A continuous‐time strategic capacity planning model

Capacity planning decisions affect a significant portion of future revenue. In the semiconductor industry, they need to be made in the presence of both highly volatile demand and long capacity installation lead‐times. In contrast to traditional discrete‐time models, we present a continuous‐time stochastic programming model for multiple resource types and product families. We show how this approach can solve capacity planning problems of reasonable size and complexity with provable efficiency. This is achieved by an application of the divide‐and‐conquer algorithm, convexity, submodularity, and the open‐pit mining problem. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

可持续发展理论的发展演革及现实意义

可持续发展是指满足当代人的需要 ,又不对后代人满足其需要构成威胁的发展。可持续发展 ,既强调了当前发展的协调性 ,又强调了长远发展的持续性 ;既强调了人口、资源、环境的相互协调 ,又强调了经济发展、生态平衡和社会进步的相互协调。可持续发展没有一成不变的模式 ,各地区要从实际出发 ,找出一条适合自己的可持续发展道路。因此 ,在以畜牧业为基本经济形态的少数民族地区———内蒙古边境地区 ,实施人口与产业可持续发展战略时 ,要因地制宜 ,发挥地区优势     

中国超算技术赶超发展模式探析

超级计算是解决国家安全、经济建设、科学进步、社会发展和国防建设等领域重大挑战性问题的重要手段,是各国科技发展中必争的战略制高点。通过调查和实证,重点分析了中国超算技术追赶中政府的引导作用和企业作为市场主体的作用。面向领域的战略需求,在财政能力非常有限的情况下,政府通过长期资助,形成厚实的知识和人才队伍积累;面向科技创新,政府主导全国的集群创新实现中国超算登顶,并建设国家超算基础设施;面向全面发展,积极发展超算应用,并按照企业是市场主体的原则,通过企业参与超算竞争研制,实现技术溢出和市场突破。超算技术发展模式可以为其他高技术领域发展提供借鉴经验。     

The comparison of military budgets of the eastern and central European countries

The evolutions of military expenditures in Eastern and Central European countries are difficult to estimate and to compare, due to the lack of available data for these states. Some results of the extent of cuts in defence spending since 1990 are interesting to interpret, but it is difficult for econometricians to use these figures even carefully. The structures of national military expenditure have been modified to the detriment of arms equipment. Thus, the disarmament process needs a special analysis of the arms industry.     

THE EFFECTS OF THE WORLD DEFENSE INDUSTRY AND US MILITARY AID TO ISRAEL ON THE ISRAELI DEFENSE INDUSTRY: A DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCTS MODEL

This paper models the interactions between the defense industry market structure and the defense needs of Israel, the USA and Western Europe, which produce several heterogeneous defense goods. The model specifies that the defense industries of the US and Europe are ‘large’ while that of Israel is ‘small’. The US military aid to Israel is also an integral part of the model. The results show that net defense costs of Israel are minimal when the number of its defense firms is one. The model predicts that an increase in US military aid reduces Israel’s government expenditure, its defense industry’s profits and its net defense costs.     

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT: TRENDS IN COST AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR UK AEROSPACE

This paper, intended to stimulate debate, suggests that we are at a turning point in the history of the UK military aerospace industry. It argues that there is urgent need for a fresh vision as to how the UK military aerospace industry can both prosper and make its maximum contribution to the defence of Britain. Further, the resulting plans and policies must emphasise the robustness of defence capabilities in a future in which the only thing we can be certain is that it will be very different from the present – especially whenever defence most matters.     

OPTING OUT OF THE IRON TRIANGLE

Between the 1960s and the 1990s, the US chemical industry went from lobbying against the Geneva Protocol and promoting increased funding for chemical warfare to refusing to produce binary chemical weapons and assisting with the negotiations of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)—even though the treaty included provisions that could be costly to industry. What happened in those thirty years to make the US chemical industry reverse its position on chemical weapons? This article argues these changes were largely caused by the chemical industry's desire to reform the negative public image it had acquired due to its involvement in the Agent Orange scandal and other high-profile incidents during the 1970s and 1980s. The chemical industry's assistance with CWC negotiations may be explained after an examination of the US public policy literature, which argues that industry will support apparently costly regulations if doing so helps it repair a damaged public image and ensures greater profits in the long run.     

Country survey IX: Spain

From the early 1980s Spain embarked on a wide‐ranging process of military reform, from organisational changes to defence industrial policies. Investment in military equipment was set to grow, policies were drawn up to foster the domestic defence industrial base, defence R&D rocketed, and Spain joined a myriad of international arms development programmes. Yet, by 1991 the process of reform had run out of steam. Expenditure planning proved unreliable, and firms suffered from sharp cutbacks in procurement expenditure. The model of defence industrial growth sketched in the mid‐1980s had floundered. The Spanish case provides an example of how the quest to maximise defence procurement from domestic sources can fall victim to industrial and budgetary constraints. Spanish defence producers are now becoming increasingly intertwined with foreign defence companies.     

The structure of the defense industry and the security needs of the country: a differentiated products model

This paper models the interactions between the defense needs of the USA and Western Europe, which produce several heterogeneous defense goods, and the defense industry market structure. The results show that net defense costs of the USA and Europe are lower when the number of defense firms in each arms‐producing country is small and when the world prices of the defense goods are high. The model predicts that the increase in world prices will crowd‐out countries in the developing world from the market for modern weapon systems and may force them to develop and use ‘cheap and dirty’ weapon systems.     

Chains,networks and shifting paradigms: the UK defence industry supply system

Industrial supply chains have emerged as the focus of much economic and business research over the previous decade and defence is no exception. This paper reviews contributions made to the body of knowledge in this field with particular attention given to primary research undertaken on the UK defence industrial supply system. In doing so, the author assesses the quantity and quality of knowledge available to researchers, analysts and policy makers. There have been a number of valuable contributions to the literature and this paper reveals a subject that is extremely complicated, dynamic and yet under‐researched. It is suggested that it may well be this complexity and dynamism, coupled with difficulty in accessing data, that has inhibited research development in this field. Defence industry supply systems are repeatedly referred to as ‘chains’; however, primary research consistently suggests this is a misnomer – the author concludes that future analysis of the UK defence sector must embrace directly the economics of networks if understanding of the same is to progress and industrial ‘invisibility’ is to be avoided.