The Withering State Debate: Evidence From Malaysia's And Vietnam's Globalising Economies

It has been frequently argued that under globalisation, the state's ability to make autonomous decisions declines and the state withers away as it adapts to the lowest common denominator of taxation and social services in order to attract global investment flows. This paper challenges the withering-state theory. States are not hapless victims of globalisation, but active facilitators. Through the case studies of Vietnam and Malaysia, it is demonstrated that the state makes decisions about globalisation—either to engage in it or to retreat from it—based on the state's perceived interest. Moreover, the state is perfectly capable of reversing these decisions as state interests change over tim

Phase formation, phonon behavior, and magnetic properties of novel ferromagnetic La3BAlMnO9 (B = Co or Ni) triple perovskites

In the quest for novel magnetoelectric materials, we have grown, stabilized and explored the properties of La3BAlMnO9 (B = Co or Mn) thin films. In this paper, we report the influence of the growth parameters that promote B/Al/Mn ordering in the pseudo-cubic unit cell and their likely influence on the magnetic and multiferroic properties. The temperature dependence of the magnetization shows that La3CoAlMnO9 is ferromagnetic up to 190 K while La3NiAlMnO9 shows a TC of 130 K. The behavior of these films are compared and contrasted with related La2BMnO6 double perovskites. It is observed that the insertion of AlO6 octahedra between CoO6 and MnO6 suppresses significantly the strength of the superexchange interaction, spin-phonon and spin-polar coupling.Comment: 13 pages, 3 fig

Long-range Ni/Mn structural order in epitaxial double perovskite La2NiMnO6 thin films

We report and compare the structural, magnetic, and optical properties of ordered La2NiMnO6 thin films and its disordered LaNi0.5Mn0.5O3 counterpart. An x-ray diffraction study reveals that the B-site Ni/Mn ordering induces additional XRD reflections as the crystal symmetry is transformed from a pseudocubic perovskite unit cell in the disordered phase to a monoclinic form with larger lattice parameters for the ordered phase. Polarized Raman spectroscopy studies reveal that the ordered samples are characterized by additional phonon excitations that are absent in the disordered phase. The appearance of these additional phonon excitations is interpreted as the clearest signature of Brillouin zone folding as a result of the long-range Ni/Mn ordering in La2NiMnO6. Both ordered and disordered materials display a single ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition. The ordered films display also a saturation magnetization close to 4.8 mB/f.u. and a transition temperature (FM-TC) around 270 K, while the disordered ones have only a 3.7 mB/f.u. saturation magnetization and a FM-TC around 138 K. The differences in their magnetic behaviours are understood based on the distinct local electronic configurations of their Ni/Mn cations.Comment: 15 pages, 5 fig

Mountain soils under a changing climate and land-use

Mountain ecosystems are currently experiencing the strongest climatic warming and the largest changes in land-use during the last millennia. The impacts of these changes on soils and their roles in the cycling of carbon and nutrients are, however, largely unknown. Here, we define mountain soils as soils from mountainous areas with cool summers and cold winters and thus, soils from ecosystems that are influenced by snow and ice and where biogeochemical processes are limited by temperature. Because climatic conditions, soil properties, plant species and productivity vary at a small scale in mountains, they provide a unique natural but a seldom used laboratory to study soil processes. In this special issue, we compile different studies on soils from European mountains, reaching from the functioning of mountain soils along natural climatic gradients to responses of greenhouse gas fluxes from mountain soils to experimental warming, soil frost and changes in precipitatio

Soliton Analysis of the Electro-Optical Response of Blue Bronze

In recent measurements on the charge-density-wave (CDW) conductor blue bronze (K0.3MoO3), the electro-transmittance and electro-reflectance spectra were searched for intragap states that could be associated with solitons created by injection of electrons into the CDW at the current contacts [Eur. Phys. J. B 16, 295 (2000); ibid 35, 233 (2003)]. In this work, we adapt the model of soliton absorption in dimerized polyacetylene to the blue bronze results, to obtain the (order of magnitude) estimate that current induced solitons occur on less than ~ 10% of the conducting chains. We discuss the implications of these results on models of soliton lifetimes and motion of CDW phase dislocations.Comment: 11 pages, including 1 figur

Infrared optical properties of Pr2CuO4

The ab-plane reflectance of a Pr2CuO4 single crystal has been measured over a wide frequency range at a variety of temperatures, and the optical properties determined from a Kramers-Kronig analysis. Above ~ 250 K, the low frequency conductivity increases quickly with temperature; the resistivity follows the form e^(E_a/k_BT), where E_a ~ 0.17 eV is much less than the inferred optical gap of ~ 1.2 eV. Transport measurements show that at low temperature the resistivity deviates from activated behavior and follows the form e^[(T_0/T)^1/4], indicating that the dc transport in this material is due to variable-range hopping between localized states in the gap. The four infrared-active Eu modes dominate the infrared optical properties. Below ~ 200 K, a striking new feature appears near the low-frequency Eu mode, and there is additional new fine structure at high frequency. A normal coordinate analysis has been performed and the detailed nature of the zone-center vibrations determined. Only the low-frequency Eu mode has a significant Pr-Cu interaction. Several possible mechanisms related to the antiferromagnetism in this material are proposed to explain the sudden appearance of this and other new spectral features at low temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 7 embedded EPS figures, REVTeX

Investigation of phonon behavior in Pr2NiMnO6 by micro-Raman spectroscopy

The temperature dependence of phonon excitations and the presence of spin phonon coupling in polycrystalline Pr2NiMnO6 samples were studied using micro-Raman spectroscopy and magnetometry. Magnetic properties show a single ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition at 228 K and a saturation magnetization close to 4.95 \muB/f.u.. Three distinct Raman modes at 657, 642, and 511 cm-1 are observed. The phonon excitations show a clear hardening due to anharmonicity from 300 K down to 10 K. Further, temperature dependence of the 657 cm-1 mode shows only a small softening. This reflects the presence of a relatively weak spin-phonon coupling in Pr2NiMnO6 contrary to other double perovskites previously studied.Comment: 10 pages, 4 fig

Ferromagnetism and magneto-dielectric effect in insulating LaBiMn4/3Co2/3O6 thin films

High quality epitaxial thin films of LaBiMn4/3Co2/3O6 perovskite were fabricated on (001)-oriented SrTiO3 and LaAlO3 substrates by the pulsed laser deposition technique. Magnetization measurements reveal a strong magnetic anisotropy and a ferromagnetic behavior that is in agreement with a super-exchange interaction between Mn4+ and Co2+ ions, which are randomly distributed in the B-site. A distinct anomaly is observed in the dielectric measurements at 130K corresponding to the onset of the magnetic ordering, suggesting a coupling. Above this temperature, the extrinsic Maxwell-Wagner effect is dominating. Theses results are explained using the Raman spectroscopic studies indicating a weak spin-lattice interaction around this magnetic transition.Comment: Submitted to Appl. Phys. Lett. (2008