1,721,042 research outputs found
The Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflicts: The Israeli-Palestinian Case
Full text linkAsymmetry is considered one of the most relevant features in today’s conflicts. In this article we address one particular type of asymmetry — structural asymmetry. After introducing the main characteristics and different phases of these types of conflicts, i.e. conscientization, confrontation, negotiation, and sustainable peace, we address the specificity of the Israeli-Palestinian case presented here as a typical case of a structurally asymmetric conflict. The aim is to explain why, despite the many negotiation phases this conflict has been through, none has ever led to a sustainable peace. On the contrary, each negotiation has brought on yet another confrontation phase, in a never-ending series of loops. The strong imbalance between the two sides and the scarce reciprocal conflict awareness represent the two main reasons for explaining this pattern
Operations Research and Ethics: Responsibility, Sharing and Cooperation
No full textAfter a discussion on the relevance of ethics in operations research, two approaches to the ethical discourse, one
based on rules and the other based on principles and values, are analyzed. Then, two ethical principles, which can help
OR researchers and practitioners in their activity are discussed in some detail. The first is the ‘‘responsibility principle’’,
proposed in a more general context by the philosopher Jonas, which in our case suggests to take into account in our
work not only the point of view of the ‘‘client’’, but also the point of view of all the ‘‘stakeholders’’, i.e. the ones who
can directly or indirectly be affected by the results of our activity. The second, which can be called the ‘‘sharing and
cooperation principle’’, calls for a more open distribution of the results of our research activity, whether they are ideas,
algorithms or software
Problemi, Modelli, Decisioni. Decifrare una realtà complessa e conflittuale
No full textPrendere decisioni ed intervenire in un mondo complesso e conflittuale come quello in cui viviamo oggi è sempre più problematico. La conoscenza è incompleta, la realtà cambia velocemente ed è caratterizzata da grande incertezza, sia per la difficoltà di prevedere gli effetti nel tempo delle decisioni prese, sia per l'imprevedibilità dei comportamenti e delle decisioni altrui. In genere sono molte le persone coinvolte in una decisione, con diversi e a volte contrastanti valori ed obiettivi.
Senza la pretesa di fornire facili ricette, questo libro vuole essere una introduzione ai processi decisionali basata su un approccio sistemico e su alcuni semplici strumenti modellistici
New algorithms for testing the satisfiability of propositional formulae
No full textAbstractThe best-known algorithm for the satisfiability problem in the case of propositional formulae (SAT) is the implicit enumeration version of the Davis–Putnam algorithm, as described in Loveland's book. We review this algorithm, which we call DPL, and some recent variants. As it is often the case with enumerative algorithms for decision type problems, neither DPL nor its variants incorporate any effective device to prune the search tree. We investigate the idea of using the solution of related subproblems as such a pruning device. It is well known that HORN-SAT, the satisfiability problem in the case of Horn clauses, is easy: in fact an algorithm, DG, has been proposed by Dowling and Gallier, which solves HORN-SAT in linear time. Here we show by means of a set of experiments that the efficiency of DG is not only theoretical but practical as well. In fact we show that on a set of randomly generated problems the complexity of DG grows almost linearly with the problem size, while, for instance, the complexity of the unit resolution approach grows almost quadratically. Then we propose two relaxation schemes which map instances of SAT into instances of HORN-SAT; such relaxation schemes are used to derive two new enumerative algorithms for SAT: HORN1 and HORN2. These algorithms have been compared experimentally with DPL and with its variants. Our results show that HORN2 outperforms the other algorithms; in particular it runs several times faster than DPL on almost all the test problems we have generated
OR/MS Contributions to Peace Studies
No full textThe discourse on ethics in operations research/management science (OR/MS) has many aspects. Among them there is the ethical responsibility the OR/MS community faces in a world in which the widespread presence of structural violence makes the construction of a peaceful and sustainable social order a very challenging task, and puts at risk the very survival of human kind. In this paper we want to emphasize the role of the systemic approach, which is proper of OR/MS, with respect to the issue of peace, and in particular within the Peace Studies area
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