119 research outputs found
Contested States, Hybrid Diplomatic Practices and the Everyday Quest for Recognition
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from OUP via the DOI in this record.This article examines contested state diplomatic practices with the aim to challenge
structural legal-institutional accounts of these actorsâ international engagement, which
are unsatisfactory in explaining change and acknowledging their agency. Considering
contested states as liminal international actors, their diplomatic practices stand out for
their hybridity in transcending the state vs. non-state diplomacy dichotomy as well as
their structure-generating properties in enabling social forms of international recognition
â absent legal recognition. The concept is empirically applied to examine the everyday
interaction between the representatives of Palestine and Western Sahara and the EU
institutions in Brussels. It is argued that there has been a renewal and expansion of the
Palestinian and Sahrawi repertoires of diplomatic practices vis-Ă -vis the EU, which has
entailed growing hybridisation. Innovation originated in more âtransformativeâ
diplomatic practices capitalising on the contested statesâ own political inbetweenness,
which established relations that contributed to constituting and endogenously
empowering them in the Brussels milieu. The way was thus paved for more
âreproductiveâ diplomatic practices that mimic traditional state diplomacy to gain
prominence. The impact achieved on âhigh politicsâ demonstrates how bottom-up
practice-led change may allow contested states to compensate for their meagre material
capabilities and punch above their structural weight in international politics
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Pore scale 3D modelling of heat and mass transfer in the gas diffusion layer and cathode channel of a PEM fuel cell
Flooding of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells can be a bottleneck to the systemâs efficiency and even durability under certain operating conditions. Due to the small scale and complex geometry of the materials involved, detailed insight into the pore scale phenomena that take place are difficult to measure or simulate. In the present effort, a direct 3D microscale model of a portion of the PEM cathode channel and carbon cloth GDL is used to parametrically investigate local heat and fluid flow at the GDLâs pore scale and their effects on condensation of water vapour that leads to flooding. The 3D simulation through the microscale geometry is among the first appearing in the international literature. The NavierâStokes, energy and water vapour transport equations are solved at steady state and in three-dimensional space for a range of inlet velocities and cloth fibre material properties, using a conjugate heat transfer approach to calculate the temperature field within the solid fibres. Psychrometric calculations are applied to provide indications of the conditions and areas most prone to condensation based on the calculated local temperatures and water vapour concentration
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