Several insurgent groups have financed their arms procurement through drug trafficking, explaining in part the long duration of conflicts in drug producing countries. Incomes generated from this ...trade do
not
however automatically translate into improved military capabilities, since access to military-grade weapons typically requires tacit or active state support. Hence, two groups with similar types of funding can still have access to very different types of armaments, impacting their operational capability. This paper compares the arms procurement of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) in Myanmar. Both insurgent groups have procured arms through networks and with finances from the drug trade. The UWSA's 20,000-strong force and significant armaments, including Man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) believed to be provided by China, is largely supported by these illicit activities and the networks they provide. FARC has ample access to small arms, the acquisition of which has been financed by taxation of the drug trade. In spite of significant incomes, FARC however until very recently lacked access to MANPADS, a fact which has significantly hampered its ability to withstand the Colombian counterinsurgency campaign, specifically targeted aerial assaults. The exploratory comparisons drawn in this paper offer insights into how insurgent groups can pass a crucial threshold of arms procurement, funded by illicit activities, that renders their dissolution far more difficult, while also highlighting the continued importance of state support in explaining rebel group resilience.
Colombia: Ending the Forever War? Johnson, Kyle; Jonsson, Michael
Survival (London),
03/2013, Letnik:
55, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Is the world's longest active civil war finally coming to an end? In November 2012 the Colombian government and the left-wing guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) began ...full-fledged peace negotiations in Havana, Cuba. But the mood in Bogota is ambivalent, with a yearning for peace tempered by a deep-seated distrust of FARC and its negotiating tactics.
Purpose
This study aims to measure the impact of the Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and US PATRIOT Act Section 311 blacklists on ...external deposits from blacklisted jurisdictions into BIS reporting countries in 1996–2008, a period when anti-money laundering-related actions were consistently less stringent than post-2010, to see whether they had an effect even absent the threat of sizable financial fines.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses descriptive statistics and bivariate and multivariate regressions to analyze the probable impact from blacklists on non-bank external deposits. The country sample is divided into offshore financial centers (OFCs) and non-OFCs and includes 158 non-listed countries. The impact of the blacklists is tested both jointly and individually for the respective blacklists.
Findings
The authors find mixed impact from jurisdictions being blacklisted on the growth rate of stocks of deposits into BIS reporting countries. Effects are often zero, negative in several cases and positive in some cases. This is consistent with the “stigma effect” and the “stigma paradox” in the literature. An overall impact from blacklisting is difficult to discern. Different blacklists had different effects, and the same blacklist impacted countries differently, illustrating the importance of disaggregating the analysis by individual countries.
Research limitations/implications
Interpretation of these data is limited by the absence of comparable data on non-resident deposits in blacklisted jurisdictions.
Practical implications
The impact of a blacklist depends in part on the structure of the listed jurisdictions’ economies, implying that country-specific sanctions may be more effective than blacklists.
Originality/value
This is one of the very few papers to date to rigorously test the impact of blacklists on external deposits.
There is a need for increased nosological knowledge to enable rational trials in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related disorders. The ongoing Gothenburg mild cognitive impairment (MCI) study is an ...attempt to conduct longitudinal in-depth phenotyping of patients with different forms and degrees of cognitive impairment using neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and neurochemical tools. Particular attention is paid to the interplay between AD and subcortical vascular disease, the latter representing a disease entity that may cause or contribute to cognitive impairment with an effect size that may be comparable to AD. Of 664 patients enrolled between 1999 and 2013, 195 were diagnosed with subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), 274 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 195 with dementia, at baseline. Of the 195 (29%) patients with dementia at baseline, 81 (42%) had AD, 27 (14%) SVD, 41 (21%) mixed type dementia (=AD + SVD = MixD), and 46 (23%) other etiologies. After 6 years, 292 SCI/MCI patients were eligible for follow-up. Of these 292, 69 (24%) had converted to dementia (29 (42%) AD, 16 (23%) SVD, 15 (22%) MixD, 9 (13%) other etiologies). The study has shown that it is possible to identify not only AD but also incipient and manifest MixD/SVD in a memory clinic setting. These conditions should be taken into account in clinical trials.
Introduction
To evaluate the usefulness of the 2018 NIA‐AA (National Institute on Aging and Alzheimer's Association) research framework in a longitudinal memory clinic study with different clinical ...outcomes and underlying disorders.
Methods
We included 420 patients with mild cognitive impairment or subjective cognitive impairment. During the follow up, 27% of the patients converted to dementia, with the majority converting to Alzheimer's disease (AD) or mixed dementia. Based on the baseline values of the cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers, the patients were classified into one of the eight possible ATN groups (amyloid beta Aβ aggregation A, tau aggregation reflecting neurofibrillary tangles T, and neurodegeneration N).
