Resolving Identity-based Conflicts in the North Caucasus: Pathway to Ethnic Peace and Civic Solidarity

Identity-based conflicts as a type of destructive ethnic conflicts have become a considerable obstacle to post-Soviet modernization, socio-political integration and ethnic peace in the current decade. The interest in the concept of identity-based conflict has been increasing worldwide during the first decade of the 21-st century. Identity-based conflicts are a notable phenomenon in the post-traditional world, where rational and irrational motives fancifully intertwine in politics, social structures, culture and everyday life of common people. Ethno-political identity became a prism for studying the problem of security in multi-ethnic communities. A rapid strengthening of hyper-ethnic, competing identities in Russian multi-ethnic regions occurred in two post-Soviet decades. It was manifested in the demands of ethno-political sovereignty, ethno-centrism, national-cultural autonomy, secession, as well as in the substantial growth of tension in ethnic relations, which resulted in protracted identity-based conflicts. The reduction of the role of civic identification, the growth of ethno-religious radicalism, new realities in ethnic and political life, new global rivalries, unstable processes of modernization in Russian regions were significant factors of the emergence of a large number of identity-based conflicts, ethno-political destabilization and social instability. In this case, conflict resolution in the North Caucasus may be built on the principles of civic solidarity and socio-political integration but not on the assimilation policy and suppression of ethnicities

Resolving Identity-based Conflicts in the North Caucasus

The article reviews the present state of analysis of regional conflict resolution in foreign and Russian literature. The goal of the research is to analyze the constructive methods for resolving ethno-political conflicts in the North Caucasus. Identity-based conflicts as a type of ethno-political conflicts have become a considerable obstacle to the Post-Soviet modernization in the current decade. The interest in the concept of identity-based conflict has been increasing worldwide during the first decade of the 21-st century. Competing identity became a prism for studying the problem of security in multi-ethnic communities. A rapid strengthening of hyper-ethnic identity of the citizens of Russia occurred in two post-Soviet decades. It was manifested in the demands of ethnocentrism, national-cultural autonomy, secession, as well as in the substantial growth of tension in ethnic relations, which resulted in protracted identity-based conflicts. Conflict resolution in the North Caucasus may be built on the principles of civic solidarity and socio-political integration but not on the assimilation policy and suppression of ethnicities

Fluorescent Markers in Water Treatment

Both phosphonate- and polymer-based scale inhibitors have a broad spectrum of applications in water treatment technologies. However, the “online” monitoring of antiscalant content in an aqueous phase is still a challenge for researchers. A possible solution is provided by the fluorescent markers added to the feeding water. These can be either an antiscalant tagged or may represent the independent species. The review summarizes both the advantages and the drawbacks of these approaches along with such markers’ classification, with a special emphasis on the novel fluorescent-tagged phosphonates. Besides, some unique opportunities provided by the fluorescent-tagged antiscalants for reverse osmosis membrane mapping, scale inhibition traceability, and a scale inhibitor localization in a circulation water facility are also considered and discussed

MAJOR THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS

This article explores the major approaches to the study of conflict resolution strategy from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives. It argues that conflict resolution strategy, as a civil integration resource, is a necessary tool for overcoming deep-rooted ethnic conflicts in the unstable North Caucasus. This research pursues the goal of analyzing how the strength of civil integration can affect conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The author considers the essential factors of protracted ethnic conflicts and emphasizes the destabilizing role of the repoliticization of ethnicity in a crisis society. The concept of ethnic, “identity-based” conflicts is the heuristic theoretical model of exploring causes for increased ethnoreligious tensions in the North Caucasus. This article focuses on the ability of conflict resolution strategy to de-escalate growing tensions and transform protracted identity-based conflicts. The need to stimulate civil integration is caused by moral and structural causes: from the ethical point of view, the creation of an inclusive society is the fundamental societal goal; structural factors are related to the need to reduce inequalities and differences leading to social fragmentation and an escalation of ethnic conflicts. Among the structural conditions of regional conflicts, the author names ethnosocial inequalities, a civil identity crisis, ethnopolitical neo-authoritarianism, large-scale socioeconomic polarization and an “ideological combat” between secular modernization and religious fundamentalism. While discussing conflict resolution strategies, it is necessary to consider the following: 1) Peace and integration within the North Caucasus is a macropolitical project, the content of which is determined by issues of social cohesion and civil solidarity; 2) The development of the North Caucasus after the end of armed ethnic conflicts shows the inadmissibility of political demodernization, fundamentalism and isolationism. Today, the North Caucasus remains a crucially geopolitical macroregion, as it forms the southern volatile frontier of Russia. In this case, conflict resolution strategy must serve as an integrational and preventive tool on the conflict environment by way of providing structural solutions for deep-rooted cultural antagonisms, transforming and rationalizing ethnoregional contradictions

Construction of Decision Diagrams for Product Configuration

Knowledge compilation is a well-researched field focused on translating propositional logic formulas into efficient data structures that allow polynomial-time online queries related to the SAT problem. Knowledge compilation techniques can be used to partition product configuration tasks into two distinct phases: fast online processing and slow offline preprocessing. Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) are widely studied in this area and provide a graph representation of Boolean formulas. However, BDD construction can be time-consuming, particularly for large instances, as their size grows exponentially with the number of variables. This paper explores methods to improve BDD construction time, including optimizing variable ordering. The evaluation involves applying these techniques to formulas in Rich Conjunctive Normal Form, comparing the results with Sentential Decision Diagrams. The experiments use CAS Software AG benchmarks