Botaiho : Japanese organised crime under the Boryokudan countermeasures law

This thesis is an investigation into the effects of the 1992 böryokudan countermeasures law (böryokudan taisaku ha or, more simply, bötaihö) on Japan's organised crime syndicates (böryokudan or yakuza). Underlying this examination is a functionalist perspective of organised crime which rests on the premise that, far from being unambiguously socially dysfunctional, organised crime groups exist because they satisfy needs held by various sections of society (both in the upper and underworlds). This approach demystifies many of the supposedly unique aspects of the böryokudan/yakuza (such as yakuza-authority symbiosis) and places Japan within the compass of modem organised-crime studies. An empirical overview of the böryokudan's development from 1945 to 1992 shows that the prime dynamic behind this evolution has been the legal and law-enforcement environment within which these groups exist and that frequently the impact of these changes has been socially undesirable. Attempts to examine whether or not the bötaihö has similarly exacerbated organised criminality in Japan are hampered by the collapse of Japan's bubble economy in 1990. This event had profound consequences for boryokudan groups rendering many activities unviable, whilst simultaneously creating new opportunities. Despite these extraneous considerations, the bötaihö has had an observable impact on many aspects of the böryokudan's activities and some of these consequences have been socially undesirable. The legal analysis of the bötaihö is placed in the wider context of international organised-crime control measures, in particular America's RICO statutes and European laws, both of which were highly influential in the debate within Japan concerning the framing of new anti-böryokudan laws. The thesis concludes by arguing that the radically different structure of the bötaihö, vis-ä-vis these alternative models, is part of a wider reversion to pre-war legal and policing norms in which, in addition to enforcement of the criminal law, the police also exercise considerable administrative powers

Dynamical Stability of Witten Rings

The dynamical stability of cosmic rings, or vortons, is investigated for the particular equation of state given by the Witten bosonic model. It is found that there exists a finite range of the state parameter for which the vorton states are actually stable against dynamical perturbations. Inclusion of the electromagnetic self action into the equation of state slightly shrinks the stability region but otherwise yields no qualitative difference. If the Witten bosonic model represents a good approximation for more realistic string models, then the cosmological vorton excess problem can only be solved by assuming either that strings are formed at low energy scales or that some quantum instability may develop at a sufficient rate.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX-ReVTeX (v.3), 2 figures available upon request, DAMTP R-94/1

Fermionic massive modes along cosmic strings

The influence on cosmic string dynamics of fermionic massive bound states propagating in the vortex, and getting their mass only from coupling to the string forming Higgs field, is studied. Such massive fermionic currents are numerically found to exist for a wide range of model parameters and seen to modify drastically the usual string dynamics coming from the zero mode currents alone. In particular, by means of a quantization procedure, a new equation of state describing cosmic strings with any kind of fermionic current, massive or massless, is derived and found to involve, at least, one state parameter per trapped fermion species. This equation of state exhibits transitions from subsonic to supersonic regimes while the massive modes are filled.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures, uses ReVTeX. Shortened version, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Equation of state of cosmic strings with fermionic current-carriers

The relevant characteristic features, including energy per unit length and tension, of a cosmic string carrying massless fermionic currents in the framework of the Witten model in the neutral limit are derived through quantization of the spinor fields along the string. The construction of a Fock space is performed by means of a separation between longitudinal modes and the so-called transverse zero energy solutions of the Dirac equation in the vortex. As a result, quantization leads to a set of naturally defined state parameters which are the number densities of particles and anti-particles trapped in the cosmic string. It is seen that the usual one-parameter formalism for describing the macroscopic dynamics of current-carrying vortices is not sufficient in the case of fermionic carriers.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figures, uses ReVTeX, equation of state corrected, comments and references added. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

FUSE Measurements of Far Ultraviolet Extinction. I. Galactic Sight Lines

We present extinction curves that include data down to far ultraviolet wavelengths (FUV; 1050 - 1200 A) for nine Galactic sight lines. The FUV extinction was measured using data from the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer. The sight lines were chosen for their unusual extinction properties in the infrared through the ultraviolet; that they probe a wide range of dust environments is evidenced by the large spread in their measured ratios of total-to-selective extinction, R_V = 2.43 - 3.81. We find that extrapolation of the Fitzpatrick & Massa relationship from the ultraviolet appears to be a good predictor of the FUV extinction behavior. We find that predictions of the FUV extinction based upon the Cardelli, Clayton & Mathis (CCM) dependence on R_V give mixed results. For the seven extinction curves well represented by CCM in the infrared through ultraviolet, the FUV extinction is well predicted in three sight lines, over-predicted in two sight lines, and under-predicted in 2 sight lines. A Maximum Entropy Method analysis using a simple three component grain model shows that seven of the nine sight lines in the study require a larger fraction of grain materials to be in dust when FUV extinction is included in the models. Most of the added grain material is in the form of small (radii < 200 A) grains.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 31 pages with 7 figure

