PUBLIC SAFETY AND THE MORAL DILEMMA IN THE DEFENSE AGAINST TERROR

The economic theory of defense has traditionally described public safety as achieved through investments that deter adversaries. Deterrence is, however, ineffective and pre‐emptive defense is required when a population of intended victims confronts supreme‐value suicide terror. A moral dilemma then arises, since pre‐emption may impose collective punishment, while in the absence of pre‐emption the population of intended victims is exposed to acts of terror. We consider how a population of intended terror victims confronts the moral dilemma, and compare the threatened population's response with the public‐safety recommendations of external judges who are not personally affected by the threat of terror.     

The economic policy of acquiring foreign currency in wartime: The example of Croatia

This paper attempts to describe the methods employed by the Croatian government in order to acquire the foreign currency which was essential for strategic imports during the period 1991–1995. The starting point for this was the fact that foreign currency was in the hands of Croatian households, export companies, and Croatian companies abroad. The Croatian central bank gained access to households’ foreign currency principally by gaining their confidence. It gained access to companies’ currency by means of “export rights”, and perhaps also as a result of the integration of political and economic positions which was a relic of the former Yugoslavia.     

Terror and Internal Migration in Israel

This paper empirically analyses the effect of terror on internal migration between Israeli subdistricts. Using a unique data-set comprising migration flows for the period 1999–2012 and the number of rocket and non-rocket attacks, we test the hypotheses that terror reduces migration into an affected subdistrict and increases migration out of it. According to our results, the effect of terror on migration is asymmetric as we only find evidence for the first hypothesis. This result remains when we use an instrumental variables strategy that corrects for underreporting of the number of rocket attacks. The largest effects of rocket attacks are found for migration into the Southern subdistrict of Ashqelon as well as into other border regions in Northern Israel, while non-rocket attacks also have substantial effects in the more populous centres of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.     

The Effects of Terrorism on Turkish Financial Markets

Abstract

In this research, we analyzed how Turkish financial markets and foreign investors in the stock market reacted to the terror attacks in Turkey. Our analysis, which was performed using the terror index for the stock market and the foreign exchange market, revealed that returns, abnormal returns, and cumulative abnormal returns were not affected by the terror attacks; however, foreign investors in the stock market were affected. When the geographic regions of the terror attacks were analyzed, the findings showed that foreign investors were negatively affected mainly by the terror attacks that occurred in southeast Anatolia. Attack type and target type were important only for foreign investors. An evaluation of the interaction between the terror attacks and the markets with the involvement of the terrorist organizations indicated that only the foreign investors in the stock market were affected by Al-Qaeda and PKK-linked terror attacks. An evaluation of the effect of terror attacks in foreign countries on Turkish financial markets revealed no effect on the domestic stock market and foreign exchange markets. We also examined the volatility spillovers from the terror index to the stock market and found that terrorist attacks increased the volatility of the stock market.     

Allocation of quality improvement targets based on investments in learning

Purchased materials often account for more than 50% of a manufacturer's product nonconformance cost. A common strategy for reducing such costs is to allocate periodic quality improvement targets to suppliers of such materials. Improvement target allocations are often accomplished via ad hoc methods such as prescribing a fixed, across‐the‐board percentage improvement for all suppliers, which, however, may not be the most effective or efficient approach for allocating improvement targets. We propose a formal modeling and optimization approach for assessing quality improvement targets for suppliers, based on process variance reduction. In our models, a manufacturer has multiple product performance measures that are linear functions of a common set of design variables (factors), each of which is an output from an independent supplier's process. We assume that a manufacturer's quality improvement is a result of reductions in supplier process variances, obtained through learning and experience, which require appropriate investments by both the manufacturer and suppliers. Three learning investment (cost) models for achieving a given learning rate are used to determine the allocations that minimize expected costs for both the supplier and manufacturer and to assess the sensitivity of investment in learning on the allocation of quality improvement targets. Solutions for determining optimal learning rates, and concomitant quality improvement targets are derived for each learning investment function. We also account for the risk that a supplier may not achieve a targeted learning rate for quality improvements. An extensive computational study is conducted to investigate the differences between optimal variance allocations and a fixed percentage allocation. These differences are examined with respect to (i) variance improvement targets and (ii) total expected cost. For certain types of learning investment models, the results suggest that orders of magnitude differences in variance allocations and expected total costs occur between optimal allocations and those arrived at via the commonly used rule of fixed percentage allocations. However, for learning investments characterized by a quadratic function, there is surprisingly close agreement with an “across‐the‐board” allocation of 20% quality improvement targets. © John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 684–709, 2001     

A multi‐objective model for bank ATM networks

In this paper we present an application of the core solution concepts for multi‐objective games to a bank ATM network model. In these games, the worth of a coalition is given by a subset of vectors of the k‐dimensional space rather than by a scalar. The paper investigates how an ATM network model based on multi‐objective cooperative game theory could be used as an alternative way of setting interchange fees paid by the customer's bank to the one that owns the ATM. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005     

