Conflict Reduction Research Articles

Climate change, wildlife and fisheries: A review of impact on Nigeria’s food security

Climate change is a global phenomenon that affects all facets of life. In Nigeria, the rate of industrialization and urbanization has increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the last decade. These changes are observable in temperatures and rainfall regimes which have affected food production in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Agriculture, which used to be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, has reduced drastically and this may be caused by heat waves, irregular rainfall patterns, encroachment, and government policies leading to food shortage. The terrestrial environment has been faced with human and wildlife conflict issues on land usage and wildfires. Aquatic ecosystems are not left out of these effects as their surface area is shrinking and the water temperature has fluctuated irrationally thereby reducing aquatic biodiversity. The life processes in fish species and wildlife are impaired when the environmental conditions are unfavorable. In view of sustainability, economic, environmental and social strategies can be employed in the terrestrial environments. In the case of aquatic ecosystems, measures such as ecosystem approach to fisheries, forecasting of weather, good governance in fisheries related activities and reduction of conflicts between stakeholders in fisheries are suggested. To this end, this paper reviews the effects of climate change on both terrestrial (agricultural and wildlife) and aquatic ecosystems to eliminate hunger (Goal 2), preserving life underwater (Goal 14) and on land (Goal 15) through climate resilience (Goal 13) as elaborated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Studying Traffic Safety During the Transition Period Between Manual Driving and Autonomous Driving: A Simulation-Based Approach

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are becoming a reality and are progressively penetrating the markets level by level. CAVs are a promising solution for traffic safety. However, robust studies are needed to explore and assess the expected behavior. This study attempts to evaluate traffic safety resulting from a near-real introduction of CAVs with different levels of automation (from Level 1 to Level 4). The investigation consisted of modeling different CAV levels using Gipps’ model, followed by the simulation of nine mixed fleets at a motorway segment. Subsequently, the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model was used for safety analysis. According to the results: (1) the gradual penetration of CAV levels led to a progressive reduction in traffic conflicts, ranging from 18.9% when the penetration of high levels of automation (Level 3 and Level 4 vehicles) is 5%, to 94.1% when all the vehicles on the traffic flow are Level 4; (2) human-driven vehicles and vehicles with low levels of automation (Level 1 and Level 2 vehicles) are more frequently involved in conflicts (as follower vehicles) than vehicles with high automation levels. E.g. human-driven vehicles are involved in conflicts from 8% to 122% more, while vehicles with high automation levels are involved in conflicts from 80% to 18% less than their sharing percentages, respectively, depending on different mixed fleets. This study confirms the theory and conclusions from previous literature that indicate a safety gain due to CAV penetration. Moreover, it provides a broader perspective and support for the introduction of CAVs levels.

Technology-enhanced acceleration of germline evaluation for therapy (TARGET): Results of a randomized controlled trial of a pretest patient-driven webtool vs. genetic counseling for prostate cancer germline testing.

10598 Background: Germline genetic testing is important for prostate cancer management, clinical trial eligibility and hereditary cancer risk assessment. Despite this, genetic testing is underutilized and there is a shortage of genetic counselors. To address these gaps, we designed a webtool to provide patient-driven genetic education and conducted a randomized non-inferiority trial to compare it with traditional pre-test genetic counseling. Methods: TARGET is a multi-center randomized controlled trial comparing standard pre-test genetic counseling versus web-based genetic education (intervention) (NCT04447703). The study protocol was previously published (PMID 35710085). Briefly, patients with prostate cancer who met criteria for germline testing (based on tumor features, ancestry or family history) were randomized to pre-test genetic education through genetic counseling vs a 9-module webtool created by the study team and Prostate Cancer Foundation. The primary endpoint was non-inferiority in reducing decisional conflict between the webtool and genetic counseling by a margin of 4 (set in advance) on the validated Decision Conflict Scale. Analysis of covariance was used to compare decisional conflict between groups. All participants opting for testing received a 51-gene Invitae panel, with results delivered to the patient and their provider. Results: 346 patients with prostate cancer with a mean age of 63.7 years were randomized to genetic counseling (n=174) or web-based genetic education (n=172). Compared to baseline, there were reductions in decisional conflict in both arms following pre-test genetic education (Table). Adjusting for study site and baseline decisional conflict, the test of non-inferiority in reducing decisional conflict between arms was statistically significant (difference = -0.04, 95% CI: -∞ to 1.95, p<0.001). Overall 265 (76.6%) participants underwent genetic testing, including 146 (83.9%) in the genetic counseling and 119 (69.2%) in webtool arm, with the following results: negative (49.4%), variant of uncertain significance (35.5%) and pathogenic variant (15.1%). Conclusions: Delivery of pre-test genetic education through a webtool was non-inferior to genetic counseling in reducing decisional conflict. These results support a new standard of care for the use of patient-driven digital webtools for expanding access to pretest genetic education and informed decision-making for prostate cancer genetic testing. Clinical trial information: NCT04447703 . [Table: see text]

