Transshipment along a single road

This article explores the problem of the transshipment of goods between centers that are situated along a single road. Costs are incurred both for goods that are shipped and for goods that remain in their original centers. A procedure is developed that determines a partial optimal assignment by use of a northwest corner rule solution. This partial assignment then is completed by solving a number of smaller tridiagonal transportation problems.     

一种微机应用开发的实际方法

在微机应用中缺乏必需的开发工具是经常会遇到的情况,本文介绍了利用一般的微型计算机来研制微机应用程序的方法,讨论了有关的硬件和软件问题。     

The United States and Latin America: Shaping an elusive future

This article presents a regional overview of US‐Latin American security relations, focusing on those countries where US national security interests are most likely to be endangered over the next two decades. The author examines the current US strategy of ‘shaping’ the Latin security environment, with a view to assessing the strength and weaknesses of this approach. The article presents some policy recommendations, including the recommendation that the US do more to redress the historical imbalance in Latin American civil‐military relations by strengthening civilian institutions. It also argues that at the regional level a major effort be made to recapture momentum toward the creation of a Free Trade Association of the Americas.     

Dynamic service rate control for a single‐server queue with Markov‐modulated arrivals

We consider the problem of service rate control of a single‐server queueing system with a finite‐state Markov‐modulated Poisson arrival process. We show that the optimal service rate is nondecreasing in the number of customers in the system; higher congestion levels warrant higher service rates. On the contrary, however, we show that the optimal service rate is not necessarily monotone in the current arrival rate. If the modulating process satisfies a stochastic monotonicity property, the monotonicity is recovered. We examine several heuristics and show where heuristics are reasonable substitutes for the optimal control. None of the heuristics perform well in all the regimes and the fluctuation rate of the modulating process plays an important role in deciding the right heuristic. Second, we discuss when the Markov‐modulated Poisson process with service rate control can act as a heuristic itself to approximate the control of a system with a periodic nonhomogeneous Poisson arrival process. Not only is the current model of interest in the control of Internet or mobile networks with bursty traffic, but it is also useful in providing a tractable alternative for the control of service centers with nonstationary arrival rates. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 60: 661–677, 2013     

‘Today we shall drink blood’: internal unrest in Nigeria

Despite some tentative internal peace agreements, Nigeria continues to face violence from multiple groups. This violence feeds upon itself, with segments of the population being mobilized both for self defense and for pressing their ideological and practical goals. These multiple sources of violence, which the Nigerian government appears unable to control to any significant degree, have a long term corrosive effect on the country's internal stability. There are few reasons to be sanguine as to any rapid changes to the level of overall violence or the relative number of armed groups, although their specific identities may shift. Nigeria represents a good case study of a country in which relatively low but persistent violence by a multiplicity of groups can have major impacts on internal security.     

Global counterinsurgency and US army expansion: the case for recruiting foreign troops

Given the nature of global counterinsurgency operations, the demands of military expansion, and the need for cultural, linguistic, and regional expertise, the United States Army should evaluate the establishment of US-led foreign troop units for its evolving force structure. This article proposes the creation of an American foreign legion based upon the recruitment of US-led, ethnically homogeneous tribal force units to meet the grist mill of counterinsurgency operations. This structured approach would be more beneficial than the current reliance on a de facto American Foreign Legion, represented by private military contractors (PMCs), many of them comprised of foreigners. These PMCs carry a number of oversight, accountability, and legal risks not found in a fully integrated, and US-officered foreign legion. The British Brigade of Gurkhas, the South-West African Police Counter-Insurgency Unit (Koevoet), and the Kit Carson Scouts serve as relevant historical examples where foreign troops were used to supplement national manpower resources.     

Capacity and competence: full-spectrum counterinsurgency in the Horn of Africa

From 2006 to 2011, al Qaeda's East African proxy, al Shabaab, served as de facto ruling party of Somalia despite the efforts of the internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (TFG). During these five years, a violent struggle between al Shabaab and the Burundian and Ugandan Peacekeepers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) resulted in thousands of dead civilians, hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, and a strategic environment inhospitable to reconciliation, recovery, or development. Beginning in August 2011, AMISOM was able to break the deadlock and force al Shabaab from Mogadishu, then subsequently, Kismayo, and ultimately to consolidate and reorganize in the Somali hinterland. In order to continue the momentum, the African Union and other partner nations must support the newly recognized Somali Federal Government (SFG), neutralize al Shabaab, and provide good governance to its constituents. Al Shabaab's revenue streams must be shut down and their offensive capability must be degraded while the strategic environment is shaped to ensure that conditions conducive to a revival do not exist. Failure to do so will likely see Somalia continuing to produce Islamic extremists and pirates to menace international maritime traffic in the Western Indian Ocean, destabilize East Africa, and adversely impact millions.