A practical organizational efficiency measure

There is often a call in any organization to make the system ‘more efficient’. This document describes a novel framework for measuring organizational efficiency at the microeconomic level. We show how this framework can be used to monitor an organization using data typically available in extant performance management frameworks. This is most useful in large organizations with eclectic outputs where resources may be too constrained to perform industry-level analyses, such as data envelope analysis, to infer efficiency. This method helps illuminate how the factors of an organization’s internal practices can affect its efficient use of resources.     

Swedish–Finnish naval cooperation in the Baltic Sea: motives,prospects and challenges

Recently, Finland and Sweden decided to substantially deepen their defence cooperation and this project involves creating a bilateral standing Naval Task Group (SFNTG). The present article aims at examining the deepening naval cooperation between Finland and Sweden from a regional integration perspective, focusing on its motives, current challenges and future prospects. Driven by perceptions of common challenges and desires for cost-effectiveness, and strengthened by recent successes on sea surveillance and a combined Amphibious Task Unit, the bilateral project has considerable potential to achieve success. To fulfil its objectives, substantial legal changes in both countries are required to allow the use of force on each other’s territorial waters. To cater for the requirement of not conflicting with EU, NORDEFCO or NATO cooperations, the bilateral Task Group must operate according to NATO standards and by using English as the language in command and control. The costs of adjusting the naval units to NATO’s technical requirements are far from negligible and this issue still remains to be solved. If Finland and Sweden manage to incorporate new policies, common structures and common organisational norms among their navies, an even deeper integration, as in Belgium and the Netherlands, are conceivable.     

Defence budgets in the post-Cold War era: a spatial econometrics approach

This paper examines the determinants of national defence budgets in the post-Cold War era employing a spatial econometric framework. Using data for 124 countries over a 16-year time period, I examine spatial relationships in defence spending to investigate how countries account for the military spending of other countries when setting their budgets. Using specially developed weighting matrices, the regression results indicate that defence budgets are positively spatially correlated. These results provide support for the use of ‘external’ factors when examining defence budgets over this time period. The importance of a country’s spatial location when setting its budget is further examined through the identification of regions of high and low defence spending.     

Case Study Commentary and Analysis: The Moral Sword of Damocles

Case summary, by James Cook (Case Study Editor):

In the final issue of the 2015 volume of the Journal of Military Ethics, we published a case study entitled “Coining an Ethical Dilemma: The Impunity of Afghanistan’s Indigenous Security Forces”, written by Paul Lushenko. The study detailed two extra-judicial killings (EJKs) by Afghan National Police (ANP) personnel in an area stabilized and overseen by a US-led Combined Task Force (CTF). To deter further EJKs following the first incident, the CTF’s commander reported the incidents up his chain of command and used the limited tools at his disposal to influence local indigenous officials directly. Apparently, the ANP unit took no notice. In his commentary on the case study, Paul Robinson considered moral compromise in war more generally. Coalition troops in Afghanistan, for instance, have encountered not just EJKs but also sexual abuse of minors, killing of non-combatants, kidnapping, torture, and widespread corruption. What should the soldier on the ground do if indigenous personnel violate Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) with impunity? Refusing to serve will not right or prevent moral wrongs, while staying on to fight the good but futile fight will mire the soldier in moral compromise. “?… [S]oldiers faced with this dilemma have no good options. The systemic failings surrounding them mean that it is probable that nothing they do will help”. In a concluding note, I suggested that while an individual soldier may indeed have no good options, as Paul Robinson suggests, that soldier’s military and nation at large are obliged to do what they can. At least, they must keep to the moral high ground so as not to give indigenous security forces an excuse to misbehave, and determine the nature of crimes such as EJKs: are they outlaw acts or in fact endorsed by the indigenous culture and perhaps even government? Below Colonel Dave Barnes, himself a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, analyzes Paul Lushenko’s case study at “?…?the local, tactical level: If a commander is in this situation – where her unit witnesses an EJK or other war crime – what should she do?”     

精密机床导轨的测量分析

本文提出了一个用于质量诊断的精密机床导轨分析系统。受控目标的质量评估是依据于对一个物体在选定区间内的测量形状与位置偏差来确定的。质量评估采用相关综合指标的形式:基本误差函数,综合不平行度。在对完整的支撑部件或导向部件作评估的时候,这套系统能对各部件的位置做校正。本文所描述的计算机系统能控制任何测量系统。目前的版本是控制一个测量平动与转动位移量的激光干涉仪。     

基于模型参考的机电精密驱动系统滞后效应补偿

概述 机电伺服驱动系统作为现代自动化技术中的关键部分之一,其轻质量和小体积对于应用精密齿轮系而言具有独到的作用。为了保证驱动系统的高功率密度,其要求系统具有高传动比和紧凑的齿轮结构,实现这一目的的方法是使齿轮系的轮牙大量啮合以使作用力矩并行分配从而提高系统的功率比。例如:井齿轮(Well Gear)具有使高达30％的轮牙同时啮合的独特结构,由此给齿轮传动特性带来一些非线性影响,如:衰减柔顺性、     

The stochastic duel with time-dependent hit probabilities

The fundamental stochastic duel considers two opponents who fire at each other at either random continuous or fixed-time intervals with a constant hit probability on each round fired. Each starts with an unloaded weapon, unlimited ammunition, and unlimited time. The first to hit wins. In this article we extend the theory to the case where hit probabilities are functions of the time since the duel began. First, the marksman firing at a passive target is considered and the characteristic function of the time to a hit is developed. Then, the probability of a given side winning the duel is derived. General solutions for a wide class of hit probability functions are derived. Specific examples of both the marksman and the duel problem are given.     

Book reviews

British Naval Policy and Norwegian Security: Maritime Power in Transition, 1951-60.. By Mats Berdal. Forsvarsstudier No. 2/92, Institutt For Forsvarsstudier (IFS) Oslo, Norway, 1992, ISSN 0333-3981.

The European Security Order Recast: Scenarios for the Post-Cold War Era.. By Barry Buzan, Morten Kelstrup, Pierre Lemaitre, Elzbieta Tromer and OLE Waever. Pinter, London (1990), ISBN 086187143X, £30.00.

Mates and Muchachos: Unit Cohesion in the Falklands War.. By Nora Kinzer Stewart. Brassey's (US), Washington DC (1991), ISBN 008-037-4395, $20.

The Declining Hegemon: The United States and European Defense, 1960-1990.. By Joseph Lepgold. Praeger, New York (1990), ISBN 0-275-93657-0, $15.95 pb.

Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance.. By Donald Mackenzie. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, and London, England (1990), ISBN 262-132-583, £19.95.