Development and Appraisal of a Web-Based Decision Aid for HPV Vaccination for Young Adults and Parents of Children in Israel-A Quasi-Experimental Study.

This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of two web-based decision aids designed to help parents of children aged 10-17 years and young adults aged 18-26 years make informed decisions about the HPV vaccine. The decision aids were developed according to the International Patient Decision Aid Standards (IPDAS) criteria and included information about the vaccine, probabilities of benefits and side effects, personal narratives, and values clarification. The study utilized a quasi-experimental design and included 120 Hebrew-speaking parents and 160 young adults. Participants completed baseline surveys and, two weeks after using the decision aid, completed a follow-up survey. Both parents and young adults experienced a reduction in decisional conflict, an increase in self-efficacy, and greater confidence in the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. The proportion of participating parents deciding to vaccinate their children against HPV increased from 46% to 75%, and the proportion of participating young adults leaning towards receiving the HPV vaccine increased from 64% to 92%. The study highlights the importance of using decision aids to support informed decision making about vaccination and suggests that web-based decision aids may be a useful tool for supporting Israeli parents and young adults to make HPV vaccination decisions.

In Search of Severity Dimensions of Traffic Conflicts for Different Simulated Mixed Fleets Involving Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

This study aims to estimate the severity of conflicts that may arise from the introduction of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) by examining the vehicle paths generated by microsimulations of mixed fleets of human-driven vehicles and CAVs with different levels of automation (L1-L4 vehicles). The study assesses the severity of conflicts using a holistic approach that considers three dimensions: (1) proximity to collision, via the time-to-collision (TTC) indicator; (2) potential consequences of a conflict, via single surrogate safety measures such as maximum speed (MaxS) and vehicle speed difference (DeltaS); and (3) a combination of both dimensions to assign severity scores, via TTC and velocity vectors. The study’s findings suggest that moderate penetration rates of L3 and L4 vehicles (35–55%) show significant differences in the number of traffic conflicts with varying TTC values. Additionally, high penetration rates of L3 and L4 vehicles (above 55%) result in lower values of conflict consequences measures such as MaxS and DeltaS. Furthermore, the study shows that conflict consequences decrease if the follower is a L3 or L4 vehicle. The study’s findings also reveal that there is a considerable reduction in high severity conflicts when the penetration rate of CAV levels reaches 50%, and the full operation of L4 vehicles results in a 75.5% reduction in high severity conflicts. Therefore, this study provides valuable insight into the potential severe conflicts during the transition period from manual vehicle operation to full CAV operation. Overall, the study’s findings highlight the importance of assessing the severity of potential conflicts arising from the introduction of CAVs. By considering the proximity to collision and the potential consequences of conflicts, the study provides a comprehensive assessment of the severity of conflicts. This information can inform the development of policies and strategies to ensure the safe and responsible introduction of CAVs into our transportation systems.

