Queerly Troubling International Law's Vision of “Peace”

Queering international law involves dreaming. It requires stepping outside the framing presumptions of “normal” law to reveal and challenge the heteronormative underpinnings of the hierarchies of power and value that the law sustains. Reclaiming the nomenclature of queer from its history as a term of insult and dehumanization, queer theory interrogates the normative framework that naturalizes and privileges heterosexuality and its binary regime of gender. In its reclamation, “queer” gestures toward affirmative assemblages of new meanings and emancipatory imaginaries. In international law, queer theory has been used in many different ways. For some, queerly troubling the normative involves expanding the existing normal to be more inclusive of queer lives, as can often be seen in the field of international human rights law. As life-giving as inclusion is to those barely existing on the margins, without changing the terms of inclusion this approach risks leaving heteronormativity intact and may even buttress it, as with the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. For others, queering international law involves a more fundamental critique of its regimes of the normal that, together, regulate our relations with each other and the planet. The objects of queer theory's structural critique are the conceptual foundations of international law, which rely on heteronormativity as a fundamental organizing principle that helps to normalize inequality, poverty, exploitation, and violence. One example is the “civilizing mission” which justified colonialism and continues to animate present legal norms. As Teemu Ruskola argues in his seminal queer critique, international legal rhetoric attributed normative masculinity to (Western) sovereign states and cast the “deficient” sovereignty of non-Western states in terms of variously deviant masculinities which, together with their civilizational and racial attributes, justified their “penetration.” My “troubling” of international law's account of peace takes a queer structural approach and then outlines some alternative imaginaries suggested by queer theory and activism.

Determination of probabilistic characteristics of random values of estimates of the Lyapunov function when describing a physical process

The applied application of the Lyapunov characteristic function is determined by the properties of its estimates. Probabilistic characteristics of estimates of the Lyapunov characteristic function are described for the first time. The probabilistic characteristics of random values of estimates of the Lyapunov function are empirically estimated using statistical methods. The Matlab package has developed a model of a special device for obtaining estimates of the characteristic function by a direct method. A quasi-deterministic signal is fed to the input of the model, the instantaneous values of which are distributed according to the arcsine law, and an array of values of estimates of the Lyapunov function is obtained at the output, which is used to estimate the probabilistic characteristics of these estimates. Statistical estimation was performed by an indirect method. It is established that the values of the estimates of the Lyapunov characteristic function are distributed according to the normal law. The results of the research will be useful in engineering calculations, for example, when detecting message transmission errors in modems with a modulated characteristic function.

Determining Parameters of Functioning of Passenger Transport Routes by Means of Computer Simulation of Processes

The efficiency of the functioning of urban passenger transport routes has been studied in the paper. It has been established that the functioning of urban passenger transport routes takes place in a non-isolated environment, which affects the system from the moment of its formation and can lead to discrepancy between the calculated and actual efficiency of the system. As a result of the fucntioning indicator analysis of the passenger transportation route, it has been revealed that the environment of the route functioning affects the efficiency in a complex manner. Consequently, the mutual influence of one factor on others should be taken into account. Performance evaluation should be carried out for the entire route system, and not within the separately considered subsystem. As a result of the analysis of such key indicators as income, fuel costs, lubricants, maintenance and repair, discrepancies have been found between the planned values of indicators and actual data. It is determined that the distribution function of the random variables of these indicators is described by a normal law. At the final stage of the study, regularities in the influence of the road transport enterprise parameters on the probability of investment return have been obtained. The proposed integrated approach to determining the efficiency of urban passenger transport routes is based not only on the established, but also on the stochastic parameters that occur during the functioning of these routes. An algorithm has been developed for determining the efficiency of urban route passenger traffic, which takes into account the interrelation of income and expenses, modern ideas about the patterns of change in the prpbability of development of optimistic, pessimistic and intermediate scenarios for improvement of route efficiency events. The algorithm is based on formalized dependences of the change in time of the probabilities of income and expenses which are taken into account in the operation process of urban passenger transport routes with their various parameters.

