Resilience as the EU Global Strategy’s new leitmotif: pragmatic,problematic or promising?

A striking difference between the EU’s 2016 Global Strategy and its 2003 predecessor is the ubiquity of resilience as a new leitmotif, understood as the ability of states and societies to reform, thus withstanding and recovering from internal and external crisis. Resilience provides a middle ground between over-ambitious liberal peace-building and under-ambitious stability, (re)directs attention to local resources and practices, and is ambiguous enough to be acceptable to everyone. The Global Strategy’s leitmotif is an example of the rise and spread of resilience in international discourses about crisis management and humanitarian emergencies. Although there are risks inherent to the way in which resilience reframes risks and crises, its added value lies in its power as convening concept, opening up international organizations to new ways of thinking and working, and providing a common ground for engagement.     

AFRICA'S NEW SECURITY THREAT

HIV/AIDS is not a traditional security threat but the consequences are just as serious. That it is non-violent serves only to disguise its devastation. HIV/AIDS overwhelms health services, shortens lives, destabilises governments and disrupts societies; sometimes to the extent that major conflict ensues. The extent of the virus is far more serious than initially anticipated. Infection rates in Southern Africa indicate that huge numbers of people will die over the next 10 years, affecting the basic functioning of society. The ability to produce and distribute food will be reduced. The skills and human resources needed for effective government will become even more scarce. Political instability may result in complex humanitarian emergencies and crime; neither of which can be addressed without effective government. While the populations of Southern Africa have proved resilient in the past, it is certain that the virus will extract a huge cost from the people of the region in the future.     

Military Spending,Conflict and External Debt in Sub-Saharan Africa

The damaging economic effects of the debt crises on Africa in the late 1980s encouraged considerable research on the determinants of external debt in developing economies. Although sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) debt was cut by two-thirds by 2008, through two debt relief programmes, debt in the region has since been rising at an increasingly rapid pace. This study provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of external debt in SSA over the period 1960–2016, using dynamic panel methods. It also considers two potentially important factors that have received relatively little attention. One is military spending, rarely considered, despite a number of well-publicised scandals over the procurement of unnecessary and expensive high-tech weapons systems. A second, is the possibility that the countries studied have been involved in conflict. The empirical results point to a positive impact of military spending on external debt, but with some evidence of heterogeneity across the countries. Furthermore, findings indicate that the positive effect of military expenditure on debt becomes more marked in countries that have been affected by conflict. These results imply that policies to improve security and reduce military spending could be beneficial in reducing external debt and, potentially, improving economic performance in the region.     

The next decade of logistics research

Pathbreaking logistics research over the next 10 years will focus on systems problems. Whereas past research generally has taken a “bottom-up” approach, future investigations are likely to pursue a “top-down” philosophy. Specifically, attention will concentrate on diagnosis of systems' improvement potentials; easy-to-use analytic approaches, inherently approximative, will be devised for quickly ascertaining whether a complex operating system can be substantially and effectively improved. Theories to assist in overall systems design, particularly the setting of boundaries and buffers among systems components, will be developed. At the same time, techniques for accurately forecasting future systems performance will be investigated. Underlying such research will be efforts to gain better understanding of management information requirements, including approaches for monitoring systems performance and providing early warning detection of systems degradation Improved management information systems will have to be coupled with appropriate design of managerial organizations and assignment of decision making responsibilities. Important avenues of research will he development of robust approaches, that is, both mathematical techniques and organizational approaches that are not too adversely affected by limited data, a changing environment, and human frailly. Finally, critical research will be directed at the implementation process, especially the interaction among initiation, design, testing and ultimate adoption This prognosis will explore the above themes in the context of large-scale, complex systems. The decision areas will encompass inventory replenishment, multiechelon hierarchies for stockage and maintenance, procurement, transportation, scheduling, facilities planning, budgeting, reliability and personnel management.     

