419 research outputs found
Irreversible Thermodynamics at Surfaces: Inverse Edelstein Effect for Topological Insulator
No full textWe employ Onsager’s irreversible thermodynamics (IrTh) to study the Inverse Edelstein effect (IEE) for a non-magnetic material (NM) adjacent to a topological insulator (TI) with a strong spin-orbit interaction. The TI surface state region is treated as quasi two-dimensional (2d). For the IEE, the source is a 3d spin flux incident from the NM that converts, at the NM/TI interface, to a quasi-2d charge current in the TI. For the Edelstein Effect (EE), the source is a quasi-2d charge flux incident from the TI that converts, at the interface, to a three-dimensional (3d) spin flux in the NM. For strong spin-orbit coupling, as considered here, when the 3d spin flux crosses to the 2d TI, the quasi-2d charge current is produced along with a quasi-2d spin accumulation. (For weak spin-orbit coupling, production of charge current and of spin accumulation are distinct processes.) We compute the associated rates of heating.The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the pdf file of the accepted manuscript may differ slightly from what is displayed on the item page. The information in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript reflects the original submission by the author
A space between : contemplating the post-Holocaust subject
No full textIncludes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-119).In 2008 I travelled, with camera in hand, to Germany in order to photograph the two concentration camps to Buchenwald and Ravensbrück. These are two of several camps that Germany established during the late 1930s to house so called undesirables or those believed to be enemies of the Reich. These people were not only extracted from society within Germany, but later from all occupied territories. European Jewry was the primary target of this policy. Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, but they were not the only victims. Approximately one and a half million Gypsies, at least 250 000 physically or mentally disabled people, three million Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, Social Democrats, Communists, partisans, trade unionists and Polish intelligentsia were among those that fell victim to the Nazis. The Germany's concentration camps, these prisoners of the Reich were set to work under severe inhumane conditions as slave labour, which was also a means of torture, as efficient production was not the primary endeavour of these camps. It was only when war broke out that policy altered and the labour was utilised by German enterprises and to aid Germany's war effort. These camps formed part of a larger system that later sought to eventually annihilate these "enemies". There were also transit camps to those camps located towards the east, in Poland - the notorious death camps, where mass murder became harrowingly efficient
Arresting Decline: Great Powers and Strategies of System Management
No full textPh.D.How do great powers cope with relative decline? What strategies do they employ to counter or mitigate adverse shifts in the balance of power, and under what conditions will they favor one strategy over another? While scholars have developed sophisticated models of the relationship between changing power differentials and the prospects for preventive war, we lack carefully constructed hypotheses on the full range of strategies that declining great powers employ to preserve the status quo. This dissertation identifies four, ideal-typical strategies of system management: competitive, conciliatory, commercial, and conservatory. It argues that the choice and timing of strategy depends on leader discount rates and relative threat. To examine how my dyadic discounting model fares against alternative explanations, the dissertation conducts within-case process tracing and cross-case comparisons of Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and France during the interwar years. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of my argument, its applicability to contemporary cases, and directions for future research on the typology of shocks and their differential impact on leader time horizons
Status Immobility and Systemic Revisionism in Rising Great Powers
No full textPh.D.Rising states generally have incentives to pursue moderate, conciliatory foreign policies. Why, then, do they sometimes adopt grand strategic orientations that reject and challenge the set of rules, norms, and principles that constitute the normative basis of the status quo, thereby inviting opposition and the formation of countervailing alliances? In this dissertation, I argue that one prominent cause of shifts toward what I call grand strategic systemic revisionism is status immobility - the perception that boundaries between high and low status category groups are impermeable and that successful status competition is impossible.I first reconceptualize the concept of revisionism, arguing that extant definitions fail to account for important qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) differences between grand strategic orientations. I contend that satisfaction with the status quo varies along two dimensions. States may be satisfied or dissatisfied with the distribution of resources in a system (territory, wealth, or status); and they may be satisfied or dissatisfied with the set of rules, norms, and principles that in part constitute and legitimate the distribution of resources. Revisionist intentions with respect to the distribution of resources may be perfectly consistent with a rising state's strategic imperatives. Rejecting or seeking to revise the constitutive elements of the status quo, though, is not, since it fundamentally threatens the defenders of the status quo and hampers the rising state's ability to pursue policies oriented toward short-term reassurance.I then draw upon the reemerging literature on status competition in IR to argue that perceptions of status category boundary impermeability produce psychological and political effects that facilitate the influence of actors who advocate aggressive foreign policies at the expense of those who advocate moderation and conciliation. The remainder of the dissertation employs process tracing and a "crucial case" research design to show that status immobility theory explains shifts toward grand strategic systemic revisionism better than existing alternatives. I conclude by discussing the implications of my argument for both IR theory and contemporary US foreign policy, with particular attention to the importance of status claims for the trajectory of a rising China
To Defend or Not to Defend: Understanding How States View Strong and Weak Reputations
