Researching the Welfare Impact of Populist Radical Right Parties Comment on "A Scoping Review of Populist Radical Right Parties' Influence on Welfare Policy and its Implications for Population Health in Europe"

Populist radical right (PRR) parties can impact population health through multiple mechanisms, including welfare chauvinistic policies, influencing mainstream parties, and eroding democratic norms. Rinaldi and Bekker survey the literature in order to motivate a wider research agenda. They highlight results from existing studies which show the importance of looking into the impact of PRR parties on welfare policy. This commentary considers some of the areas of research highlighted by the original article, as well as other possibilities for further research. The most important of these is to expand the sample of cases to Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and South East Asia

Interactions among biotic and abiotic controls of carbon dynamics in a global change field experiment

Climate warming and increased atmospheric nitrogen deposition may substantially influence biosphere C cycling over the next century by altering ecosystem processes such as productivity and decomposition. Field studies are commonly used to explore plant responses to global change, although the underlying mechanisms can be difficult to isolate owing to the lack of control of factors such as plant-animal interactions. Ultimately, indirect effects via herbivore and detritivore responses may feedback to influence plant responses to the experimental treatments. The goal of this thesis was to explore interactions among biotic and abiotic drivers of carbon dynamics within the context of experimental warming and nitrogen addition in the field. Evidence from a herbivore exclusion experiment revealed that mollusc effects on net primary productivity were more pronounced in warmed plots than in ambient temperature plots, likely as a result of temperature-related increases in mollusc metabolic activity and plant consumption rate. Furthermore, the effects of rodent exclusion on grass biomass were significantly greater in N-fertilized plots than non-fertilized plots. Feeding experiments suggested that this finding is likely attributed to increased grass palatability in response to N addition. Results from a litter decomposition experiment indicated that warming impeded the contribution of detritivores to carbon turnover, though this effect was transient. Increased precipitation over the course of the experiment may have promoted recovery of the detritivore community, and could also account for the significant detritivore effects observed following one year of incubation. Reciprocal litter transplants between the treatments plots and untreated areas of the field indicated that the observed responses from the main experiment were unlikely to be accounted for by the individual effects of litter quality or microenvironment alone. Overall, the influence of global change factors such as warming and increased atmospheric nitrogen deposition on carbon-related processes such as productivity can be substantially modified by indirect effects on herbivore dynamics, with consumer-specific treatment effects suggesting that this relationship is complex and can depend on both diet quality and microclimate. Though detritivores were relatively insensitive to warming and N addition as decomposition progressed, they likely play an important role in the overall magnitude of ecosystem C turnover

Connecting transonic buffet with incompressible low-frequency oscillations on aerofoils

Self-sustained low-frequency flow unsteadiness over rigid aerofoils in the transonic regime is referred to as transonic buffet. Although the exact physical mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are unclear, it is generally assumed to be unique to the transonic regime. This assumption is shown to be incorrect here by performing large-eddy simulations of flow over a NACA0012 profile for a wide range of flow conditions. At zero incidence and sufficiently high freestream Mach numbers, M, transonic buffet occurs with shock waves present in the flow. However, self-sustained oscillations that occur at similar frequencies are observed at lower M for which shock waves are absent and the entire flow field remains subsonic at all times. At higher incidences, the oscillations are sustained at progressively lower M. Oscillations were observed for M as low as 0.3, where compressibility effects are small. A spectral proper orthogonal decomposition shows that the spatial structure of these oscillations (i.e., mode shapes) are essentially the same for all cases. These results indicate that buffet on aerofoils does not necessarily require the presence of shock waves. Furthermore, the trend seen with increasing incidence angles suggests that transonic buffet on aerofoils and low-frequency oscillations reported in the incompressible regime (Zaman et al., 1989, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 202, pp. 403--442) have similar origins. Thus, models which rely specifically on shock waves to explain transonic buffet are incorrect. These insights could be useful in understanding the origins of ``transonic" buffet and reformulating mitigation strategies by shifting the focus away from shock waves.Comment: 28 pages, 20 figure

On the co-existence of transonic buffet and separation-bubble modes for the OALT25 laminar-flow wing section

Transonic buffet is an unsteady flow phenomenon that limits the safe flight envelope of modern aircraft. Scale-resolving simulations with span-periodic boundary conditions are capable of providing new insights into its flow physics. The present contribution shows the co-existence of multiple modes of flow unsteadiness over an unswept laminar-flow wing section, appearing in the following order of increasing frequency: (a) a low-frequency transonic buffet mode, (b) an intermediate-frequency separation bubble mode, and (c) high-frequency wake modes associated with vortex shedding. Simulations are run over a range of Reynolds and Mach numbers to connect the lower frequency modes from moderate to high Reynolds numbers and from pre-buffet to established buffet conditions. The intermediate frequency mode is found to be more sensitive to Reynolds-number effects compared to those of Mach number, which is the opposite trend to that observed for transonic buffet. Spectral proper orthogonal decomposition is used to extract the spatial structure of the modes. The buffet mode involves coherent oscillations of the suction-side shock structure, consistent with previous studies including global mode analysis. The laminar separation-bubble mode at intermediate frequency is fundamentally different, with a phase relationship between separation and reattachment that does not correspond to a simple `breathing' mode and is not at the same Strouhal number observed for shock-induced separation bubbles. Instead, a Strouhal number based on separation bubble length and reverse flow magnitude is found to be independent of Reynolds number within the range of cases studied

