Book reviews

Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America's Destiny. By Joshua Muravchik, American Enterprise Institute (1991) ISSN 0–8447–3734–8. $12.95.

Generals in the Palacio. By Roderick Ai Camp. Oxford University Press, (1992), ISBN 0–19–507300–2, £45.

L'Armement en France. Genèse, Ampleur et Coût d'une Industrie By François Chesnais and Claude Serfati, Editions Nathan, Collection Economie/Sciences Sociales, Paris (1992), ISBN 2–09–190086–9.

The Têt Offensive. Intelligence Failure in War. By James Wirtz, Cornell University Press, New York (1991), ISBN 0–8014–2486–0. $38.50.

Restructuring of arms producton in Western Europe. Edited by Michael Brzoska and Peter Lock. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1992), ISBN 0–1982–9147–7. £25.00.

What is Proper Soldiering? A study of new perspectives for the future uses of the Armed Forces of the 1990s. By Michael Harbottle. The Centre for International Peacebuilding, Chipping Norton (1992), £3.50.

The Strategic Defence Initiative By Edward Reiss, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1992), ISBN 0–521–41097–5. £30.00.     

Supply chain coordination with product line design and a revenue sharing scheme

Many manufacturers sell their products through retailers and share the revenue with those retailers. Given this phenomenon, we build a stylized model to investigate the role of revenue sharing schemes in supply chain coordination and product variety decisions. In our model, a monopolistic manufacturer serves two segments of consumers, which are distinguished by their willingness to pay for quality. In the scenario with exogenous revenue sharing ratios, when the potential gain from serving the low segment is substantial (e.g., the low‐segment consumers' willingness to pay is high enough or the low segment takes a large enough proportion of the market), the retailer is better off abandoning the revenue sharing scheme. Moreover, when the potential gain from serving the low (high) segment is substantial enough, the manufacturer finds it profitable to offer a single product. Furthermore, when revenue sharing ratios are endogenous, we divide our analysis into two cases, depending on the methods of cooperation. When revenue sharing ratios are negotiated at the very beginning, the decentralized supply chain causes further distortion. This suggests that the central premise of revenue sharing—the coordination of supply chains—may be undermined if supply chain parties meticulously bargain over it.     

虚拟战场电磁环境构建方法研究

简要分析了战场电磁环境,针对科学构建战场电磁环境系统这一难题,提出了适合战场大区域、多种辐射源,并考虑地形、气象等影响因素的战场电磁环境数字仿真构建方法.该方法借助抛物方程、地理信息系统、神经网络等理论、方法构建战场电磁环境.最后应用该方法基于福建沿海某地真实地理环境与气象条件进行了仿真实验,实验结果与电波传播理论吻合.实验结果表明,该方法切实可行,具有实际应用价值.     

不同电流波形下永磁推进电机电磁转矩的时步有限元计算

以12相永磁推进实验样机为研究对象,介绍了其结构特点及运行控制模式,建立了该电机的时步有限元仿真系统.采用有限元法对正弦波、方波、梯形泼电流波形下的永磁推进电机电磁转矩进行了数值计算,给出了不同电流下的功角特性曲线.研究结果表明,对于电枢反应较强的12相永磁推进电机,在通常功角范围内通入正弦波电流可产生较大电磁转矩.     

基于多栅格的基建营房保障信息耦合研究

合理利用军地资源实施一体化保障是现代战争或非战争军事行动基建营房保障的重要内容,然而,包含大量此类信息的商用网络、行业网络和平时基建营房业务管理网络的信息如何能被有效利用却是一个令人头疼的问题。依托军事信息栅格和地方多个行业信息网络,研究、设计缓冲数据库和数据订制服务软件,安全可靠地将分布在多个信息栅格中的基建营房保障所需信息耦合到军事后勤信息网络中,为快速、科学制定基建营房保障计划和实施战时基建营房一体化保障提供强有力的信息支持。     

大流量气体减压器振动问题研究

对大流量气体减压器工作过程中的振动故障进行分析,建立了减压器系统动态数学模型,进行了故障数值仿真,找到了简单有效的提高减压器输出响应稳定性的方法--减小控制腔入口面积,并得到试验验证.仿真结果还表明,大流量气体减压器的振动问题不仅和减压器本身设计参数有关,还和下游管路容积有关.     