Federalism and State Restructuring in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Origins, Rationales, and Challenges

Abstract This article assesses federalism in the five African federations: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, and South Sudan. By using Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) and Afrobarometer data, it systematically investigates in what respect federalism succeeded and failed and whether the success rate varies across the states. It shows that federalism is successful in maintaining the states’ territorial integrity, but its success in conflict reduction is limited. Federalism helped reduce conflict in South Africa but not Nigeria and Ethiopia due to a lack of essential ingredients enabling federalism to flourish in multinational states. Federalism enabled South Africa and Nigeria to accommodate diversity by reducing identity-based exclusion and improving diverse groups’ access to power. In Ethiopia, it facilitated cultural and linguistic plurality but was unsuccessful in reducing exclusion and improving groups’ equal access to power. Africa illustrates that federalism fails to manage conflict unless incumbents embrace democracy, curtail centralism, and are loyal to federalism.

Conflict Reduction of Acyclic Flow Event Structures

Event structures are a well-known modeling formalism for concurrent systems with causality and conflict relations. The flow event structure (FES) is a variant of event structures, which is a generalization of the prime event structure. In an FES, two events may be in conflict even though they are not syntactically in conflict; this is called a semantic conflict. The existence of semantic conflict in an FES motivates reducing conflict relations (i.e., conflict reduction) to obtain a simpler structure. In this paper, we study conflict reduction in acyclic FESs. A necessary and sufficient condition for conflict reduction is given; algorithms to compute semantic conflict, local configurations, and conflict reduction are proposed. A great time reduction was observed in computational experiments when comparing the proposed with the naive method.

Incorporating human dimensions is associated with better wildlife translocation outcomes

Wildlife translocations are increasingly used to combat declining biodiversity worldwide. Successful translocation often hinges on coexistence between humans and wildlife, yet not all translocation efforts explicitly include human dimensions (e.g., economic incentives, education programs, and conflict reduction assistance). To evaluate the prevalence and associated outcomes of including human dimensions as objectives when planning translocations, we analyze 305 case studies from the IUCN’s Global Re-Introduction Perspectives Series. We find that fewer than half of all projects included human dimension objectives (42%), but that projects including human dimension objectives were associated with improved wildlife population outcomes (i.e., higher probability of survival, reproduction, or population growth). Translocation efforts were more likely to include human dimension objectives if they involved mammals, species with a history of local human conflict, and local stakeholders. Our findings underscore the importance of incorporating objectives related to human dimensions in translocation planning efforts to improve conservation success.

The introduction of African cheetahs to India was planned without considering their spatial ecology

The introduction of African cheetahs to India was planned without considering their spatial ecology

A Family-Based Collaborative Care Model for Treatment of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Perinatal Women: Results From a Pilot Study

Untreated perinatal depression and anxiety can have detrimental consequences on family function. Logistical barriers prevent many perinatal women from accessing treatment, and these barriers are compounded for women residing in rural areas. This paper describes a Family-Based Collaborative Care Model (FBCCM) that is designed to bypass barriers to increase access to care for depressed and anxious perinatal women in rural regions of the United States. The FBCCM includes the following two components: (1) a 10-session video-delivered family therapy treatment for perinatal depression and anxiety and (2) a video-delivered infant care provider training on addressing the parenting needs of depressed and anxious mothers. This paper describes the feasibility of implementing the FBCCM with families and infant care providers. Findings are presented on the preliminary effectiveness of the video-delivered family therapy treatment in reducing maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms, and family conflict. This pilot study was carried out using an implementation-effectiveness hybrid trial design without a comparison group. Changes in maternal depressive symptoms, maternal anxiety symptoms, and family conflict were measured at posttreatment, 3 months, and 6 months later. On average, mothers (n=24) attended 9.79 (SD 1.02) sessions. On average, their family members (n=24) attended 9.42 (SD 1.28) sessions. A total of 31 infant care providers attended the training on addressing the parenting needs of depressed and anxious mothers. Mothers reported a significant reduction in depressive symptoms (P<.001) and anxiety symptoms (P<.001) from baseline to the 6-month follow-up. Mothers reported a significant reduction in conflict (P<.001), and their family members also reported a significant reduction in conflict (P=.007) from baseline to the 6-month follow-up. The findings from this study provide support for the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of the FBCCM. The findings will be used to inform a larger study of the FBCCM.

