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Despite the frequent use of economic and military-specific sanctions against countries affected by civil conflicts, little is known about the possible impact that these coercive tools have on conflict dynamics. This article examines how threats and imposition of international sanctions affect the intensity of civil conflict violence. We formulate and test two competing views on the possible effect of economic and military-specific sanctions on conflict dynamics by combining data on fatalities in battle-related violence in all internal armed conflicts in Africa from 1989 to 2005 with data on economic sanctions and arms embargoes. The results indicate that threats of economic sanction and arms embargo are likely to increase the intensity of conflict violence. Similarly, imposed economic sanctions are likely to contribute to the escalation of conflict violence. Imposed arms embargoes, on the other hand, are likely to reduce conflict violence. We conclude that international sanctions appear to be counterproductive policy tools in mitigating the human cost of civil conflicts unless they are in the form of imposed arms embargoes attempting to limit the military capacity of the warring parties.

In section 1 I discuss some arguments suggested by Dummet's work, aimed to support the claim that the real problem between realism and antirealism is one about the meaningfulness of sentences. I give sorne reasons to consider them less than conclusive, and to mantain the importance of the traditional approach in terms of the nature of the referred objects. In section 2 I give an account of Frege's view on the objectivity of arithmetic and its relationship with the objectivity of numbers. I defend the possibility of a partially constructivistic interpretation of Frege's analysis. In section 3 Husserl's criticisms of Frege are summed up. I claim that they are not efficient in their original version but it is also suggested that the objections can be rephrased in such a way that they come closer to Benacerraf's criticism on Platonismo An abstractionist altemative, connected with the Erlangen Program, is examined. According to what was said in section 2, it is suggested that even though Frege's view is still unsatisfactory, it is not refuted and the abstractionist view is even weaker. [Traducción de Raúl Orayen]

The notion of \"literal meaning\" can be considered to be a unifying category, \"projected\" onto the natural differentiation of uses of language. This precludes the usual ontological expressions, in the material mode of speech, such as \"There exists a meaning, common to many occurrences of a term \", and the like. Although a certain theory of language allows the employment of such an unifying cathegory, this is not necessary for determining truth-conditions for sentences in which the term appears. These conditions can be determined, in fact, for each \"cotext \"; that is to say for each linguistic environment oí the tenn. This is an even morc skeptical approach than Searle's criticisms against tendencies in the contemporary philosophy of language in which he attempts to determine truth-conditions independently from contextual considerations. [J.C.A.]

Tumor-specific CD8 + T cells are exposed to persistent antigenic stimulation which induces a dysfunctional state called “exhaustion.” Though functioning to limit damage caused by immune response, T cell exhaustion leads to attenuated effector function whereby cytotoxic CD8 + T cells fail to control tumor progression in the late stage. This pathway is a dynamic process from activation to “progenitor exhaustion” through to “terminally exhaustion” with distinct properties. With the rapid development of immunotherapy via enhancing T cell function, new studies are dissecting the mechanisms and identifying specific biomarkers of dynamic differentiation during the process of exhaustion. Further, although immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have achieved great success in clinical practice, most patients still show limited efficacy to ICIs. The expansion and differentiation of progenitor exhausted T cells explained the success of ICIs while the depletion of the progenitor T cell pool and the transient effector function of terminally exhausted T cells accounted for the failure of immune monotherapy in the context of exorbitant tumor burden. Thus, combination strategies are urgent to be utilized based on the reduction of tumor burden or the expansion of the progenitor T cell pool. In this review, we aim to introduce the concept of homeostasis of the activated and exhausted status of CD8 + T cells in the tumor immune microenvironment, and present recent findings on dynamic differentiation process during T cell exhaustion and the implications for combination strategies in immune therapy.

