An alliance between Cyprus and Greece: assessing its partners’ relative security contribution

The issue that this paper tackles is the assessment of the relative security benefits that Cyprus and Greece derive in the context of their cooperation on defence matters. This form of cooperation, known as the ‘Integrated Defence Space Doctrine’, aims at defending their interests in the Aegean Sea and the broader East Mediterranean theatre. The paper relies heavily on earlier research on this topic, which deals with the Greek–Cypriot alliance facing an arms race against Turkey, and uses a coefficient especially designed to assess the optimal levels of security and the associated defence expenditure of the two allies. A comparison of the relative security coefficient values for the two allies suggests that the security benefit that Greece derives thanks to its alliance with Cyprus exceeds the corresponding Cypriot benefit by far. Given the importance assigned to human resources by this index, in conjunction with the demographic problems of Greece, this conclusion justifies the recent Greek defence policy revision, emphasizing quality, capital equipment and flexibility of forces. This revision aims at satisfying the security requirements of the alliance and the increasing demands of an arms race against Turkey.     

Evasion costs and the theory Of conscription

This paper examines the trade and military relationship between two countries which have a common military enemy. The paper explains how the former two countries, which are military allies and trading partners, share the burden of defence against the third country. It demonstrates how the defence production of a country may hurt its ally because the latter country's terms of trade can be deteriorated. Whether or not a smaller ally spends less on defence is analyzed. Also analyzed is the effects of the reactions of the enemy country on the trade between the two allies and their welfare.     

Strategic Defense And Attack For Series And Parallel Reliability Systems: Rejoinder

In our original comment, we showed that Hausken's characterization of Nash equilibrium is invalid for much of the parameter space examined and provided necessary conditions for his solution to hold. Most of the comments in his reply are either tangential or irrelevant. However, several of the claims made in the reply reveal continuing misunderstandings and gaps in his understanding. In this rejoinder, we briefly clarify the fundamental issues.     

Military Expenditure,Endogeneity and Economic Growth

Abstract

While not always a concern for the general economic growth literature, the debate over the effects of military spending on growth continues to develop, with no consensus, but a deepening understanding of the limitations of previous work. One important issue that has not been adequately dealt with is the endogeneity of military spending in the growth equation, mainly because of the difficulty of finding any variables that would make adequate instruments. This paper considers this issue, using an endogenous growth model estimated on a large sample of 109 non-high-income countries for the period 1998–2012. The empirical analysis is framed within an instrumental variable setting that exploits the increase in military spending that occurs when unrest in a country escalates to turmoil. The estimation results show that endogeneity arising from reverse causality is a crucial issue, with the instrumental variable estimates providing a larger significant negative effect of military spending on growth than OLS would. This result is found to be robust to different sources of heterogeneity and different time periods.     

Dundee-made harpoon gun associated with H. M. S. Challenger

Attention is drawn to the existence of a harpoon-gun putatively from H. M. S. Challenger, a ship whose three-and-a-half-year circumnavigation of the globe (1872–1876), marked the beginning of the science of oceanography. The harpoon gun in question was made by Dundee shipsmith and harpoon-gun maker, David Neave. Only a few other examples of his work are known to exist and this example with a Remington rolling-block action is unusual for a British harpoon gun. It is proposed that it came to Millport's Marine Station via links Sir John Murray (1841–1914) had with the Marine Biological Association of the West of Scotland.     

A note on a variance bound for the multinomial and the negative multinomial distribution

We prove a Chernoff‐type upper variance bound for the multinomial and the negative multinomial distribution. An application is also given.Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 179–183, 2014     

基于粒子群算法的H_∞混合灵敏度控制研究

针对步进电机存在负载摄动和失步超步问题,提出了一种基于粒子群优化算法的混合灵敏度设计方法。在H∞混合灵敏度约束下,采用粒子群算法寻找能够反映系统特性的适应度函数最优值,在搜索到合适的加权阵基础上,利用Matlab得到了H∞最优控制器,并利用优化控制器对步进电机进行控制仿真实验。实验结果表明：该系统具有响应快速平稳、抗负载扰动强等特点。     

基于动力学和扩散分段控制的Mg/H2O反应模型及数值分析

为了数值研究宽广温度范围内Mg/H2O的反应特性,分别建立了考虑部分MgO在液滴表面凝聚的Mg/H2O扩散燃烧模型和基于Arrhenius公式的Mg/H2O反应动力学模型.数值研究了Mg/H2O反应速率在扩散控制和化学动力学控制下随反应条件变化的规律.研究结果表明,Mg液滴扩散燃烧时间计算结果与文献值相符;提高温度和水...     

时变线性微分方程的稳定性

研究了二维和三维时变线性微分方程的稳定性 ,给出了利用系数直接判定稳定性的若干结论     

Implementing sustainable mission command in the Hellenic Army

The modern Mission Command philosophy in military operations originated with the German concept of Auftragstaktik (mission tactics). It emphasizes in general terms the exercise of disciplined initiatives by subordinates during the execution of mission-type orders in the course of military operations that are conducted within the overall intent of a commander. The present paper contains an overview of the historical evolution of the mission command concept and its application. The paper compares the mission command concept with the detailed or linear method of command. This paper focuses on the relevance of the mission command concept for the Hellenic Land Forces (HLF) in Greece. The paper provides a historical account on when and where mission command was successfully exercised by the Hellenic Armed Forces in the modern military history of Greece. The authors support the premise that the mission command concept is essential for safeguarding Greek national security in the current environment of evolving symmetric and asymmetric threats, and in meeting operational challenges in a diverse and difficult terrain. The paper examines the cultural reasons that have impeded the adoption of the mission command concept within the HLF and recommends a three-phase model for its permanent implementation.