大型地下建筑商业区域设置方式及其消防安全评估

大型地下公共建筑的出现带动了地下商业的发展,在地下公共建筑内部和周边设置商业设施的情况已不断出现。该类地下商业设施的设置增加了公共建筑的火灾危险性,必须限制商业设置方式以降低火灾风险。针对地下商业的设计难点,总结提出诸如防火舱、防火隔离区、＂安全岛＂等多种商业设置方式,分析了其用于地下公共建筑内部及周边商业区域的火灾控制的安全性,从而保障人员的安全。     

论消防部队在抢险救援中的作用及发展趋势

从消防部队参与社会抢险救援的可行性分析入手,就抢险救援任务类型、模式、处置原则等对消防部队在救援中的影响及救援面临的具体问题进行分析,对消防部队在未来社会抢险救援中多元化的发展趋势进行探讨,并提出拓展消防部队社会应急救援功能的一些建议。     

基于复杂适应系统理论的一体化联合作战研究

复杂适应系统理论为我们研究军事系统提供了崭新的视角,避免了传统的基于还原论方法研究军事系统机械分隔忽略系统要素之间相互作用的问题,可以得到军事系统全面准确的认识,对于深入研究一体化联合作战的本质内涵、基本特征和主要方法,尽快形成一体化联合作战的理论体系具有重要意义。文章通过分析军事系统特点得出军事系统是复杂适应系统的结论,在此基础上,从复杂适应系统理论的角度分析了一体化联合作战的内涵及提高军事系统一体化联合作战能力需要重点解决的四个问题。     

Human security in pastoralist areas of Eastern Africa

Abstract

Pastoralist groups in Eastern Africa are extremely vulnerable as a result of inter-community conflicts, the harsh terrain, and unfavourable climatic conditions. They have been neglected by successive regimes on matters of socio-economic development. At present pastoralist areas in Eastern Africa have the lowest literacy rates and insufficient health care facilities. This article interrogates the historical relationship between governments, humanitarian groups and pastoralists. It notes with great concern that pastoralists have been branded as hunger-stricken populations with insignificant economic potential that can be harnessed from their day-to-day livelihood. They are treated as sedentary populations who need a constant supply of relief food to keep going. In order to reverse these misconceptions, the article places emphasis on mitigating the threats of intra-community conflicts, diseases and natural disasters through investment in social schemes and infrastructure in order to open up the areas for service provision. Indeed, for a majority of the pastoralists, insecurity comes not so much from traditional security concerns, but from human insecurity concerns about their survival, preservation of their lifestyle and well-being in a day-to-day context.     

从突发公共卫生事件角度思考新时代后勤保障工作

2019年年底,一场突如其来的新型冠状病毒肺炎疫情在全国爆发,中华民族的复兴之路和中国人民的幸福生活都面临着严峻的考验和挑战。这次疫情使人们对公共卫生突发事件有了更清醒的认识,完善重大疫情应急响应机制成为今后公共安全必须加强的一项重要工作。此次的公共卫生事件具有显著的突发性、广泛性和群体性,与战时后勤保障环境具有相似性,为深入研究后勤保障工作提供了经典的现实案例。本文借鉴抗击疫情经验教训分析军队后勤保障工作,结合大数据、物联网和人工智能等高新技术实践经验,从后勤指挥、战场感知、物资配送和网络通信等多个方面提出新时代后勤保障建设的思路和方法,对未来加强新时代后勤保障工作具有一定的借鉴及参考意义。     

Health Insurance,Health Conditions,and Veteran Health Care Utilization

Abstract

The utilization of health care services by veterans has received much attention in recent years. However, the impact of the large array of factors affecting the veterans’ demand for health care services remains understudied. These factors include individual socio-demographic and economic characteristics, the availability of various sources of health insurance, and the prevalence of medical conditions. We use public data to analyze how veterans’ utilization of health care services varies with these factors. We also analyze how the reliance on VA services varies when alternative sources of health insurance are available to veterans. Based on the estimated relationships, we use a micro-simulation model to forecast future health care utilization, both inside and outside of VA.     

