Recent Literature The Treatment of Disease by Physical Methods . By Thomas Stretch Dowse, M. D. (Abd.), F.R.C.P. (Edin.), formerly Physician Superintendent Central London Sick Asylum; President North London Medical Society; Physician to the North London Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest; to the Northwest London Hospital and to the West End Hospital for Epilepsy and Diseases of the Nervous System, etc. pp. 400. New York: E. B. Treat & Co. 1899.

1899 ◽  
Vol 141 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-70
Author(s):  
Federico Varese

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As this book explains, the truth is more complicated. The author has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. The book spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, the book charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. The book explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. A pioneering chapter on China examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. This book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.


1986 ◽  
Vol 1 (20) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Cyril Galvin ◽  
Charles J. Rooney ◽  
Gilbert K. Nersesian

Prior to construction at Fire Island Inlet, Fire Island was moving westward at more than 200 feet per year, the north shore of the inlet was eroding severely, and navigation in the inlet was difficult. The Federal Jetty, completed in 1941, and the sand dike, built in 1959, have halted the westward migration, eliminated the severe erosion, and partially improved navigation, with minimal maintenance or repair to the structures. There has been a large net accretion of sand east of the jetty and west of the dike, an unknown part of which is at the expense of shores to the west of the inlet. At the State Park on the south side of the inlet interior, erosion accelerated, probably because of the dike. The middle and ocean segments of the 4750-foot Federal Jetty are now (1987) in good condition, although the design implies a stability coefficient for the quarrystone jetty head at time of construction that would now be considered risky. Stability has been promoted by a stone blanket under and east of the jetty, a thick stone apron seaward of the jetty, a low (8 feet MLW) crest, and armor stone that has been partially keyed in place. Damage due to scour, common at other single-jetty inlets, is absent here because longshore transport, which easily overtops the low crest, keeps the inlet channel away from the jetty. Although the two seaward segments of the jetty remain in good condition, the inshore segment of the jetty is in poor condition, despite its apparently sheltered location. The cumulative effects of waves, possibly channeled to the site along recurved spits during storms, have damaged 1200 feet, and tidal scour has destroyed about 230 feet. The damaged segment has a design cross section which is onefifth and one-twelfth the cross sections of the jetty trunk and head.


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