This issue brief provides a brief overview of the legal, political, and operational frameworks protecting children from the effects of armed conflict, notably from violations by nonstate armed groups. It explores some of the limitations of these frameworks and their mechanisms, and then discusses ways to maximize the comparative advantages of different actors when engaging nonstate armed groups...

BACKGROUND: Certain features of peace-building distinguish it from peacekeeping, and make it an appropriate strategy in dealing with vertical conflict and low intensity conflict. However, some theorists suggest that attempts, through peace-building, to impose liberal values upon non-democratic cultures are misguided and lack an ethical basis. DISCUSSION: We have been investigating the peace-bui...

We develop an extension to differential equation models of dynamical systems to allow us to analyze probabilistic threshold dynamics that fundamentally and globally change system behavior. We apply our novel modeling approach to two cases of interest: a model of infectious disease modified for malware where a detection event drastically changes dynamics by introducing a new class in competition...

This paper examines downward price rigidity in Iranian house market and discusses whether this characteristic would result in an asymmetric relationship between house price and monetary policy. To test the downward house price rigidity the threshold GARCH model is employed. The asymmetric adjustment to monetary policy is examined using the asymmetric cointegration and error correction models. T...

We develop a dynamic agency model in which the agent controls current earnings via short-term effort and firm growth via long-term effort and the firm is subject to both shortand long-run shocks. Under the optimal contract, agency conflicts can induce both overand underinvestment in shortand long-term efforts compared to first best, leading to shortor long-termism in corporate policies. Exposur...

Consistency-based diagnosis is the most widely used approach to model-based diagnosis within the Artificial Intelligence community. It is usually carried out through an iterative cycle of behavior prediction, conflict detection, and candidate generation and refinement. Many approaches to consistency-based diagnosis have relied on some kind of on-line dependency-recording mechanism for conflict ...

Traditionally, frequency dependent evolutionary dynamics is described by deterministic replicator dynamics assuming implicitly infinite population sizes. Only recently have stochastic processes been introduced to study evolutionary dynamics in finite populations. However, the relationship between deterministic and stochastic approaches remained unclear. Here we solve this problem by explicitly ...

OBJECTIVES Units deployed to armed conflicts are at high risk for exposure to combat events. Many battle casualties (BCs) have been reported in the recent deployment to Afghanistan. The long-term impact of these combat injuries, at their five-year end point, is currently unknown. To date, no systematic inventory has been performed of an identified group of BCs in comparison to non-injured servi...

Unlike most Western nations, Israel does not recognize full separation of church and state but seeks instead a gentle fusion of Jewish and democratic values. Inasmuch as important religious norms such as sanctity of life may clash with dignity, privacy, and self-determination, conflicts frequently arise as Israeli lawmakers, ethicists, and healthcare professionals attempt to give substance to t...