No full textPh.D.Why do states back down during crises despite the risk of harming their reputation for resolve? The existing literature contends that leaders believe, perhaps more than they should, that cultivating a strong reputation for resolve is vital for their states’ national security as it enhances both their credibility and ability to deter threats. Based on this logic, the existing literature stipulates that states back down when actors care less about their reputation for resolve because these strategic advantages are absent or perceived to be irrelevant. In contrast, this dissertation contends that states and leaders may still decide to acquiesce during crises because of the long-term costs of saving face and the benefits of cultivating a ‘weaker’ reputation for resolve. Specifically, I propose the theory of moderate reputation for resolve and argue that two factors, fears of reputation races and greater emphasis on the process of negotiations rather than its outcomes, cause states to prefer moderate rather than strong reputation for resolve. States and leaders that reach this conclusion will be more likely to back down during crises as a way of managing their reputation. I verify these claims through qualitative analysis of four case studies; US-China relations during the 1950s in the context of the first and second Taiwan Strait crises; South Korea’s response to the Blue House Raid in 1968; South Korea’s foreign policy during the 1980s after the Rangoon Bombing incident in 1983; and Britain’s policy of appeasement during the 1930s. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of how reputations matter in international relations by illustrating that decisions to back down can also be caused by reputational concerns, not despite it. By demonstrating how states and leaders may intentionally choose to not only defend but also concede their reputation for resolve due to the respective costs and benefits of maintaining either strong and moderate reputations, I highlight how a state’s reputation is an asset that needs to be not uniformly strengthened but rather adroitly maintained through the use of force regardless of the circumstances and their foreign policy objectives
Flips and Flops: Alliance Defection in Great Power Competition
No full textPh.D.Why do states sometimes betray their allies and “flip” to a rival state? Great powers compete not only directly, but also for the allegiances of other states. As evidenced by Italy’s betrayal of its Germanic allies during World War I or the American leveraging of the Sino-Soviet split during the Cold War, driving and exploiting divisions in a hostile alliance can have a momentous impact on the balance of power. If the advent of the nuclear age has made great power conflict a more costly and thus a less attractive means for achieving international goals, the realignment of one country’s disposition away from a rival can reap major benefits at both lower risk and substantially reduced cost. The dominant theories in the alliance literature suggest that alliance fluctuations are functions of threat perception. This dissertation suggests that external threats may motivate a state to shift alliances, but that threat alone cannot explain what enables a state to exit its current alliance and enter a new one. My research demonstrates that states flip when two specific variables are aligned: the state’s political regime is strongly cohesive and its existing alliance is weakly cohesive. Strong regime cohesion enables the state to flip alliances without domestic repercussions while weak alliance cohesion erases any institutional shackles that would maintain the alliance beyond the interests it served. Derived from an original database of alignment flips, I conduct four detailed case studies of prominent 20th century alliance flips. Given the challengers to the current vast American alliance system, alignment flips are likely to be an even more attractive proposition for American competitors in the years to come
Three Papers on Armed Group Behavior in Multiparty Civil Wars
No full textPh.D.This dissertation addresses core questions in the study of civil war, political violence, and social order. It explores three features of multiparty civil wars, conflicts that involve two or more insurgent groups and, frequently, anti-insurgent paramilitaries. The first chapter asks how competition for territorial control among violent non-state actors in multiparty conflicts affects civilians, particularly explaining why competition sometimes reins in civilian abuse and sometimes increases it. The second chapter explores the dynamics of individual combatant defection in multiparty civil wars. It asks why some fighters choose to remain within their armed group, some join a rival armed group, and still others demobilize and leave the conflict altogether. The third chapter examines how development programs in active conflict zones affect the dynamics of violence, especially how increased civilian loyalty to the government - which development assistance purchases - can lead to higher levels of violence by insurgents. The dissertation's geographic focus is the Colombian civil war, the Western Hemisphere's longest ongoing insurgency, yet each chapter assesses the relevance of the arguments and evidence for similar conflicts
Health crises and migration
No full textIndividual and collective responses to health crises contribute to an orderly public health response that most times precludes the need for large-scale displacements. Restricting population movement is a largely ineffective way of containing disease, yet governments sometimes resort to it where health crises emerge
Uniqueness Conditions for Point-Rationalizable
No full textThe unique point-rationalizable solution of a game is the unique Nash equilibrium. However, this solution has the additional advantage that it can be justified by the epistemic assumption that it is Common Knowledge of the players that only best responses are chosen. Thus, games with a unique point-rationalizable solution allow for a plausible explanation of equilibrium play in one-shot strategic situations, and it is therefore desireable to identify such games. In order to derive sufficient and necessary conditions for unique point-rationalizable solutions this paper adopts and generalizes the contraction-property approach of Moulin (1984) and of Bernheim (1984). Uniqueness results obtained in this paper are derived under fairly general assumptions such as games with arbitrary metrizable strategy sets and are especially useful for complete and bounded, for compact, as well as for finite strategy sets. As a mathematical side result existence of a unique fixed point is proved under conditions that generalize a fixed point theorem due to Edelstein (1962).
Emerg Infect Dis
No full textEquitable sharing of public health surveillance data can help prevent or mitigate the effect of infectious diseases. Equitable data sharing includes working toward more equitable sharing of the public health benefits that data sharing brings and requires the engagement of those providing the data, those interpreting and using the data generated by others, those facilitating the data-sharing process, and those deriving and contributing to the benefit. An expert consultation conducted by Chatham House outlined 7 principles to encourage the process of equitable data sharing: 1) building trust; 2) articulating the value; 3) planning for data sharing; 4) achieving quality data; 5) understanding the legal context; 6) creating data-sharing agreements; and 7) monitoring and evaluation. Sharing of public health surveillance data is best done taking into account these principles, which will help to ensure data are shared optimally and ethically, while fulfilling stakeholder expectations and facilitating equitable distribution of benefits
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