A missing link? Maintaining support for the European polity after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Recent research argues that external threats like war spur EU polity formation (Kelemen & McNamara, 2022). One key mechanism of this process is public support for policy responses designed by policymakers. However, like the ‘rally-round-the-flag’ effect (Mueller, 1970), public support wanes over time and we decompose this decrease into two elements: salience and polarisation at the domestic level for national and European policies in both soft and hard security (aid and sanctions). We show that while salience can sustain public support for European policy innovations, polarisation about national and (unexpectedly) European policies accelerates its decline. We thus qualify the story of EU polity formation through external security crises

The cellular magnetic response and biocompatibility of biogenic zinc- and cobalt-doped magnetite nanoparticles.

The magnetic moment and anisotropy of magnetite nanoparticles can be optimised by doping with transition metal cations, enabling their properties to be tuned for different biomedical applications. In this study, we assessed the suitability of bacterially synthesized zinc- and cobalt-doped magnetite nanoparticles for biomedical applications. To do this we measured cellular viability and activity in primary human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells and human osteosarcoma-derived cells. Using AC susceptibility we studied doping induced changes in the magnetic response of the nanoparticles both as stable aqueous suspensions and when associated with cells. Our findings show that the magnetic response of the particles was altered after cellular interaction with a reduction in their mobility. In particular, the strongest AC susceptibility signal measured in vitro was from cells containing high-moment zinc-doped particles, whilst no signal was observed in cells containing the high-anisotropy cobalt-doped particles. For both particle types we found that the moderate dopant levels required for optimum magnetic properties did not alter their cytotoxicity or affect osteogenic differentiation of the stem cells. Thus, despite the known cytotoxicity of cobalt and zinc ions, these results suggest that iron oxide nanoparticles can be doped to sufficiently tailor their magnetic properties without compromising cellular biocompatibility

Dielectric function of InGaAs in the visible

Measurements are reported of the dielectric function of thermodynamically stable In(x)Ga(1-x)As in the composition range 0.3 equal to or less than X = to or less than 0.7. The optically thick samples of InGaAs were made by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) in the range 0.4 = to or less than X = to or less than 0.7 and by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) for X = 0.3. The MBE made samples, usually 1 micron thick, were grown on semi-insulating InP and included a strain release structure. The MOCVD sample was grown on GaAs and was 2 microns thick. The dielectric functions were measured by variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry in the range 1.55 to 4.4 eV. The data was analyzed assuming an optically thick InGaAs material with an oxide layer on top. The thickness of this layer was estimated by comparing the results for the InP lattice matched material, i.e., X = 0.53, with results published in the literature. The top oxide layer mathematically for X = 0.3 and X = 0.53 was removed to get the dielectric function of the bare InGaAs. In addition, the dielectric function of GaAs in vacuum, after a protective arsenic layer was removed. The dielectric functions for X = 0, 0.3, and 0.53 together with the X = 1 result from the literature to evaluate an algorithm for calculating the dielectric function of InGaAs for an arbitrary value of X(0 = to or less than X = to or less than 1) were used. Results of the dielectric function calculated using the algorithm were compared with experimental data

Optically-Switched Resonant Tunneling Diodes for Space-Based Optical Communication Applications

We are developing a new type of digital photo-receiver that has the potential to perform high speed optical-to-electronic conversion with a factor of 10 reduction in component count and power dissipation. In this paper, we describe the room-temperature photo-induced switching of this InP-based device which consists of an InGaAs/AlAs resonant tunneling diode integrated with an InGaAs absorber layer. When illuminated at an irradiance of greater than 5 Wcm(exp -2) using 1.3 micromillimeter radiation, the resonant tunneling diode switches from a high-conductance to a low-conductance electrical state and exhibits a voltage swing of up to 800 mV

Study of InGaAs based MODFET structures using variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry

Variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry was used to estimate the thicknesses of all layers within the optical penetration depth of InGaAs based MODFET structures. Strained and unstrained InGaAs channels were made by MBE on InP substrates and by MOCVD on GaAs substrates. In most cases, ellipsometrically determined thicknesses were within 10 percent of the growth calibration results. The MBE made InGaAs strained layers showed large strain effects, indicating a probable shift in the critical points of their dielectric function toward the InP lattice matched concentration