Reference Point Approaches and Objective Ranking

The paper presents a reflection on some of the basic assumptions and philosophy of reference point approaches, stressing their unique concentra-tion on the sovereignty of the subjective decision maker. As a new devel-opment in reference point approaches also the concept of objective ranking is stressed, defined as dependent only on a given set of data, relevant for the decision situation, and independent from any more detailed specifica-tion of personal preferences than that given by defining criteria and the partial order in criterion space. Rational objective ranking can be based on reference point approach, because reference levels needed in this approach can be established objectively statistically from the given data set. Exam-ples show that such objective ranking can be very useful in many man-agement situations

Ethnicity and Power in the Soviet Union

Twenty years have passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Up until the point of dissolution, the Soviet authorities and intellectual elite had attempted to build a community in order to unite all Soviet citizens in the spirit of socialist modernisation. Although it is difficult to demonstrate that ‘a Soviet nation’ was successfully created [1], the attempt to build such a nation can serve as a case study through which to examine nation-building processes for constructivists as well as modernists . In addition to socialist modernisation, the Soviet nation aimed to be identified as a state, which would make it similar to the political nations dominant in western countries. Contrary to western tradition, however, it was not a nation state that provided full rights for all its citizens, but rather a socialist state that was ‘ruled by workers and peasantry’. Nevertheless, the authorities aimed to give the Soviet nation the characteristics of a specific nation state. “It was a nation that in historical terms strived, or more accurately part of which strived, to form or proclaim a particular state” [2]. While at the time of proclaiming the USSR there was no such thing as the Soviet nation, it can be assumed that it was intended to become a constructed titular nation. The majority of national communities, even created ones, have an ethnic core. However academics cannot agree on the kind of state the USSR was, to what extent it took into account the ethnicity of its multinational population, how much it reflected the values, culture, and interests of its largest population group (i.e., the Russians) or even whether it was a Russian national state despite the strong influence of Russian ideology and politics. Some Russian academics, especially those in nationalistic circles (e.g., Valerij Solovej) as well as western scholars such as Terry Martin and Geoffrey Hosking stressed that Russians dominated demographically and politically. However, the USSR did not aim to nurture traditional Russian values. It rather fostered the deethnicisation of Russians and the ethnicisation of non-Russian. Another group of scientists, including those from post-Soviet states (e.g., Žambyl Artykbaev, Otar Džanelidze, and Georgij Siamašvili) as well as western scholars (e.g., Rogers Brubaker) concede that positive processes such as the allotment of territory to republics and other territorial units, the constitution of authority and administrative apparatus, and the formation of the elites once characterised the ethnic history of the USSR. All these processes, however, were dominated by a lack of sovereignty, a loss of national identity, and damage to the living environment. Georgia rather than the USSR has always been regarded by the Georgian people as their mother country. The Soviet Union, which was considered to be a voluntary union of equal republics, was in fact an artificial creation that non-Russian nations were forced to join. The majority of Georgians did not therefore claim the USSR as their homeland: ‘The USSR was for its nations a socio-political state not a homeland’ [3]. Non-Russian citizens in the Soviet Union perceived the Russians to be a state-building ‘nation’ and the USSR a Russian state. The Soviet authorities, who predicated internationalism on the Russian language and new Russian culture, actively combated ethnic nationalism (including Russian nationalism, which was associated with chauvinism and a tsarist legacy). Although Russkost was considered to be a remnant of a disgraceful past, it was nonetheless used as a tool to sovietise society. Indeed, Russian language and culture were both conducive to the assimilation of non-Russians. ‘The Great Russian nation’ was to be ‘the first among equals’ and thus Russia provided. Soviet state with certain features of ethnicity. However, Russian characteristics were never treated as instrumental to the USSR, because the aim was to form a new socialist, national community, that was beyond ethnicity, rather than to convert the citizens of the former USSR into Russians. Soviet ideology and science thus set the direction for nationality policy in the USSR, especially in terms of forming a Soviet nation. Based on the foregoing, the present paper identifies how the ethnic character of both the Soviet nation and the state.  Twenty years have passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Up until the point of dissolution, the Soviet authorities and intellectual elite had attempted to build a community in order to unite all Soviet citizens in the spirit of socialist modernisation. Although it is difficult to demonstrate that ‘a Soviet nation’ was successfully created [1], the attempt to build such a nation can serve as a case study through which to examine nation-building processes for constructivists as well as modernists . In addition to socialist modernisation, the Soviet nation aimed to be identified as a state, which would make it similar to the political nations dominant in western countries. Contrary to western tradition, however, it was not a nation state that provided full rights for all its citizens, but rather a socialist state that was ‘ruled by workers and peasantry’. Nevertheless, the authorities aimed to give the Soviet nation the characteristics of a specific nation state. “It was a nation that in historical terms strived, or more accurately part of which strived, to form or proclaim a particular state” [2]. While at the time of proclaiming the USSR there was no such thing as the Soviet nation, it can be assumed that it was intended to become a constructed titular nation. The majority of national communities, even created ones, have an ethnic core. However academics cannot agree on the kind of state the USSR was, to what extent it took into account the ethnicity of its multinational population, how much it reflected the values, culture, and interests of its largest population group (i.e., the Russians) or even whether it was a Russian national state despite the strong influence of Russian ideology and politics. Some Russian academics, especially those in nationalistic circles (e.g., Valerij Solovej) as well as western scholars such as Terry Martin and Geoffrey Hosking stressed that Russians dominated demographically and politically. However, the USSR did not aim to nurture traditional Russian values. It rather fostered the deethnicisation of Russians and the ethnicisation of non-Russian. Another group of scientists, including those from post-Soviet states (e.g., Žambyl Artykbaev, Otar Džanelidze, and Georgij Siamašvili) as well as western scholars (e.g., Rogers Brubaker) concede that positive processes such as the allotment of territory to republics and other territorial units, the constitution of authority and administrative apparatus, and the formation of the elites once characterised the ethnic history of the USSR. All these processes, however, were dominated by a lack of sovereignty, a loss of national identity, and damage to the living environment. Georgia rather than the USSR has always been regarded by the Georgian people as their mother country. The Soviet Union, which was considered to be a voluntary union of equal republics, was in fact an artificial creation that non-Russian nations were forced to join. The majority of Georgians did not therefore claim the USSR as their homeland: ‘The USSR was for its nations a socio-political state not a homeland’ [3]. Non-Russian citizens in the Soviet Union perceived the Russians to be a state-building ‘nation’ and the USSR a Russian state. The Soviet authorities, who predicated internationalism on the Russian language and new Russian culture, actively combated ethnic nationalism (including Russian nationalism, which was associated with chauvinism and a tsarist legacy). Although Russkost was considered to be a remnant of a disgraceful past, it was nonetheless used as a tool to sovietise society. Indeed, Russian language and culture were both conducive to the assimilation of non-Russians. ‘The Great Russian nation’ was to be ‘the first among equals’ and thus Russia provided. Soviet state with certain features of ethnicity. However, Russian characteristics were never treated as instrumental to the USSR, because the aim was to form a new socialist, national community, that was beyond ethnicity, rather than to convert the citizens of the former USSR into Russians. Soviet ideology and science thus set the direction for nationality policy in the USSR, especially in terms of forming a Soviet nation. Based on the foregoing, the present paper identifies how the ethnic character of both the Soviet nation and the state. 

