Algeria faces a renewed conjunction of political-economic crisis and widespread popular discontent. Making sense of the current situation requires a careful consideration of the social structure of ...accumulation that governs the country’s domestic affairs. This institutional arrangement has undergone a notable transformation since the previous crisis of 2015–16, but it continues to be inimical to sustained growth and stable governance.
Progressive phases of multiple sclerosis are associated with inhibited differentiation of the progenitor cell population that generates the mature oligodendrocytes required for remyelination and ...disease remission. To identify selective inducers of oligodendrocyte differentiation, we performed an image-based screen for myelin basic protein (MBP) expression using primary rat optic-nerve-derived progenitor cells. Here we show that among the most effective compounds identifed was benztropine, which significantly decreases clinical severity in the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis when administered alone or in combination with approved immunosuppressive treatments for multiple sclerosis. Evidence from a cuprizone-induced model of demyelination, in vitro and in vivo T-cell assays and EAE adoptive transfer experiments indicated that the observed efficacy of this drug results directly from an enhancement of remyelination rather than immune suppression. Pharmacological studies indicate that benztropine functions by a mechanism that involves direct antagonism of M1 and/or M3 muscarinic receptors. These studies should facilitate the development of effective new therapies for the treatment of multiple sclerosis that complement established immunosuppressive approaches.
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DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Iran's 'Look East' policy entails more than relations with the People's Republic of China, India and the republics of Central Eurasia. Crucial to the Islamic Republic's eastward turn are recent ...overtures to Indonesia, which include not only diplomatic and economic initiatives but also joint military projects. Why Tehran has stepped up its efforts to align with Jakarta can be explained in terms of recent moves by the Arab Gulf states, most notably the United Arab Emirates, along with Iran's sympathy for Indonesia's long-standing commitment to non-alignment.
Quantitative research demonstrates that fighting clusters in space during civil wars, and that communities will be more likely to take up arms if they are located close to one or more other ...communities that are already engaged in combat. Yet the proposed explanations for such spatial clustering remain inadequate. Existing studies posit the importance of the dispersion of government resources, logistical connections among combatants, asymmetries of information and an assortment of negative externalities. Developments in the Syrian civil war indicate that only the second and fourth of these arguments look promising, and that threats to community security seem much more pertinent.
Recent scholarship reports a strong statistical correlation between civil wars and international conflicts, yet the process whereby internal warfare generates external military confrontations remains ...understudied and obscure. Insight into the linkage can be gained from a detailed exploration of the southern theatre of the Syrian uprising. From 2011 to 2013, sporadic skirmishes took place between anti-government forces and defenders of the Ba'thi regime in Syria's southern provinces, with little impact on interstate conflict. As fighting in the south grew more severe and more complex during 2014-2015, however, there was a sharp increase in the level and frequency of cross-border military confrontations. Explicating how the escalation of internal warfare generated heightened external clashes in this particular case improves our general understanding of the circumstances in which civil wars generate international conflicts.
Foreign military interventions are correlated with longer civil wars, yet existing explanations for this association remain inadequate. One influential argument claims that outside states prolong ...internal warfare by introducing objectives that are extraneous to the conflict at hand. A more compelling extension of this argument is that intervening states forge alliances with local combatants, and contention among these local combatants creates friction among intervening states and opens the door to additional combatants. Such dynamics lengthened the civil war in Yemen that erupted in 2012–13. Exploring the shifting patterns of antagonism and alignment that accompanied intervention in this particular case improves our general understanding of the mechanisms that increase the duration of internal warfare.
Algeria is re-emerging as an active player in international politics following the Arab Spring uprisings that swept across the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2010-11. But it has adopted a ...much different posture from the one it maintained during the 1960s and 1970s. The broadly accommodative attitude that Algiers previously exhibited towards the outside world has been replaced by a more combative stance. Military power has become its primary tool for managing inter-state disputes, and Algeria has stepped up its involvement in the domestic affairs of nearby states. These changes have contributed to the resurgence of conflict in North Africa at a moment when the regional order might well have moved in a more peaceful direction.
Afghanistan's reversion to Taliban rule poses severe threats to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran faces a dilemma over how best to respond to these dangers: it could continue to conciliate the ...Taliban or it could revert to the antagonistic posture it adopted towards Kabul in the 1990s. While each of these strategies can improve Iran's security situation to some extent, they also entail unintended consequences that exacerbate Iranian vulnerabilities. More importantly, whatever policy Tehran pursues has an impact on Iran's nascent alignment with Tajikistan, as well as on Tajikistan's relations with Afghanistan. The fact that Iran's decision to conciliate the new leadership in Kabul did not prompt Dushanbe to scale back its belligerence towards the Taliban poses a puzzle for Glenn Snyder's concept of the alliance security dilemma. Its solution requires a reconsideration of adversary-ally dynamics that highlights the reciprocal interaction between shifts in inter-state alignment and changes in domestic political contestation.
Gabriele Natalizia and Lorenzo Termine lay out an innovative framework to analyze the trajectory of the current foreign policy of the People's Republic of China. As it stands, it suffers from serious ...conceptual ambiguities and generates a set of categories that is too large to guide empirical research. After revision, however, the framework that Natalizia and Termine propose can be deployed to elucidate Beijing's behavior in various parts of the world, most notably the Persian Gulf.
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