This research tackles the Novel The Kingdom of the Happiest Home written by the Iraqi novelist Hanun Majeed. It explores the implications of male virility and masculinity asa means to gaineroticpleasure and physical satisfaction versus the power of the female body. The research reveals what the novelist states in the introduction to his novel concerningthe concept of Eros as being aduality of the lustful female and the sensuality of the virilemale. Moreover, the research attempts to highlight the bearings of thelasciviouscorporeality and wantonness of the male as juxtaposed to the Iraqi realities and mishaps Iraqis suffered for a period covering the barren years of the Economic Blockadetill the launch of the relentless 2003 war. The research shows how the novelexcavatesboth rational and irrational dimensions rife in Iraqi societyas far as Erotic satisfaction (for males and females) is concerned. This is because the novel unveils the body as a force and a will that transcends the ethical system in Iraq, which was corrupted by political power and its burdens on the economic will. The research stresses how the novel depicts how far the same corrupted ethics impose a state of exclusion and marginalization of the female. In addition, it ponders on the involved characters as cast in the novel: the characters which bear double meanings- they, on the one hand, are tethered to the past through memory, and on the other hand, they live and exist in the present through their kinetic actions and body movements. Also, the research makes it clear how the novel presents Iraqas a taut and frozen state that was falling, under the Economic Blockade and Sanctions, to the recesses of a fathomless abyss that has its own constrainingobstacles and irrational effects, in all dimensions, on Iraqis’ kinetic actions and body movements; sexual practices, of course, are included. Hence, the research is divided into seven Sections and a Conclusion, ending with a list of the references used. The Sections are: 1. Introduction 2. Eroticism 3. The Novel The Kingdom of the Happiest Home4. Aphorismatic Stimulation 5. Masculinity: An Epitome of Courage and Sexual Prowess 6. The Sacred and the Profane Dionysian 7. The Body as an Ontology of Strength.

Abstract To what extent do arms embargoes curtail the embargoed state's ability to get conventional weapons? We argue that arms embargoes rarely prevent states from receiving conventional weapons, and are one of the few events that push states to switch their supplier base. Using a new dataset on the place of origin of conventional weapons, we provide a more full and complete picture of the effects of arms embargoes imposed by the United Nations and European Union. We show that middlemen, a previously obscured category of states who sell, but do not produce arms, are crucial to skirting embargoes. This article suggests that arms embargoes are a more complicated foreign policy tool than scholars have previously appreciated, and that policymakers need to be cautious in imposing them.

Fear and Uncertainty discusses Robert Gordon’s thesis according to which fear is an epistemic —as opposed to factive— emotion inasmuch as S’s fearing p requires S’s being uncertain whether p or ∼p, and also requires that the uncertainty implicit in fearing be of a non-deliberative or ‘external’ kind. Hansberg argues against both parts of this thesis, which purports to offer part of the structure of the emotion of fear. First, she says, Gordon cannot account for those cases of weakness of the will in which an agent fears that when the moment comes he himself will not act upon his own previous purpose. So an external uncertainty proves to be not so essential a requisite. Now, what about the uncertainty, whatever its form, condition? Hansberg finds several examples in which someone fears p even though he actually is certain that p (when one fears, forexample, a medical treatment known to be painful, or when one fears one’s own inminent death, say, by suicide). She also argues against Gordon’s distinction between propositional fearsand mere ‘states of fear’ with no semantic content, and disapproves of his inclusion of certain fears —like fear of a violent death, fear of injury to oneself, and many phobias— in the lattercategory. Those supposedly non-propositional states can, and often do, give rise to propositional states and intentional actions; so Gordon would have to explain how this is possible: some of those supposedly mere states of fear need a place in an explanationby- reasons scheme. Finally, Hansberg claims that all fears do have a propositional structure, even though some fears have it in a concealed way. So, for example, if someone is afraid of death, he is afraid that he will die young, or that he will go to hell, and so on. Thus it is always possible to find propositional contents for fears which apparently have none, although in some cases this might be a difficult task. [Laura Lecuona]

I argue that Descartes’ doctrine concerning the indefinite divisibility of any piece of matter amounts, for him, to the view that any such piece is actually composed of indefinitely many corporeal substances, each of which is really distinct from the others —something that no Seventeenth Century atomist could accept. Then, I distinguish and examine three concepts of substance in Descartes and argue that he cannot unproblematically assert that finite bodies —all of which are aggregates— are substances in either of the three senses of ‘substance’. Finally, I examine the different characterizations of the real distinction that, according to Descartes, exists among substances, and argue that he cannot claim that any two finite bodies are really distinct substances; hence, that he cannot support his contention that any piece of matter is indefinitely divisible. I conclude (1) that, ultimately, Descartes cannot sustain a convincing position against the atomist; and (2) that an examination of the notions of substance and of the real distinction in Descartes allow us to understand clearly some of the intellectual shifts that occur from Descartes to Spinoza and Leibniz.