Inventory Management at the Enterprise in the Field of Probability Models

The inventory management system is designed to continuously ensure the production activities of the enterprise with all necessary resources. The purpose of this study is to build a probabilistic model that can be proposed as a new inventory model, which establishes the relationship of period factors between the purchase of parts and the duration of their suitability, which affect inventory management. The research methods are based on a probabilistic approach using continuous distributions. Using the statistical method, point estimates were found for the studied parameters: mean and standard deviation. The histograms of relative frequencies between dates of two next purchases, volume of purchases of details and days of replacement of the fulfilled details are constructed. The critical areas for the studied parameters are illustrated. The values of the difference in days between the purchases of parts and the values of purchases of parts that meet the normal distribution of random variables with the appropriate parameters, as well as the critical values of the need for parts in the production process. The size of the part reserve, which corresponds to Erlang distribution, was found, depending on the established risk factor. For different values of this factor, the value of the difference in days between the purchases of parts, the size of purchases and the reserve of parts that correspond to the distributions of random variables, as well as the critical value of the need for parts in the production process to avoid downtime. Using the central limit theorem, it is shown that the purchase volume of parts and the volume of used parts are distributed according to the normal law. The study concludes that the probabilistic approach is the basis for forecasting inventory management in the enterprise, taking into account the risks associated with determining the optimal demand for raw materials in the enterprise

Randomness of Möbius coefficients and Brownian motion: growth of the Mertens function and the Riemann hypothesis

The validity of the Riemann hypothesis (RH) on the location of the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann ζ-function is directly related to the growth of the Mertens function M ( x ) = ∑ k = 1 x μ ( k ) , where μ(k) is the Möbius coefficient of the integer k; the RH is indeed true if the Mertens function goes asymptotically as M(x) ∼ x 1/2+ϵ , where ϵ is an arbitrary strictly positive quantity. We argue that this behavior can be established on the basis of a new probabilistic approach based on the global properties of the Mertens function, namely, based on reorganizing globally in distinct blocks the terms of its series. With this aim, we focus attention on the square-free numbers and we derive a series of probabilistic results concerning the prime number distribution along the series of square-free numbers, the average number of prime divisors, the Erdős–Kac theorem for square-free numbers, etc. These results point to the conclusion that the Mertens function is subject to a normal distribution as much as any other random walk. We also present an argument in favor of the thesis that the validity of the RH also implies the validity of the generalized RH for the Dirichlet L-functions. Next we study the local properties of the Mertens function, i.e. its variation induced by each Möbius coefficient restricted to the square-free numbers. Motivated by the natural curiosity to see how closely to a purely random walk any sub-sequence is extracted by the sequence of the Möbius coefficients for the square-free numbers, we perform a massive statistical analysis on these coefficients, applying to them a series of randomness tests of increasing precision and complexity; together with several frequency tests within a block, the list of our tests includes those for the longest run of ones in a block, the binary matrix rank test, the discrete Fourier transform test, the non-overlapping template matching test, the entropy test, the cumulative sum test, the random excursion tests, etc, for a total of 18 different tests. The successful outputs of all these tests (each of them with a level of confidence of 99% that all the sub-sequences analyzed are indeed random) can be seen as impressive ‘experimental’ confirmations of the Brownian nature of the restricted Möbius coefficients and the probabilistic normal law distribution of the Mertens function analytically established earlier. In view of the theoretical probabilistic argument and the large battery of statistical tests, we can conclude that while a violation of the RH is strictly speaking not impossible, it is however extremely improbable.

Determination of the Probability Density Function of the Mixture Signal and Additive Noise under Influence of Multiplicative Noise

