Concept Of Elite Research Articles

A Genetic Based Approach For Multiobjective Optimization Of Disk Scheduling To Reduce Completion Time And Missed Task

Disk scheduling is a method by which a computer operating system decides the order that block I/O operations are submitted to storage volumes. It has an important role in QOS guarantee of soft real-time environments such as video-on- demand and multimedia servers. Many traditional algorithms exist to order the disk requests in an optimized manner. Many of these algorithms attempt to minimize any one parameter, completion-time or missed tasks at a time. In this paper, we propose a genetic based approach for disk scheduling which optimizes the completion time and number of missed tasks simultaneously. Traditional Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm(MOGA) is customized by including the concept of elitism to achieve better fitness values. The existing cycle crossover operator is modified to provide more search space. MOGA hybridized by combining with Simulated Annealing (SA) is known as Hybridized GA(HGA). In this method, the convergence of GA is improved by introducing the probability of SA as the criterion for acceptance of the new trial solutions. This hybridization shows more accuracy while finding solutions in later stage of searching process. The algorithms have been tested on several problems and the results were compared with traditional methods. Experimental results showed that the proposed GA based approaches worked very well and excelled most related works in terms of completion-time and number of missed tasks.

Local Elites and Power in the Roman World: Modern Theories and Models

In recent years, modern scholars have applied various methodologies to the study of local elites in the Roman Empire. Judith Perkins in Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era examines the concept of elite, like many other classicists, through an analysis of written texts—in her case, Greek novels and political writings of the first and second centuries. Models and theories borrowed from cultural anthropology or sociology—such as Michael Mann's sociological theory of power—offer a new way to resolve difficulties of interpretation that traditional methodological tools cannot address.

Democratic Pedagogies: Perspectives from Ethnomusicology and World Music Educational Contexts in the United Kingdom

Ethnomusicologists and music pedagogues often suggest that music education should acknowledge universal musicality, while questioning dominant elitist concepts in musical learning in the West. They believe that a universalist attitude toward all musics and peoples (Blacking 1987:126), and thus a culture of tolerance (Oehrle 1996), can be at the heart of music education. Such a view points toward an inclusive and democratic stance, necessitating a music education that leads beyond curriculum and compliance and toward the autonomous, thinking student (McGettrick 2005:5–7). Music education should not just be about imparting knowledge, but also about instilling compassion and care for self and others. It should involve discarding prejudice while recognizing cultural difference, and thus personal and social transformation (Blacking 1987:131). This is the concern of my paper, which suggests that ethnomusicology plays a pivotal role in democratic societies, as ethnomusicologists—in their role as educators—can pursue democratic ends as political beings and moral agents in discourses about musical, political, educational, and other values. At this point, a brief excursion shall help in establishing the context for my discussions.

Turmoil in American public policy: science, democracy, and the environment

This book explores the intricacies of the science-policy linkage that pervades environmental policymaking in a democracy. * Includes excerpts from 100 interviews with natural scientists and social scientists conducted over the past several years * Provides two figures illustrating the concepts of pluralism and elitism in the United States public policymaking process * Offers end-of-chapter reflection questions and suggested readings for students

Concepts of Democracy and Elitism in American Intellectual History

Concepts of Democracy and Elitism in American Intellectual History

Elite conceptions of Muslim identity from the partition of Bengal to the creation of Bangladesh, 1947–1971

The historic partition of Bengal in 1947 caused a shift in the composition of the Muslim and Hindu political elite who were now geographically bounded into two separate newly formed provincial states of East Pakistan and West Bengal. The aim of this article is to explore the transformation in elite conceptions of identity in East Pakistan from the post-1947 era until the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. The prevalence of two new competing elites created a great dichotomy in the way identity was conceived. The change of these elite groups fundamentally altered the view of identity that was articulated during this period.

Elites and their Representation: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives

The term “elite” was introduced in the seventeenth century to describe commodities of an exceptional standard and the usage was later extended to designate social groups at the apex of societies. The study of these groups was established as part of the social sciences in the late nineteenth century, mainly as a result of the work of three sociologists: Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca and Roberto Michels. The core of their doctrine is that at the top of every society lies, inevitably, a small minority which holds power, controls the key resources and makes the major decisions. Since then, the concept of elite(s) has been used in several disciplines such as anthropology, history or political science, but not necessarily in reference to this “classical elite theory.” The concept is strongly rejected, however, by many “progressive” scholars—precisely because of its elitist denotation.

