557 research outputs found
The Prostitution of the Russian Flag: Privateers in Russian Admiralty Courts, 1787-98
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from CUP via the DOI in this recordIn 1794, the Russian Empire convened the first high admiralty court for appeals to review petitions of merchants and privateers embroiled in the second Russian-Ottoman war of Catherine II's reign (1787-91). The Commission for Archipelago Affairs, as this admiralty court was called, decided more than 170 cases on the basis of Russian maritime law and its interpretation of the law of nations concerning commercial navigation and privateers. A year into its work, the commission determined that one case sat at the center of most disputes that pitted merchants against Russian-flagged privateers: The affair of Lambros Katsonis. The commission's decisions for most of the cases on its docket rested on its determination of Katsonis's standing in the Russian Empire. Once decided, the outcome of the matter went on to define the distinction between Russian privateers and naval officers in Russian law: precedents that shaped Russian naval practices for the next 50 years.Research support for this article was generously provided
by the IREX Individual Advanced Research Opportunities Fellowship, a British
Institute at Ankara Study Grant, the Centre for East European Language Based
Area Studies, and the British School in Athen
Greeks into Privateers: Law and Language of Commerce Raiding under the Imperial Russian Flag, 1760s-1790s
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Ashgate (Taylor & Francis) via the DOI in this record.The emergence and development of privateers as a separate social category in imperial Russia was neither a foregone conclusion nor an appropriation of Western practices, but rather a result of changes in Russiaâs political and imperial culture. This chapter traces this evolution through three developments: the specific vocabulary referring to concrete activities perpetrated at sea under the Russian flag; distinct financial incentives that were codified only during the 1787 Russian-Ottoman War; and, the use of legal instruments and law-based strategies employed to regulate the activities of this specific subclass of combatant. The argument in this chapter begins with an explanation of the historical role of irregular troops in Russian strategy to show how this precedent was first used to organise recruits in the Eastern Mediterranean. It then pivots to an overview of Russiaâs approach to commerce raiding and the changes that followed in the 1770s and 1780s. The final part argues that these developments set privateers apart from both foreign recruits and irregular troops
Effective interaction between helical bio-molecules
The effective interaction between two parallel strands of helical
bio-molecules, such as deoxyribose nucleic acids (DNA), is calculated using
computer simulations of the "primitive" model of electrolytes. In particular we
study a simple model for B-DNA incorporating explicitly its charge pattern as a
double-helix structure. The effective force and the effective torque exerted
onto the molecules depend on the central distance and on the relative
orientation. The contributions of nonlinear screening by monovalent counterions
to these forces and torques are analyzed and calculated for different salt
concentrations. As a result, we find that the sign of the force depends
sensitively on the relative orientation. For intermolecular distances smaller
than it can be both attractive and repulsive. Furthermore we report a
nonmonotonic behaviour of the effective force for increasing salt
concentration. Both features cannot be described within linear screening
theories. For large distances, on the other hand, the results agree with linear
screening theories provided the charge of the bio-molecules is suitably
renormalized.Comment: 18 pages, 18 figures included in text, 100 bibliog
Equation of state for polymer liquid crystals: theory and experiment
The first part of this paper develops a theory for the free energy of
lyotropic polymer nematic liquid crystals. We use a continuum model with
macroscopic elastic moduli for a polymer nematic phase. By evaluating the
partition function, considering only harmonic fluctuations, we derive an
expression for the free energy of the system. We find that the configurational
entropic part of the free energy enhances the effective repulsive interactions
between the chains. This configurational contribution goes as the fourth root
of the direct interactions. Enhancement originates from the coupling between
bending fluctuations and the compressibility of the nematic array normal to the
average director. In the second part of the paper we use osmotic stress to
measure the equation of state for DNA liquid crystals in 0.1M to 1M NaCl
solutions. These measurements cover 5 orders of magnitude in DNA osmotic
pressure. At high osmotic pressures the equation of state, dominated by
exponentially decaying hydration repulsion, is independent of the ionic
strength. At lower pressures the equation of state is dominated by fluctuation
enhanced electrostatic double layer repulsion. The measured equation of state
for DNA fits well with our theory for all salt concentrations. We are able to
extract the strength of the direct electrostatic double layer repulsion. This
is a new and alternative way of measuring effective charge densities along
semiflexible polyelectrolytes.Comment: text + 5 figures. Submitted to PR
First Observation of the Doubly Charmed Baryon Xi_cc^+
We observe a signal for the doubly charmed baryon Xi_cc^+ in the charged
decay mode Xi_cc^+ --> Lambda_c^+ K- pi+ in data from SELEX, the charm
hadro-production experiment at Fermilab. We observe an excess of 15.9 events
over an expected background of 6.1 +/- 0.5 events, a statistical significance
of 6.3sigma. The observed mass of this state is (3519 +/- 1) MeV/c^2. The
Gaussian mass width of this state is 3MeV/c^2, consistent with resolution; its
lifetime is less than 33fsec at 90% confidence.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Measurement of the Ds lifetime
We report precise measurement of the Ds meson lifetime. The data were taken
by the SELEX experiment (E781) spectrometer using 600 GeV/c Sigma-, pi- and p
beams. The measurement has been done using 918 reconstructed Ds. The lifetime
of the Ds is measured to be 472.5 +- 17.2 +- 6.6 fs, using K*(892)0K+- and phi
pi+- decay modes. The lifetime ratio of Ds to D0 is 1.145+-0.049.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures submitted to Phys. Lett.
Confirmation of the Double Charm Baryon Xi_cc+ via its Decay to p D+ K-
We observes a signal for the double charm baryon Xi_cc+ in the charged decay
mode Xi_cc+ -> p D+ K- to complement the previously reported decay Xi_cc+ ->
Lambda_c K- pi+ in data from SELEX, the charm hadro-production experiment
(E781) at Fermilab. In this new decay mode we observe an excess of 5.62 events
over an expected background estimated by event mixing to be 1.38+/-0.13 events.
The Poisson probability that a background fluctuation can produce the apparent
signal is less than 6.4E-4. The observed mass of this state is
(3518+/-3)MeV/c^2, consistent with the published result. Averaging the two
results gives a mass of (3518.7+/-1.7)MeV/c^2. The observation of this new weak
decay mode confirms the previous SELEX suggestion that this state is a double
charm baryon. The relative branching ratio Gamma(Xi_cc+ -> pD+K-)/Gamma(Xi_cc+
-> Lambda_c K- pi+) = 0.36+/-0.21.Comment: 11 pages, 6 included eps figures. v2 includes improved statistical
method to determine significance of observation. Submitted to PL
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