Although some rebel groups work hard to foster collaborative ties with civilians, others engage in egregious abuses and war crimes. We argue that foreign state funding for rebel organizations greatly ...reduces incentives to “win the hearts and minds” of civilians because it diminishes the need to collect resources from the population. However, unlike other lucrative resources, foreign funding of rebel groups must be understood in principal-agent terms. Some external principals—namely, democracies and states with strong human rights lobbies—are more concerned with atrocities in the conflict zone than others. Multiple state principals also lead to abuse because no single state can effectively restrain the organization. We test these conjectures with new data on foreign support for rebel groups and data on one-sided violence against civilians. Most notably, we find strong evidence that principal characteristics help influence agent actions.
This paper outlines five principles for effective practice of knowledge exchange, which when applied, have the potential to significantly enhance the impact of environmental management research, ...policy and practice. The paper is based on an empirical analysis of interviews with 32 researchers and stakeholders across 13 environmental management research projects, each of which included elements of knowledge co-creation and sharing in their design. The projects focused on a range of upland and catchment management issues across the UK, and included Research Council, Government and NGO funded projects. Preliminary findings were discussed with knowledge exchange professionals and academic experts to ensure the emerging principles were as broadly applicable as possible across multiple disciplines. The principles suggest that: knowledge exchange needs to be designed into research; the needs of likely research users and other stakeholders should be systematically represented in the research where possible; and long-term relationships must be built on trust and two-way dialogue between researchers and stakeholders in order to ensure effective co-generation of new knowledge. We found that the delivery of tangible benefits early on in the research process helps to ensure continued motivation and engagement of likely research users. Knowledge exchange is a flexible process that must be monitored, reflected on and continuously refined, and where possible, steps should be taken to ensure a legacy of ongoing knowledge exchange beyond initial research funding. The principles have been used to inform the design of knowledge exchange and stakeholder engagement guidelines for two international research programmes. They are able to assist researchers, decision-makers and other stakeholders working in contrasting environmental management settings to work together to co-produce new knowledge, and more effectively share and apply existing knowledge to manage environmental change.
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•Multi-method research empirically identified five effective knowledge exchange principles.•Iterative discussions and refinement ensured their applicability across multiple disciplines.•The principles can assist coproduction of new knowledge, and enhance the societal benefits of research.
We study the influence of topography on groundwater fluxes and water table depths across the contiguous United States (CONUS). Groundwater tables are often conceptualized as subdued replicas of ...topography. While it is well known that groundwater configuration is also controlled by geology and climate, nonlinear interactions between these drivers within large real‐world systems are not well understood and are difficult to characterize given sparse groundwater observations. We address this limitation using the fully integrated physical hydrology model ParFlow to directly simulate groundwater fluxes and water table depths within a complex heterogeneous domain that incorporates all three primary groundwater drivers. Analysis is based on a first of its kind, continental‐scale, high‐resolution (1 km), groundwater‐surface water simulation spanning more than 6.3 million km2. Results show that groundwater fluxes are most strongly driven by topographic gradients (as opposed to gradients in pressure head) in humid regions with small topographic gradients or low conductivity. These regions are generally consistent with the topographically controlled groundwater regions identified in previous studies. However, we also show that areas where topographic slopes drive groundwater flux do not generally have strong correlations between water table depth and elevation. Nonlinear relationships between topography and water table depth are consistent with groundwater flow systems that are dominated by local convergence and could also be influenced by local variability in geology and climate. One of the strengths of the numerical modeling approach is its ability to evaluate continental‐scale groundwater behavior at a high resolution not possible with other techniques.
Key Points:
Relationships between water table depth and topography are spatially variable
Groundwater follows topography in flat humid regions with low conductivity
Integrated models can evaluate groundwater behavior in large complex systems
Thorough control of quantum measurement is key to the development of quantum information technologies. Many measurements are destructive, removing more information from the system than they obtain. ...Quantum non-demolition (QND) measurements allow repeated measurements that give the same eigenvalue. They could be used for several quantum information processing tasks such as error correction, preparation by measurement and one-way quantum computing. Achieving QND measurements of photons is especially challenging because the detector must be completely transparent to the photons while still acquiring information about them. Recent progress in manipulating microwave photons in superconducting circuits has increased demand for a QND detector that operates in the gigahertz frequency range. Here we demonstrate a QND detection scheme that measures the number of photons inside a high-quality-factor microwave cavity on a chip. This scheme maps a photon number, n, onto a qubit state in a single-shot by means of qubit-photon logic gates. We verify the operation of the device for n=0 and 1 by analysing the average correlations of repeated measurements, and show that it is 90% QND. It differs from previously reported detectors because its sensitivity is strongly selective to chosen photon number states. This scheme could be used to monitor the state of a photon-based memory in a quantum computer.
