Applying a Genetic Algorithm to a m-TSP: Case Study of a Decision Support System for Optimizing a Beverage Logistics Vehicles Routing Problem

Route optimization has become an increasing problem in the transportation and logistics sector within the development of smart cities. This article aims to demonstrate the implementation of a genetic algorithm adapted to a Vehicle Route Problem (VRP) in a company based in the city of Covilhã (Portugal). Basing the entire approach to this problem on the characteristic assumptions of the Multiple Traveling Salesman Problem (m-TSP) approach, an optimization of the daily routes for the workers assigned to distribution, divided into three zones: North, South and Central, was performed. A critical approach to the returned routes based on the adaptation to the geography of the Zones was performed. From a comparison with the data provided by the company, it is predicted by the application of a genetic algorithm to the m-TSP, that there will be a reduction of 618 km per week of the total distance traveled. This result has a huge impact in several forms: clients are visited in time, promoting provider-client relations; reduction of the fixed costs with fuel; promotion of environmental sustainability by the reduction of logistic routes. All these improvements and optimizations can be thought of as contributions to foster smart cities.

Patronage and Clientele in the Muscovite State in the 16th and 17th Centuries: Historiography and the Key Issues

Introduction. The paper deals with the phenomenon of patron-client relations in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Russia, which until recently has been almost completely neglected by the scholars. Relying on recent publications and his own findings, the author addresses the key issues of the topic including the origins of this phenomenon in Russia, the typology of patron-client relations and their specifics in Muscovy. Methods and materials. The paper combines a survey of the current historiography with examination of selected primary sources (mainly private letters from archival collections) and forays into the theory of patron-client relations elaborated by social scientists. Comparing the Muscovite patronage system to its counterparts in other European countries enables some hypotheses about the peculiarities of patron-client relations in pre-Petrine Russia. Analysis. Addressing the problem of the origins of the Russian patronage the author traces the evolution of social relations and the appearance of the specific language of patronage which leads him to a conclusion that the phenomenon in question might have emerged by the end of the 16th century. Proceeding then to the typology of patron-client relations, the author assumes that, although only aristocratic patronage has been thoroughly studied so far, similar phenomena can be detected in other milieus as well, including the Church, where nepotism and corporate clientelism flourished. Finally, the author isolates some specific features of the Muscovite patronage, especially its depoliticized and decentralized character, as contrasted to the analogous phenomena in Poland-Lithuania, England, and France. Results. Summing up the present-day knowledge of the Muscovite patronage, the author highlights it as a typically early modern phenomenon that evolved within the official state institutions and functioned as an addendum to them.

Accountable to whom? How strong parties subvert local democratic institutions

How do politicians in emerging democracies subvert institutional reforms that are designed to improve accountability? Looking at patron-client relations within political parties, I present a strategy, partisan accountability, by which strong parties undermine accountability to citizens. At the national level, parties build patronage networks. Central party organizations use their power and resources to build political machines that extend to the local level. Leveraging these patronage networks, national politicians co-opt local politicians into being accountable to central party interests over their own constituents. I employ original subnational data from Bosnia and Herzegovina on party organization and mayoral recalls from 2005 to 2015. The analysis shows that strong parties initiate recalls to install loyal, co-partisan mayors rather than to sanction mayors for poor policy performance. This pattern demonstrates a strategy by which central party organizations in competitive democracies stifle subnational democratization to consolidate power.

Sex Work in Slovenia: Assessing the Needs of Sex Workers

The research comprehensively identifies the needs and problems of sex workers in Slovenia from the point of view of three groups of actors in a decriminalized setting. The objective of the rapid needs assessment was to identify the needs of sex workers as perceived by themselves. In order to gain a deeper insight into this topic, we analyzed the functioning of the organizations working with the population, and examined the perspective of the clients. The results of the study show that no aid programmes have been developed for sex workers, even though organizations from various fields often come in contact with this population. Sex workers express the need to be informed about various topics (health, the law, legal advice) and emphasize client relations as the primary issue. The findings indicate the need for the development of a specialized aid programmes to address the fields of advocacy, reducing social distress and providing psychosocial assistance.