Candidate Term Boundary Conflict Reduction Method for Chinese Geological Text Segmentation

Though Chinese word segmentation (CWS) relies heavily on arithmetic power to train huge models and human work to label corpora, models and algorithms are still less accurate, especially for segmentation in a specific domain. In this study, a high-degree-of-freedom-priority candidate term boundary conflict reduction method (HFCR) is proposed to solve the problem of manually setting thresholds on segmentation based on information entropy. We quantify the uncertainty of left and right character connections of candidate terms and then arrange them in descending order for local comparisons to determine term boundaries. Dynamic numerical comparisons are adopted instead of setting a threshold manually and randomly. Experiments show that the average F1-value of CWS for Chinese geological text is higher than 95% and the F1-value for Chinese general datasets is higher than 87%. Compared with representative tokenizers and the SOTA model, our method performs better, which solves the term boundary conflict problem well and has excellent performance on single geological text segmentation without any samples or labels.

Evaluating the Financial Effectiveness of Funded Projects on Tiger Conservation in Bangladesh

Background and Research Aims The conservation of Bengal tigers is a global concern due to their exponential decline in population around the world. In 2010, all Tiger Range Countries (TRCs) committed to double their tiger population by 2022. As a member of the TRCs, Bangladesh has launched and conducted many tiger conservation projects with a heavy financial investment. However, the tiger population has not increased in the country. Therefore, there is an urgent need to investigate why those funded projects’ outcomes were unsatisfactory compared to neighboring countries such as India and Nepal. Methods This review was conducted purely based on previous archival tiger conservation related documents. Six specific tiger conservation projects implemented in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal were selected to investigate the effectiveness of tiger conservation in Bangladesh. Allocated fund distributions were segmented into five groups: capacity building, planning policy and reports, infrastructural development, tiger–human conflict (THC) reduction, and in-field actions to increase the tiger population. Results The analysis showed that India and Nepal spent most of their budget on in-field activities and least on planning. A moderate amount was spent on THC reduction, capacity building, and infrastructural development. In contrast, Bangladesh spent the majority of its fund on planning. India and Nepal also developed a sustainable funding mechanism to reduce their dependency on donor agencies, which was absent in the case of Bangladesh. Conclusion It is recommended that future tiger conservation initiatives in Bangladesh should address more in-field action, such as patrolling to stop poaching and the illegal extraction of resources, sustainable long-term alternative income generation activities, and health issues such as identifying diseases, inbreeding effects, and captive breeding. Implications for Conservation Bangladesh needs to develop a sustainable long-term funding mechanism for in-field actions for tiger protection.

Digital Assistant for Arrival Scheduling with Conflict Prevention Capabilities

Nowadays, in view of the growing traffic volume, an appropriate aircraft sequencing in the arrival sector is needed to maintain safety levels and improve the performance of the runway system and flight times. This paper presents a digital assistant supporting the air traffic controller in aircraft sequencing by providing suggestions for next waypoints, speed adjustments and altitude holdings. On the one hand, the suggested paths are such to preserve safety by ensuring the prescribed minimum separation, while also promoting environmental benefits through continuous descent operations (CDO). On the other hand, the suggestions aim to reduce landing times, improving the runway throughput. The proposed tool exploits multipath planning, for which a global optimization technique is used in conjunction with the dynamic time warping distance metric and a reinforcement learning approach to resolve conflicts through speed modulation and/or altitude holding. The performances of the assistant are assessed by means of a multi-agent simulator tailoring its reasoning on the procedures of Olbia airport (Italy). The analysis of a stream of many random aircraft has revealed its effectiveness in terms of arrival time reduction against a standard first-come-first-served strategy, usually adopted by controllers, and strong conflict reduction while considering a CDO-like adherence. Additionally, the man/machine interaction is investigated through an analysis of the overall latency from the suggestions provided by the digital assistant up to the actual aircraft maneuvers.

