False, historical, ‘accusations in a mirror’? The Tutsi Colonisation Plan, conspiracy, and genocide in Rwanda

Distorted, selective, and manipulated memories of historical events are widely recognised as playing a role in mobilising genocidal violence. Genocidal propaganda, however, sometimes fabricates conspiracies in their entirety, claiming to ‘discover’ plans by the target group that encouraged audiences to re-evaluate the threat supposedly posed by their neighbours. Through an analysis of the ‘Tutsi Colonisation Plan’ and the ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’, published in the Rwandan hate newspaper Kangura, I explore this phenomenon and assess the role that this may have played in shaping genocidal violence. I conclude by comparing this phenomenon to analogous texts in other cases, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and situating this use of historical conspiracy theory in the broader discussion of genocidal discourses of intimate intra-community threats

Detecting and interpreting conscious experiences in behaviorally non-responsive patients

Decoding the contents of consciousness from brain activity is one of the most challenging frontiers of cognitive neuroscience. The ability to interpret mental content without recourse to behavior is most relevant for understanding patients who may be demonstrably conscious, but entirely unable to speak or move willfully in any way, precluding any systematic investigation of their conscious experience. The lack of consistent behavioral responsivity engenders unique challenges to decoding any conscious experiences these patients may have solely based on their brain activity. For this reason, paradigms that have been successful in healthy individuals cannot serve to interpret conscious mental states in this patient group. Until recently, patient studies have used structured instructions to elicit willful modulation of brain activity according to command, in order to decode the presence of willful brain-based responses in this patient group. In recent work, we have used naturalistic paradigms, such as watching a movie or listening to an audio-story, to demonstrate that a common neural code supports conscious experiences in different individuals. Moreover, we have demonstrated that this code can be used to interpret the conscious experiences of a patient who had remained non-responsive for several years. This approach is easy to administer, brief, and does not require compliance with task instructions. Rather, it engages attention naturally through meaningful stimuli that are similar to the real-world sensory information in a patient\u27s environment. Therefore, it may be particularly suited to probing consciousness and revealing residual brain function in highly impaired, acute, patients in a comatose state, thus helping to improve diagnostication and prognostication for this vulnerable patient group from the critical early stages of severe brain-injury

The UN War Crimes Commission and International Law: Revisiting World War II Precedents and Practice

The history of international legal institutions has largely ignored the early activities of the United Nations, specifically of the UN War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). Based on an assessment of its work and with access to new archival evidence, contemporary international legal institutional design could benefit significantly from revisiting the commission’s achievements, particularly the principle of complementarity identified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and support for domestic tribunals for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The article begins by examining the history, multilateral basis for, and practical activities of the commission. Subsequently, it assesses its contemporary relevance. Finally, it analyses—with reference to modern literature on complementarity—the degree to which the commission’s wartime model provides positive examples of implementation of the principle that could be replicated today, with particular reference to domestic capacity-building and international coordination

Association of Generalized Joint Hypermobility and Occurrence of Musculoskeletal Injury in Physical and Occupational Therapy Students

Background: A prior research study showed that the prevalence of hypermobility was higher among Physical and Occupational Therapy students as compared to the general population. The literature shows that certain injury rates are higher among those who are hypermobile. This has led to the question of whether or not hypermobility is directly related to injury and recurrence of injury. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess Physical Therapy (PT) and Occupational Therapy (OT) students for hypermobility as well as survey previous injury history. This study analyzed the prevalence of hypermobility with types of injuries in order to determine if a relationship exists. Methods: Eighty-six subjects (24 male, 62 female) were assessed for hypermobility using the nine point Beighton Scale of Hypermobility. A score of four or higher out of nine indicated the presence of joint hypermobility. Participants filled out a survey regarding current activity level, previous and current athletic participation, injury history regarding type and mechanism of injury. Results: The prevalence of hypermobility among PT and OT students was found to be 39.5%, a rate five times greater than the general population. Reported injuries were grouped into the following classifications prior to statistical analysis: sprains, ligament rupture, strain/contusion, fracture, and dislocation. Non-hypermobile participants were more likely to have experienced a strain type injury (l(1, N=86) =5.059, p=0.024). No other statistically significant results were found, although fracture rates showed a trend of occurring more frequently in non-hypermobile participants (p=O.167). Conclusion: The prevalence of joint hypermobility is higher among Physical and Occupational Therapy students than the general population. Injury rates are high among both PT and OT populations, with strains occurring more frequently in non-hypermobile subjects. In the future, increased sample size, as well as inclusion of the general student population may lead to a greater significance in research results. Further research is needed to determine the extent of such correlation

Sinapinic and protocatechuic acids found in rapeseed: isolation, characterisation and potential benefits for human health as functional food ingredients

peer-reviewedRapeseed is one of the world’s major oilseeds, and rapeseed oil is produced by pressing of the seeds. This process results in the production of a low-economic-value by-product, rapeseed meal, which is commonly used as animal feed. Rapeseed meal is rich in bioactive phenolic compounds, including sinapinic acid (SA) and protocatechuic acid (PCA). Isolation of these bioactive compounds from a by-product of rapeseed oil production is largely in agreement with the current concept of the circular economy and total utilisation of crop harvest using a biorefinery approach. In this review, current information concerning traditional and novel methods to isolate phenolic compounds – including SA and PCA – from rapeseed meal, along with in vitro and in vivo studies concerning the bioactivity of SA and PCA and their associated health effects, is collated. These health effects include anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-diabetes activities, along with histone deacetylase inhibition and protective cardiovascular, neurological and hepatic effects. The traditional extraction methods include use of solvents and/or enzymes. However, a need for simpler, more efficient methodologies has led to the development of novel extraction processes, including microwave-assisted, ultrasound-assisted, pulsed electric field and high-voltage electrical discharge extraction processes