Spatiotemporal variations in retrovirus-host interactions among Darwin's finches

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are inherited remnants of retroviruses that colonized host germline over millions of years, providing a sampling of retroviral diversity across time. Here, we utilize the strength of Darwin's finches, a system synonymous with evolutionary studies, for investigating ERV history, revealing recent retrovirus-host interactions in natural populations. By mapping ERV variation across all species of Darwin's finches and comparing with outgroup species, we highlight geographical and historical patterns of retrovirus-host occurrence, utilizing the system for evaluating the extent and timing of retroviral activity in hosts undergoing adaptive radiation and colonization of new environments. We find shared ERVs among all samples indicating retrovirus-host associations pre-dating host speciation, as well as considerable ERV variation across populations of the entire Darwin's finches' radiation. Unexpected ERV variation in finch species on different islands suggests historical changes in gene flow and selection. Non-random distribution of ERVs along and between chromosomes, and across finch species, suggests association between ERV accumulation and the rapid speciation of Darwin's finches.Endogenous retroviruses (ERV) are inherited remains of retroviruses that have colonized host genomes during evolution. Here the authors observe considerable species-specific ERV variation among Darwin's finches, reflecting historic retrovirus-host interactions

White Dwarfs in Globular Clusters: HST Observations of M4

Using WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope, we have isolated a sample of 258 white dwarfs (WDs) in the Galactic globular cluster M4. Fields at three radial distances from the cluster center were observed and sizeable WD populations were found in all three. The location of these WDs in the color-magnitude diagram, their mean mass of 0.51($\pm 0.03$)M$_{\odot}$, and their luminosity function confirm basic tenets of stellar evolution theory and support the results from current WD cooling theory. The WDs are used to extend the cluster main-sequence mass function upward to stars that have already completed their nuclear evolution. The WD/red dwarf binary frequency in M4 is investigated and found to be at most a few percent of all the main-sequence stars. The most ancient WDs found are about 9 Gyr old, a level which is set solely by the photometric limits of our data. Even though this is less than the age of M4, we discuss how these cooling WDs can eventually be used to check the turnoff ages of globular clusters and hence constrain the age of the Universe.Comment: 46 pages, latex, no figures included, figures available at ftp://ftp.astro.ubc.ca/pub/richer/wdfig.uu size 2.7Mb. To be published in the Astrophysical Journa

Non stationary Einstein-Maxwell fields interacting with a superconducting cosmic string

Non stationary cylindrically symmetric exact solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell equations are derived as single soliton perturbations of a Levi-Civita metric, by an application of Alekseev inverse scattering method. We show that the metric derived by L. Witten, interpreted as describing the electrogravitational field of a straight, stationary, conducting wire may be recovered in the limit of a `wide' soliton. This leads to the possibility of interpreting the solitonic solutions as representing a non stationary electrogravitational field exterior to, and interacting with, a thin, straight, superconducting cosmic string. We give a detailed discussion of the restrictions that arise when appropiate energy and regularity conditions are imposed on the matter and fields comprising the string, considered as `source', the most important being that this `source' must necessarily have a non- vanishing minimum radius. We show that as a consequence, it is not possible, except in the stationary case, to assign uniquely a current to the source from a knowledge of the electrogravitational fields outside the source. A discussion of the asymptotic properties of the metrics, the physical meaning of their curvature singularities, as well as that of some of the metric parameters, is also included.Comment: 14 pages, no figures (RevTex

Order (alpha^2 Gamma, alpha^3 Gamma) Binding Effects in Orthopositronium Decay

We present a new, simplified analysis of the low-energy electron-positron interaction, and use the resulting effective theory to calculate the binding effects that contribute to the decay rate, Gamma, of orthopositronium, through Order(alpha^3 ln(alpha) Gamma). We express the total decay rate in terms of the annihilation rate for a free electron and positron at threshold, which has just recently been computed to sufficient precision. Our result corrects errors in a previous analysis.Comment: 6 pages, revtex. v2: higher order contributions included, references added. v3: check with muonium hyperfine splitting adde

Immunolocalization of NLRP3 Inflammasome in Normal Murine Airway Epithelium and Changes following Induction of Ovalbumin-Induced Airway Inflammation

Little is known about innate immunity and components of inflammasomes in airway epithelium. This study evaluated immunohistological evidence for NLRP3 inflammasomes in normal and inflamed murine (Balb/c) airway epithelium in a model of ovalbumin (OVA) induced allergic airway inflammation. The airway epithelium of control mice exhibited strong cytoplasmic staining for total caspase-1, ASC, and NLRP3, whereas the OVA mice exhibited strong staining for active caspase-1, with redistribution of caspase-1, IL-1β and IL-18, indicating possible activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Active caspase-1, NLRP3, and other inflammasome components were also detected in tissue eosinophils from OVA mice, and may potentially contribute to IL-1β and IL-18 production. In whole lung, inRNA expression of NAIP and procaspase-1 was increased in OVA mice, whereas NLRP3, IL-1β and IL-18 decreased. Some OVA-treated mice also had significantly elevated and tightly correlated serum levels of IL-1β and TNFα. In cultured normal human bronchial epithelial cells, LPS priming resulted in a significant increase in NLRP3 and II-lp protein expression. This study is the first to demonstrate NLRP3 inflammasome components in normal airway epithelium and changes with inflammation. We propose activation and/or luminal release of the inflammasome is a feature of allergic airway inflammation which may contribute to disease pathogenesis