Aligning India in the Cold War Era: Indian Technical Elites, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, and Computing in India and the United States

Aligning India in the Cold War EraIndian Technical Elites, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, and Computing in India and the United States Ross Bassett (bio) In July 1963, a chartered DC-7 landed at a military airbase in Kanpur, India, a large but unremarkable city on the Ganges River, in a region often considered backward by Indians. The plane held an International Business Machines (IBM) 1620 computer, commonly used in American universities, which was destined for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kanpur, an institution supported by a nine-university American consortium. At the institute, a group of young Indian men muscled the machine into place (fig. 1). There to greet the computer was Harry Huskey, one of the foremost figures in U.S. computing. Huskey, who had consulted on the pioneer computer ENIAC, worked with Alan Turing in England, and served as president of the American computing professional society, was a professor of electrical engineering and head of the computer center at the University of California, Berkeley. Shortly after he and two computer experts from Princeton University had the computer up and running, they began an informal course for twenty-five specially selected IIT Kanpur first-year students, who, after completing their normal class work, would stay long into the night programming the computer (fig. 2).1 [End Page 783] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Delivery of the IBM 1620 computer to IIT Kanpur, July 1963. (Source: Normal C. Dahl, “Revolution on the Ganges: A Report on the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur,” Tech Engineering News, April 1967, 18, photographer unknown. Reproduced courtesy Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts.) Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 2. Students working on the IBM 1620 computer at Kanpur, circa 1964 (note the IBM “Think” sign on the wall). (Source: Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, 1965 Convocation publication, p. 23. Reproduced courtesy IIT Kanpur and CMU University Archives.) [End Page 784] The historiography of Indo-American relations during the cold war has been focused on a pair of bipoles: the United States–Soviet Union, and Pakistan–India. Jawaharlal Nehru famously declared India nonaligned, which for the United States meant refusing to take its side in the cold war, and India’s independent foreign policy was a continual irritant to the United States. America’s close relations with, and arms sales to, Pakistan, which was willing to align itself with U.S. interests, was a provocation to India, driving it closer to the Soviet Union. The United States and India became “estranged democracies” that maintained a “cold peace.”2 One can see parts of this narrative in the story of Kanpur. Kanpur was one of four IIT sites developed with programs of assistance from individual nations; the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and West Germany also provided assistance to these IITs, putatively reflecting India’s nonalignment. Unlike any of the other programs, the U.S. program of assistance had an abrupt and unceremonious ending in 1972 as relations between the United States and India deteriorated due to the crisis in East Pakistan, which culminated in the creation of Bangladesh. However, from the perspective of the early twenty-first century—now that India has become an important information technology (IT) business partner with U.S. companies and Indian engineers play prominent roles in America’s technical workforce—focusing solely on the twin-bipoles narrative has the effect of a magician’s distractions: flashy motions drawing the eye one way, while important action takes place elsewhere.3 The end of the cold war, along with the U.S. interventions in Kuwait and Iraq, has led to a reconsideration of the country’s role in the world—a reconsideration focused on the question of American empire. While their authors come to different conclusions as to whether the United States meets the conditions to be called, literally, an “empire,” many studies analogously apply concepts from the study of well-recognized empires to the United States and its interactions with the world.4 This article borrows [End Page 785] from studies of empire the concept of a transnational elite and its role in mediating between entities. In...

Scruton's Philosophy of Culture: Elitism, Populism, and Classic Art

Scruton is a self-confessed elitist for whom culture is ‘the creation and creator of elites’, though its meaning ‘lies in emotions and aspirations that are common to all’. This article argues that one can uphold his humane conception of the value of high culture without endorsing elitism. It develops a surprisingly unelitist strand in Scruton's thinking into a meritocratic middle way between elitism and populism, in order to explain why art is in some sense an elite product, but with communal resonance. This aim is furthered by interpreting high culture in terms of the less elitist concept of the classic.

