What Is Known About Defence Research And Development Spill-Overs?

This article surveys the body of available evidence regarding the spill-over effects of defence R&D. It reviews the routes through which defence R&D spills over to the economy with positive externalities – in terms of new products, technologies or processes; the barriers that impede or block such a process; potential negative repercussions, and the measure of such effects. The main conclusion is that the uncertainty of these effects, and the inaccurate appraisal of their value, hardly supports informed decisions concerning defence R&D policies.     

A survey of performance issues in defence innovation

This article reviews innovation processes in defence. It analyses the way and the context under which these processes are carried out. The article covers the features of defence goods with impact on innovation, the development of a new good, the institutional arrangements that support these processes and the effect of innovation on industrial market. The analysis helps to identify the causes of facts observed in practice, such as poor performance in terms of product quality, cost or delivery time, as well as to assess potential remedies. Some policy implications, which can be derived from this analysis, are finally outlined.     

Approximating nondominated sets in continuous multiobjective optimization problems

Many important problems in Operations Research and Statistics require the computation of nondominated (or Pareto or efficient) sets. This task may be currently undertaken efficiently for discrete sets of alternatives or for continuous sets under special and fairly tight structural conditions. Under more general continuous settings, parametric characterisations of the nondominated set, for example through convex combinations of the objective functions or ε‐constrained problems, or discretizations‐based approaches, pose several problems. In this paper, the lack of a general approach to approximate the nondominated set in continuous multiobjective problems is addressed. Our simulation‐based procedure only requires to sample from the set of alternatives and check whether an alternative dominates another. Stopping rules, efficient sampling schemes, and procedures to check for dominance are proposed. A continuous approximation to the nondominated set is obtained by fitting a surface through the points of a discrete approximation, using a local (robust) regression method. Other actions like clustering and projecting points onto the frontier are required in nonconvex feasible regions and nonconnected Pareto sets. In a sense, our method may be seen as an evolutionary algorithm with a variable population size. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

A characterization of optimal base‐stock levels for a multistage serial supply chain

In this article, we present a multistage model to optimize inventory control decisions under stochastic demand and continuous review. We first formulate the general problem for continuous stages and use a decomposition solution approach: since it is never optimal to let orders cross, the general problem can be broken into a set of single‐unit subproblems that can be solved in a sequential fashion. These subproblems are optimal control problems for which a differential equation must be solved. This can be done easily by recursively identifying coefficients and performing a line search. The methodology is then extended to a discrete number of stages and allows us to compute the optimal solution in an efficient manner, with a competitive complexity. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 32–46, 2016     

A PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS OF THE SECURITY AND DEFENCE TECHNOLOGICAL AND INDUSTRIAL BASE IN SPAIN

This study analyses the performance of the productivity of the main industrial subsectors composing the security and defence technological and industrial base (SDTIB) in Spain from 1996 to 2009. Accordingly, we have used the non-parametric data envelopment analysis and bootstrapping techniques to compute Malmquist productivity indexes that allow us to split productivity growth into efficiency change and technical progress. The results obtained show productivity improvement in the SDTIB as a whole due mainly to advances in technology and to a lesser extent to the contribution of technical efficiency. The bootstrap approach yields further evidence, as for many cases, productivity growth or decline, is not statistically significant. This is the first time a study of this kind has been carried out on the production process of this sector in Spain.     

Adaptive phasefield modelling of crack propagation in orthotropic functionally graded materials

In this work, we extend the recently proposed adaptive phase field method to model fracture in orthotropic functionally graded materials (FGMs). A recovery type error indicator combined with quadtree decomposition is employed for adaptive mesh refinement. The proposed approach is capable of capturing the fracture process with a localized mesh refinement that provides notable gains in computational efficiency. The implementation is validated against experimental data and other nu-merical experiments on orthotropic materials with different material orientations. The results reveal an increase in the stiffness and the maximum force with increasing material orientation angle. The study is then extended to the analysis of orthotropic FGMs. It is observed that, if the gradation in fracture properties is neglected, the material gradient plays a secondary role, with the fracture behaviour being dominated by the orthotropy of the material. However, when the toughness increases along the crack propagation path, a substantial gain in fracture resistance is observed.     

The Gravity of Arms

The aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of international arms transfers in a gravity model framework. By distinguishing between the decision to export arms (extensive margin) and the value of the arms exported (intensive margin), while also considering its interdependence, is what differentiates this paper from previous research. A theoretically justified gravity model of trade augmented with political and security motives is estimated using a two-stage panel data approach for 104 exporting countries over the period from 1950 to 2007. In addition to the usual gravity variables related to the economic mass of the trading countries and the trade cost factors, the model is extended with political and security factors. The level of democracy in both trading partners, political differences between trading partners and voting similarity with the United States in the UN General Assembly of the countries engaged in trade are the main political factors, whereas the existence of conflicts, military pacts, and embargoes are taken as security motives. The key result indicates that both political and security motives are an important determinant of an arms trade, but their effects on the extensive margin of exports (the decision to order a transfer) differs from their effect on the intensive margin (average value of exports). Moreover, the relative importance of the factors under study has changed since 1989. In the post-cold war period, countries that are less democratic are more likely to export arms, military pacts are less relevant and embargoes play a role.