Pax Regis

The people of Ceuta see their town as an exemplary model of coexistence between Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus. This “convivencia” is described as the brainchild of their mayor-president, who funds clients to enact his charismatic vision. Anthropology is sensitive to the moral ambiguities of patron–client relations but has overlooked the role of charisma in the reproduction of patronage reproduction. This article explores the theoretical and political implications of a process by which convivencia-patronage becomes seen as the extension of the patron’s charisma. Obscuring the historical dimensions of power, charisma blocks nuanced discussion toward the colonial legacy of convivencia as a way of controlling suspect minorities. It prevents change by channeling resistance toward the removal of the mayor-president, not the structures that enabled his rise.

Service and education: the Royal Hungarian Bodyguard as a cultural institution in eighteenth-century Vienna

The Royal Hungarian Bodyguard, founded in 1760, was the first guard unit at the Viennese court to be recruited on a territorial basis and exclusively from noblemen. The establishment of the Guard served three purposes: to significantly increase the presence of Hungarians at court, to represent the monarch (the power of the sovereign) and the Hungarian estates, and to provide a cultural space for young Hungarian noblemen. For them, the Guard became an aid in building patron-client relations and in orientation in the court environment, which was especially important for the natives of eastern Hungary and the Principality of Transylvania as well as for Protestant noblemen. The article examines the role of the Guard in expanding the cultural horizons of young Hungarian nobles. The purpose of the paper is to present the role of the guard as an instrument of education and acculturation of Hungarian nobles against the background of well-known and recently discovered sources, such as guard establishment proposals, school register books and so forth, and to awaken interest of international research to the importance of this special institution. At the beginning of the article, an overview of the early proposals of the establishment of the Guard is given, then the principles of its operation are described, and finally, several examples are given to illustrate the role of the Guard in the careers of Hungarian magnates and noblemen.

Explaining “How... Politics Actually Work”: The German Historian Wolfgang Reinhard, the Theory of Verflechtungen and Micropolitics

The conceptualization of the role of informal relationships, including patron-client relations, in the development of Early Modern state institutions in modern European historiography is usually associated with the names of R. Munier, S. Kettering and A. Maczak, whose works have long since become classics. Less well known in this context is the Verflechtungstheorie (lit. theory of entanglement), developed in the 1970s by the Freiburg historian W. Reinhard. The aim of this article is to examine the Verflechtungstheorie in historical perspective and its theoretical foundations, as well as the history of its reception in the context of the development of social history in Germany. In doing so, the author explains the reasons why Reinhard's approach occurred less influential in comparison with the works of the historians mentioned above. The article is based on a detailed study of Reinhard's works dedicated to the Verflechtungstheorie (since the 1990s micropolitics), starting from his 1979 monograph Freunde und Kreaturen (“Friends and Creatures”) and ending with the most recent publications in the 2010s. The beginning of the article is devoted to the formation of the conceptual apparatus of Reinhard's theory. He understands the term Verflechtungen as the result and foundation of social interaction based on four relationship types - kinship, compatriot, friendship and patronage, playing, according to Reinhard, a key role in premodern times. The theoretical basis of Reinhard's explanatory model is formed by the sociometry of the American sociologist J. L. Moreno, and Reinhard viewed his concept of elite relations as a kind of network analysis. Further on the article moves on analyzing the reception problem of the presented theory. According to Reinhard, the Verflechtungstheorie experienced reception difficulties within historical scholarship mostly for being technically ahead of its time. However, as the article shows, the main reason was that the concept failed to meet the zeitgeist prevailing in postwar German historiography. While social history developing under the influence of the Bielefeld school focused on the study of microhistorical subjects, Reinhards's approach was mainly a political one. Abandoning the term Verflechtungen in the mid-1990s and replacing it with the term micropolitics, Reinhard did not solve the problem. This change was a merely linguistic one, and Reinhard continued to argue that informal relations mark a negotiable stage, which is characteristic for societies with a high level of mobility and an underdeveloped statehood. In conclusion, the article shows that the results of Reinhard's scholarly work should not be considered a failure. The main merit is its continuity: some of Reinhard's former students proved that informal relationships are by no means a parasitic atavism associated solely with corruption.