Preserving defense technologies: A strategy for economic conversion†

This paper presents a model for converting legacy defense production facilities into private‐sector economic resources. Specifically, this paper will examine as a case study the first successful conversion of a former U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons production installation, including reasons for its success, its costs and benefits, and lessons for public policy. It is envisioned that this model may be useful for mitigating local economic hardship resulting from defense “downsizing” and for privatizing production capacities critical for national defense.     

边检机关在处置口岸突发事件中的作用

口岸突发事件,是指在出入境口岸限定区域突然发生的危害社会治安、损害人民生命财产安全和国家利益的事件。及时、有效地预防和处置口岸突发事件,对于维护国家的主权和领土完整,保证人民的生命财产不受侵害,保护出入境人员和交通工具的安全,维持口岸的正常出入境秩序,促进口岸的发展具有重要意义。出入境边防检查机关是否能够迅速、稳妥地处置口岸突发事件,将口岸突发事件的不良结果降到最低,有着责无旁贷和不可替代的作用。     

Gender,feminism and food studies

Policy research and scholarship on food has rapidly increased in recent decades. The attention to ‘gender' within this work appears to signal important practical and academic efforts to mainstream gendered understandings of food consumption, distribution and production into expansive conceptualisations of human security. This article argues that the gender-related work on food has wide-ranging and often troubling political and theoretical foundations and implications. Often growing out of knowledge regimes for managing social crises and advancing neo-liberal solutions, much gender and food security work provides limited interventions into mainstream gender-blind work on the nexus of power struggles, food resources and globalisation. A careful analysis of knowledge production about gender and food is therefore crucial to understanding how and why feminist food studies often transcends and challenges dominant forms of scholarship and research on food security. This article's critical assessment of what food security studies in South Africa has entailed at the regional level and in global terms also focuses on the methodological and theoretical feminist interventions that can stimulate rigorous conceptual, research and practical attention to what has come to be understood as food sovereignty.     

建筑消防设施施工中产生隐患研究

建筑消防设施施工质量的好坏,直接关系到消防设施能否正常运行。从消防给水管网、室内外消火栓系统、自动喷水灭火系统几个方面探讨了建筑消防工程施工中存在的问题,并分析了存在问题的原因,从监督管理、施工现场检查、消防设施检验中介机构作用的发挥、从业人员培训等方面提出预防建筑消防设施施工中产生隐患的措施。     

Conflict management in the Central African Republic: making genocide prevention work

This commentary analyses the international response to the crisis that struck the Central African Republic (CAR) in early December 2013. It examines three intertwined dimensions defining the courses of action available to policymakers dealing with pre-genocidal crises: the politics and institutional manoeuvring shaping the United Nations (UN) Security Council's decision to authorise an enforcement mission without deploying ‘blue helmets’ on the ground; the operational complexities involved in launching rapid reaction forces; and the interdependent logics between peacebuilding and atrocity prevention. The author argues that there are three ways for the UN Secretariat to ensure a more effective response to CAR-type situations: generating political will to respond swiftly to deteriorating crises leading to widespread abuses of human rights by advancing the concept of Responsibility to Protect as a core component of states' national interests; developing strategic frameworks for the deployment of multi-plural missions equipped to avert the actual or potential threat of atrocities; and developing joint early warning and scenario planning between peacebuilding and atrocity prevention agencies.     

