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The links between protests and state responses have taken on increased visibility in light of the Arab Spring movements. But we still have unanswered questions about the relationship between protest behaviors and responses by the state. We frame this in terms of concession and disruption costs. Costs are typically defined as government behaviors that impede dissidents’ capacity for collective action. We change this causal arrow and hypothesize how dissidents can generate costs that structure the government's response to a protest. By disaggregating costs along dimensions of concession and disruption we extend our understanding of protest behaviors and the conditions under which they are more (or less) effective. Utilizing a new cross-national protest-event data set, we test our theoretical expectations against protests from 1990 to 2014 and find that when protesters generate high concession costs, the state responds in a coercive manner. Conversely, high disruption costs encourage the state to accommodate demands. Our research provides substantial insights and inferences about the dynamics of government response to protest.

Extreme weather events, driven by changing climatic conditions, interact with our built environment by distributing-or redistributing-environmental risk and damaging physical infrastructure. We focus on the role of extreme weather events in the distribution of toxic substances within and between residential communities in the largest cities in the United States (US). We explore the impact of projected inland and coastal flooding on the redistribution of toxicity from known contaminated sites, and how patterns of toxic flow change the total population and social demographics of the population at risk from toxic materials. We use the Urban Adaptation Assessment and data on toxic site locations from the US government to evaluate risk of toxin dispersion from flooding in cities and down to the census tract level for the period 2021-2061. We demonstrate that future climate conditions significantly increase the risk of the dispersion of toxins from contaminated sites by 2041.

This article introduces the Peace Accords Matrix Implementation Dataset (PAM_ID). We present time-series data on the implementation of 51 provisions in 34 comprehensive peace agreements negotiated in civil wars since 1989. We follow the implementation process for up to ten years following the signing of each agreement. The data provide new insights into the types of provisions that are more or less likely to be implemented, how implementation processes unfold over time, how implementation processes relate to one another, and how implementation affects various post-accord outcomes. We outline our coding methodology and case selection, and examine descriptive statistics. We illustrate one potential use of the data by combining eight different provisions into a composite indicator of security sector reform (SSR). A survival analysis finds that implementing security sector reforms contributes to long-term conflict reduction not only between the parties to the accord but also between the government and other non-signatory groups in the same conflict.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0226958.].

National adaptation plans (NAPs) are intended to provide an evidence-based, coordinated, and systematic approach to climate preparedness initiatives. In order to identify how NAPs could be improved, this paper analyzes 38 national adaptation plans using plan quality evaluation methods and explores national characteristics that are associated with high-quality plans. We find that NAPs typically include multiple data sources, explore current impacts and future vulnerabilities, establish goals, and identify potential adaptation strategies. Plans are weaker in the articulation of implementation and monitoring measures, raising concerns about whether plans will translate into action and how success will be measured. In addition, plans generally do not include a broad range of stakeholders in the planning process. The institutional authorship is a strong predictor of plan quality. Plans written by multi-agency committees are significantly higher quality than those written by single agencies, especially on engagement of stakeholders. Based on these results, we recommend that countries form multi-agency teams to lead the adaptation planning process and intentionally address components that are commonly overlooked including implementation guidance and evaluation metrics.

Listeria monocytogenes is a Gram-positive, food-borne pathogen of humans and animals. L. monocytogenes is considered to be a potential public health risk by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as this bacterium can easily contaminate ready-to-eat (RTE) foods and cause an invasive, life-threatening disease (listeriosis). Bacteria can adhere and grow on multiple surfaces and persist within biofilms in food processing plants, providing resistance to sanitizers and other antimicrobial agents. While whole genome sequencing has led to the identification of biofilm synthesis gene clusters in many bacterial species, bioinformatics has not identified the biofilm synthesis genes within the L. monocytogenes genome. To identify genes necessary for L. monocytogenes biofilm formation, we performed a transposon mutagenesis library screen using a recently constructed Himar1 mariner transposon. Approximately 10,000 transposon mutants within L. monocytogenes strain 10403S were screened for biofilm formation in 96-well polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microtiter plates with 70 Himar1 insertion mutants identified that produced significantly less biofilms. DNA sequencing of the transposon insertion sites within the isolated mutants revealed transposon insertions within 38 distinct genetic loci. The identification of mutants bearing insertions within several flagellar motility genes previously known to be required for the initial stages of biofilm formation validated the ability of the mutagenesis screen to identify L. monocytogenes biofilm-defective mutants. Two newly identified genetic loci, dltABCD and phoPR, were selected for deletion analysis and both ΔdltABCD and ΔphoPR bacterial strains displayed biofilm formation defects in the PVC microtiter plate assay, confirming these loci contribute to biofilm formation by L. monocytogenes.

Background African Americans (AAs) experience disproportionately higher rates of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias and significant disparities in access to diagnosis and care for cognitive health compared to White individuals. Although studies have investigated the effects of genetic risk (e.g., APOE) and early‐life trauma on late‐life cognitive functioning in AAs, the role of polygenic scores for general cognition (PGS‐gc)—the aggregated effects of numerous genetic loci to estimate genetic predisposition for cognitive functioning— and their interplay with early‐life trauma on cognitive functioning in older AAs remains understudied. This study investigated 1) the main and additive effects of PGS‐gc and early‐life trauma on cognitive functioning and 2) whether early‐life trauma moderates the effect of PGS‐gc on cognitive functioning in older AAs, leveraging a nationally representative, longitudinal dataset. Method Growth curve modeling was performed on 1,174 African ancestry adults aged 50+ from the 1996‐2020 waves (13 waves) of the Health and Retirement Study. Cognitive functioning was measured by a total cognition score. Genetic predisposition for cognitive functioning was measured via PGS‐gc, and early‐life trauma was measured using 10 items assessing adverse childhood experiences. Result Covariate‐adjusted analyses found a positive and significant association between PGS‐gc and cognitive functioning (z = 2.59, p < .05, 95% CI [0.06, 0.47]), indicating that higher PGS‐gc was associated with better cognitive performance. Family loss before age 16 was significantly associated with lower cognitive functioning, even after accounting for PGS‐gc (z = ‐2.49, p < .05, 95% CI [‐0.95, ‐0.11]). Moreover, parental physical/substance abuse before age 18 significantly moderated the relationship between PGS‐gc and cognitive functioning (z = ‐2.53, p < .05, 95% CI [‐1.14, ‐0.14]), suggesting that the positive association between PGS‐gc and cognitive functioning was attenuated in those who experienced such trauma. Conclusion These longitudinal findings are among the first to elucidate a gene‐by‐environment interaction on cognitive functioning in older AAs, suggesting that early‐life trauma (e.g., parental physical or substance abuse) significantly moderates and weakens the positive association between polygenic predisposition and late‐life cognitive functioning. These results underscore the critical need for trauma prevention and trauma‐informed care for racially/ethnically minoritized older AAs to promote late‐life cognitive health and address cognitive disparities.

Recent studies have estimated that climate-generated extreme weather disasters have reduced crop yields globally by up to 10%. By incorporating indicators of adaptive capacity and sensitivity, we develop empirical models of the relationship between extreme weather disasters and agricultural output between 1995 and 2010. Using panel data models, we find that the greater the adaptive capacity of a country, the more attenuated are the expected agricultural losses from extreme weather disasters. In effect, climate-related agricultural consequences vary as a function of the heterogeneity across countries. Much of this heterogeneity in adaptive capacity is a result of policy choices about structural preparedness. Our results allow us to draw inferences about crop yields under different levels of adaptive capacity in the context of climate change.