Considerations Regarding the Valence and Diversity of Operations Research Models

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 108-113
Author(s):  
Alexandru Hampu

AbstractOperations research(OR), also called decision optimization science, is the one that provides mathematical models meant to lead to finding the optimal variant in an economic, military, social, political, etc. type of activity. These are methods with a major potential, highlighted since the emergence of the models used in World War II actions and later in various other fields, especially in western countries. This paper aims to highlight the benefits of using OR techniques over time and especially to highlight its applicability. In this paper we summarize the presentation of the evolution and contributions of Operational Research in various fields until the ‘60s, a future paper will deal with the time frame 1960-2020.

2021 ◽  
pp. 095792652199214
Author(s):  
Kim Schoofs ◽  
Dorien Van De Mieroop

In this article, we scrutinise epistemic competitions in interviews about World War II. In particular, we analyse how the interlocutors draw on their epistemic authority concerning WWII to construct their interactional telling rights. On the one hand, the analyses illustrate how the interviewers rely on their historical expert status – as evidenced through their specialist knowledge and ventriloquisation of vicarious WWII narratives – in order to topicalise certain master narratives and thereby attempt to project particular identities upon the interviewees. On the other hand, the interviewees derive their epistemic authority from their first-hand experience as Jewish Holocaust survivors, on which they draw in order to counter these story projections, whilst constructing a more distinct self-positioning to protect their nuanced personal identity work. Overall, these epistemic competitions not only shaped the interviewees’ identity work, but they also made the link between storytelling and the social context more tangible as they brought – typically rather elusive – master narratives to the surface.


Author(s):  
Dr Rose Fazli ◽  
Dr Anahita Seifi

The present article is an attempt to offer the concept of political development from a novel perspective and perceive the Afghan Women image in accordance with the aforementioned viewpoint. To do so, first many efforts have been made to elucidate the author’s outlook as it contrasts with the classic stance of the concept of power and political development by reviewing the literature in development and particularly political development during the previous decades. For example Post-World War II approaches to political development which consider political development, from the Hobbesian perspective toward power, as one of the functions of government. However in a different view of power, political development found another place when it has been understood via postmodern approaches, it means power in a network of relationships, not limited to the one-way relationship between ruler and obedient. Therefore newer concept and forces find their way on political development likewise “image” as a considerable social, political and cultural concept and women as the new force. Then, the meaning of “image” as a symbolic one portraying the common universal aspect is explained. The Afghan woman image emphasizing the historic period of 2001 till now is scrutinized both formally and informally and finally the relationship between this reproduced image of Afghan women and Afghanistan political development from a novel perspective of understanding is represented.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-170
Author(s):  
Merwyn S. Johnson

Leviticus 18:5b ( the one doing them shall live in them) offers a prism through which to view the idiom of Scripture—the distinctive dynamics and theology of the Bible. The verse pinpoints the interplay between God's doing-and-living and ours. At issue is whether the commandments reflect a “command-and-do” structure of life with God, which maximizes a quid pro quo dynamic between God and us; or do the commandments delineate a “covenant place where” we abide with God and God with us, as a gift of shared doing pure and simple? The article traces Leviticus 18:5b through both Old and New Testaments, to show how pervasive it is. The main post-World War II English translations misstate the verse at every turn, in contrast to the 16th-century Church Reformation, which understood the verse and the issue under the topic of Law and Gospel.


Author(s):  
Zaid Ibrahim Ismael ◽  
Sabah Atallah Khalifa Ali

Nowhere is American author Shirley Jackson’s (1916-1965) social and political criticism is so intense than it is in her seminal fictional masterpiece “The Lottery”. Jackson severely denounces injustice through her emphasis on a bizarre social custom in a small American town, in which the winner of the lottery, untraditionally, receives a fatal prize. The readers are left puzzled at the end of the story as Tessie Hutchinson, the unfortunate female winner, is stoned to death by the members of her community, and even by her family. This study aims at investigating the author’s social and political implications that lie behind the story, taking into account the historical era in which the story was published (the aftermath of the bloody World War II) and the fact that the victim is a woman who is silenced and forced to follow the tradition of the lottery. The paper mainly focuses on the writer’s interest in human rights issues, which can be violated even in civilized communities, like the one depicted in the story. The shocking ending, the researchers conclude, is Jackson’s protest against dehumanization and violence.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-138
Author(s):  
C.P.F. Luhulima