An extensible modeling framework for dynamic reassignment and rerouting in cooperative airborne operations

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), increasingly vital to the success of military operations, operate in a complex and dynamic environment, sometimes in concert with manned aircraft. We present an extensible modeling framework for the solution to the dynamic resource management (DRM) problem, where airborne resources must be reassigned to time‐sensitive tasks in response to changes in battlespace conditions. The DRM problem is characterized by diverse tasks with time windows, heterogeneous resources with fuel‐ and payload‐capacity limitations, and multiple competing objectives. We propose an integer linear programing formulation for this problem, where mathematical feasibility is guaranteed. Although motivated by airborne military operations, the proposed general modeling framework is applicable to a wide array of settings, such as disaster relief operations. Additionally, land‐ or water‐based operations may be modeled within this framework, as well as any combination of manned and unmanned vehicles. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2010     

A novel modeling approach for express package carrier planning

Express package carrier networks have large numbers of heavily‐interconnected and tightly‐constrained resources, making the planning process difficult. A decision made in one area of the network can impact virtually any other area as well. Mathematical programming therefore seems like a logical approach to solving such problems, taking into account all of these interactions. The tight time windows and nonlinear cost functions of these systems, however, often make traditional approaches such as multicommodity flow formulations intractable. This is due to both the large number of constraints and the weakness of the linear programming (LP) relaxations arising in these formulations. To overcome these obstacles, we propose a model in which variables represent combinations of loads and their corresponding routings, rather than assigning individual loads to individual arcs in the network. In doing so, we incorporate much of the problem complexity implicitly within the variable definition, rather than explicitly within the constraints. This approach enables us to linearize the cost structure, strengthen the LP relaxation of the formulation, and drastically reduce the number of constraints. In addition, it greatly facilitates the inclusion of other stages of the (typically decomposed) planning process. We show how the use of templates, in place of traditional delayed column generation, allows us to identify promising candidate variables, ensuring high‐quality solutions in reasonable run times while also enabling the inclusion of additional operational considerations that would be difficult if not impossible to capture in a traditional approach. Computational results are presented using data from a major international package carrier. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

Optimal material control in an assembly system with component commonality

Allocation of scarce common components to finished product orders is central to the performance of assembly systems. Analysis of these systems is complex, however, when the product master schedule is subject to uncertainty. In this paper, we analyze the cost—service performance of a component inventory system with correlated finished product demands, where component allocation is based on a fair shares method. Such issuing policies are used commonly in practice. We quantify the impact of component stocking policies on finished product delays due to component shortages and on product order completion rates. These results are used to determine optimal base stock levels for components, subject to constraints on finished product service (order completion rates). Our methodology can help managers of assembly systems to (1) understand the impact of their inventory management decisions on customer service, (2) achieve cost reductions by optimizing their inventory investments, and (3) evaluate supplier performance and negotiate contracts by quantifying the effect of delivery lead times on costs and customer service. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48:409–429, 2001     

惰性气体灭火系统减压孔板设计计算方法研究

选择DN40及其三种规格孔径的IG100惰性气体灭火系统减压孔板为研究对象,采用fluent数值计算软件进行计算,得到压比-流量特性曲线及计算公式,在设计计算时可直接根据压比-流量特性曲线选择合理的减压装置,为此类设计提出了一种新的计算研究手段。     

Influence without power? Reframing British concepts of military intervention after 10 years of counterinsurgency

British attitudes towards military intervention following the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have undergone what appears to be considerable change. Parliament has voted against the use of Britain's armed forces in Syria and the public are unenthused by overseas engagement. Conscious of the costs and the challenges posed by the use of British military power the government has been busy revamping the way it approaches crises overseas. The result is a set of policies that apparently heralds a new direction in foreign policy. This new direction is encapsulated in the Building Stability Overseas Strategy (BSOS) and the more recent International Defence Engagement Strategy (IDES). Both BSOS and IDES set out the basis for avoiding major deployments to overseas conflict and instead refocuses effort on defence diplomacy, working with and through overseas governments and partners, early warning, pre-conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction. Developing a number of themes that reach from across the Cold War to more contemporary discussions of British strategy, the goal of this special edition is to take into account a number of perspectives that place BSOS and IDES in their historical and strategic context. These papers suggest that using defence diplomacy is and will remain an extremely imprecise lever that needs to be carefully managed if it is to remain a democratically accountable tool of foreign policy.