284 research outputs found
"Europe in Transformation: How to Reconstitute Democracy?"
Europeanization and globalization are frequently held to undermine national democracy; hence raising the democracy in the multi-level constellation that makes up the European Union? We present three models for how democracy can be reconstituted: (a) it can be reconstituted at the national level, as delegated democracy with a concomitant reframing of the EU as a functional regulatory regime; (b) through establishing the EU as a multi-national state based on a common identity(ies) and solidaristic allegiance strong enough to undertake collective action; or (c) through the development of a post-national Union with an explicit cosmopolitan imprint. These are the only viable models of European democracy, as they are the only ones that can ensure equal membership in a self-governing polity. They differ however with regard to both applicability and robustness
Representation through deliberation-The European case
This article shows that the main pattern of European democratization has unfolded along the lines of an EU organized as a multilevel system of representative parliamentary government and not as a system of deliberative governance as the transnationalists propound. But the multilevel EU has developed a structure of representation that is theoretically challenging. In order to come to grips with this we present an institutional variant of deliberative theory, which understands democracy as the combination of a principle of justification and an organizational form. It comes with the following explanatory mechanisms: claimsmaking, justification and learning which in the EU also program institutional copying and emulation mechanisms. We show that the EU has established an incomplete system of representative democracy steeped in a distinct representation-deliberation interface, which has emerged through a particular and distinct configuration of democratization mechanisms
Civil Engineering
This departmental history was written on the occasion of the UND Centennial in 1983.https://commons.und.edu/departmental-histories/1008/thumbnail.jp
The electrorheology of suspensions consisting of Na-Fluorohectorite synthetic clay particles in silicon oil
Under application of an electric field greater than a triggering electric
field kV/mm, suspensions obtained by dispersing particles of the
synthetic clay fluoro-hectorite in a silicon oil, aggregate into chain- and/or
column-like structures parallel to the applied electric field. This
micro-structuring results in a transition in the suspensions' rheological
behavior, from a Newtonian-like behavior to a shear-thinning rheology with a
significant yield stress. This behavior is studied as a function of particle
volume fraction and strength of the applied electric field, . The steady
shear flow curves are observed to scale onto a master curve with respect to
, in a manner similar to what was recently found for suspensions of laponite
clay [42]. In the case of Na-fluorohectorite, the corresponding dynamic yield
stress is demonstrated to scale with respect to as a power law with an
exponent , while the static yield stress inferred from
constant shear stress tests exhibits a similar behavior with . The suspensions are also studied in the framework of thixotropic fluids:
the bifurcation in the rheology behavior when letting the system flow and
evolve under a constant applied shear stress is characterized, and a
bifurcation yield stress, estimated as the applied shear stress at which
viscosity bifurcation occurs, is measured to scale as with to 0.6. All measured yield stresses increase with the particle
fraction of the suspension. For the static yield stress, a scaling law
, with , is found. The results are found to be
reasonably consistent with each other. Their similarities with-, and
discrepancies to- results obtained on laponite-oil suspensions are discussed
Monolithic in-based III-V compound semiconductor focal plane array cell with single stage CCD output
A monolithic semiconductor imager includes an indium-based III-V compound semiconductor monolithic active layer of a first conductivity type, an array of plural focal plane cells on the active layer, each of the focal plane cells including a photogate over a top surface of the active layer, a readout circuit dedicated to the focal plane cell including plural transistors formed monolithically with the monolithic active layer and a single-stage charge coupled device formed monolithically with the active layer between the photogate and the readout circuit for transferring photo-generated charge accumulated beneath the photogate during an integration period to the readout circuit. The photogate includes thin epitaxial semiconductor layer of a second conductivity type overlying the active layer and an aperture electrode overlying a peripheral portion of the thin epitaxial semiconductor layer, the aperture electrode being connectable to a photogate bias voltage
Intercalation-enhanced electric polarization and chain formation of nano-layered particles
Microscopy observations show that suspensions of synthetic and natural
nano-layered smectite clay particles submitted to a strong external electric
field undergo a fast and extended structuring. This structuring results from
the interaction between induced electric dipoles, and is only possible for
particles with suitable polarization properties. Smectite clay colloids are
observed to be particularly suitable, in contrast to similar suspensions of a
non-swelling clay. Synchrotron X-ray scattering experiments provide the
orientation distributions for the particles. These distributions are understood
in terms of competing (i) homogenizing entropy and (ii) interaction between the
particles and the local electric field; they show that clay particles polarize
along their silica sheet. Furthermore, a change in the platelet separation
inside nano-layered particles occurs under application of the electric field,
indicating that intercalated ions and water molecules play a role in their
electric polarization. The resulting induced dipole is structurally attached to
the particle, and this causes particles to reorient and interact, resulting in
the observed macroscopic structuring. The macroscopic properties of these
electro-rheological smectite suspensions may be tuned by controlling the nature
and quantity of the intercalated species, at the nanoscale.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Scattering statistics of rock outcrops: Model-data comparisons and Bayesian inference using mixture distributions
The probability density function of the acoustic field amplitude scattered by
the seafloor was measured in a rocky environment off the coast of Norway using
a synthetic aperture sonar system, and is reported here in terms of the
probability of false alarm. Interpretation of the measurements focused on
finding appropriate class of statistical models (single versus two-component
mixture models), and on appropriate models within these two classes. It was
found that two-component mixture models performed better than single models.
The two mixture models that performed the best (and had a basis in the physics
of scattering) were a mixture between two K distributions, and a mixture
between a Rayleigh and generalized Pareto distribution. Bayes' theorem was used
to estimate the probability density function of the mixture model parameters.
It was found that the K-K mixture exhibits significant correlation between its
parameters. The mixture between the Rayleigh and generalized Pareto
distributions also had significant parameter correlation, but also contained
multiple modes. We conclude that the mixture between two K distributions is the
most applicable to this dataset.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, Accepted to the Journal of the Acoustical
Society of Americ
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