The Importance of Multimedia Principle and Emergence Principle

The original publication is available at JAIST Press http://www.jaist.ac.jp/library/jaist-press/index.htmlProceedings of KSS'2007 : The Eighth International Symposium on Knowledge and Systems Sciences : November 5-7, 2007, [Ishikawa High-Tech Conference Center, Nomi, Ishikawa, JAPAN]Organized by: Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technolog

Buried in PEAT—discovery of a new silencing complex with opposing activities

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146404/1/embj2018100573.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146404/2/embj2018100573_am.pd

Examples of multiple criteria ranking in the design of cellular networks of mobile telecommunication

The paper addresses planning and design of contemporary networks of mobile telecommunication, where an existing network is subject to far reaching development and modication, thus evolution with diverse requirements of users and diverse density of network cells. This leads to considering diverse variants of network designs. When several variants of network designs are available, an investor might ask for a ranking of these variants. The investor is obviously not bounded by the results of such a ranking and might select a variant not highest in the ranking, but an objectied ranking might help in the selection.Therefore, the paper presents the way of computing and examples of objectied multiple criteria ranking, possibly not requiring the determination of weighting coecients

APPLICATION OF MULTI-CRITERIA ANALYSIS BASED ON THE INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE FOR RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS

This paper presents a novel approach for user classification exploiting multicriteriaanalysis. This method is based on measuring the distance between anobservation and its respective Pareto front. The obtained results show that thecombination of the standard KNN classification and the distance from Paretofronts gives satisfactory classification accuracy – higher than the accuracy obtainedfor each of these methods applied separately. Conclusions from thisstudy may be applied in recommender systems where the proposed methodcan be implemented as the part of the collaborative filtering algorithm