International Relations

This course analyzes the dynamics of the relations between and across the different countries of the world. Examines the role that countries, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and individual people play in addressing pressing global problems such as peace, war, security, arms control, trade, development, human rights, and the environment

In the Shadow of Official Ambition: National Media Policy Confronts Global Media Capital

CARGC Paper 1 drew on Curtin’s then book project, Media Capital, which compares and contrasts cities that have become centers of the global film and television industries, such as Bombay, Lagos, and Miami. In the paper, Curtin explored the implications of Chinese cultural policy within the broader context of media globalization, providing a framework for understanding the logics of media capital and the challenges confronting national governments, making comparisons to Arab, African, and Indian media, and reflecting on the prospects for creativity and diversity in film and television.https://repository.upenn.edu/cargc_papers/1000/thumbnail.jp

Política de comunicação no século XXI: do interesse nacional à gestão cultural

This essay provides a framework for understanding the twenty-first century dynamics of the global media economy. It has four central objectives: (1) explain the fundamental shift in media regulation engendered by neo-liberal globalization; (2) describe the operations of transnational commercial media enterprises and show how their practices and protocols have affected media institutions at the local, national, and regional levels; (3) identify issues that have risen to the forefront of media policy deliberations with respect to cultural expression and creative labor; and (4) elaborate an alternative policy perspective based on the principle of stewardship.Este ensaio fornece um enquadramento para compreender as dinâmicas do século vinte e um da economia da comunicação global. Ele possui quatro objetivos principais: (1) explicar a mudança fundamental na regulação da mídia provocada pela globalização neoliberal; (2) descrever as operações das empresas transnacionais de mídia comercial e mostrar como suas práticas e protocolos afetaram as instituições de mídia em níveis local, nacional e regional; (3) identificar questões que têm alcançado o primeiro plano das deliberações da política de comunicação, com respeito à expressão cultural e ao trabalho criativo; e (4) elaborar uma perspectiva alternativa de política baseada no princípio de gestão cultural

Cosmological Signatures of a Mirror Twin Higgs

We explore the cosmological signatures associated with the twin baryons, electrons, photons and neutrinos in the Mirror Twin Higgs framework. We consider a scenario in which the twin baryons constitute a subcomponent of dark matter, and the contribution of the twin photon and neutrinos to dark radiation is suppressed due to late asymmetric reheating, but remains large enough to be detected in future cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. We show that this framework can lead to distinctive signals in large scale structure and in the cosmic microwave background. Baryon acoustic oscillations in the mirror sector prior to recombination lead to a suppression of structure on large scales, and leave a residual oscillatory pattern in the matter power spectrum. This pattern depends sensitively on the relative abundances and ionization energies of both twin hydrogen and helium, and is therefore characteristic of this class of models. Although both mirror photons and neutrinos constitute dark radiation in the early universe, their effects on the CMB are distinct. This is because prior to recombination the twin neutrinos free stream, while the twin photons are prevented from free streaming by scattering off twin electrons. In the Mirror Twin Higgs framework the relative contributions of these two species to the energy density in dark radiation is predicted, leading to testable effects in the CMB. These highly distinctive cosmological signatures may allow this class of models to be discovered, and distinguished from more general dark sectors.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures; added new discussions and figures; references added; matches published versio

Photonic crystal back-reflectors for light management and enhanced absorption in a-Si:H solar cells

Thin film hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells suffer from weak absorption of long wavelength photons, which have absorption lengths that are far greater than the absorber layer thickness. Light trapping schemes utilizing photonic crystal based back-reflectors can strongly diffract long wavelength photons and increase their optical path length. Photonic crystal back-reflectors were fabricated to investigate optical absorption enhancement in a-Si:H solar cells. Photonic crystal back-reflectors were patterned with photolithography and etched in crystalline silicon wafers using reactive-ion etching. The etched photonic crystals were then coated with silver and aluminum doped zinc oxide for a highly reflective back contact. These structures had triangular lattice symmetry, an etch depth between 200 nm and 250 nm, and a pitch of 760 nm. Scanning electron microscopy images demonstrate high quality long-range periodicity. A-Si:H n-i-p solar cells were deposited on these back-reflectors using standard plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition techniques. Diffuse and total reflection measurements indicate high diffuse reflectance and strong absorption within the photonic crystal. Normalized external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurements demonstrated considerable absorption enhancement at near-infrared wavelengths. The photonic crystal back-reflector increased optical absorption by a factor of 6 to 7 at certain wavelengths, relative to flat reference devices on the same substrate. An enhancement of 8 times was also observed for a reference device on stainless steel coated with flat silver. Short circuit current, as determined by weighting EQE against the AM1.5 solar spectrum, increased by over 7% with the photonic crystal back-reflectors

OSU Commencement Speech

Commencement address given by Michael Curtin, Vice Chairman & Associate Publisher of The Columbus Dispatch, to the Summer 2007 graduating class of The Ohio State University, Jerome Schottenstein Center, Columbus, Ohio, August 26, 2007