Rule of Law, Contesting and Contested

The rule of law movement is a by-product of the post-WWII rebirth of human rights, which turned into a key political issue by the turn of the millennium. By becoming part of the language and blackmailing practice of international politics, it has self-emptied as well. It is an ideal; historically a function of human experience at individual places and times, shaped by local traditions. As a complex of heterogeneous values and principles, its ethos can at best be respected and approached via the never-ending balancing of compromise solutions.

Analysis of anti-armor missile systems using the hybrid model AHP-VIKOR method of multi-criteria decision-making

The paper presents the selection of the best anti-armor missile system, as a significant weapon whose basic task is to neutralize tanks, armored combat and non -combat vehicles at different firing distances. The complexity of the problem is conditioned by the different tactical and technical characteristics of anti-tank missile systems and the specific conditions of their application have conditioned the application of the model of multi-criteria decision-making. The selection of the most favorable anti-armor missile system was realized using the hybrid model AHP -VIKOR. Using the AHP method, the values of the criterion coefficients were calculated. The VIKOR method was used to select the most favorable alternative (anti-armor missile system). Based on the obtained results, a set of compromise solutions was defined, on the basis of which the decision maker can decide on the selection of the best anti-armor missile system.

Campaigns, Competition, and Support for Political Compromise

Campaigns draw people into the partisan practice of politics, through close competition, campaign ads, and calls to take sides. Yet the conflicts of contentious campaigns may do little to encourage compromise, instead leading voters to call on their representatives to deliver on their campaign promises. This chapter shows rather than close the door to compromise, conflicts instead serve as a reminder that other people want different things than we do in politics, disrupting people’s tendencies to assume most others agree with them. Analysis of survey data shows that people who live in states marked by close partisan divides are more likely to prefer a president who is willing to consider compromise. Experimental data confirm that when people learn that other Americans want different policy outcomes, they become more willing to consider compromise solutions.

The optimization of accuracy and efficiency for multistage precision grinding process with an improved particle swarm optimization algorithm

For metal rolling, the quality of final rolled productions (for instance, metal sheets and metal foils) is affected by steel roll’s cylindricity. In roll grinding process, grinding parameters, which typically involve multiple substages, determine the steel roll’s quality and the grinding efficiency. In this article, a modified particle swarm optimization was presented to dispose of roll grinding multi-objective optimization. The minimization of steel roll’s cylindrical error and maximization of grinding efficiency were optimization objectives. To build the correlation between grinding parameters and cylindrical error, the response surface model of cylindrical error was regressed from the operation data of machine tool. The improved particle swarm optimization was employed to the roll grinding parameter optimization, and the optimal compromise solutions between grinding efficiency and cylindrical error were obtained. Based on the optimal compromise solutions, engineers or computer were capable to determine the corresponding most efficient roll grinding parameters according to the requirement of the final cylindrical error specification. To validate the efficacy of the improved particle swarm optimization, the validation experiment was carried out on the practical roll grinding operation. The error between the calculated optimized cylindrical error and experimental cylindrical error is less than 7.73%.