Forest, forest, forest. Sometimes we sleep. Walking, sleep, walking, sleep. It’s dangerous on this way

Hidden migrant routes through Croatia lead through forest areas (among other types of terrain) which include those along state borders, but also forests in the interior of the territory. Those forests can variously be seen as shelters for migrants, albeit harsh, or as green tunnels leading to desired destinations, and as scenes of suffering and violence. This article approaches the forests in question as landscapes that have been transformed from a neutral natural environment into active factors for creating and maintaining border control regimes and deterring and expelling unwanted migrants. Based on our long-term field research and publicly available (archival, media and other) sources, we seek to document, interpret, and interconnect the objects and practices involved in constructing the forest as a hostile terrain and perilous environment for migrants, and as an important element in controlling unwanted migrations. These are, on the one hand, objects and practices that intervene into forests, such as setting up cameras or cutting down trees, and, on the other, interventions that take place in forests, such as police interception or expulsion. Apart from these external interventions, in this context of remodeling forests into dangerous environments, one can also discuss the role of nature itself and its characteristics, as well as the causes of why migrants find themselves in nature in the first place. Although, at first glance, it seems that people on the move choose the forest as the place and route of their movement of their own volition, they are pushed and expelled into these forests by exclusionary policies (visa regimes, asylum systems, etc.). This, ultimately, classifies forests in Croatia as weaponized landscapes of exclusion and death, such as the desert (e.g., De León 2015), mountain (Del Biaggio et al. 2020), maritime (e.g., Albahari 2015) or archipelago (Mountz 2017) landscapes

Adult Neurogenesis and Stroke: A Tale of Two Neurogenic Niches

In the aftermath of an acute stroke, numerous signaling cascades that reshape the brain both in the perilesional zone as well as in more distal regions are activated. Despite continuous improvement in the acute treatment of stroke and the sustained research efforts into the pathophysiology of stroke, we critically lag in our integrated understanding of the delayed and chronic responses to ischemic injury. As such, the beneficial or maladaptive effect of some stroke-induced cellular responses is unclear, restricting the advancement of therapeutic strategies to target long-term complications. A prominent delayed effect of stroke is the robust increase in adult neurogenesis, which raises hopes for a regenerative strategy to counter neurological deficits in stroke survivors. In the adult brain, two regions are known to generate new neurons from endogenous stem cells: the subventricular zone (SVZ) and the dentate subgranular zone (SGZ) of the hippocampus. While both niches respond with an increase in neurogenesis post-stroke, there are significant regional differences in the ensuing stages of survival, migration, and maturation, which may differently influence functional outcome. External interventions such as rehabilitative training add a further layer of complexity by independently modulating the process of adult neurogenesis. In this review we summarize the current knowledge regarding the effects of ischemic stroke on neurogenesis in the SVZ and in the SGZ, and the influence of exogenous stimuli such as motor activity or enriched environment (EE). In addition, we discuss the contribution of SVZ or SGZ post-stroke neurogenesis to sensory, motor and cognitive recovery.

Network controllability solutions for computational drug repurposing using genetic algorithms

Control theory has seen recently impactful applications in network science, especially in connections with applications in network medicine. A key topic of research is that of finding minimal external interventions that offer control over the dynamics of a given network, a problem known as network controllability. We propose in this article a new solution for this problem based on genetic algorithms. We tailor our solution for applications in computational drug repurposing, seeking to maximize its use of FDA-approved drug targets in a given disease-specific protein-protein interaction network. We show how our algorithm identifies a number of potentially efficient drugs for breast, ovarian, and pancreatic cancer. We demonstrate our algorithm on several benchmark networks from cancer medicine, social networks, electronic circuits, and several random networks with their edges distributed according to the Erdös-Rényi, the scale-free, and the small world properties. Overall, we show that our new algorithm is more efficient in identifying relevant drug targets in a disease network, advancing the computational solutions needed for new therapeutic and drug repurposing approaches.

Indicators and Success Stories: The UN Sustaining Peace Agenda, Bureaucratic Power, and Knowledge Production in Post-War Settings

Most discussions on knowledge production in peacebuilding and conflict management have focused on the study of epistemic communities and strategic coalitions of global and local actors. This article shifts the focus away from who produces knowledge to the underexplored question of how knowledge is generated, repackaged, deployed, or ignored. Combining sociology of knowledge approaches with feminist governmentality scholarship, I critically interrogate the role of reports as knowledge production artifacts and report writing as bureaucratic practices that serve to design and implement UN Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) projects on Sustaining Peace. Specifically, I analyze the role of reports and reporting in four PBF projects on gender and reconciliation in Liberia, and I show how through the mechanisms of persuasion and homogenization, reports serve not only to measure success and failure and to produce contextualized knowledge, but also to exert symbolic power, (re)producing authoritative knowledge on women, gender and reconciliation, and giving legitimacy to external interventions. Studying how knowledge is produced instead of who produces it enables us to apprehend the entanglement of the local and the global and overcome simplistic binaries and oppositions, all while paying attention to how the production of knowledge, and its silences, remains embedded in global power relations.

