Approximating the Length of Vehicle Routing Problem Solutions Using Complementary Spatial Information

Accurately estimating the length of Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) distances can inform transportation planning in a wide variety of delivery and service provision contexts. This study extends the work of previous research where multiple linear regression models were used to estimate the average distance of VRP solutions with various customer demands and capacity constraints. This research expands on that approach in two ways: first, the point patterns used in estimation have a wider range of customer clustering or dispersion values as measured by the Average Nearest Neighbor Index (ANNI) as opposed to just using a Poisson or random point process; second, the tour coefficient adjusted by this complementary spatial information is shown to exhibit statistically more accurate estimations. To generate a full range of ANNI values, point patterns were simulated using a Poisson process, a Matern clustering process, and a simple sequential inhibition process to obtain random, clustered, and dispersed point patterns, respectively. The coefficients of independent variables in the models were used to explain how the spatial distributions of customers influence the VRP distances. These results demonstrate that complementary spatial data can be used to improve operational results, a concept that could be applied more broadly.     

To Lobby or Not to Lobby? Examining the Determinants of Nonprofit Organizations Taking the IRS 501(h) Election

While public policy scholars are gaining a better understanding of the nonprofit sector's impact on the policy process, the sector's role in lobbying efforts has only been studied in a limited manner. Currently, nonprofit organizations' lobbying activities and expenditures are limited by federal regulations, which are often misunderstood by nonprofit leaders. This article uses 2003 IRS Form 990 data for all nonprofit organizations in the United States to examine the organizational determinants of 501(c)3 nonprofits taking the Internal Revenue Service's 501(h) election and whether organizations use h‐election in a manner consistent with patterns of strategic behavior. Results show that nonprofit organizations that are reliant on direct public support are more likely to take the h‐election, while those reliant on government grants are less likely to take the h‐election. Examining lobbying expenditures, we find nonprofits associate with 501(h) election in a pattern consistent with strategic behavior. The findings suggest that nonprofit organizations with certain revenue streams and in specific subsectors respond differently to this election decision, and that organizations may respond strategically to mechanisms regulating their political activity.     

“Words fail us”: Beckett,Leacock, and Johnson

ABSTRACT

This article will look at political treatments of language in Samuel Beckett’s early novel Watt and place the novel’s linguistic scepticism in conversation with three authors, the lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the language theorist Felix Mauthner, and the English-born, Canadian parodist Stephen Leacock. The paper will argue that Beckett, like Leacock, engages in Mauthnerian critiques of language, destabilising Johnsonian formulae for language standardisation. But while Leacock fails to develop the political implications of his critique of language, Beckett’s understanding of language standardisation is implicitly political, informed by Johnson’s conception of speech as the predicate of national identity, a standard for inclusion which Watt gleefully antagonises. Challenging nationalist calls for controls on language, Watt interrogates the ways that campaigns for linguistic unity will engender exclusionary attitudes towards the nonconforming and bar access to that speech and identity which falls outside of normative frameworks.     

Entre Huguenots et Valteline: La France,les Archiducs et la fin de la Trêve de Douze Ans, 1619–21

Abstract

Le rôle qu’a joué la France dans les négociations menant à la Trêve de Douze Ans a déjà reçu bien des attentions de la part des historiens des relations internationales à l’époque moderne. Dans cette contribution, je voudrais analyser et expliquer l’attitude des dirigeants français vis-à-vis d’une éventuelle prolongation de la Trêve, qui allait expirer en avril 1621. Ceci est en effet un aspect qui a reçu nettement moins d’attention dans l’historiographie des relations diplomatiques entre la France et les Habsbourg d’Espagne. Utilisant la correspondance de Jean de Péricard, ambassadeur français à Bruxelles pendant les dernières années du régime souverain des archiducs Albert et Isabelle, cette contribution démontrera que le jeune roi Louis XIII et ses conseillers désiraient une rupture de la Trêve pour deux principales raisons. Premièrement, par la création d’un nouveau front aux Pays-Bas, ils désiraient opposer l’expansion du pouvoir espagnol en Allemagne et dans la Valteline. Deuxièmement, les dirigeants français désiraient aussi affaiblir la République des Provinces-Unies, qui soutenait les rebelles huguenots s’opposant au pouvoir royal. Dans cette optique, la principale tâche de l’ambassadeur français à Bruxelles était de contrecarrer les initiatives indépendantes des archiducs.     

Command Centre Bjorn: the conflict heritage of a Swedish Cold War military installation

This text presents the results of a contemporary archaeological investigation of an important Swedish Cold War installation, Command Centre Bjorn. This centre was connected to the Air Force Attack Squadron and together with the coastal artillery and the navy it constituted a crucial part of the Swedish defence efforts during the Cold War period. The text also discusses questions concerning heritage processes, and it stresses that a contemporary archaeology approach can contribute with new insights into the Cold War and its heritage in Sweden, as well as canalize and offer guidance to the huge public interest in the material remains from this period in Sweden.     

Challenging Hegemonies through Connecting Places,People and Ideas: Jan Monk's contribution to international gender geography (with particular reference to Spain)

The main goal of the paper is to study Jan Monk's contribution to the development of international gender geography, in particular in Spain. Our aim is also to explain the experiences and numerous connections among places, people and ideas that she has been weaving to foster international scholarship and, in this way, how she has challenged hegemonic approaches in feminist geography. Jan Monk comes originally from the Southern hemisphere and therefore she is well aware of the extent to which ‘Northern’ (or Anglo-American) ways of seeing the world define concepts, theories and ideas in geography (and also in feminist geography). Being an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ as well as her sensibility to the important of place has permeated Jan's contribution to international gender geography.     

The Western River Steamboat Heroine, 1832–1838, Oklahoma,USA: construction

This paper describes the design and construction of the side‐wheel steamer Heroine, a representative of the ‘western river steamboat’ type and the earliest example of its kind to undergo archaeological study. Heroine was built at New Albany, Indiana, in 1832 and sunk on the Red River between Oklahoma and Texas in 1838. The extensive remains of the lower hull show assembly practices in use during the developmental era of Mississippi River steamboats. The wreck also reveals a heretofore‐unknown technique for longitudinally strengthening these long, narrow, and very lightly built hulls.     

A Jack's Reef Horizon Settlement Cluster in the Central Scioto Valley

In 1992, Mark Seeman proposed the existence of a Jack's Reef horizon in Ohio. Little professional research has been undertaken on domestic sites since then though. The Jack's Reef horizon subsumes the Intrusive Mound complex. Archaeological excavations for the Rockies Express-East gas pipeline project identified three sites in the central Scioto valley that provide evidence of Jack's Reef horizon occupations in floodplain and upland settings flanking the river valley. Radiocarbon dates confirm habitation associated with this late Late Woodland culture from cal A.D. 630–1000. Excavation and geophysical data reviewed in this article indicate intensive habitation of large base camps and small-scale residential bases, with secondary refuse disposal, distinctive ceramics, a curated bifacial lithic technology, and an expedient flake-tool technology.