Descriptive representation and conflict reduction: Evidence from India’s Maoist rebellion

Can greater inclusion in democracy for historically disadvantaged groups reduce rebel violence? Democracy-building is a common tool in counterinsurgencies and post-conflict states, yet existing scholarship has faced obstacles in measuring the independent effect of democratic reforms. We evaluate whether quotas for Scheduled Tribes in local councils reduced rebel violence in Chhattisgarh, an Indian state featuring high-intensity Maoist insurgent activity. These quotas did not originate as a counterinsurgency technique, but instead as an effort to address the longstanding political marginalization of India’s Scheduled Tribes. We employ a geographic regression discontinuity design to study the wartime effects of quotas implemented in Chhattisgarh, finding that reservations reduced Maoist violence in the state. Exploratory analyses of mechanisms suggest that reservations reduced violence by bringing local elected officials closer to state security forces, providing a windfall of valuable information to counterinsurgents. Our study shows that institutional engineering, like reforms to create more inclusive representative democracy, can shape the trajectory of insurgent violence. Institutional engineering creating more inclusive representative democracy during an ongoing conflict can affect the political economy of information sharing in civil war and, ultimately, affect the trajectory of insurgent violence.

Agrivoltaic, a Synergistic Co-Location of Agricultural and Energy Production in Perpetual Mutation: A Comprehensive Review

Agrivoltaic systems, which consist of the combination of energy production by means of photovoltaic systems and agricultural production in the same area, have emerged as a promising solution to the constraints related to the reduction in cultivated areas due to solar panels used in agricultural production systems. They also enable optimization of land use and reduction in conflicts over land access, in order to meet the increasing demand for agricultural products and energy resulting from rapid population growth. However, the selected installation configurations, such as elevation, spacing, tilt, and choice of panel technology used, can have a negative impact on agricultural and/or energy production. Thus, this paper addresses the need for a review that provides a clear explanation of agrivoltaics, including the factors that impact agricultural and energy production in agrivoltaic systems, types of panel configurations and technologies to optimize these systems, and a synthesis of modelling studies which have already been conducted in this area. Several studies have been carried out in this field to find the appropriate mounting height and spacing of the solar panels that optimize crop yields, as this later can be reduced by the shade created with the solar panels on the plants. It was reported that yields have been reduced by 62% to 3% for more than 80% of the tested crops. To this end, an optimization model can be developed to determine the optimal elevation, spacing, and tilt angle of the solar panels. This model would take into account factors that influence crop growth and yield, as well as factors that affect the performance of the photovoltaic system, with the goal of maximizing both crop yield and energy production.

CAN FORGIVENESS MARITAL ENHANCEMENT PROGRAMME (FMEP) REDUCE MARITAL CONFLICT AND AUGMENT SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF MARRIED COUPLES?

This study examines the effect of the Forgiveness Marital Enhancement Programme (FMEP) on couples with Marital Conflict (MC) in their intimate dyadic relationships via an experimental design. It was hypothesized that conscious, intentional daily awareness and expression of forgiveness would produce a significant decrease in marital conflict and an increase in Subjective Well-being (SWB). Seventy-six participants were randomly assigned to either experimental or control groups. The experimental group alone was asked to complete a 50-day FMEP. All participants answered the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (2005), Marital Conflict Scale (1985) and Subjective Well-Being Inventory (SUBI, 1994) before and after the FMEP, and at a follow-up test after two months. Differences between control and interventional groups were analysed via independent samples t-tests and changes across testing phases within groups were evaluated via Repeated Measures of ANOVA. Between-group and within-group analyses indicated that participation in the FMEP resulted in a reduction in Marital Conflict and enhancement in Subjective Well-being of married couples. KEYWORDS: Forgiveness, Marital Conflict, Subjective Well-being, Forgiveness Marital Enhancement Programme (FMEP), Intimate/dyadic Relationships

GLOBALIZATION AND INSECURITY IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA: AN EVALUATION OF FARMER-HERDERS CONFLICT AND NATIONAL SECURITY IN NIGERIA.

