Action Evaluation in the Theory and Practice of Conflict Resolution

Questions of evaluation are important to conveners, participants and funders of conflict resolution initiatives. Yet good evaluation is tied to a number of complicated questions concerning what constitutes success and failure in projects that may be multi-dimensional or only part of an effort to settle a larger conflict. Rothman has offered Action Evaluation as a methodology that seeks to incorporate goal setting and evaluation into project designs. He argues that this will improve a project by monitoring the changing nature of goals through the life of a conflict resolution intervention, and action evaluation’s self-conscious attention to goal setting offers a mechanism for developing and committing an intervention to specific internal and external standards of evaluation. This article examines Action Evaluation as a theory of practice, considering its conceptual strengths and examining specific issues of its implementation

Some Guidelines for Conceptualizing Success in Conflict Resolution Evaluation

The immediate job of project evaluation is to decide what worked and what didn’t. However, the more challenging task is making sense of why success or failure occurred and in so doing to propose appropriate future action. Effective evaluation of conflict resolution initiatives is complicated since interventions involve multiple goals and cross-level connections where indirect effects are often not seen in the short-run. This paper argues that there is no single best instrument or method for evaluating the extent to which conflict resolution practice has been successful. However, this does not mean that evaluation should be ignored. Instead projects need to develop methods that are good enough to be applied in contextually appropriate ways. To assist in this process, this article offers six guidelines for deciding when, how, and the extent to which specific conflict resolution interventions are effective. Good evaluation requires a self-conscious effort to articulate the most significant goals of different groups of participants and to track goal evolution in the course of a project using multiple, operational criteria. It should addresses the question of transfer, the ways in which direct work with only a small number of project participants, is expected to have more extensive, indirect effects on the course of the wider conflict. If it is done well, good evaluation helps practitioners define future activities and helps interveners and funders to imagine good-enough conflict management asking not whether they have fully resolved a complicated conflict but whether they have improved conditions sufficiently so that the parties in the conflict are more likely to develop the capacity to manage it constructively in the future

Cultura y política comparada

Artículo originalEste capítulo argumenta que la cultura es importante para el estudio de la política porque provee de un marco para organizar los mundos cotidianos de las personas localizándose a sí mismos y a los otros en ellos (dando cuenta de las acciones e interpretando las motivaciones de otros), para aterrizar los análisis de intereses, para vincular las identidades con las acciones políticas y para predisponer a individuos y grupos a favor de algunas acciones y en contra de otras. La cultura hace todo esto organizando los significados y los procesos de construcción de significados, definiendo la identidad política y social de las personas, estructurando acciones colectivas e imponiendo un orden normativo en la política y la vida socia

Initial experience and outcome of a new hemodialysis access device for catheter-dependent patients

ObjectiveThe effects of a new long-term subcutaneous vascular access device were studied in access-challenged patients who were poor candidates for fistulas or grafts due to venous obstruction. Bacteremia rates, patency, and function of the Hemodialysis Reliable Outflow (HeRO) Vascular Access Device (Hemosphere Inc, Minneapolis, Minn) were evaluated.MethodsThe HeRO device consists of a 6-mm expanded polytetrafluoroethylene graft attached to a 5-mm nitinol-reinforced silicone outflow component designed to bypass venous stenoses and enter the internal jugular vein directly, providing continuous arterial blood flow into the right atrium. The HeRO device was studied in a multicenter clinical trial to test the hypothesis that access-challenged patients would experience a statistically significant reduction in bacteremia rates compared with a tunneled dialysis catheter (TDC) literature control of 2.3/1000 days. HeRO-related bacteremia rates, adequacy of dialysis, patency, and adverse events were analyzed.ResultsThe HeRO device was implanted in 36 access-challenged patients who were followed for a mean 8.6 months (9931 HeRO days). The HeRO-related bacteremia rate was 0.70/1000 days. All HeRO-related bacteremias occurred during the bridging period when a TDC was still implanted before HeRO graft incorporation. HeRO adequacy of dialysis (mean Kt/V) was 1.7. HeRO primary patency was 38.9%, and secondary patency was 72.2%.ConclusionsIn access-challenged patients, a statistically significant reduction in HeRO-related bacteremia was noted compared with TDC literature. The device had similar function and patency compared with conventional arteriovenous graft literature

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Analysis of potential systematics

