INVESTIGATING THE RUBBLE OF SYRIA'S SECRET REACTOR

Damascus has severely impeded an investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into Syria's construction of a covert nuclear reactor, which was destroyed in a 2007 Israeli air strike. Pressing Damascus to cooperate with the inquiry is necessary to ascertain that there are no other undeclared activities in Syria, to determine the role of North Korea in the construction of the reactor, and to help prevent future clandestine efforts. With Damascus doing its best to avoid the investigation, securing Syrian cooperation will require adept diplomacy backed by the prospect of special inspections and, if necessary, a referral to the UN Security Council. The case of Syria's secret reactor highlights areas in which the IAEA needs buttressing, from the enhanced sharing of information, to reporting that is less political and more forthright. The case also illustrates the downside of politicizing IAEA investigations and supports the new director's apparent intent to return the agency to its core technical tasks.     

EXPORT CONTROLS AND INTERNATIONAL SAFEGUARDS

Export controls and international safeguards are central to ensuring international confidence in the peaceful uses of nuclear materials and technologies and to achieving adequate oversight on the transfer and use of nuclear materials, technology, and equipment required for the development of proliferation-sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. Although the independent strengths of export controls and international safeguards rely largely on universal adherence, there may be opportunities to exploit the shared strengths of these systems. This article provides background information on the separate evolution of export controls and international safeguards, considers how these two elements of the nonproliferation regime interact, and identifies some possible avenues that could, over time, lead to wholly integrated activities.     

THE HEALTH OF THE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION REGIME

How do we assess the health of international regimes? Many analysts have insisted recently that the nuclear nonproliferation regime is in urgent need of repair or that it should even be discarded because of its supposed ineffectiveness. However, it is essential that statements about the regime being in crisis be scrutinized for veracity and utility. While the spread of nuclear weapons poses an undeniable and serious threat to international security, a mistaken crisis mentality with respect to the regime could lead to rash attempts to alter it in unnecessary or ineffective ways or, at worst, to discard it completely. This paper returns to a theoretical framework that differentiates regimes, across both issue areas and time, to provide a more specified evaluation of regime health. By disaggregating the nuclear nonproliferation regime and assessing the individual and interactive health of multiple dimensions, a number of dimension-specific, regime-strengthening policy recommendations emerge.     

姿态角单次调整的固体运载火箭耗尽关机能量管理方法

固体运载火箭传统耗尽关机制导方法姿态角调整次数过多,不利于控制系统设计。提出了姿态角单次调整的耗尽关机能量管理策略:以火箭的待增视速度方向为基准,通过计算火箭所需耗费的视速度,优化选取火箭的初、末姿态角;火箭以恒定角速率从初姿态角变为末姿态角,达到末姿态角时保持恒定,直至耗尽关机。仿真结果表明,新方法在满足火箭的终端速度约束条件下,视速度模量耗费百分比超过30%,且姿态角单向调整,有利于控制系统的工程设计。     

Germany’s Answer to Standard Oil: The Continental Oil Company and Nazi Grand Strategy, 1940–1942

German grand strategy during World War II included making Europe independent of oil imported from sources controlled by the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR. The first step was to wrest control of oilfields. Producing and distributing the oil, however, required the creation of a company capable of replacing the evicted British, American, and Soviet suppliers. Therefore, in 1941, the Third Reich established the Continental Oil Company. Analysis of the company’s foundation and operations sheds light on the objectives of the Third Reich, including the postwar economic development of Axis Europe and the extension of German hegemony beyond the USSR into the Middle East.     

Ballistic impact properties of woven bamboo- woven E-glass- unsaturated polyester hybrid composites

In this study, a laminated woven bamboo/woven E glass/unsaturated polyester composite is developed to combat a ballistic impact from bullet under shooting test. The aim of this study is to understand the fundamental effects of the woven bamboo arrangement towards increasing ballistic resistance properties. The work focusses on the ballistic limit test known as NIJ V50, which qualifies materials to be registered for use in combat armor panels. The results show that the composites withstood 482.5 m/s ± 5 limit of bullet velocity, satisfying the NIJ test at level II. The findings give a strong sound basis decision to engineers whether or not green composites are qualified to replace synthetic composites in certain engineering applications.     

A Novel Framework for Safeguarding Naval Nuclear Material

ABSTRACT

The present international standard allows non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) to forego safeguards when nuclear material is used in a “non-proscribed military activity,” though no criteria have been established to determine when NNWS can remove naval nuclear material from safeguards. Though at present, only nuclear-armed states possess nuclear submarines, the global nuclear naval landscape may soon change with the advancement of Brazil's fledgling program and the possible precedent it would set for other NNWS. A framework is needed to shore up nuclear security and prevent nuclear material diversion from the nuclear naval sector. Proposed and existing nonproliferation frameworks, including a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and commitments through the nuclear security summits, are insufficient to close this loophole. A Naval Use Safeguards Agreement (NUSA), modeled after the Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency, would provide a framework to remove the opacity surrounding nuclear material in the naval sector. Designed for NNWS and encouraged as confidence-building measures for nuclear weapon states, NUSA would explicitly outline those stages in the naval nuclear fuel cycle where safeguards are to be applied and in what context. This viewpoint also further provides direction for targeted research and development in technical naval nuclear safeguards solutions.     

ENERGY FOR SECURITY:

Though North Korea agreed to partial denuclearization in February 2007, achieving that goal is at best a long way off. A natural gas pipeline linking all of Northeast Asia and promising energy and economic help could help convince the isolated nation to step away from its nuclear programs entirely; it could also provide the nonproliferation and energy security benefits that have eluded the region for so long. These economic benefits could motivate the other nations involved in the six-party talks to deal with North Korea more than if only nuclear reactors were offered.     

NUCLEAR BOMB SQUAD

Defusing Armageddon: Inside NEST, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad, by Jeffrey T. Richelson. W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 318 pages, $27.95.     

A new energy efficient management approach for wireless sensor networks in target tracking

This paper mainly studied the problem of energy conserving in wireless sensor networks for target tracking in defensing combats. Firstly, the structures of wireless sensor nodes and networks were illustrated; Secondly, the analysis of existing energy consuming in the sensing layer and its calculation method were provided to build the energy conserving objective function; What's more, the other two indicators in target tracking, including target detection probability and tracking accuracy, were combined to be regarded as the constraints of the energy conserving objective function. Fourthly, the three energy conserving approaches, containing optimizing the management scheme, prolonging the time interval between two adjacent observations, and transmitting the observations selectively, were introduced; In addition, the improved lion algorithm combined with the Logistic chaos sequence was proposed to obtain sensor management schemes. Finally, simulations had been made to prove the effectiveness of the proposed methods and algorithm.