THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

The armed conflict in the DRC has been characterised by appalling, widespread and systematic human rights violations. It varies from civil war to a war between national armies. Much of the conflict falls between these two categories due to the involvement of foreign troops in civil strife, as well as foreign rebel groups fighting their home government's troops but on Congolese soil. The most pressing need is to cease hostilities and address the humanitarian situation in the country. Questions of justice and accountability, and issues relating to the rule of law will have to be addressed soon in order to achieve a durable peace in the country and in the region. Since there are links between different conflicts in the region, a broader solution should preferably be found. However, this would further complicate an already difficult proposition. Efforts limited to the DRC would be more feasible and could lead to similar measures in other conflict ridden countries in the region. This essay therefore discusses the available processes for justice.     

Computational complexity of finding Pareto efficient outcomes for biobjective lot‐sizing models

In this article, we study a biobjective economic lot‐sizing problem with applications, among others, in green logistics. The first objective aims to minimize the total lot‐sizing costs including production and inventory holding costs, whereas the second one minimizes the maximum production and inventory block expenditure. We derive (almost) tight complexity results for the Pareto efficient outcome problem under nonspeculative lot‐sizing costs. First, we identify nontrivial problem classes for which this problem is polynomially solvable. Second, if we relax any of the parameter assumptions, we show that (except for one case) finding a single Pareto efficient outcome is an ‐hard task in general. Finally, we shed some light on the task of describing the Pareto frontier. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 386–402, 2014     

Exact algorithms for integrated facility location and production planning problems

We consider a class of facility location problems with a time dimension, which requires assigning every customer to a supply facility in each of a finite number of periods. Each facility must meet all assigned customer demand in every period at a minimum cost via its production and inventory decisions. We provide exact branch‐and‐price algorithms for this class of problems and several important variants. The corresponding pricing problem takes the form of an interesting class of production planning and order selection problems. This problem class requires selecting a set of orders that maximizes profit, defined as the revenue from selected orders minus production‐planning‐related costs incurred in fulfilling the selected orders. We provide polynomial‐time dynamic programming algorithms for this class of pricing problems, as well as for generalizations thereof. Computational testing indicates the advantage of our branch‐and‐price algorithm over various approaches that use commercial software packages. These tests also highlight the significant cost savings possible from integrating location with production and inventory decisions and demonstrate that the problem is rather insensitive to forecast errors associated with the demand streams. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011     

Economic ordering quantities for recoverable item inventory systems

We study a deterministic EOQ model of an inventory system with items that can be recovered (repaired/refurbished/remanufactured). We use different holding cost rates for manufactured and recovered items, and include disposal. We derive simple square root EOQ formulas for both the manufacturing batch quantity and the recovery batch quantity.     

On the roles of free play in army exercises and the Russians

The article outlines the essential role of free play elements in various types of exercises for the development of in-depth and practical military professionalism. It thereafter argues why such use of free play contradicts the military science founded Russian Way of War.     

Intelligence and military doctrine: paradox or oxymoron?

This article examines the evolution of the current British military joint intelligence doctrine. We argue that military intelligence doctrine is dogged by an intrinsic tension between the ethos and expectations of military doctrine and those of the professional practice of intelligence. We further argue not only that prior iterations of UK joint intelligence doctrine failed to effectively deal with this intelligence doctrine dilemma, but also that measures in the current doctrine to address this problem directly created their own problems. Moreover, as a result, otherwise sound innovations in the current UK intelligence doctrine have proven unsuitable to wider diffusion in more recent intelligence doctrine such as the new NATO intelligence doctrine which, otherwise, draws extensively on its British precursor.     

Honour,Comradeship and Betrayal: Lord Capel’s Sword

The sword which is the subject of this article and which will be referred to as the Capel sword, is a fine example of what has become known as an Irish basket-hilt. Whilst there are other examples in existence, what makes this sword unique and particularly important is the fact that it is known to have been owned by two important Royalist military leaders, Lord Arthur Capel and Sir John Owen. These two extraordinary men came from different backgrounds but their fate was linked through circumstances beyond their control. The story this sword tells is one of comradeship, loyalty, total belief in a cause, betrayal and ultimate sacrifice.