Leveraging the Courts to Protect Women’s Fundamental Rights at the Intersection of Family-Wage Work Structures and Women’s Role as Wage Earner and Primary Caregiver

The causes of disaster, both immediate and underlying, that resulted in 54 fatalities in Riga in November 2013 are analyzed in this paper. The collapse of the Maxima supermarket is seen as a safety failure resulting from longer-term deregulation in Latvia encouraged by external advisors such as the World Bank and the EU, and the specific crisis-induced drive to minimize regulation by local political actors, especially in the aftermath of ongoing austerity. The paper raises the issue of what is a ‘safety crime’ in the context of post-communist Baltic states, and asks whether the notion of ‘corporate killing’ or corporate manslaughter is applicable to the circumstances of the disaster. The paper suggests the need to establish accountability for social harms caused by the unfettered pursuit of private profit over public safety

Polaron Recombination in Pristine and Annealed Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

The major loss mechanism of photogenerated polarons was investigated in P3HT:PCBM solar cells by the photo-CELIV technique. For pristine and annealed devices, we find that the experimental data can be explained by a bimolecular recombination rate reduced by a factor of about ten (pristine) and 25 (annealed) as compared to Langevin theory. Aided by a macroscopic device model, we discuss the implications of the lowered loss rate on the characteristics of polymer:fullerene solar cells.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Influence of Charge Carrier Mobility on the Performance of Organic Solar Cells

The power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells based on donor--acceptor blends is governed by an interplay of polaron pair dissociation and bimolecular polaron recombination. Both processes are strongly dependent on the charge carrier mobility, the dissociation increasing with faster charge transport, with raised recombination losses at the same time. Using a macroscopic effective medium simulation, we calculate the optimum charge carrier mobility for the highest power conversion efficiency, for the first time accounting for injection barriers and a reduced Langevin-type recombination. An enhancement of the charge carrier mobility from $10^{-8}$m$^2$/Vs for state of the art polymer:fullerene solar cells to about $10^{-6}$m$^2$/Vs, which yields the maximum efficiency, corresponds to an improvement of only about 20% for the given parameter set.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

The nature of moving solar radio bursts associated with coronal mass ejections

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are large-scale eruptions of plasma entrained in a magnetic field. They occur in the solar corona, and from there they propagate into interplanetary space along with the solar wind. If a CME travels faster than the surrounding solar wind, a shock wave forms. Shocks driven by CMEs can act as powerful accelerators of charged particles. When charged particles like electrons are accelerated, they emit electromagnetic radiation, especially in the form of radio waves. Much of the radio emission from CMEs comes in the form of solar radio bursts. Traditionally solar radio bursts are classified into five types, called type I–V bursts, based on their characteristics and appearance in a dynamic spectrum. Of these five types of bursts, especially type II radio bursts are believed to be signatures of shock waves in the corona and interplanetary space. There are, however, also radio bursts associated with CMEs and shocks that do not fit the description of any of the five standard types of radio bursts. In this thesis three moving radio bursts associated with a CME that erupted on May 22, 2013 are identified and studied in detail. The characteristics of the bursts do not match those of the usual five types of solar radio bursts. The aim of the work is to ascertain the emission mechanism that causes the observed radio bursts, as well as locate the sites of electron acceleration that are the sources of the emission. The kinematics and the spectral features of the emission are studied in order to find answers to these questions. Analysis of the spectral features of the moving bursts showed that the bursts were emitted via plasma emission. Analysis of the kinematics revealed that the moving radio bursts originated unusually high up in the corona from the northern flank of the CME. The CME studied in this work was preceded by another one which erupted some hours earlier, and the disturbed coronal environment likely caused the radio emission to be emitted from an unusual height. It was found that the bursts likely originated from electrons accelerated at the shock driven by the CME

Phraseologische Befragungen und ihre statistische Auswertung

It is widely accepted that empirical research methods and statistics belong together. This is no different in phraseology. In contrast to the natural and social sciences however, no standardized statistical culture has yet emerged in this field. Empirical research in German phraseology during the last 15 years shows a variety of approaches and analysis methods, which often led to contradictory results. Part of this dilemma can be explained by the fact that statistical methods were ignored, too few participants were involved in the studies, the participants chosen were not representative for the intended group or the statistical tests were improperly used. This article gives a basic introduction to the main statistical tests needed in phraseological research (i. e. chi-square test, t-test, analysis of variance and regression) and clear instructions on when and how to use them. Special attention is drawn to the importance of interactions between different factors (that can be tested with the help of analysis of variance). With this article I hope to have been able to demonstrate that statistics are a necessary tool in phraseology and other linguistic disciplines: on the one hand to organize and to clearly present the data and on the other hand to provide more evidence for regularities in the data

Wortgeografischer Wandel im Schweizerdeutschen. Sommersprossen, Küchenzwiebel und Schmetterling 70 Jahre nach dem SDS