Issues related to effect of multiplicative (modulating) (otherwise amplitude distortions) and additive noises on processed signal are considered. Analysis of statistical characteristics of probability density function (PDF) of instantaneous signal values against background of modulating interference is carried out. Expressions of the joint PDF envelope, phase and instantaneous signal values are obtained, for the case of only phase distortions, as well as the case when fluctuations in amplitude and phase are independent of each other. It is noted that in the second case, with the independence of phase and amplitude distortions, the PDF of the signal, first of all, is determined by the PDF of its instantaneous values and practically does not depend on the PDF of the signal phase. Expressions are obtained for the PDF useful signal and the most common PDF envelope when affecting the signal with modulating noise for deep phase distortions and for its uniform distribution over the interval (0, 2π). In addition, for the case of some functional relationship of phase and amplitude fluctuations, the expression for PDF instantaneous signal values is defined. The presence of such a functional connection allows calculating the PDF of the signal through the statistical characteristics of its envelope. It is obtained that PDF of mixture of signal and additive noise contains arbitrary distribution of phase and amplitude, as well as arbitrary law of distribution of envelope of processed signal. It is obtained that weight coefficients are determined by derivative of characteristic function of amplitude distortion in case when PDFs of said mixture are distributed according to normal law and functional connection exists between amplitude and phase distortions.

Application of bayesian scientific approach to constructing the statistical estimations for solving metrological and measurement problems

Nowadays, constructing effective statistical estimates with a limited amount of statistical information constitutes a significant practical problem. The article is devoted to applying the Bayesian scientific approach to the construction of statistical estimates of the parameters of the laws of distribution of random variables. Five distribution laws are considered: The Poisson law, the exponential law, the uniform law, the Pareto law, and the ordinary law. The concept of distribution laws that conjugate with the observed population was introduced and used. It is shown that for considered distribution laws, the parameters of the laws themselves are random variables and obey the typical law, gamma law, gamma - normal law, and Pareto law. Recalculation formulas are obtained to refine the parameters of these laws, taking into account posterior information. If we apply the recalculation formulas several times in a row, we will get some convergent process. Based on a converging process, it is possible to design a process for self-learning a system or self-tuning a system. The developed scientific approach was applied to solve the measuring problems for the testing measuring devices and technical systems. The results of constructing point estimates and constructing interval estimates for these laws' parameters are given. The results of comparison with the corresponding statistical estimates constructed by the classical maximum likelihood method are presented.

Method for Constructing a Confidence Interval for the Variance of a Random Variable

The problem of reducing the number of observations for constructing a confidence interval of variance with a given degree of accuracy and reliability is considered. The new method of constructing an interval estimate of variance developed in the article is formulated by three statements and justified by four proven theorems. Formulas for calculating the required number of observations depending on the accuracy and reliability of the estimate are derived. The results of the calculations are presented in the table and shown in the diagram. The universality and effectiveness of this method is shown. The universality of the method lies in the fact that it is applicable to any laws of probability distribution, and not only for the normal law. The effectiveness of the developed method is justified by comparing its performance with other known methods.

Local limit theorems for generalized scheme of allocation of particles into ordered cells

A generalized scheme of allocation of n particles into ordered cells (components). Some statements containing sufficient conditions for the weak convergence of the number of components with given cardinality and of the total number of components to the negative binomial distribution as n → ∞ are presented as hypotheses. Examples supporting the validity of these statements in particular cases are considered. For some examples we prove local limit theorems for the total number of components which partially generalize known results on the convergence of this distribution to the normal law.

Więzienie w Guantanamo jako przykład biopolitycznego paradygmatu globalnej wojny z terroryzmem

Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp as an Example of Biopolitical Framework of Global War on Terror The aim of this article is to introduce the problem of indefinite detainees of Guantanamo Bay into the framework of biopolitical interpretation of Global War on Terror (GWOT). From the very first days of GWOT, the George W. Bush administration mobilized all available resources to fight with everyone suspected as a potential terrorist in all areas, including legal area. The intentional consequence of this fight was the elimination of political rights for indefinite detainees. Potentially risky individuals were suspected in the context of normal law – what can be perceived as a visible result of sovereign’s decisions and actions – and were transformed into bare lives, figure of homini sacri. Homo sacer means an individual being excluded from the society and social order; it means the situation of being deprived of personal political rights, where the essence of human existence is diminished to physical aspects exclusively. According to Giorgio Agamben and his concept of biopolitics, the camp per se, is the paradigm of modernity. It is the place of permanent production of bare lives, the materialized place of state of exception, the place of law suspension. In the context of post-9/11, Guantanamo detention camp became the pure exemplification of Agamben’s biopolitical camp.