The rise of the Black Internationale: Anti-imperialist activism and aesthetics in Britain during the 1930s

This article explores the radical ferment associated with the cadre of anti-imperialist activists through the lens of films made by Paul Robeson during his sojourn in Britain in the 1930s. The collective biography of the activist intellectuals with whom Robeson affiliated himself while in Britain may be said to track the rise of an exemplary Black Internationale, a loosely organized but nonetheless coherent revolutionary project linking anti-fascism and anti-imperialism. Like other expressions of Popular Front culture, the Black Internationale was grounded in an anti-racist ethnic pluralism and an anti-fascist politics of international solidarity. While they exemplify these values, the films in which Robeson participated during this period also demonstrate his movement away from elitist conceptions of cultural uplift that characterize earlier Pan-African doctrines. In addition, Robeson's British films gradually assumed a more explicitly documentary form grounded in ideals of egalitarianism and solidarity. Thus, in both form and content, Robeson's work during this period articulated a radical political aesthetics that resonated with audiences galvanized by the rise of fascism in Europe and the intensification of imperialism around the world. In recovering Robeson's encounters with figures such as C.L.R. James in Britain, I intend additionally to illuminate a seminal but ill-documented moment in the pre-history of British anti-racism. This unique coming together of international figures in a common, anti-colonial cause can also be seen to have left a distinctive trace on the specific black British cultures that come into being in the postwar period. The activism and aesthetics of Paul Robeson and the Black Internationale laid important foundations, establishing powerful anti-imperialist traditions that prevailed after the eclipse of the Popular Front and beyond the apparently brief heyday of British anti-fascism.

Russian National Interests, Use of Blood and Treasure, and Energy Price Assessments: 2008-2009

Do Russian foreign policy elites' definitions of the geographical domain of Russia's interests change with the stability of oil prices? Using survey data from March and April 2008, Russian foreign policy elite conceptions of national interest are examined. Key foreign policy matters are the foci. The ways expectations about an oil price decrease shaped views of Russia's national interest, and how these impinged upon elite predispositions concerning use of military power and energy resources to protect state interests and support the interests of Russians outside Russia, are considered as are attitudes toward unification with Ukraine and Belarus.

Biomimicking Altruistic Behavior of Honey Bees in Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm

The altruistic behavior of honey bees provides an interesting contrast to natural selection in evolutionary biology. This is biomimicked in the framework of a multiobjective optimization algorithm, namely, genetic algorithm, GA, by exploiting the concept of elitism (preserving good parents). The effects of altruism and natural selection on the total fitness of the colony are compared. This basic algorithm is used for studying the evolution process. It is then modified to enhance the convergence rates of optimization problems and to simulate the carcinogenesis of cells using multiple queens, unlike in honeycombs, mimicking other species of hymenopterans, e.g., ants, wasps, etc. This algorithm provides a new approach for studying three problems, bee evolution, optimization, and cancer, and is used to understand conflicts in animal behavior, increase the speed of convergence of optimization problems, and for an improved understanding of the causes of cancer.

Improved Multiobjective Differential Evolution (MODE) Approach for Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) Oxidation Process

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs), which are basically the population-based search algorithms, are becoming increasingly popular for solving highly nonlinear and complex optimization problems (both the single-objective and multiobjective problems). Multiobjective Differential Evolution (MODE), which is an extension of Differential Evolution (DE) to multiobjective optimization, has been successfully applied to a few chemical process industrial problems. This article presents multiobjective optimization of p-xylene oxidation in the manufacturing process of industrial Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) oxidation using MODE, its improved strategy, i.e., Elitist-Multiobjective Differential Evolution (E-MODE), and NSGA-II. E-MODE algorithm includes the concept of elitism as present in NSGA-II. Four industrially important cases are studied from the multiobjective optimization point of view. The effect of six decision variables identified, namely, catalyst concentration, vent oxygen content, % water in solvent, feed xylene rate, temperature of reactor, and total feed rate, on the formulated objective function for the four cases is studied. The corresponding Pareto optimal sets (i.e., sets of equally good nondominated solutions) are obtained. All decision variables, corresponding to the Pareto optimal solutions, are plotted against each of the objectives. Comparison among the Pareto optimal fronts of four cases is also carried out. Pareto solutions obtained in this study (using MODE, E-MODE, and NSGA-II) lie on same (Global) Pareto front. However, MODE is able to cover a better range than E-MODE and NSGA-II. The results obtained are useful to a plant engineer for possible improvement in the process design decisions.

