The Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty and the Paradox of Japan’s Nuclear Identity

On 7 July 2017, the “Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty” (NWPT) to ban nuclear weapons in general was adopted in the United Nations General Assembly. The Japanese government, however, voted against the NWPT while insisting on its own resolution plan to facilitate global nuclear elimination. This paper examines Japan’s nuclear identity with regard to the legal prohibition of nuclear weapons, especially the NWPT. Why did the Japanese government vote against the NWPT despite the fact that Japan is the sole state to have ever suffered nuclear bombing in war? With a view to providing multiple perspectives regarding this simple but important question, this paper applies “analytical eclecticism” in combination with international relations theory. The multiple theoretical perspectives on Japan’s policy toward nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament are instrumental in clarifying Japan’s nuclear identity and exploring its role in nuclear abolition. Finally, this paper considers alternative policy options that the Japanese government needs to take into consideration and put into practice in order to bridge a gap between nuclear and nonnuclear countries toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons

Japan and the Nuclear Weapons ProhibitionTreaty: the wrong side of history, geography,legality, morality, and humanity

By refusing to sign the new UN Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty, Japan has put itself on the wrong side of history, geography, legality, morality, and humanity. The treaty is part of the broad historically progressive trend since 1945 to limit and abolish nuclear weapons and their use. The normative architecture includes the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, regional nuclear weapon-free zones, the Proliferation Security Initiative, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Geographically, global nuclear risks and threats exist in especially acute form in the Asia-Pacific and most states of the region voted solidly for the ban treaty. The NPT’s legal obligation to eliminate nuclear weapons was strengthened by the World Court’s Advisory Opinion in 1996. Most countries and peoples of the world overwhelmingly abhor the bomb as deeply immoral. The ban treaty expresses their collective moral revulsion and is rooted in humanitarian principles

Towards a Java Subtyping Operad

The subtyping relation in Java exhibits self-similarity. The self-similarity in Java subtyping is interesting and intricate due to the existence of wildcard types and, accordingly, the existence of three subtyping rules for generic types: covariant subtyping, contravariant subtyping and invariant subtyping. Supporting bounded type variables also adds to the complexity of the subtyping relation in Java and in other generic nominally-typed OO languages such as C# and Scala. In this paper we explore defining an operad to model the construction of the subtyping relation in Java and in similar generic nominally-typed OO programming languages. Operads, from category theory, are frequently used to model self-similar phenomena. The Java subtyping operad, we hope, will shed more light on understanding the type systems of generic nominally-typed OO languages.Comment: 13 page

The effect of guideline-based antimicrobial therapy on the outcome of fracture-related infections (EAT FRI Study)

Aim: This study investigated the compliance with a guideline-based antibiotic regimen on the outcome of patients surgically treated for a fracture-related infection (FRI). Method: In this international multicenter observational study, patients were included when diagnosed with an FRI between 2015 and 2019. FRI was defined according to the FRI consensus definition. All patients were followed for at least one year. The chosen antibiotic regimens were compared to the published guidelines from the FRI Consensus Group and correlated to outcome. Treatment success was defined as the eradication of infection with limb preservation. Results: A total of 433 patients (mean age 49.7 ± 16.1 years) with FRIs of mostly the tibia (50.6%) and femur (21.7%) were included. Full compliance of the antibiotic regime to the published guidelines was observed in 107 (24.7%) cases. Non-compliance was mostly due to deviations from the recommended dosing, followed by the administration of an alternative antibiotic than the one recommended or an incorrect use or non-use of rifampin. Non-compliance was not associated with a worse outcome: treatment failure was 12.1% in compliant versus 13.2% in non-compliant cases (p = 0.87). Conclusions: We report good outcomes in the treatment of FRI and demonstrated that minor deviations from the FRI guideline are not associated with poorer outcomes.</p