Summary Personality disorders are common and ubiquitous in all medical settings, so every medical practitioner will encounter them frequently. People with personality disorder have problems in ...interpersonal relationships but often attribute them wrongly to others. No clear threshold exists between types and degrees of personality dysfunction and its pathology is best classified by a single dimension, ranging from normal personality at one extreme through to severe personality disorder at the other. The description of personality disorders has been complicated over the years by undue adherence to overlapping and unvalidated categories that represent specific characteristics rather than the core components of personality disorder. Many people with personality disorder remain undetected in clinical practice and might be given treatments that are ineffective or harmful as a result. Comorbidity with other mental disorders is common, and the presence of personality disorder often has a negative effect on course and treatment outcome. Personality disorder is also associated with premature mortality and suicide, and needs to be identified more often in clinical practice than it is at present.
This article explores the strategic motivations for insurgent violence against civilians. It argues that violence is a function of insurgent capacity and views violence and security as selective ...benefits that insurgents manipulate to encourage support. Weak insurgent groups facing collective action problems have an incentive to target civilians because they lack the capacity to provide sufficient benefits to entice loyalty. By contrast, stronger rebels can more easily offer a mix of selective incentives and selective repression to compel support. This relationship is conditioned by the counterinsurgency strategies employed by the government. Indiscriminate regime violence can effectively reduce the level of selective incentives necessary for insurgents to recruit support, thus reducing their reliance on violence as a mobilization tool. However, this relationship only holds when rebels are sufficiently capable of credibly providing security and other incentives to civilian supporters. These hypotheses are tested using data on one-sided violence from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. The statistical analysis supports the hypothesis that comparatively capable insurgents kill fewer civilians than their weaker counterparts. The results also suggest a complex interaction between insurgent capability and government strategies in shaping insurgent violence. While weaker insurgents sharply escalate violence in the face of indiscriminate regime counterinsurgency tactics, stronger groups employ comparatively less violence against civilians as regime violence escalates.
Chemical analysis shows that honey bees (Apis mellifera) and hive products contain many pesticides derived from various sources. The most abundant pesticides are acaricides applied by beekeepers to ...control Varroa destructor. Beekeepers also apply antimicrobial drugs to control bacterial and microsporidial diseases. Fungicides may enter the hive when applied to nearby flowering crops. Acaricides, antimicrobial drugs and fungicides are not highly toxic to bees alone, but in combination there is potential for heightened toxicity due to interactive effects.
Laboratory bioassays based on mortality rates in adult worker bees demonstrated interactive effects among acaricides, as well as between acaricides and antimicrobial drugs and between acaricides and fungicides. Toxicity of the acaricide tau-fluvalinate increased in combination with other acaricides and most other compounds tested (15 of 17) while amitraz toxicity was mostly unchanged (1 of 15). The sterol biosynthesis inhibiting (SBI) fungicide prochloraz elevated the toxicity of the acaricides tau-fluvalinate, coumaphos and fenpyroximate, likely through inhibition of detoxicative cytochrome P450 monooxygenase activity. Four other SBI fungicides increased the toxicity of tau-fluvalinate in a dose-dependent manner, although possible evidence of P450 induction was observed at the lowest fungicide doses. Non-transitive interactions between some acaricides were observed. Sublethal amitraz pre-treatment increased the toxicity of the three P450-detoxified acaricides, but amitraz toxicity was not changed by sublethal treatment with the same three acaricides. A two-fold change in the toxicity of tau-fluvalinate was observed between years, suggesting a possible change in the genetic composition of the bees tested.
Interactions with acaricides in honey bees are similar to drug interactions in other animals in that P450-mediated detoxication appears to play an important role. Evidence of non-transivity, year-to-year variation and induction of detoxication enzymes indicates that pesticide interactions in bees may be as complex as drug interactions in mammals.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Experts working on behalf of international development organisations need better tools to assist land managers in developing countries maintain their livelihoods, as climate change puts pressure on ...the ecosystem services that they depend upon. However, current understanding of livelihood vulnerability to climate change is based on a fractured and disparate set of theories and methods. This review therefore combines theoretical insights from sustainable livelihoods analysis with other analytical frameworks (including the ecosystem services framework, diffusion theory, social learning, adaptive management and transitions management) to assess the vulnerability of rural livelihoods to climate change. This integrated analytical framework helps diagnose vulnerability to climate change, whilst identifying and comparing adaptation options that could reduce vulnerability, following four broad steps: i) determine likely level of exposure to climate change, and how climate change might interact with existing stresses and other future drivers of change; ii) determine the sensitivity of stocks of capital assets and flows of ecosystem services to climate change; iii) identify factors influencing decisions to develop and/or adopt different adaptation strategies, based on innovation or the use/substitution of existing assets; and iv) identify and evaluate potential trade-offs between adaptation options. The paper concludes by identifying interdisciplinary research needs for assessing the vulnerability of livelihoods to climate change.
•Sustainable livelihoods analysis is combined with other frameworks to assess livelihood vulnerability to climate change.•The proposed framework identifies vulnerability to climate change and compares “no-regrets” anticipatory adaptation options.•It considers the exposure and sensitivity of ecosystem services to climate change as it interacts with other drivers of change.•The framework considers factors influencing the uptake of adaptations and potential trade-offs between adaptation options.
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