The Swiss-ification of ethnic conflict: historical lessons in nation-building from the Swiss example

No modern nation-state has had as stable an historical legacy as that of Switzerland. In a world of explosive national and international discord, of recurring genocidal hatred, of chronic violence and ethno-cultural war, the Swiss example offers a light onto others, a veritable living political manuscript, outlining the historical methods that allow for the construction of highly stable and functioning multi-ethnic nation-states. Unlocking the Swiss case, then, provides us with the theoretical keys that will be necessary for avoiding “the coming anarchy” of the post-Cold War Era. The essay presents both an exploration of the historical development of Swiss nationalism and an evaluation of whether or not the Swiss example of post-primordial civic nationalism can act as an ideal model for others in Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. From the historical dialogue, three primary circumstances have guided the development of a stable national foundation in Switzerland; (1) the threat of an external ‘alien other’, (2) elite accommodation and consociation of the national project, and (3) an innate willingness and desire to behave and be governed as a unitary, yet multi-ethnic, nation. The conclusions suggest that while the Swiss case is necessarily an end-result of unique historical happenstance, the variables of stability are nevertheless universal and can be replicated by others living in distinct historical eras and geographical proximities. The lessons are of great value, then, to modern nationbuilding projects in Iraq, Sri Lanka, Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, Ireland/England, Spain and even in Canada. (author's abstract

Analytical Continuation Approaches to Electronic Transport: The Resonant Level Model

The analytical continuation average spectrum method (ASM) and maximum entropy (MaxEnt) method are applied to the dynamic response of a noninteracting resonant level model within the framework of the Kubo formula for electric conductivity. The frequency dependent conductivity is inferred from the imaginary time current-current correlation function for a wide range of temperatures, gate voltages and spectral densities representing the leads, and compared with exact results. We find that the MaxEnt provides more accurate results compared to the ASM over the full spectral range.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Violent Transformations: Can Adult Learning Theory Help Explain Radicalization, Political Violence, and Terrorism?

Learning to be Violent? Adult education is imbued with positive thinking and subjective goals. Social, economic, and political emancipation and value-based shifts in attitudes are its theoretical and practical cornerstones. This is particularly evident in Stephen Brookfield and John Holst‘s Radicalizing Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2011). ―For us,‖ they write, ―adult learning is inextricably tied to creating and extending political and economic democracy – to equalizing democratic control of and access to wealth, education, health care, and creative work, and to promoting collective … forms of decision-making and labor‖ (xii). Adult education‘s ―traditional concern‖ is to create ―critical thinkers‖ able to counter any process of ―brainwashing or ideological manipulation‖ (2). Thus the field‘s contemporary goals include the encouragement of ―political and cultural democracy‖ and educating adults to learn ―how to recognize and abolish privilege around race, gender, status, and identity … [and] class‖ (4). And for radical learning in particular, the process involves the technical (i.e. learning how to ―stand up to racist speech‖), the communicative (i.e. ―learning how to bring the reality of racism to another‘s consciousness‖), and the emancipatory (i.e. ―integrating an alertness to racism into one‘s daily reasons and practice‖) (16). Brookfield and Holst use Nelson Mandela‘s life to illustrate how their theory is put into practice

DCO+^+, DCN and N2_2D+^+ reveal three different deuteration regimes in the disk around the Herbig Ae star HD163296

The formation pathways of deuterated species trace different regions of protoplanetary disks and may shed light into their physical structure. We aim to constrain the radial extent of main deuterated species; we are particularly interested in spatially characterizing the high and low temperature pathways for enhancing deuteration of these species. We observed the disk surrounding the Herbig Ae star HD 163296 using ALMA in Band 6 and obtained resolved spectral imaging data of DCO$^+$ ($J$=3-2), DCN ($J$=3-2) and N$_2$D$^+$ ($J$=3-2). We model the radial emission profiles of DCO$^+$, DCN and N$_2$D$^+$, assuming their emission is optically thin, using a parametric model of their abundances and radial excitation temperature estimates. DCO$^+$ can be described by a three-region model, with constant-abundance rings centered at 70 AU, 150 AU and 260 AU. The DCN radial profile peaks at about ~60 AU and N$_2$D$^+$ is seen in a ring at ~160 AU. Simple models of both molecules using constant abundances reproduce the data. Assuming reasonable average excitation temperatures for the whole disk, their disk-averaged column densities (and deuterium fractionation ratios) are 1.6-2.6$\times 10^{12}$ cm$^{-2}$ (0.04-0.07), 2.9-5.2$\times 10^{12}$ cm$^{-2}$ ($\sim$0.02) and 1.6-2.5 $\times 10^{11}$ cm$^{-2}$ (0.34-0.45) for DCO$^+$, DCN and N$_2$D$^+$, respectively. Our simple best-fit models show a correlation between the radial location of the first two rings in DCO$^+$ and the DCN and N$_2$D$^+$ abundance distributions that can be interpreted as the high and low temperature deuteration pathways regimes. The origin of the third DCO$^+$ ring at 260 AU is unknown but may be due to a local decrease of ultraviolet opacity allowing the photodesorption of CO or due to thermal desorption of CO as a consequence of radial drift and settlement of dust grains