AbstractThailand’s borders with Myanmar, Laos, Cambodiaand Malaysia have been established through amapping process within the framework of theTreaty of Westfalpha. Since the England andFrance left Southeast Asia after World War II,Thailand questioned its borders with itsneighbouring countries and since then the borderissue between Thailand and her neighboursbecame the major issue. The attempts to resolvethe border conflict between Thailand andMyanmar have been conducted through“constructive engagement”, and through her policyof “changing battlefields to market places”. TheASEAN approach has been employed in her borderconflict with Cambodia. Cambodia’s attempt toinvolve the UN Security Council has been respondedby the Council to involve ASEAN in its resolution.The failure of the ASEAN approach made Cambodiato submit the issue to the ICJ in The Hague in April2011. On November 11, 2013 ICJ decided thatPreah Vihear and its surrounding area belong toCambodia. The source of the conflict with Malaysiawas not primarily about border, but it was apolitical complaint. The rebellion at the border areawill thus not terminate until the Thai authoritiesunderstand the complaints of the Muslim-Malaysat the border area. The ASEAN mechanism toresolve the inter-state conflict consists of bilateral,trilateral approaches, through the High Council andthe United Nations. The application of stepsbetween Thailand and its neighbours are thebilateral, trilateral steps and the one through theInternational Courtof Justice in The Hague.Keywords: Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Kamboja,ASEAN, Dispute Settlement Mechanism AbstrakBatas Kerajaan Thailand dengan Myanmar, Laos,Kamboja dan Malaysia dibentuk melalui prosespemetaan di dalam kerangka Traktat Westfalia.Ketika Inggris dan Prancis mengundurkan dirisesudah Perang Dunia II, Thailand mempersoalkanperbatasannya dengan negara-negara tetangganya,sehingga perbatasan menjadi pokokpermasalahan. Sengketa dengan Myanmar diupayakanpenyelesainnya melalui “constructiveengagement”, dan dengan kebijakannya “changingbattlefields to market places”. Pendekatan ASEANdigunakan untuk menyelesaikan konflik denganKamboja. Pelibatan Dewan Keamanan PBB dijawabdengan meminta kedua belah pihak melibatkanASEAN. Kegagalan pendekatan ASEAN menyebabkanKamboja mengajukan kasus ini ke ICJ padaApril 2011. Pada 11 November 2013 MahkamahInternasional di Den Haag memutuskan bahwaCandi Preah Vihear dan wilayah sekitarnya adalahmilik Kamboja. Permasalahan dengan Malaysiabukanlah masalah perbatasan antara keduanegara melainkan keluhan politik, sehinggapemberontakan di perbatasan tidak akan berakhirsampai penguasa Thailand memahami keluhanorang-orang Muslim-Melayu di perbatasan.Mekanisme ASEAN untuk mengatasi sengketaantarnegara anggota terdiri dari langkah bilateral,trilateral, melalui pembentukan Dewan Tinggi danmelalui lembaga hukum PBB. Yang di-terapkandalam kasus sengketa perbatasan antara Thailanddan negara tetangganya ialah pendekatanbilateral dan trilateral serta melalui LembagaPeradilan PBB.Kata kunci: Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia,Kamboja, ASEAN, Mekanisme PenyelesaianPerselisihan


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Antic

This article analyzes how the ideological discourse of the Croatian fascist movement (the Ustaša) evolved in the course of World War II under pressures of the increasingly popular and powerful communist armed resistance. It explores and interprets the way the regime formulated its ideological responses to the political/ideological challenge of the leftist guerrilla and its propaganda in the period after the proclamation of the Ustaša Independent State of Croatia in 1941 until the end of the war. The author demonstrates that the regime, faced with its own political weakness and inability to maintain authority, shaped its rhetoric and ideological self-definition in a direct dialogue with the Marxist discourse of the communist propaganda, incorporating important Marxist concepts in its theory of state and society and redefining its concepts of national boundaries and racial identity to match the communists’ propaganda of inclusive, civic national Yugoslavism. This massive ideological renegotiation of the movement’s basic tenets and its consequent leftward shift reflected a change in an opposite direction from the one commonly encountered in narratives of other fascisms’ ideological evolution paths (most notably in Italy and Germany): as the movement became a regime, the Ustaša transformed from its initial conservatism, traditionalism (in both sociopolitical and cultural matters), pseudo-feudal worldview of peasant worship and antiurbanism, anti-Semitism, and rigid racialism in relation to nation and state into an ideology of increasingly inclusive, culture-based, and nonethnic nationalism and with an exceptionally strong leftist rhetoric of social welfare, class struggle, and the rights of the working class.


2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce P. Montgomery

AbstractShortly following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, an American mobile exploitation team was diverted from its mission in hunting for weapons for mass destruction to search for an ancient Talmud in the basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police (Mukhabarat) headquarters in Baghdad. Instead of finding the ancient holy book, the soldiers rescued from the basement flooded with several feet of fetid water an invaluable archive of disparate individual and communal documents and books relating to one of the most ancient Jewish communities in the world. The seizure of Jewish cultural materials by the Mukhabarat recalled similar looting by the Nazis during World War II. The materials were spirited out of Iraq to the United States with a vague assurance of their return after being restored. Several years after their arrival in the United States for conservation, the Iraqi Jewish archive has become contested cultural property between Jewish groups and the Iraqi Jewish diaspora on the one hand and Iraqi cultural officials on the other. This article argues that the archive comprises the cultural property and heritage of the Iraqi Jewish diaspora.


2021 ◽  
pp. 260-294
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Guglielmo

Chapter 7 follows nonblack minorities through their training and service in the United States. America’s World War II military, from its top leaders to its enlisted personnel, simultaneously built and blurred a white-nonwhite divide alongside its black-white one. On the one hand, the blurring stemmed from a host of factors, including the day-to-day intermingling of troops, the activism of nonblack minorities, and, paradoxically, the unifying power of the black-white divide among nonblacks. On the other hand, this blurring had its limits. White-nonwhite lines cropped up in some of the same places black-white ones did and in some different ones, too, especially those related to national security and Japanese Americans. In the end, these lines remained in place throughout the war years, despite continuous blurring. They did so in part because of these racialized national security concerns and because of the power of civilian racist practices and investments.


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