Pensée 4: Out with the Old, In with the New

Historical scholarship on Arab nationalism has experienced a conceptual revolution over the last two decades. It is now widely accepted among historians that local identities and loyalties have been crucial components of nationalist thought and action from the very beginning; it is equally well established that the line between nationalism and various elements of Islam is much harder to draw than one might imagine. In addition, there is solid evidence that nationalism across the Arab world took shape, arguably as an unintended consequence, out of sustained interaction among conflicting elite and popular conceptions of political community. Moreover, it turns out to be important to differentiate Arab nationalism as a cluster of ideological principles from Pan-Arabism as a set of diplomatic practices that constituted a basic component of regional statecraft, initially at the time the Ottoman Empire found itself disintegrating and later on as the newly independent states of the Middle East and North Africa experimented with ways to get along simultaneously with one another and with outside powers.

The Elite and Political Process in Nigeria

Nigeria's crisis-ridden political history shows how it survived multiple military dictatorships, and had only three short-lived civilian-led political dispensations until the Fourth Republic. The article considers the concept of African elite and progresses to unravel the Nigerian elite and its role in the scuttling of the First and Second democratic projects/experiments. The role of the military wing in the Third Republic also highlighted and the weakness of the civilian wing against it is also considered. It argues that despite the transition from military rule to democracy in 1999 Nigeria may have become a crippled giant, and considering its post-1999 political class and leadership, the mistakes of the past may be repeated in the future. Africa Insight Vol. 38 (2) 2008: pp. 50-61

Associated Rivals: Antagonism and Cooperation in the German Political Elite

AbstractThis article explores the failures and achievements of democratic elitism in Germany. I first outline the conditions in which concepts of leader democracy and democratic elitism were set forth by Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter during the first half of the twentieth century. I then argue that democratic elitism can usefully be reformulated in terms of principal-agent theory and William Sumner's theory of antagonistic cooperation. I present empirical findings from a study of elite conflict and consensus in re-unified Germany that are consistent with these theories, and I suggest that democratic elitism should incorporate both.

Der Weltkrieg als »soziale Arbeitsgemeinschaft«. Eine Innenansicht bildungsbürgerlicher Kriegsdeutungen 1914-1918

Abstract The article looks at the position adopted by members of the liberal, well-educated bourgeoisie in Germany regarding the social implications of World War I. It portrays a group of students and protestant theologians - adherents to the idea of the urban settlement movement - on their way into war. Their ambition to bridge the gap between the social classes, stemming from the situation present in Wilhelmine Berlin, was transferred on to the battlefield. In this context, they evoked a cross-class community within the troops as a solidarity community of leaders and masses. Thus, this group represented a new model of bourgeois leadership that may be characterized as integrative leadership, based on a claim of authenticity derived from close contact with the working class. By rejecting older corporative and elitist concepts, they aimed to redefine their own social position in post-war society in order to perpetuate their leading role.

Reflections from the Middle: Making Sense of Elitism in Our Midst

This article sketches a personal story of life at a teaching institution when jobs in sociology were scarce. I examine the concept of elitism and situate it in conditions that shaped the discipline of sociology in the 1970s when a growing number of women entered the field. Throughout my story, I raise the following points: (1) Defining elitism requires comprehending its relativity, (2) Understanding what stands as elitism necessitates examining local and national standards for professional performance, (3) Recognizing that unshared standards or lack of awareness of routine standards leads to charges of elitism, and (4) Acknowledging that the discipline’s class system hardens into a caste system when jobs are tight and thus fuels elitism. I conclude by reflecting on the place of standards in local sociology departments and the larger discipline.

