Adaptive Peacebuilding de Coning, Cedric; Saraiva, Rui; Muto, Ako
2023, 2023-03-30
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This open access book responds to the urgent need to improve how we prevent and resolve conflict. It introduces Adaptive Peacebuilding through evidence-based research from eight case studies across ...Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. It also considers how China and Japan view and practice peacebuilding. The book focuses on how peacebuilders design, implement and evaluate programs to sustain peace, how interactions between external and local actors have facilitated or hindered peacemaking, and how adaptation to complexity and uncertainty occurred in each case study.
As contemporary armed conflicts become increasingly complex, peacebuilding actors have been unable to prevent or respond effectively to related crises. Considering the policy trends evoked by the ...United Nations sustaining peace agenda and contextspecific peacebuilding theories, this article examines peacebuilding initiatives amid complex contexts in Syria and Mozambique. It argues that the adaptive approaches of the National Agenda for the Future of Syria and the architecture of the negotiations surrounding the new peace process in Mozambique represent examples of contextspecific, innovative, and non-linear peacebuilding methods that foster the selforganization capabilities of the respective conflict-affected societies. It concludes by asserting that through pragmatism, local and national ownership, and process facilitation, there is an increased potential for the effectiveness of peacebuilding interventions in complex conflict-affect situations.
HIV-1âspecific T-cell responses in exposed seronegative subjects suggest that a viral breach of the exposure site is more common than current transmission rates would suggest and that host immunity ...can extinguish subsequent infection foci. The Preexposure Prophylaxis Initiative (iPrEx) chemoprophylaxis trial provided an opportunity to rigorously investigate these responses in a caseâcontrol immunology study; 84 preinfection peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from individuals enrolled in the iPrEx trial who later seroconverted were matched with 480 samples from enrolled subjects who remained seronegative from both the placebo and active treatment arms. T-cell responses to HIV-1 Gag, Protease, Integrase, Reverse Transcriptase, Vif, and Nef antigens were quantified for all subjects in an IFN-γ enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISpot) assay. IFN-γ responses varied in magnitude and frequency across subjects. A positive response was more prevalent in those who remained persistently HIV-1ânegative for Gag ( P = 0.007), Integrase ( P < 0.001), Vif ( P < 0.001), and Nef ( P < 0.001). When correlated with outcomes in the iPrEx trial, Vif- and Integrase-specific T-cell responses were associated with reduced HIV-1 infection risk hazard ratio (HR) = 0.36, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 0.19â0.66 and HR = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.28â0.96, respectively. Antigen-specific responses were independent of emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate use. IFN-γ secretion in the ELISpot was confirmed using multiparametric flow cytometry and largely attributed to effector memory CD4+ or CD8+ T cells. Our results show that HIV-1âspecific T-cell immunity can be detected in exposed but uninfected individuals and that these T-cell responses can differentiate individuals according to infection outcomes.
This open access book introduces adaptive mediation as an alternative approach that enables mediators to go beyond liberal peace mediation, or other determined-design models of mediation, in the ...context of contemporary conflict resolution and peace-making initiatives. Adaptive mediation is grounded in complexity theory, and is specifically designed to cope with highly dynamic conflict situations characterized by uncertainty and a lack of predictability. It is also a facilitated mediation process whereby the content of agreements emerges from the parties to the conflict themselves, informed by the context within which the conflict is situated. This book presents the core principles and practices of adaptive mediation in conjunction with empirical evidence from four diverse case studies – Colombia, Mozambique, The Philippines, and Syria – with a view to generate recommendations for how mediators can apply adaptive mediation approaches to resolve and transform contemporary and future armed conflicts.
In this study, we investigated the expression levels of host restriction factors in six untreated HIV-1-positive patients over the course of infection. We found that the host restriction factor gene ...expression profile consistently increased over time and was significantly associated with CD4+ T cell activation and viral load. Our data are among the first to demonstrate the dynamic nature of host restriction factors in vivo over time.
Theoretical and policy debates on the responses to address violent extremism (VE) have evolved from countering violent extremism concepts, characterized by coercion and over-securitization, to a ...broader understanding that incorporates prevention and risk reduction on multiple levels. While the preventing violent extremism agenda emphasizes non-coercive methods, such as education, empowerment, and participation, both approaches are also used interchangeably in preventing and countering violent extremism programs. In many regions, including Africa and the Middle East, hard-security approaches are the primary response to VE. This article discusses alternative holistic approaches that link resilience, peacebuilding, and community-based prevention in fragile contexts, enabling local communities to effectively address peace and security threats that will likely persist or reappear over time.
HTLV-1-Associated Myelopathy (HAM/TSP) is a progressive neuroinflammatory disorder for which no disease-modifying treatment exists. Modest clinical benefit from type I interferons (IFN-α/β) in ...HAM/TSP contrasts with its recently identified IFN-inducible gene signature. In addition, IFN-α treatment
decreases proviral load and immune activation in HAM/TSP, whereas IFN-β therapy decreases tax mRNA and lymphoproliferation. We hypothesize this "IFN paradox" in HAM/TSP might be explained by both cell type- and gene-specific effects of type I IFN in HTLV-1-associated pathogenesis. Therefore, we analyzed
transcriptomes of CD4
T cells, PBMCs and whole blood in healthy controls, HTLV-1-infected individuals, and HAM/TSP patients. First, we used a targeted approach, simultaneously quantifying HTLV-1 mRNA (HBZ, Tax), proviral load and 42 host genes with known antiretroviral (anti-HIV) activity in purified CD4
T cells. This revealed two major clusters ("antiviral/protective" vs. "proviral/deleterious"), as evidenced by significant negative (TRIM5/TRIM22/BST2) vs. positive correlation (ISG15/PAF1/CDKN1A) with HTLV-1 viral markers and clinical status. Surprisingly, we found a significant inversion of antiretroviral activity of host restriction factors, as evidenced by opposite correlation to
HIV-1 vs. HTLV-1 RNA levels. The anti-HTLV-1 effect of antiviral cluster genes was significantly correlated to their adaptive chimp/human evolution score, for both Tax mRNA and PVL. Six genes of the proposed antiviral cluster underwent lentivirus-driven purifying selection during primate evolution (TRIM5/TRIM22/BST2/APOBEC3F-G-H), underscoring the cross-retroviral evolutionary imprint. Secondly, we examined the genome-wide type I IFN response in HAM/TSP patients, following short-term
culture of PBMCs with either IFN-α or IFN-β. Microarray analysis evidenced 12 antiretroviral genes (including TRIM5α/TRIM22/BST2) were significantly up-regulated by IFN-β, but not IFN-α, in HAM/TSP. This was paralleled by a significant decrease in lymphoproliferation by IFN-β, but not IFN-α treatment. Finally, using published
whole blood transcriptomic data of independent cohorts, we validated the significant positive correlation between TRIM5, TRIM22, and BST2 in HTLV-1-infected individuals and HAM/TSP patients, which was independent of the HAM/TSP disease signature. In conclusion, our results provide
mechanistic evidence for the observed immunovirological effect of
IFN-β treatment in HAM/TSP, reconcile an apparent IFN paradox in HTLV-1 research and identify biomarkers/targets for a precision medicine approach.
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