Optimizing fishbone aisles for dual‐command operations in a warehouse

Unit‐load warehouses store and retrieve unit‐loads, typically pallets. When storage and retrieval operations are not coordinated, travel is from a pickup and deposit (P&D) point to a pallet location and back again. In some facilities, workers interleave storage and retrieval operations to form a dual‐command cycle. Two new aisle designs proposed by Gue and Meller (“Improving the unit‐load warehouse.” In Progress in Material Handling Research: 2006. Material Handling Industry of America, Charlotte, NC, 2006) use diagonal aisles to reduce the travel distance to a single pallet location by approximately 10 and 20[percnt] for the two designs, respectively. We develop analytical expressions for travel between pallet locations for one of these—the fishbone design. We then compare fishbone warehouses that have been optimized for dual‐command to traditional warehouses that have been optimized in the same manner, and show that an optimal fishbone design reduces dual‐command travel by 10–15%. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 54: 389–403, 2009     

航天部队试验综合能力评估模型研究

根据航天试验综合能力评估的特点和要求,依据系统工程的理论方法,确定了装备、人员和保障能力为主要评估要素,设置了评估层次和控制点,建立了航天试验综合能力评估模型。该模型由下至上分为3个层次：基础层主要对分系统各岗位人员和所属装备进行评估;分系统层主要对人员素质、装备性能和保障能力进行评估;系统层主要对整个系统的综合试验能力进行评估。通过实例表明该模型大大提高了航天试验综合能力量化评估的准确性。     

空投着陆缓冲系统效能评估模型

为了有效构建空投缓冲系统效能评估体系,研究建立了不同缓冲系统通用效能评估模型。模型综合分析缓冲系统作战能力与保障能力,建立了空投缓冲系统效能指标体系。在此基础上,运用效能评估ADC模型与AHP方法,结合指标能力量化准则实现对缓冲系统效能的定量评定。通过实例计算,验证了模型的正确性和有效性,为缓冲系统的发展论证与使用决策提供依据。     

Inventory financing under Risk-Adjusted-Return-On-Capital criterion

Risk-Adjusted-Return-On-Capital (RAROC) is a loan-pricing criterion under which a bank sets the loan term such that a certain rate of return is achieved on the regulatory capital required by the Basel regulation. Some banks calculate the amount of regulatory capital for each loan under the standardized approach (“standardized banks,” the regulatory capital is proportional to the loan amount), and others under the internal rating-based (IRB) approach (“IRB banks,” the regulatory capital is related to the Value-at-Risk of the loan). This article examines the impact of the RAROC criterion on the bank's loan-pricing decision and the retailer's inventory decision. We find that among the loan terms that satisfy the bank's RAROC criterion, the one that benefits the retailer the most requires the bank to specify an inventory advance rate in addition to the interest rate. Under this loan term, the retailer's inventory level is more sensitive to his asset level when facing an IRB bank compared to a standardized bank. An IRB (standardized) loan leads to higher profit and inventory level for retailers with high (low) asset. For retailers with medium asset, an IRB loan results in a higher retailer profit but a lower consumer welfare. Calibrated numerical study reveals that the benefit of choosing standardized banks (relative to IRB banks) can be as high as 30% for industries with severe capital constraints, volatile demands, and low profit margins, highlighting the importance for retailers to carefully choose the type of banks to borrow from. When the interest rate is capped by regulation, retailers borrowing from a standardized bank are more likely to be influenced by the interest rate cap than those borrowing from an IRB bank. Under strong empire-building incentives (the bank will offer loan terms to maximize the size of the loan), retailers with medium initial asset level shift their preference from IRB banks to standardized banks.     

On the effectiveness of top‐down strategy for forecasting autoregressive demands

We investigate the relative effectiveness of top‐down versus bottom‐up strategies for forecasting the demand of an item that belongs to a product family. The demand for each item in the family is assumed to follow a first‐order univariate autoregressive process. Under the top‐down strategy, the aggregate demand is forecasted by using the historical data of the family demand. The demand forecast for the items is then derived by proportional allocation of the aggregate forecast. Under the bottom‐up strategy, the demand forecast for each item is directly obtained by using the historical demand data of the particular item. In both strategies, the forecasting technique used is exponential smoothing. We analytically evaluate the condition under which one forecasting strategy is preferred over the other when the lag‐1 autocorrelation of the demand time series for all the items is identical. We show that when the lag‐1 autocorrelation is smaller than or equal to 1/3, the maximum difference in the performance of the two forecasting strategies is only 1%. However, if the lag‐1 autocorrelation of the demand for at least one of the items is greater than 1/3, then the bottom‐up strategy consistently outperforms the top‐down strategy, irrespective of the items' proportion in the family and the coefficient of correlation between the item demands. A simulation study reveals that the analytical findings hold even when the lag‐1 autocorrelation of the demand processes is not identical. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007.     

