CONSIDERATIONS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL METHODS FOR ABSORBING UNCERTAINTY
There is no "standard" method used as a panaceum to reduce decision-making uncertainty. The technocratic approach on management is only valid on a free-competition market, with equal chances for everyone. In practice, this is a utopia. Knowledge-based economy changes the exogenous environment of decision, where the dominant aspects are, for example: data amount sometimes exceeds data-processing capacity, main competitors have the same information sources. A knowledge-based economy has also disadvantages, i.e. lower predictability. In many cases, the most important decisions and actions are not anticipated by an organization’s strategies. Political methods for uncertainty absorption play an important part in defining the socio-economic dimensions of a knowledge-based society. Ever more often, regardless of their size, firms are interested in taking part, either individually or together with other stakeholders (economic or social partners), in activities through which they can control and influence the future events that would impact the firms. Both vulnerability and opportunity can only be defined as a result of a proper evaluation of the factors involved in the activity of a firm and directly influencing the way in which the operational and organizational optimum is defined. By methods using fuzzy number to evaluate the quality of various relationships within and outside the organization the knowledge workers can generate solutions based on logical criteria in conditions of high uncertainty.
Qualitative assessments and optimal decision under uncertainty using rectangular fuzzy numbers
In crisis situations, uncertainty emerges as a distinct phenomenon, in which case we face both the ineffectiveness of most theoretical models of decision-making and the inaccuracy and incompleteness of available information. It is therefore necessary to intensify theoretical efforts and to apply interdisciplinary approaches and transfers of methods in order to construct a set of procedures and techniques that should contribute to curbing this phenomenon in decision-making processes. The transition from the state of crisis to the state of opportunity becomes the ground on which technocratic, structural, cultural and political approaches make a difference in managing. The qualitative analysis of the level of uncertainty provides an optimal insight into the best management techniques and methods that may contribute to achieving development objectives under crisis conditions. To conduct such an assessment process, we propose the use of rectangular fuzzy numbers. In this paper, first we develop a personal analysis of the notion of rectangular fuzzy numbers with an associated variable center of gravity and specific mathematical operations. Our research continues by the theoretical and applicable development of the "optimistic method (max-max)". Acknowledgement This paper is supported by the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development (SOP HRD), financed from the European Social Fund and by the Romanian Government under the contract number POSDRU/89/1.5/S/56815.
Code switching in Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love
This article examines the phenomenon of code switching in The Map of Love (1999) by the Egyptian—British writer Ahdaf Soueif. Though she chooses English as a medium for her creative expression, Soueif deploys Arabic in her narrative to represent different aspects of the linguistic and cultural norms of Egyptian society. The article's methodology is informed by Kachru's framework on contact literature and his categorization of the occurrence of literary code switching or bilingual creativity into different strategies that encompass cultural and linguistic processes. The results indicate the predominance in The Map of Love of the discourse strategies of employing lexical borrowing, culture-bound references and translational transfer. Finally, the article analyzes the functional motivation of code switching in the postcolonial context of the novel and how the use of certain creative strategies might enhance or diminish the narrative's effectiveness and readability.