The Rising of Initiative and Referendum for the Replacement of the Decline of Parliaments

Inspired by the precursor of Political Science Lord James Bryce who pointed out ＂the decline of parliaments＂ （1921）, this paper will be dedicated to emphasize the rising of initiative and referendum and its theory of direct democracy. Governance model on direct democracy： Use the governance model on direct democracy such as semi-direct democracy and semi-representative democracy presented by Serge Zogg （1996）, and make the systematic analysis from its research structure. Based on the examinations of the seven standards of initiative and referendum, for example, national referendum into the Constitution, obligatory constitutional referendum, popular initiative, ordinary facultative referendum, extraordinary facultative referendum, democratic system typology, national referendum volume etc, presented by Hamon （2006a）, to make a classification and comparison for 19 countries in Europe. Analysis on the initiative and referendum： The tendency of the global practice on the initiative and referendum is becoming increasing. According to the indication of ＂Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe＂, up to the year of 2010, the national referendums have reached to 1538 eases around the world. Discuss the reason why the global practice on the initiative and referendum is becoming increasing？ According to the new data on the national referendums practiced in the whole world （such as phenomenon shows that the volumes are increased on the national referendum, do the systematic analysis spread situation for each country etc.）. Comparison on the global national referendums： Based on three voting models （centralization, decentralization, political party）, and six systems of national referendums （Denmark, France, Italy, Switzerland, British combination such as New Zealand and Australia, Latin America etc.）, to make a comparison and related case study analysis.

Conformational Disorder Within the Crystalline Region of Silica-Filled Polydimethylsiloxane:A Solid-State NMR Study

The crystallization behavior of silica-filled polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)was investigated in detail by^(1)H solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance(^(1)H SS-NMR)in combination with synchrotron radiation wide-angle X-ray scattering(WAXS),and temperature-modulated differential scanning calorimetry(TMDSC)techniques.For neat PDMS,no apparent difference is observed for the crystallinity characterized by^(1)H SS-NMR and WAXS at low-temperature regions.However,upon filler addition,a 15%-35%lower difference in crystallinity is observed measured by^(1)H SS-NMR compared to WAXS.The origin of such mismatch was explored through multi-component structural,dynamics,and chain-order analysis of PDMS samples with different filler fractions.The 1D integrated WAXS results of PDMS with different filler fractions at different temperatures show that the packing structure as well as crystal size basically remain unchanged,but as the filler fraction increases from 0 phr to 60 phr,the rigid component’s dynamics order parameter S_(r)obtained by^(1)H SS-NMR decreases from 0.70 to 0.55.The filler fraction-dependent crystallinity calculated based on S_(r)was compared with experimental values,revealing a behavior of decreasing order in the crystalline region.Combining with the results of accelerated chain dynamics in crystalline region as reflected by T_(2)values,the molecular origin is attributed to the formation of CONDIS crystals,whose conformational order is lost but the position and orientation orders are kept.Such hypothesis is further supported by the TMDSC results,where,as the filler fraction increases from 0 phr to 60 phr,the melting range widens from 8.77 K to 14.56 K,representing a growth of166%.In addition to previous reports related to the condition for forming CONDIS mesophase,i.e.,temperature,pressure,and stretching,the nano-sized filler could also introduce the local conformational disorder for chain packing.