Interchange fees for bank ATM networks

Banks have found it advantageous to connect their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in networks so that customers of one bank may use the ATMs of any bank in the network. When this occurs, an interchange fee is paid by the customer's bank to the one that owns the ATM. These have been set by historic interbank negotiation. The paper investigates how a model based on n-player game theory concepts of Shapley value and nucleolus could be used as an alternative way of setting such fees. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 407–417, 1998     

作战模拟系统中可视化想定编辑器的设计与实现

在回顾以往作战模拟软件某些弊病(如"想定独立性"差,不便于模型重构和模拟软件复用等)的基础上,提出了想定编辑器的概念;从用户需求和模拟软件需求两方面出发,采用面向对象的思想以及计算机战术标图技术、数据库技术,设计并实现了一套操作简便、适应多层次用户使用的战术想定编辑系统,为作战模拟推演及多方案作战效能分析对比,奠定了基础.     

Counterterrorism And Its Impact On Terror Support And Recruitment: Accounting For Backlash

This article presents a dynamic model in which counterterrorism policies have the potential to generate positive public support for terrorism via a backlash that may fuel terror recruitment. For an optimizing government aiming at maximizing security, this phenomenon produces a natural bound on proactive counterterror policy that is related to the dynamic path of conflict. Moreover, terror is a persistent phenomenon that requires patience on the part of the target government for optimal counterterror policies to be realized. Finally, the potential for backlash yields insights into the need for target governments to fight an information war to change public opinion regarding its own policies and the ultimate effect of terror attacks.     

DOES MILITARY EXPENDITURE MATTER FOR INFLATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH?

This paper sets up a monetary endogenous growth model, and uses it to explain the ambiguous linkage between the military burden and the inflation rate observed in existing empirical studies. It is found that an expansion in the military burden has an ambiguous effect on the inflation rate depending upon the relative extent of two conflicting forces. More specifically, if the increase in the marginal benefit from holding money exceeds (falls short of) the increase in the marginal product of private capital, the inflation rate will rise (fall) in response. Moreover, it is found that an increase in the military burden will stimulate the balanced growth rate, confirming Benoit’s famous empirical findings.     

Random disambiguation paths for traversing a mapped hazard field

We consider the problem of safely and swiftly navigating through a spatial arrangement of potential hazard detections in which each detection has associated with it a probability that the detection is indeed a true hazard. When in close proximity to a detection, we assume the ability—for a cost—to determine whether or not the hazard is real. Our approach to this problem involves a new object, the random disambiguation path (RDP), which is a curve‐valued random variable parametrized by a binary tree with particular properties. We prove an admissibility result showing that there is positive probability that the use of an RDP reduces the expected traversal length compared to the conventional shortest zero‐risk path, and we introduce a practically computable additive‐constant approximation to the optimal RDP. The theoretical considerations are complemented by simulation and example. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005     

Efficient generation of cycle time‐throughput curves through simulation and metamodeling

A cycle time‐throughput (CT‐TH) curve, which quantifies the relationship of long‐run average cycle time to throughput rate, plays an important role in strategic planning for manufacturing systems. In this paper, a nonlinear regression metamodel supported by queueing theory is developed to represent the underlying CT‐TH curve implied by a manufacturing simulation model. To estimate the model efficiently, simulation experiments are built up sequentially using a multistage procedure. Extensive numerical experiments are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed procedure. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

ON THE USE OF TERROR WEAPONS VERSUS MODERN WEAPON SYSTEMS IN AN ARMS RACE BETWEEN DEVELOPED AND LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Some of the most active arms races are taking place between developed and less developed countries. The inability of less developed countries to compete financially, as well as technologically, with developed countries may be forcing the former to acquire terror weapons (TWP). The Iran–Iraq war in the 1980s and the events of 9/11 proved that the use of TWP is no longer a mere threat; there are several organizations and countries that will not hesitate to use them. This study develops a model of resource allocation in an arms race between a developed country that is characterized by state‐of‐the‐art technology and high GDP, and a less developed country whose technological capability and GDP are much lower. The model is used to predict the optimal mix of weapons of the two countries that are engaged in the arms race. Applying the model to the arms race between Israel and Syria demonstrates its use.     

用EXCEL制作成绩单及成绩分析

文中给出了一个用Excel制作的成绩单模板,有了此模板,用户只需填入期末、平时成绩和学分等参数,即可得到各考生总评分、积分和全体考生期末考试成绩分布图、平均分、根方差等。     

EUROPEAN DEFENCE FIRMS: THE INFORMATION BARRIER ON PRIVATE FINANCE*

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, European governments adopted a hands‐off policy towards the defence industrial base, in an attempt to increase the sector’s efficiency and reactivity. In this context, one topical issue is how to motivate defence firms to apply for private rather than public finance. Since banks have no prior experience with European defence firms, a problem of asymmetric information may block this transition. The problem is analysed within the framework of a game between defence firms and banks. It is shown that the Bayesian Equilibrium might correspond to a situation where low‐risk firms prefer the state‐financed scheme; yet, in a perfect information set‐up, the same firms would apply for bank credit. In order to facilitate the transition to private finance, the government might decide to subsidize investors who agree on financing defence firms; the state aid should be made available during a transitory learning period.