This study examined globalization and insecurity in North Central Nigeria with specific reference to farmer-herders conflict and National Security in Nigeria. The researcher used primary data from a sample of 300 respondents obtained by the use of a structured questionnaire from the study areas. Inferential descriptive statistics such as linear regression analysis was used to examine the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable of the study. The hypotheses of the study were tested using the probability value of the estimates. The result of the study shows that food insecurity in the study area has a negative effect on national security in North Central Nigeria and the effect is not statistically significant (p&gt;0.05) and but in line with a priori expectation. Displacement of farmer on farmers has a negative on national security in North Central Nigeria and the effect is not statistically significant (p&gt;0.05) but in line with a priori expectation. A negative relationship exist between loss of life as occasioned by farmers-herders conflict national security in North Central Nigeria and the effect is not statistically significant (p&gt;0.05) but in line with a priori expectation. This means that a unit increases in loss of life will result to a corresponding decrease in national security in North Central Nigeria by margin of 20.8%. It was concluded that food security, displacement of farmers and losses of lives as occasioned by farmers-herders crisis all have a negative effect on national security in North Central Nigeria. It was recommended among others that the farmer-herders conflict could be ameliorated if government act proactively by establishment of ranches so that they will be a reduction of conflict and thus improvement in food security in the region

Conflict and small‐scale investment: Evidence from Colombian peace agreement

The long-run effects of conflict on agricultural production depend crucially on how conflict affects farm investment. We use the Colombian peace agreement to estimate how the reduction of violent conflict affects farmer investment decisions. In areas where the armed group was initially present, the end of conflict led to a more than twofold increase in farm investment, as farmers moved production from annual to perennial crops. We find no evidence that investment came at the expense of short-term consumption, and was likely financed by debt. Our results suggest that decreased investment may be an important mechanism through which armed conflict inhibits agricultural development and points to a potentially large peace dividend.

Effects of Shared Decision-Making with a Patient Decision Aid for Postangiography Hemostasis Method Selection: A Randomized Controlled Trial

PurposeTo evaluate the effects of shared decision-making (SDM) with a patient decision aid (PtDA) on hemostasis device selection and reduction of decisional conflicts in patients undergoing transfemoral angiography. Materials and MethodsPatients undergoing angiography were randomized to receive either a standard explanation or the process aid of PtDA for choosing hemostasis devices. The decisional conflict was assessed using the 4-item Sure of myself; Understand information; Risk-benefit ratio; Encouragement (SURE) scale. Differences in demographic variables, clinical variables, and final choice of hemostasis devices were compared via univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. ResultsIn total, 158 patients were included—80 in the PtDA group and 78 in the standard group. No difference was found between the 2 groups in terms of patient demographic and clinical variables. The PtDA group scored better on all questions of the SURE scale both individually and collaboratively (P <.001). PtDA intervention (P =.031) and reason for angiography (P =.0006) were the main variables that influenced patient hemostasis device choice in the univariate logistic regression analysis. Reason for angiography remained the only deciding factor that affected patient choice in the multivariate logistic regression analysis (P =.015). ConclusionsStep-by-step guidance and pictorial explanation with the assistance of PtDA led to improvements in patient knowledge but showed no significant impact in multivariate analysis for the influence on the choice of hemostasis device.

Intimate partner violence in the shadow of COVID-19 and its associations with stress, function and support among the Israeli general population.

The current study aimed to explore the associations between intimate partner violence (IPV), psychological distress, health and financial concerns, function and support during the COVID-19 outbreak in Israel. Data were collected from 333 Israeli adults (50.8% men and 49.2% women) via an online survey during the third lockdown in Israel. Existing scales were adapted to measure psychological distress, function, and support. Chi-square tests, t-tests, Chi-square tests Z ratios, multiple regressions and a series of process models were employed to examine the research hypotheses. The main findings show that IPV, especially verbal violence, was directly associated with higher levels of distress and lower levels of functioning, a link that could be indirectly mitigated by health and financial concerns as well as lack of family and community support. In addition, low rates of physical violence, with no gender differences and with higher levels of verbal violence reported by women, were found. Finally, women reported higher levels of concerns and psychological distress and lower levels of functioning than men. The results might help identify the needs of families and couples in order to design counselling or training programs for stress and conflict reduction. In addition, the response to the pandemic cannot be a homogeneous response. Different assistive measures must be applied to various segments of the population and groups that are already at risk and, therefore, remain more vulnerable, with targeted assistance given to all of these different groups.