Long-distance hormone transport via the phloem

Several key plant hormones are synthesised in the shoot and are advected within the phloem to the root tip. In the root tip, these hormones regulate growth and developmental processes, and responses to environmental cues. However, we lack understanding of how environmental factors and biological parameters affect the delivery of hormones to the root tip. In this study, we build on existing models of phloem flow to develop a mathematical model of sugar transport alongside the transport of a generic hormone. We derive the equations for osmotically driven flow in a long, thin pipe with spatially varying membrane properties to capture the phloem loading and unloading zones. Motivated by experimental findings, we formulate solute membrane transport in terms of passive and active components, and incorporate solute unloading via bulk flow (i.e. advection with the water efflux) by including the Staverman reflection coefficient. We use the model to investigate the coupling between the sugar and hormone dynamics. The model predicts that environmental cues that lead to an increase in active sugar loading, an increase in bulk flow sugar unloading or a decrease in the relative root sugar concentration result in an increase in phloem transport velocity. Furthermore, the model reveals that such increases in phloem transport velocity result in an increase in hormone delivery to the root tip for passively loaded hormones

Differential biosynthesis and cellular permeability explain longitudinal gibberellin gradients in growing roots.

Control over cell growth by mobile regulators underlies much of eukaryotic morphogenesis. In plant roots, cell division and elongation are separated into distinct longitudinal zones and both division and elongation are influenced by the growth regulatory hormone gibberellin (GA). Previously, a multicellular mathematical model predicted a GA maximum at the border of the meristematic and elongation zones. However, GA in roots was recently measured using a genetically encoded fluorescent biosensor, nlsGPS1, and found to be low in the meristematic zone grading to a maximum at the end of the elongation zone. Furthermore, the accumulation rate of exogenous GA was also found to be higher in the elongation zone. It was still unknown which biochemical activities were responsible for these mobile small molecule gradients and whether the spatiotemporal correlation between GA levels and cell length is important for root cell division and elongation patterns. Using a mathematical modeling approach in combination with high-resolution GA measurements in vivo, we now show how differentials in several biosynthetic enzyme steps contribute to the endogenous GA gradient and how differential cellular permeability contributes to an accumulation gradient of exogenous GA. We also analyzed the effects of altered GA distribution in roots and did not find significant phenotypes resulting from increased GA levels or signaling. We did find a substantial temporal delay between complementation of GA distribution and cell division and elongation phenotypes in a GA deficient mutant. Together, our results provide models of how GA gradients are directed and in turn direct root growth

Single-cell multiomics of the human retina reveals hierarchical transcription factor collaboration in mediating cell type-specific effects of genetic variants on gene regulation

BACKGROUND: Systematic characterization of how genetic variation modulates gene regulation in a cell type-specific context is essential for understanding complex traits. To address this question, we profile gene expression and chromatin accessibility in cells from healthy retinae of 20 human donors through single-cell multiomics and genomic sequencing. RESULTS: We map eQTL, caQTL, allelic-specific expression, and allelic-specific chromatin accessibility in major retinal cell types. By integrating these results, we identify and characterize regulatory elements and genetic variants effective on gene regulation in individual cell types. The majority of identified sc-eQTLs and sc-caQTLs display cell type-specific effects, while the cis-elements containing genetic variants with cell type-specific effects are often accessible in multiple cell types. Furthermore, the transcription factors whose binding sites are perturbed by genetic variants tend to have higher expression levels in the cell types where the variants exert their effects, compared to the cell types where the variants have no impact. We further validate our findings with high-throughput reporter assays. Lastly, we identify the enriched cell types, candidate causal variants and genes, and cell type-specific regulatory mechanism underlying GWAS loci. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, genetic effects on gene regulation are highly context dependent. Our results suggest that cell type-dependent genetic effect is driven by precise modulation of both trans-factor expression and chromatin accessibility of cis-elements. Our findings indicate hierarchical collaboration among transcription factors plays a crucial role in mediating cell type-specific effects of genetic variants on gene regulation

Elementary effects for models with dimensional inputs of arbitrary type and range: Scaling and trajectory generation

The Elementary Effects method is a global sensitivity analysis approach for identifying (un)important parameters in a model. However, it has almost exclusively been used where inputs are dimensionless and take values on [0, 1]. Here, we consider models with dimensional inputs, inputs taking values on arbitrary intervals or discrete inputs. In such cases scaling effects by a function of the input range is essential for correct ranking results. We propose two alternative dimensionless sensitivity indices by normalizing the scaled mean or median of absolute effects. Testing these indices with 9 trajectory generation methods on 4 test functions (including the Penman-Monteith equation for evapotranspiration) reveals that: i) scaled elementary effects are necessary to obtain correct parameter importance rankings; ii) small step-size methods typically produce more accurate rankings; iii) it is beneficial to compute and compare both sensitivity indices; and iv) spread and discrepancy of the simulation points are poor proxies for trajectory generation method performance