Optimal outbound dispatch policies: Modeling inventory and cargo capacity

In this paper, we present an optimization model for coordinating inventory and transportation decisions at an outbound distribution warehouse that serves a group of customers located in a given market area. For the practical problems which motivated this paper, the warehouse is operated by a third party logistics provider. However, the models developed here may be applicable in a more general context where outbound distribution is managed by another supply chain member, e.g., a manufacturer. We consider the case where the aggregate demand of the market area is constant and known per period (e.g., per day). Under an immediate delivery policy, an outbound shipment is released each time a demand is realized (e.g., on a daily basis). On the other hand, if these shipments are consolidated over time, then larger (hence more economical) outbound freight quantities can be dispatched. In this case, the physical inventory requirements at the third party warehouse (TPW) are determined by the consolidated freight quantities. Thus, stock replenishment and outbound shipment release policies should be coordinated. By optimizing inventory and freight consolidation decisions simultaneously, we compute the parameters of an integrated inventory/outbound transportation policy. These parameters determine: (i) how often to dispatch a truck so that transportation scale economies are realized and timely delivery requirements are met, and (ii) how often, and in what quantities, the stock should be replenished at the TPW. We prove that the optimal shipment release timing policy is nonstationary, and we present algorithms for computing the policy parameters for both the uncapacitated and finite cargo capacity problems. The model presented in this study is considerably different from the existing inventory/transportation models in the literature. The classical inventory literature assumes that demands should be satisfied as they arrive so that outbound shipment costs are sunk costs, or else these costs are covered by the customer. Hence, the classical literature does not model outbound transportation costs. However, if a freight consolidation policy is in place then the outbound transportation costs can no longer be ignored in optimization. Relying on this observation, this paper models outbound transportation costs, freight consolidation decisions, and cargo capacity constraints explicitly. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 49: 531–556, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/nav.10030     

Estimating failure time distribution and its parameters based on intermediate data from a Wiener degradation model

Instead of measuring a Wiener degradation or performance process at predetermined time points to track degradation or performance of a product for estimating its lifetime, we propose to obtain the first‐passage times of the process over certain nonfailure thresholds. Based on only these intermediate data, we obtain the uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator and uniformly most accurate confidence interval for the mean lifetime. For estimating the lifetime distribution function, we propose a modified maximum likelihood estimator and a new estimator and prove that, by increasing the sample size of the intermediate data, these estimators and the above‐mentioned estimator of the mean lifetime can achieve the same levels of accuracy as the estimators assuming one has failure times. Thus, our method of using only intermediate data is useful for highly reliable products when their failure times are difficult to obtain. Furthermore, we show that the proposed new estimator of the lifetime distribution function is more accurate than the standard and modified maximum likelihood estimators. We also obtain approximate confidence intervals for the lifetime distribution function and its percentiles. Finally, we use light‐emitting diodes as an example to illustrate our method and demonstrate how to validate the Wiener assumption during the testing. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008     

Dynamic server assignment policies for assembly‐type queues with flexible servers

We seek dynamic server assignment policies in finite‐capacity queueing systems with flexible and collaborative servers, which involve an assembly and/or a disassembly operation. The objective is to maximize the steady‐state throughput. We completely characterize the optimal policy for a Markovian system with two servers, two feeder stations, and instantaneous assembly and disassembly operations. This optimal policy allocates one server per station unless one of the stations is blocked, in which case both servers work at the unblocked station. For Markovian systems with three stations and instantaneous assembly and/or disassembly operations, we consider similar policies that move a server away from his/her “primary” station only when that station is blocked or starving. We determine the optimal assignment of each server whose primary station is blocked or starving in systems with three stations and zero buffers, by formulating the problem as a Markov decision process. Using this optimal assignment, we develop heuristic policies for systems with three or more stations and positive buffers, and show by means of a numerical study that these policies provide near‐optimal throughput. Furthermore, our numerical study shows that these policies developed for assembly‐type systems also work well in tandem systems. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008