Theorizing EU trade politics

This special issue aims to take the first step towards an inter-paradigmatic debate in the study of European Union trade politics

The Social Dimension of European Union Trade Policies

The European Union (EU) is widely considered as a formidable trade power. It represents about one fourth of worldwide trade fl ows and generally speaks with one voice in its common commercial policies. In addition, policy-makers and scholars often regard the Union as a distinctive, ‘normative power’ in the world. From this perspective, Europe tries to be at the forefront of promoting values such as human rights, democracy, sustainable development, and social justice, this with a clear preference for supporting international dialogue and cooperation in these areas, rather than for using trade sanctions. This special issue combines both aspects of the EU’s international role. More specifi cally, it concerns the social dimension of the EU’s trade policies. It raises the questions of how, why, and with what impact the EU has promoted social objectives through its common commercial policies. These three questions will be addressed in this introduction, followed by a brief summary of the way in which the different contributions of this special issue deal with them

Towards engaged pluralism in the study of European Union trade politics

Going back to the Kuhnian debate about the assumed incommensurability of different paradigms, we point at the need for engaged pluralism in political science. We illustrate this by giving illustrations from the different paradigmatic perspectives included in the special issue and how they could speak to each other. While this analysis clearly shows the limits and difficulties encountered during such an endeavor, we hope to have laid the basis for a more reflexive dialogue within the literature

Opto-Electrical Interactions in Next Generation Semiconductor Thin Films and Devices

The processes by which optical and electrical energies are transduced are at the heart of many modern technologies such as solar cells, light emitting diodes, photodetectors, imaging systems and displays. The basic functional element of these ‘opto-electrical’ devices are semiconductors, and the underpinning physics of how they transduce light and electricity is well understood for conventional inorganic materials such as silicon and gallium arsenide. However, new semiconductors such as the organics and the organohalide perovskites present additional opto-electrical questions and challenges since they are molecular solids with varying degrees of disorder and crystallinity. The work described in this thesis addresses these new questions and challenges, particularly in relation to how existing solid-state physics concepts must be adapted to reliably predict and model material-and-device-level structure-property relationships and performance. Two basic technology platforms are examined in detail – solar cells and light emitting diodes, with particular reference to so-called reciprocity. A second focus of the discussion is accurate determination of optical constants for these new semiconductors – a challenging endeavour due to factors such as morphological heterogeneity. Transfer matrix and drift diffusion formalisms are relied heavily upon to model, simulate and explain multi-layer device performance, and ellipsometry and spectrophotometry are utilised as the primary analysis and characterisation methodologies. A new approach to optical constant determination is presented and validated, as is an adapted reciprocity framework for the linking of absorption, emission and charge transfer state characterisation in the presence of cavity interference. Several ‘difficult’ solar cell systems are analysed in detail – in particular the previously mysterious working principles of the so-called carbon-stack perovskite system are elucidated for the first time. These findings explain how an electrically non-selective contact can still function as an effective photovoltaic electrode dependent upon the local minority and majority carrier concentration profile. The research described herein advances our understanding of next generation semiconductor opto-electrical physics and provides more practical means for the community to analyse optical constants

Rapid Bacterial Diagnostics and Their Effect on Patient Treatment and Outcome

The aim of this thesis is to validate new rapid diagnostic tests and to investigate if improving microbiological diagnostics influences patient outcome and management. Therefore a short introduction in the underlying clinical syndrome is warranted. Sepsis is a major complication of infection with a high morbidity and mortality. Table 1 shows the diagnostic criteria of sepsis and severe sepsis (20). In their review Angus and Wax (3) cited several studies that reported mortality rates varying from 20 to 52%. From a point prevalence survey of Van Gestel et al. (66) it was calculated that the annual number of admissions for severe sepsis in Dutch ICUs was 8643 ± 929 cases/year, which represents 0.054% of the Dutch population, 0.61% of hospital admissions and 11% of ICU admissions. In 2008 Surviving Sepsis Campaign published international guidelines for management of severe sepsis and septic shock (20). They used the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system for assessment of quality of evidence from high (A) to very low (D) and to determine the strength of recommendations. Their key recommendations, relevant for microbiologists and clinicians alike were among others: obtain blood cultures before starting antibiotic therapy (1C); administer broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy within 1 h of diagnosis of severe sepsis with or without septic shock (1B,1D) ; reassess antibiotic therapy with microbiology and clinical data to narrow coverage, when appropriate (1C)

Probabilistically Violating the First Law of Thermodynamics in a Quantum Heat Engine

Fluctuations of thermodynamic observables, such as heat and work, contain relevant information on the underlying physical process. These fluctuations are however not taken into account in the traditional laws of thermodynamics. While the second law is extended to fluctuating systems by the celebrated fluctuation theorems, the first law is generally believed to hold even in the presence of fluctuations. Here we show that in the presence of quantum fluctuations, also the first law of thermodynamics may break down. This happens because quantum mechanics imposes constraints on the knowledge of heat and work. To illustrate our results, we provide a detailed case-study of work and heat fluctuations in a quantum heat engine based on a circuit QED architecture. We find probabilistic violations of the first law and show that they are closely connected to quantum signatures related to negative quasi-probabilities. Our results imply that in the presence of quantum fluctuations, the first law of thermodynamics may not be applicable to individual experimental runs