In its search for media influences in violent conflict, most existing scholarship has investigated the coverage of specific, salient conflict events. Media have been shown to focus on violence, sidelining concerns of reconciliation and disengaging rapidly as time proceeds. Studies have documented ethnocentric bias and self-reinforcing media hypes, which have been linked to escalation and radicalization. However, based on the existing studies, it remains hard to gauge if the unearthed patterns of media coverage are generally pervasive or limited to a few salient moments, specific conflicts or contexts. Likewise, we cannot say if different kinds of media apply similar styles of conflict coverage, or if their coverage is subject to specific contextual or outlet-specific factors. In this article, the authors compare the contents of both domestic and foreign opinion-leading media coverage across six selected conflicts over a time range of 4 to 10 years. They conduct a diachronic, comparative analysis of 3,700 semantic concepts raised in almost 900,000 news texts from 66 different news media. Based on this analysis, they trace when and to what extent each outlet focuses its attention on the conflict, highlights specific aspects (notably, violence and suffering, negotiations and peaceful solutions), and presents relevant in- and out-groups, applying different kinds of evaluation. The analysis generally corroborates the media’s tendency to cover conflict in an event-oriented, violence-focused and ethnocentric manner, both during routine periods and – exacerbated merely by degrees – during major escalation. At the same time, the analysis highlights important differences in the strength and appearance of these patterns, and points to recurrent contingencies that can be tied to the specific contextual factors and general journalistic logics shaping the coverage.
This article argues that part of the reason why some Middle Eastern states remain democratically challenged is the emergence, operation, and political influence of "security networks" and "deep states"—informal actors in the area of national security. The article explains what these actors are, situates them in a broad theoretical and comparative perspective, assesses their impact on democratic development, and provides examples from Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt.
The nuclear disasters of Chernobyl and Fukushima presented an urgent need for finding solutions to treatment of radioactive wastes. Among the by-products of nuclear fission is radioactive Cs-137, which evokes an environmental hazard due to its long half-life (> 30 years) and high solubility in water. In this work, a water-soluble organic ligand, readily obtained from alloxan and 1,3,5-benzenetriol, has been found to selectively bind and precipitate Cs+ ions from aqueous solutions. The special rigid structure of the ligand, which consists of a ‘‘tripodal’’ carbonyl base above and below an aromatic plane, contributes to the size-driven selectivity towards the large Cs+ ions and the formation of a giant, insoluble supramolecular complex. In addition to the low costs of the ligand, high yields and effectiveness in precipitating Cs+ ions, the Cs- complex revealed a high endurance to continuous doses of gamma-radiation, increasing its potential to act as a precipitating agent for Cs-137.
This study examined the rates of exposure to community violence (ECV; that is, witnessing and directly experiencing violence) as well as the detrimental consequences of such exposure as reflected in posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and a decline in psychological well-being (PWB) among parents. In addition, the study examined whether self-efficacy and collective efficacy moderate these consequences. A self-administered questionnaire was filled out by a systematic random sample of 760 Palestinian parents in Israel. The findings indicate that most of them had witnessed such violence, and almost half of them had directly experienced such violence in their lifetime. The rates of ECV were higher for the fathers than the mothers. ECV was found to predict high levels of PTSS and low levels of PWB among parents. In addition, collective efficacy was found only to moderate the relationship between witnessing community violence and PTSS. There is a need to identify adults who are exposed to community violence, as well as to develop culturally adapted and sociopolitically sensitive therapeutic and preventive interventions and projects for provision of assistance following exposure to such violence.
A social choice correspondence is self-implementable in strong equilibrium if it is implementable in strong equilibrium by a social choice function selecting from the correspondence itself as a game form. We characterize all social choice correspondences implementable this way by an anonymous social choice function satisfying no veto power, given that the number of agents is large relative to the number of alternatives. It turns out that these are exactly the social choice correspondences resulting from feasible elimination procedures as introduced in Peleg (1978).
Conversion disorder (CD), or functional neurological disorder, is manifested as a neurological disturbance that is not macroscopically visible on clinical structural neuroimaging and is instead ascribed to underlying psychological stress. Known for many years in neuropsychiatry, a comprehensive explanation of the way in which psychological stress leads to a neurological deficit of a structural‐like origin is still lacking.
Methods
We applied whole‐brain network‐based data‐driven analyses on resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging, recorded in seven patients with acute‐onset, stroke‐like CD with unilateral paresis and hypoesthesia as compared with 15 age‐matched healthy controls. We used a clustering analysis to measure functional connectivity (FC) strength within 10 different brain networks, as well as between these networks. Finally, we tested FC of specific brain regions that are known to be involved in CD.
Results
We found a significant increase in FC strength only within the default‐mode network (DMN), which manages self‐referential processing. Examination of inter‐connectivity between networks showed a structure of disturbed connectivity, which included decreased connectivity between the DMN and limbic/salience network, increased connectivity between the limbic/salience network and body‐related temporo‐parieto‐occipital junction network, decreased connectivity between the temporo‐parieto‐occipital junction and memory‐related medial temporal lobe, and decreased connectivity between the medial temporal lobe and sensorimotor network. Region‐specific FC analysis showed increased connectivity between the hippocampus and DMN.
Discussion
These preliminary results of disturbances in brain networks related to memory, emotions and self‐referential processing, and networks involved in motor planning and execution, suggest a role of these cognitive functions in the psychopathology of CD.
Deborah Golden, Erdreich, Lauren , Roberman, Sveta , Golden, Deborah , Erdreich, Lauren , ו Roberman, Sveta . 2018. “Setting The Scene—Theory, Context, Method”. Mothering, Education And Culture: Russian, Palestinian And Jewish Middle-Class Mothers In Israeli Society, Pp. 5–26.