Conditions of External Military Interventions in African Internal Conflicts: Complexity of Conflict Intensity, Social Dislocation and Raw Materials

External interventions are one of the most important aspects of intrastate conflicts since a majority of them are significantly internationalised, especially in Africa where the interventions most often occur. Factors that lead to the military intervention remain, however, puzzling. The authors therefore apply the method of fs/QCA to understand not only conditionsbehind intervention into African intrastate conflicts, but also to catch interactions among them. The results show high complexity of various possible combinations, mainly of high intensity, massive social dislocation or presence of raw materials in case of interventions in African internal conflicts

New Strategies from Natural Materials to Fight against Diet-induced Metabolic Disorders (Part - II)

According to the global statistics, the incidence of metabolic syndrome (MetS), which is a multifactorial disease with multiple risk factors, has reached nearly one-quarter of the population, and poses a serious threat to public health. MetS is a cluster of conditions characterized by insulin resistance, hypertension, obesity, and cardiovascular-related risk factors. Various aspects, such as modern lifestyle (diet, sedentary behavior), aging and genes attribute to increasing the morbidity of MetS. While external interventions, prescribed drugs and natural materials play an indispensable role in the management of MetS. Intake of plant-based bioactive compounds and peptide-based drug delivery systems emerge as safe and effective pharmacological approaches to treat MetS complications. Natural biomaterials are able to decrease the adverse effects of drugs and enhance treatment efficiency. In this thematic issue, we explored the beneficial effects of various phytochemicals, marine drugs and cellpenetrating peptides (CPPs)-mediated drug delivery system in the management of MetS and associated disorders. The usage of CPPs in combination with other therapeutic agents like nanoparticles and peptides is a novel and efficient approach to conquer the components in MetS.

Causality in Cognitive Neuroscience: Concepts, Challenges, and Distributional Robustness

Whereas probabilistic models describe the dependence structure between observed variables, causal models go one step further: They predict, for example, how cognitive functions are affected by external interventions that perturb neuronal activity. In this review and perspective article, we introduce the concept of causality in the context of cognitive neuroscience and review existing methods for inferring causal relationships from data. Causal inference is an ambitious task that is particularly challenging in cognitive neuroscience. We discuss two difficulties in more detail: the scarcity of interventional data and the challenge of finding the right variables. We argue for distributional robustness as a guiding principle to tackle these problems. Robustness (or invariance) is a fundamental principle underlying causal methodology. A (correctly specified) causal model of a target variable generalizes across environments or subjects as long as these environments leave the causal mechanisms of the target intact. Consequently, if a candidate model does not generalize, then either it does not consist of the target variable's causes or the underlying variables do not represent the correct granularity of the problem. In this sense, assessing generalizability may be useful when defining relevant variables and can be used to partially compensate for the lack of interventional data.

The mitochondrial basis of aging and related diseases

Aging is a programmed and spontaneous life course that organisms must undergo, and as an irreversible and relatively conservative process, several theories have tried to explain its causes. Among them, the somatic mutation theory, the free radical theory, the natural cross-linking of biomolecules, the immune theory, the telomere theory, the biological clock theory, and the toxic theory are among the most widely accepted hypotheses. However, no single doctrine can fully explain the aging process. Aging is mainly manifested in the structural and functional aging and decline of organisms, and as organisms continue to age, most organs will experience varying degrees of aging and irreversible damage, although it is directly related to many diseases, aging itself is generally not considered as a disease. Any organism ages slowly over time, with the most easily observable manifestations in external changes such as diminished hair color and sagging skin. Numerous studies have shown that mitochondria are instrumental in mitigating aging as the primary provider of cellular energy, providing energy for cell growth and development as well as being the center of cellular metabolism; therefore, once mitochondria become faulty, a large number of cells will lose function, age, and thus die. In this paper, we will discuss in detail the relationship between mitochondria and aging and how external interventions can promote the function of mitochondria in delaying aging.

External Interventions and Consequences in the Horn of Africa

This paper examines external interventions, subsequent configurations of alliances and consequences in the Horn of Africa (HOA). The HOA, major part of its political history is shaped and reshaped by external interventions and constant shifts of alliances and political configurations. Colonialism, Cold War, war on terror, piracy and scramble for resources have all shaped the politics of the region. Superpower rivalry during Cold War left its interminable print in the region. The GCC crisis and the Yemen war induced greater involvement of those states in the region. Its crucial strategic location makes the region highly coveted by external actors making it an easy prey for external power struggle. This renders the region the most conflicted in the African continent. Recently, the region has witnessed convergence of military forces of major global powers. This in turn sparks reactions of radicalism, fundamentalism and extremism. The paper argues the conflated interventions and constant shifts of alliances generate convolute pathologies that plague the HOA.