stellar populations based on MESA stellar models to simulate observed Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia star cluster data. We model the effect of rotation as a nonparametric distribution, allowing for maximum flexibility. In our models the slow rotators comprise the blueward, and fast rotators the redward portion of the eMSTO. We simulate data under three scenarios: nonrotating eSF, a range of rotation rates with a single age, and a combination of age and rotation effects. We find that two of the five clusters (the youngest and oldest) favor an age spread, but these also achieve the overall worst fits of all clusters. The other three clusters show comparable statistical evidence between rotation and an age spread. In all five cases, a rotation-rate distribution alone is capable of qualitatively matching the observed eMSTO structure. In future work, we aim to compare our predicted $V\sin i$ with observations in order to better constrain the physics related to stellar rotation

Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome

The human genome holds an extraordinary trove of information about human development, physiology, medicine and evolution. Here we report the results of an international collaboration to produce and make freely available a draft sequence of the human genome. We also present an initial analysis of the data, describing some of the insights that can be gleaned from the sequence.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62798/1/409860a0.pd