We analyze the density field of galaxies observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) included in the SDSS Data Release Nine (DR9). DR9 includes spectroscopic redshifts for over 400,000 galaxies spread over a footprint of 3,275 deg^2. We identify, characterize, and mitigate the impact of sources of systematic uncertainty on large-scale clustering measurements, both for angular moments of the redshift-space correlation function and the spherically averaged power spectrum, P(k), in order to ensure that robust cosmological constraints will be obtained from these data. A correlation between the projected density of stars and the higher redshift (0.43 < z < 0.7) galaxy sample (the `CMASS' sample) due to imaging systematics imparts a systematic error that is larger than the statistical error of the clustering measurements at scales s > 120h^-1Mpc or k < 0.01hMpc^-1. We find that these errors can be ameliorated by weighting galaxies based on their surface brightness and the local stellar density. We use mock galaxy catalogs that simulate the CMASS selection function to determine that randomly selecting galaxy redshifts in order to simulate the radial selection function of a random sample imparts the least systematic error on correlation function measurements and that this systematic error is negligible for the spherically averaged correlation function. The methods we recommend for the calculation of clustering measurements using the CMASS sample are adopted in companion papers that locate the position of the baryon acoustic oscillation feature (Anderson et al. 2012), constrain cosmological models using the full shape of the correlation function (Sanchez et al. 2012), and measure the rate of structure growth (Reid et al. 2012). (abridged)Comment: Matches version accepted by MNRAS. Clarifications and references have been added. See companion papers that share the "The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey:" titl

Essential role of beta-adrenergic receptor kinase 1 in cardiac development and function

The beta-adrenergic receptor kinase 1 (beta ARK1) is a member of the G protein-coupled receptor kinase (GRK) family that mediates the agonist-dependent phosphorylation and desensitization of G protein-coupled receptors. We have cloned and disrupted the beta ARK1 gene in mice by homologous recombination. No homozygote beta ARK1-/- embryos survive beyond gestational day 15.5. Prior to gestational day 15.5, beta ARK1-/- embryos display pronounced hypoplasia of the ventricular myocardium essentially identical to the "thin myocardium syndrome" observed upon gene inactivation of several transcription factors (RXR alpha, N-myc, TEF-1, WT-1). Lethality in beta ARK1-/- embryos is likely due to heart failure as they exhibit a > 70% decrease in cardiac ejection fraction determined by direct in utero intravital microscopy. These results along with the virtual absence of endogenous GRK activity in beta ARK1-/- embryos demonstrate that beta ARK1 appears to be the predominant GRK in early embryogenesis and that it plays a fundamental role in cardiac development

Gender Differences in Interpersonal Problems of Alcohol-Dependent Patients and Healthy Controls

Alcohol dependence is a heavy burden on patients, their families, and society. Epidemiological studies indicate that alcohol dependence will affect many individuals at some time in their lives, with men affected more frequently than women. Since alcohol-dependent patients often exhibit a lack of social skills and suffer from interpersonal problems, the aim of this study is to elucidate whether men and women experience the same interpersonal problems. Eighty-five alcohol-dependent patients (48 men; 37 women) after detoxification and 62 healthy controls (35 men; 27 women) were recruited. Interpersonal problems were measured with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-64). Additionally, alcohol-dependent patients were interviewed with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and were subtyped according to Lesch’s Alcohol Typology (LAT). There were no significant gender differences in the AUDIT and LAT between alcohol-dependent men and women. Interpersonal problems of alcohol-dependent men differed significantly in one out of eight dimensions from controls; alcohol-dependent men perceive themselves as colder than male controls. Alcohol-dependent women differed in four out of eight interpersonal dimensions from female controls. Alcohol-dependent women rated themselves as significantly more vindictive, more introverted, more overly accommodating and more intrusive than female controls. Results suggest that alcohol-dependent men and women suffer from different interpersonal problems and furthermore alcohol-dependent women perceive more interpersonal problems, whereas the severity of alcohol dependence did not differ between the groups. Our findings indicate that alcohol-dependent women may profit more from a gender-specific treatment approach aimed at improving treatment outcome than alcohol-dependent men

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: measurements of the growth of structure and expansion rate at z=0.57 from anisotropic clustering

We analyze the anisotropic clustering of massive galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 9 (DR9) sample, which consists of 264,283 galaxies in the redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.7 spanning 3,275 square degrees. Both peculiar velocities and errors in the assumed redshift-distance relation ("Alcock-Paczynski effect") generate correlations between clustering amplitude and orientation with respect to the line-of-sight. Together with the sharp baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) standard ruler, our measurements of the broadband shape of the monopole and quadrupole correlation functions simultaneously constrain the comoving angular diameter distance (2190 +/- 61 Mpc) to z=0.57, the Hubble expansion rate at z=0.57 (92.4 +/- 4.5 km/s/Mpc), and the growth rate of structure at that same redshift (d sigma8/d ln a = 0.43 +/- 0.069). Our analysis provides the best current direct determination of both DA and H in galaxy clustering data using this technique. If we further assume a LCDM expansion history, our growth constraint tightens to d sigma8/d ln a = 0.415 +/- 0.034. In combination with the cosmic microwave background, our measurements of DA, H, and growth all separately require dark energy at z > 0.57, and when combined imply \Omega_{\Lambda} = 0.74 +/- 0.016, independent of the Universe's evolution at z<0.57. In our companion paper (Samushia et al. prep), we explore further cosmological implications of these observations.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRAS, comments welcom