Approximation techniques in the solution of queueing problems

In the study of complex queueing systems, analysis techniques aimed al providing exact solutions become ineffective. Approximation techniques provide an attractive alternative in such cases. This paper gives an overview of different types of approximation techniques available in the literature and points out their relative merits. Also, the need for proper validation procedures of approximation techniques is emphasized.     

Reliability growth of repairable systems

This paper considers the problem of modeling the reliability of a repairable system or device that is experiencing reliability improvement. Such a situation arises when system failure modes are gradually being corrected by a test-fix-test-fix procedure, which may include design changes. A dynamic reliability model for this process is discussed and statistical techniques are derived for estimating the model parameters and for testing the goodness-of-fit to observed data. The reliability model analyzed was first proposed as a graphical technique known as Duane plots, but can also be viewed as a nonhomogeneous Poisson process with a particular mean value function.     

Influences on threat assessment in a military context

The anchoring effect is a well-studied subject. This article connects the effect with the rules-in-use within a military intelligence institution. Particularly the rules-in-use that dictate that an analyst takes his or hers starting point from recently conducted assessments of the specific area or threat. The threat assessment as well as the written assessment were affected. The results show that officers have an aversion to lower a previous given threat assessment. This gives that to understand risk assessment we not only need to understand the methods used, we also need to understand the institutions in which they are used. This is especially relevant for military intelligence as the assessments are conducted in an environment of high uncertainty.     

What we know about HIV and AIDS in the armed forces in Southern Africa

This paper is a summary of some of the key findings of an eighteen-month MilAIDS research project that focused on how militaries in the Southern African countries of Botswana, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe had coped with the impact of the HIV epidemic since it had been identified amongst the ranks in the 1980s. As a result, there is a single major source for citation, which is ‘The enemy within: Southern African militaries' quarter-century battle with HIV and AIDS’. The summary does, however, contain other information related to developments that have emerged since the completion of the larger study, bringing us up to date with the contemporary discourse in the field.

The purpose of highlighting some of the elements in the larger study is twofold: to distil its main findings for easier consumption and to draw our attention to salient factors that are considered worthy of replication. A second objective of this brief paper is of course to whet readers' appetite to read the more detailed work referred to above.     

“GOOD COP/BAD COP” AS A MODEL FOR NONPROLIFERATION DIPLOMACY TOWARD NORTH KOREA AND IRAN

Scholarly and popular literature in the recent past has framed nonproliferation diplomacy toward both Iran and North Korea as an example of “good cop/bad cop,” a social-psychological strategy borrowed from law enforcement to describe a process for forcing a confession by subjecting a target to stressful emotional contrast. This article examines those two cases, roughly covering the period since 2003, when the most recent attempts to deal with the Iranian and North Korean proliferation threats began, in light of criteria for employment of the good cop/bad cop strategy. There is some evidence that within the framework of the six-party talks with North Korea and within the framework of the EU-3-U.S. diplomacy toward Iran, the players seeking nonproliferation have adopted good cop/bad cop roles to that end. The article concludes, however, that while there are similarities to the interrogation room technique, the complexity of the international political environment as compared to the interrogation room has prevented the states involved from successfully adopting or effectively exploiting good and bad cop roles. Substantial and exploitable differences of interest among them, and the availability of alternative “escape routes” for the target state, raise serious questions about the applicability of the good cop/bad cop strategy to these two nonproliferation cases, and even about its applicability in future nonproliferation challenges.     

UK firms’ experience and perceptions of defence offsets: Survey results 1

Offsets are a growing feature of international trade in defence equipment. This article assesses the economics of offsets and outlines UK offsets policy. There is a lack of empirical work in the field and the article presents the results of a survey of UK firms’ experience of their involvement in offsets against UK imports of defence equipment. There is also a case study of the AWACS offset programme and an evaluation of policy implications.     

Prices and quantities in the arms trade*

There are two main sources of information about the Arms Trade, SIPRI and ACDA. These two sources give very different pictures of the evolution of the market, primarily because their measures are designed to capture conceptually different features. Although they are both expressed in constant dollars, the SIPRI series is designed to be a volume index of physical transfers, the ACDA series a constant price value index. Thus in principle, the ratio of the ACDA to SIPRI series should provide an implicit price index of arms; though in practice there are many measurement problems. In this paper, we discuss the basis of these indices and show that the ratio, the implicit price, not only looks plausible in the light of the evolution of the market, but has a significant negative effect on the demand for arms imports in an econometric equation.