Local Bullies and Armed Force Entrepreneurs: Militia Leadership in Republican Hunan

Local Bullies and Armed Force Entrepreneurs:Militia Leadership in Republican Hunan Edward A. McCord (bio) A proliferation of militia and other local self-defense forces indicated the serious political and social instability of China's Republican period. The first decade of this period saw a steady, if uneven, growth of militia activity as local communities responded both to political dislocations caused by recurring civil wars and warlord conflicts and to the increased banditry that flourished in this environment. In the mid 1920s this local militarization reached a new peak, not seen since the suppression of widespread rebellion in the mid-nineteenth century, in response to the social conflict that both contributed to and was fostered by the political struggle between the Nationalist and Communist parties.1 The growth of militia forces led to the increasing power and influence of militia leaders in local society. In his 1927 report on the Hunan peasant movement, Mao Zedong described "local bullies and evil gentry (土豪劣紳 tuhao lieshen)" with independent jurisdiction over local defense corps as virtual "kings of the countryside (鄉裡王 xiangli wang)."2 This characterization was not simply Communist propaganda; Nationalist Party sources also describe militia leaders as local "lords (諸侯 zhuhou)" because of their extensive local powers.3 Although the power of local militia leaders in Republican China is widely recognized, how much do we actually know about these men? What were their backgrounds? How did they rise to positions of power in their local communities? Such questions, focusing on the actual lives and activities of militia leaders, have so far received little attention.4 Most generalizations about militia leaders in the Republican [End Page 5] period have not, in fact, been directly or deductively built on the personal histories of actual Republican-era local force commanders. Instead, commonly accepted social categorizations have often been used tautologically to provide a social explanation for the power held by these men. The tendency to ascribe militia leaders to specific social or class backgrounds is embedded in both Western and Chinese analytical frameworks. In Western historiography, the social identification of militia leaders has strong ties to the classic view of the dual identity of the Chinese gentry as both candidates for government office and as informal community leaders. The organization of militia to provide for local self-defense is seen as one of the managerial functions assumed by the scholar-gentry in their home communities in times of local upheaval, which in turn also contributed to the enhancement of local gentry power.5 Scholars have, of course, long abandoned the notion that degree-holding gentry alone defined the Chinese local elite, let alone militia leadership.6 Nonetheless, even with a broadened concept of local elite, the assumption largely remains that militia leadership and the power derived from it was the monopoly of the local elite.7 Communist historiography is, of course, wedded to a class analysis of militia leadership. It is an imprecise class analysis, however, that often assumes more than it explains. Communist sources invariably follow Mao Zedong's lead in characterizing militia leaders as "local bullies and evil gentry." Standing alone, the category of "local bullies and evil gentry" does not fit the definition of an economic class required for orthodox Marxist analysis. This problem is partially resolved by using this term interchangeably with "feudal landlords (封建地主 fengjian dizhu)." The end result, however, is a composite class category of limited utility. Militia leaders are in most cases tautologically identified as local bullies, and as such simply defined as social representatives of evil gentry and feudal landlord interests. In this value-laden formulation, whether militia leaders can be identified as having either gentry or landlord backgrounds becomes unimportant. [End Page 6] The social identification of militia leaders as local bullies/evil gentry becomes even more strained because in practice this label was more a political description than a social category. Communist activists automatically denounced all local power-holders who opposed the Party's social movements with this label, but not those who supported their program. Interestingly, the Nationalist Party also was committed to eradicating the power of "local bullies and evil gentry" and like the Communist Party used this label politically to differentiate between its enemies and...

“Le Libro de Alexandre dans son contexte: clerge, royautée et chevalerie lettreé au XIIe siècle"

The anonymous author of the Libro de Alexandre introduces himself as a cleric. He is even proud of being a member of this sacerdotal and cultured category, which he considers far superior to entertainers (joglaría). The difference between the two classes is both moral and literary: the anonymous author can use sophisticated rhymes, which depend necessarily upon writing and reading. In contrast, entertainers use only oral resources. The clerics share their academic knowledge with some erudite knights or milites literati, knowing Latin. These mutual interests in classical authors are related to an elitist conception of the mater of Rome, as expressed in the beginning of Roman de Thebes, excluding all but clerics and knights as its listeners. Alexander the Great is the perfect model for miles literatus, knighted and educated, as good in war as in academia, in particular at quadrivium sciences. This model of fortitudo and sapientia in the same person appears in letters praising several princes at the end of the twelfth century, such as Henry of Champaign or Philip of Flanders. The Libro de Alexandre is thus a typical work of the cultural Renaissance and of the royal courts of around 1200. In this period, clerics and knights work together to build the modern State.