This paper intends to show the importance of having linguistic instruments, principally semantic ones, for determining the meaning of words with the greatest precision and, consequently, managing to meticulously establish the different meanings of a dictionary's entry words. As an example, a new definition of the Spanish verb mezclar ('to mix') will b Since the beginning of the publication of the linguistic atlas of German-speaking Switzerland (Sprachatlas der deutschen Schweiz, SDS) in the early 1960s individual linguists collected contemporary material for comparison to investigate language change. However, due to time and money restrictions these studies were limited to small parts of the language area only. So far a description of tendencies concerning the entire Swiss German language area is missing. Based on an online-survey of 5600 informants this investigation is the first to present word geographic data covering (almost) the whole German-speaking Switzerland. Comparing GIS-maps of SDS and online data of the dialectal lexemes for freckles, onion and butterfly, language change over the last century becomes apparent, with striking convergence tendencies towards standard German, but also a Swiss German dialect expanding its range. Most of the dialect words mentioned in the SDS were preserved; some new were found. Thus, diversity of lexicon and creative language use are not endangered. Statistical analysis showed that younger speakers are more likely to deviate from the SDS. Less strong, but still significant were the influence of the parent's dialect and the duration of living in the dialect area, whereas gender had no influence

Design, development and characterization of nanostructured electrochemical sensors

This is a publication-based thesis which focuses on the study of electrochemical microbiosensors for glucose detection. It investigates applications of a series of microfabricated gold electrodes based on several nanostructures in electrochemical biosensing technologies, embracing three major methodologies: direct electro-catalytic detection, enzymatic detection and dual-enzyme cascade detection. The study is described over five main chapters with a sixth providing a summary of the material presented and perspectives for the future. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the field of the electrochemical biosensors with a specific focus on the chosen nanostructures and miniaturized systems, as well as a brief history of the biosensor. Chapter 2 presents results published in ACS Applied Nanomaterials, 2019, 2, 9, 5878-5889. It demonstrates the enzyme free detection of glucose via a direct electro-catalytic reaction. The miniaturized band array electrodes with specific width, length and inter-electrode-distance were integrated with homogeneously distributed copper foam nano dendrites. Such foam deposits presented for the first time at the micro scale were achieved using the in-situ hydrogen bubble template method. The resulting very high electroactive surface area of the porous foam deposits was one of the major advantages in terms of achieving superior performance from each micro band foam electrode towards glucose detection. Moreover, both sensors also showed a strong resistance to the poisoning effects of chloride ions and displayed excellent stability over a period of three months.Chapter 3 presents the first of t wo sets of results for the enzymatic detection of glucose, results published in Elsevier Electrochimica Acta, 2019, 293, 307-317. Chapter 4 then presents the second set of results on this topic which is published in and Elsevier Electrochimica Acta, 2019, 298, 97-105. The aim of these two chapters is to discuss the effect of miniaturization on the enzymatic biosensor performance which was studied in the presence of a carbon quantum dot (CQD) and gold nanoparticle nanohybrid system. CQDs, are a new class of carbon-based materials and have been used here for the first time as a matrix component integrated onto microfabricated gold electrode surfaces for enzyme immobilization and further miniaturization. The biosensors developed were studied by electrochemistry to investigate the analytical performance of each device. By scaling down the surface area of the biosensor, a 13-times increase in sensitivity was achieved towards glucose. Moreover both sensors-planar, micro disk array- exhibited excellent reproducibility, reusability and operational stability in terms of the performance of biosensors. Chapter 5 presents results published in RSC Analyst, 2020 (DOI: 10.1039/C9AN01664C). It demonstrates the operation of a dual-enzyme cascade which was constructed onto a micro band array electrode based on glucose oxidase and horseradish peroxidase enzymes. To achieve a very high surface area, a porous gold-foam was electrodeposited onto surface and then a second electrodeposition layer of chitosan and multi walled carbon nanotube nano-bio-composite. The micro band cascade scheme developed exhibited the highest sensitivity towards glucose detection in comparison to other systems reported in the literature. Chapter 6 provides an insight into the field of electrochemical biosensing with the support of the achievements presented in this thesis. Thus, by taking advantage of the available system, this chapter discusses the possible future applications of the electrochemical biosensors. The thesis then ends with section 7 which presents some Appendices

Technoscience in Agriculture: Reflections on the Contributions of the MSU School of Sociology of Food and Agriculture

This paper argues that one of the most important contributions of the MSU School of Agrifood Governance and Technoscience (MSU-SAGT) was its focus on previously less explored and analyzed roles of technoscience in agriculture.The notion of technoscience was derived from the broader field of Science and Technology Studies, especially from Actor Network Theory.Studies conducted under Lawrence Busch’s direction conceptualized this notion to indicate networks/collectives of human and nonhuman actors implicated in production, distribution and consumption of food. While these studies analyzed the role of technoscience in transforming agriculture, they also examined ethical issues (e.g.,social justice and democracy)that arise from the simultaneous restructuring of social relations and practices that redistribute power and profit through various commodity chains.To highlight the contributions of MSU-SAGT to the study of technoscience in agriculture, this paper will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of this line of scholarship by comparing how the notions of networks, actors, and symmetry are used in Commodity Systems Analyses and Actor Network Theory. In our discussion, we will draw empirical examples from our work on rapeseed conducted in the 1990s. We emphasize that the application of the technoscience paradigm with innovative methodological approaches developed at MSU enabled us to problematize and theorize scientific practices in agriculture as ‘politics by other means’. This explicitly raised issues of social justice and democracy as implicated in agrifood practices. This paper will conclude by emphasizing that the MSU-SAGT has stressed the importance of those temporal and spatial dimensions of technoscience politics that simultaneously transform global and local dynamics of agrifood production