The German Communist Party in Saxony, 1924-1933 : factionalism, fratricide and political failure

This thesis is a case study of the KPD in Saxony between 1924 and 1933. It uses recently available documentation in what were formerly East German archives to reconstruct and assess the KPD's internal party life and political campaigning in the region. Chapter one places the thesis in the context of existing historical studies of the KPD and addresses the themes which run throughout the study. These themes concern: the extent to which the KPD's political behaviour can be ascribed to its domination by Moscow, the so-called "Stalinisation" explanation; the extent to which party ideology could influence members' political thought and actions in local settings; and the extent to which the KPD's political campaigning at grass roots level could achieve communist political objectives. Chapter two then outlines the Saxon economic, social and political developments which provide the backdrop for the KPD's activities in the region. The main body of the thesis begins by addressing the impact of the "Failed October" of 1923, which was to have been launched from Saxony, on the KPD. The chapter deals with Ruth Fischer's attempt to pursue a policy independently of that set by the Comintern and the extent to which the left-wing leadership in Berlin could impose its policies in Saxony. Chapter four then looks at life inside the Saxon KPD during the fratricidal factional feuds of 1925 to 1928. The following chapter goes on to evaluate the extent to which the Saxon KPD's political campaigning during the mid-twenties could. achieve influence on the SPD-led workers' movement and among the radicalised Mittelstand. Chapter six then addresses how the Saxon KPD received the Comintern's ultra-Left policy between 1928 and 1930 and questions the recent trend in the literature, which points to the policy's largely positive reception among the membership. The final chapter deals with the Saxon KPD during the rise of the Nazis and asks whether it was possible to carry out the Comintern's policy of treating the left-wing SPD, which was dominant in the region, as the main obstacle to Communist objectives in Germany

Efficiency and Technological Change in Health Care Services in Ontario

This paper presents productivity measurement results for hospital services using panel data for Ontario hospitals between 2003 and 2006. The study uses the Malmquist Productivity index (MPI) obtained through the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) which is decomposed into efficiency change (ECH), i.e., movement towards the best practice frontier and technological change (TCH), i.e., movement of the frontier itself (Färe et al. [12]). The study also uses kernel density estimation techniques for analysis of efficiency distributions of the productivity scores and their components across different types of hospitals (e.g. small /large and rural /urban) and over time. Our results suggest that in addition to average productivity it is important to examine distributions of productivity and of its components which we find differs by hospital type and over time. We find that productivity growth occurred mostly through improvement in technology and in spite of declining efficiency. The results provide useful insight into the underlying mechanisms of observed changes in overall productivity, in technological change and in technical efficiency change in this vital sector of the health care market.

Locating Depots for Capacitated Vehicle Routing

We study a location-routing problem in the context of capacitated vehicle routing. The input is a set of demand locations in a metric space and a fleet of k vehicles each of capacity Q. The objective is to locate k depots, one for each vehicle, and compute routes for the vehicles so that all demands are satisfied and the total cost is minimized. Our main result is a constant-factor approximation algorithm for this problem. To achieve this result, we reduce to the k-median-forest problem, which generalizes both k-median and minimum spanning tree, and which might be of independent interest. We give a (3+c)-approximation algorithm for k-median-forest, which leads to a (12+c)-approximation algorithm for the above location-routing problem, for any constant c>0. The algorithm for k-median-forest is just t-swap local search, and we prove that it has locality gap 3+2/t; this generalizes the corresponding result known for k-median. Finally we consider the "non-uniform" k-median-forest problem which has different cost functions for the MST and k-median parts. We show that the locality gap for this problem is unbounded even under multi-swaps, which contrasts with the uniform case. Nevertheless, we obtain a constant-factor approximation algorithm, using an LP based approach.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Flexor digitorum brevis tendon transfer to the flexor digitorum longus tendon according to Valtin in posttraumatic flexible claw toe deformity due to extrinsic toe flexor shortening

AbstractClaw toe deformity after posterior leg compartment syndrome is rare but incapacitating. When the mechanism is flexor digitorum longus (FDL) shortening due to ischemic contracture of the muscle after posterior leg syndrome, a good treatment option is the Valtin procedure in which the flexor digitorum brevis (FDB) is transferred to the FDL after FDL tenotomy. The Valtin procedure reduces the deformity by lengthening and reactivating the FDL. Here, we report the outcomes of FDB to FDL transfer according to Valtin in 10 patients with posttraumatic claw toe deformity treated a mean of 34 months after the injury. Toe flexion was restored in all 10 patients, with no claw toe deformity even during dorsiflexion of the ankle

A zeta function approach to the relation between the numbers of symmetry planes and axes of a polytope

A derivation of the Ces\`aro-Fedorov relation from the Selberg trace formula on an orbifolded 2-sphere is elaborated and extended to higher dimensions using the known heat-kernel coefficients for manifolds with piecewise-linear boundaries. Several results are obtained that relate the coefficients, $b_i$, in the Shephard-Todd polynomial to the geometry of the fundamental domain. For the 3-sphere we show that $b_4$ is given by the ratio of the volume of the fundamental tetrahedron to its Schl\"afli reciprocal.Comment: Plain TeX, 26 pages (eqn. (86) corrected

Dynamic routing problems with fruitful regions: models and evolutionary computation

We introduce the concept of fruitful regions in a dynamic routing context: regions that have a high potential of generating loads to be transported. The objective is to maximise the number of loads transported, while keeping to capacity and time constraints. Loads arrive while the problem is being solved, which makes it a real-time routing problem. The solver is a self-adaptive evolutionary algorithm that ensures feasible solutions at all times. We investigate under what conditions the exploration of fruitful regions improves the effectiveness of the evolutionary algorith

Maxwell equations in matrix form, squaring procedure, separating the variables, and structure of electromagnetic solutions

The Riemann -- Silberstein -- Majorana -- Oppenheimer approach to the Maxwell electrodynamics in vacuum is investigated within the matrix formalism. The matrix form of electrodynamics includes three real 4 \times 4 matrices. Within the squaring procedure we construct four formal solutions of the Maxwell equations on the base of scalar Klein -- Fock -- Gordon solutions. The problem of separating physical electromagnetic waves in the linear space \lambda_{0}\Psi^{0}+\lambda_{1}\Psi^{1}+\lambda_{2}\Psi^{2}+ lambda_{3}\Psi^{3} is investigated, several particular cases, plane waves and cylindrical waves, are considered in detail.Comment: 26 pages 16 International Seminar NCPC, May 19-22, 2009, Minsk, Belaru