Exploring DCO+^+ as a tracer of thermal inversion in the disk around the Herbig Ae star HD163296

We aim to reproduce the DCO$^+$ emission in the disk around HD163296 using a simple 2D chemical model for the formation of DCO$^+$ through the cold deuteration channel and a parametric treatment of the warm deuteration channel. We use data from ALMA in band 6 to obtain a resolved spectral imaging data cube of the DCO$^+$ $J$=3--2 line in HD163296 with a synthesized beam of 0."53$\times$ 0."42. We adopt a physical structure of the disk from the literature that reproduces the spectral energy distribution. We then apply a simplified chemical network for the formation of DCO$^+$ that uses the physical structure of the disk as parameters along with a CO abundance profile, a constant HD abundance and a constant ionization rate. Finally, from the resulting DCO$^+$ abundances, we calculate the non-LTE emission using the 3D radiative transfer code LIME. The observed DCO$^+$ emission is reproduced by a model with cold deuteration producing abundances up to $1.6\times 10^{-11}$. Warm deuteration, at a constant abundance of $3.2\times 10^{-12}$, becomes fully effective below 32 K and tapers off at higher temperatures, reproducing the lack of DCO$^+$ inside 90 AU. Throughout the DCO$^+$ emitting zone a CO abundance of $2\times 10^{-7}$ is found, with $\sim$99\% of it frozen out below 19 K. At radii where both cold and warm deuteration are active, warm deuteration contributes up to 20\% of DCO$^+$, consistent with detailed chemical models. The decrease of DCO$^+$ at large radii is attributed to a temperature inversion at 250 AU, which raises temperatures above values where cold deuteration operates. Increased photodesorption may also limit the radial extent of DCO$^+$. The corresponding return of the DCO$^+$ layer to the midplane, together with a radially increasing ionization fraction, reproduces the local DCO$^+$ emission maximum at $\sim$260 AU.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted 7th July 201

Structure and Composition of Molecular Clouds with CN Zeeman Detections I: W3OH

We have carried out a multi-species study of a region which has had previous measurements of strong magnetic fields through the CN Zeeman effect in order to to explore the relationship between CN and N$_2$H$^+$, both of which have evidence that they remain in the gas phase at densities of 10$^5$ - 10$^6$ cm$^{-3}$. To achieve this we map the 1 arcmin$^2$ region around the UCHII region of W3(OH) using the Combined Array for Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA). Approximately 105 hours of data were collected in multiple array configurations to produce maps with an effective resolution of $\sim$ 2.5\arcsec at high signal-to-noise in CN, C$^{18}$O, HCN, HCO$^+$, N$_2$H$^+$, and two continuum bands (91.2 GHz and 112 GHz). These data allow us to compare tracer molecules associated with both low and high density regions to infer gas properties. We determine that CARMA resolves out approximately 35% of the CN emission around W3(OH) when compared with spectra obtained from the IRAM-30 meter telescope. The presence of strong absorption lines towards the continuum source in three of the molecular transitions infers the presence of a cold, dark, optically thick region in front of the continuum source. In addition, the presence of high-velocity emission lines near the continuum source shows the presence of hot clumpy emission behind the continuum source. These data determine that future high-resolution interferometric CN Zeeman measurements which cannot currently be performed (due to technical limitations of current telescopes) are feasible. We confirm that CN is indeed a good tracer for high density regions; with certain objects such as W3(OH) it appears to be a more accurate tracer than N$_2$H$^+$.Comment: 33 pages, 16 figures. Accepted by Ap

ALMA Observations of the Young Substellar Binary System 2M1207

We present ALMA observations of the 2M1207 system, a young binary made of a brown dwarf with a planetary-mass companion at a projected separation of about 40 au. We detect emission from dust continuum at 0.89 mm and from the $J = 3 - 2$ rotational transition of CO from a very compact disk around the young brown dwarf. The small radius found for this brown dwarf disk may be due to truncation from the tidal interaction with the planetary-mass companion. Under the assumption of optically thin dust emission, we estimated a dust mass of 0.1 $M_{\oplus}$ for the 2M1207A disk, and a 3$\sigma$ upper limit of $\sim 1~M_{\rm{Moon}}$ for dust surrounding 2M1207b, which is the tightest upper limit obtained so far for the mass of dust particles surrounding a young planetary-mass companion. We discuss the impact of this and other non-detections of young planetary-mass companions for models of planet formation, which predict the presence of circum-planetary material surrounding these objects.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A