Results
The majority of the patients converting to AD and mixed dementia were in ATN groups positive for A (71%). The A+T+N+ group was highly overrepresented among converters to AD and mixed dementia. Patients converting to dementias other than AD or mixed dementia were evenly distributed across the ATN groups
Discussion
Our findings provide support for the usefulness of the ATN system to detect incipient AD or mixed dementia.
It is unclear if latent cognitive profiles can distinguish between dementia with subcortical vascular lesions and Alzheimer's disease (AD) at the incipient stage, and if they differ in performance ...from the Petersen subtypes.
To identify latent cognitive profiles in a naturalistic population of patients from a memory clinic sample, and investigate the derived classes not only in terms of conversion to AD, but also in terms of conversion to dementia with subcortical vascular lesions. Another objective was to compare the derived classes to the Petersen subtypes.
We performed a latent profile analysis (LPA) on standardized neuropsychological test scores from 476 memory clinic patients (age 64±8) without dementia, and analyzed progression to dementia after 2 years.
The LPA resulted in two classes with impaired cognition (Amnestic and Slow/Dysexecutive) and two classes with normal cognition (Normal-Low and Normal-High cognition). Belonging to the Amnestic class predicted progression to all-cause dementia and to AD; belonging to the Slow/Dysexecutive class predicted progression to all-cause dementia, AD, and dementia with subcortical vascular lesions. Of the Petersen MCI subtypes, only amnestic multi-domain MCI predicted progression to all-cause dementia, AD, and dementia with subcortical vascular lesions.
Latent cognitive profiles separated between AD and dementia with subcortical vascular lesions, while the Petersen subtypes did not. However, similar to the Petersen subtypes, LPA classes work better for ruling out progression to dementia than for case finding.
Introduction
Subcortical small‐vessel disease (SSVD) is the most common vascular cognitive disorder. However, because no disease‐specific cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers are available for SSVD, ...our aim was to identify such markers.
Methods
We included 170 healthy controls and patients from the Gothenburg Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) study clinically diagnosed with SSVD dementia, Alzheimer's disease (AD), or mixed AD/SSVD. We quantified CSF levels of amyloid‐β (Aβ)x‐38, Aβx‐40, Aβx‐42, as well as soluble amyloid precursor protein (sAPP)‐α and sAPP‐β.
Results
sAPP‐β was lower in SSVD patients than in AD patients and controls. Receiver‐operating characteristic (ROC) analyses showed that sAPP‐β moderately separated SSVD from AD and controls. Moreover, the CSF/serum albumin ratio was elevated exclusively in SSVD and could moderately separate SSVD from the other groups in ROC analyses.
Discussion
SSVD has a biomarker profile that differs from that of AD and controls, and to some extent also from mixed AD/SSVD, suggesting that signs of blood‐brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction and sAPP‐β could be additional tools to diagnose SSVD.
Highlights
Patients with subcortical small‐vessel disease (SSVD) exhibited reduced levels of sAPP‐β and disturbances of the blood‐brain barrier (BBB).
This biochemical pattern is different from that of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to some degree from that of mixed AD/SSVD.
Our findings are speaking in favor of the concept that SSVD is a distinct vascular cognitive disorder (VCD) form.
Background and purpose: White matter lesions (WMLs) caused by small vessel disease are common in elderly people and contribute to cognitive impairment. There are no established biochemical markers ...for WMLs. We aimed to study the relation between degree of WMLs rated on magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of structural biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and subcortical vascular dementia.
Methods: Fifty‐three non‐demented elderly individuals with WMLs were subjected to lumbar puncture. Degree of WMLs was rated using the Fazekas scale. Volumetric assessment of WMLs was performed. CSF samples were analyzed for the 40 and 42 amino acid fragments of amyloid β, α‐ and β‐cleaved soluble amyloid precursor protein, total tau (T‐tau), hyperphosphorylated tau (P‐tau181), neurofilament light protein (NFL), sulfatide and CSF/Serum‐albumin ratio.
Results: Fifteen subjects had mild, 23 had moderate and 15 had severe degree of WMLs. CSF‐NFL levels differed between the groups (P < 0.001) and correlated with the volume of WMLs (r = 0.477, P < 0.001). CSF sulfatide concentration displayed similar changes but less strongly. T‐tau, P‐tau181 and the different amyloid markers as well as CSF/S‐albumin ratio did not differ significantly between the groups.
Conclusions: The association of increased CSF‐NFL levels with increasing severity of WMLs in non‐demented subjects suggests that NFL is a marker for axonal damage in response to small vessel disease in the brain. This manifestation may be distinct from or earlier than the neurodegenerative process seen in AD, as reflected by the lack of association between WMLs and AD biomarkers.
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