Book reviews

Soviet Nuclear Strategy from Stalin to Gorbachev: a Revolution in Soviet Military and Political Thinking. By Honore M. Catudal. Mansell, London (1988), ISBN 0–7201–2000–4, £25.00

The Military: More Than Just a Job? Edited by Charles C. Moskos and Frank R. Wood. Pergamon‐Brassey's, London (1988), ISBN 0–08–034321‐X, £17.00 ($30.00)

Douglas Haig, 1861–1928. By Gerard J. de Groot. Unwin Hyman, London (1988), ISBN 004 4401922, £20.00

Defence Policy Making. A Comparative Analysis. Edited by G. M. Dillon. Leicester University Press, Leicester (1988), ISBN 0–715–1268–5, £10.95

The Future of U.K. Air Power. Edited by P. Sabin. Brassey's, London (1988), ISBN 0–08–035825‐X (hardcover), 0–08–036256–7 (flexicover), hardcover £18.95 ($34.00), flexicover £9.95 ($17.95)     

确定车削加工工艺系统刚度的一种实验方法

将工艺系统的弹性变形看成是由平移和弯曲两种变形构成,利用阶梯形工件,可以确定工艺系统的等效刚度。从而为合理地选择加工参数、保证加工质量提供必要的条件。     

The Argentine dilemma: The Southern cone vis-à-vis the “contradictory duality of world reality”

The world has been faced with a contradiction since the end of the Cold War. On the one hand, there are factors that have led to complex multi-interdepen-dency; on the other, there is a process of global disintegration caused by those very same factors. It is in this context that the Southern Cone of South America has revealed a remarkable inequality in its balance of military power. If Argentina is taken as the center of gravity of both the sub-regions in the area, the Mercado Comun del Sur (Mercosur) and the Austral Cone, it is difficult to find a solution to this imbalance because the regional structure is experiencing the same contradictions as the world itself. What is clear is that the solution depends much more on the policies adopted by Argentina than those of Chile or Brazil. To solve this dilemma, Argentina needs credibility - something that requires fundamental internal change and substantial external support.     

Two-characteristic markov-type manpower flow models

A two-dimensional state space Markov Model of a Manpower System with special structure is analyzed. Examples are given from the military services. The probabilistic properties are discussed in detail with emphasis on computation. The basic equations of manpower stocks and flows are analyzed.     

Joint pricing and ordering policy for exponentially decaying inventory with known demand

This paper is concerned with the problem of simultaneously setting price and production levels for an exponentially decaying product. Such products suffer a loss in utility which is proportional to the total quantity of stock on hand. A continuous review, deterministic demand model is considered. The optimal ordering decision quantity is derived and its sensitivity to changes in perishability and product price is considered. The joint ordering pricing decision is also computed and consideration of parametric changes of these decisions indicates a non-monotonic response for optimal price to changes in product decay. Issues of market entry and extensions to a model with shortages are also analyzed.     

Estimation of ordered parameters from k stochastically increasing distributions

There are given k (? 2) univariate cumulative distribution functions (c.d.f.'s) G(x; θ_i) indexed by a real-valued parameter θ_i, i=1,…, k. Assume that G(x; θ_i) is stochastically increasing in θ_i. In this paper interval estimation on the i^th smallest of the θ's and related topics are studied. Applications are considered for location parameter, normal variance, binomial parameter, and Poisson parameter.     

AN ALGORITHM FOR THE SEGREGATED STORAGE PROBLEM

The segregated storage problem involves the optimal distribution of products among compartments with the restriction that only one product may be stored in each compartment. The storage capacity of each compartment, the storage demand for each product, and the linear cost of storing one unit of a product in a given compartment are specified. The problem is reformulated as a large set-packing problem, and a column generation scheme is devised to solve the associated linear programming problem. In case of fractional solutions, a branch and bound procedure is utilized. Computational results are presented.     

Some comparative & design aspects of fixed cycle production systems

A serial production line is defined wherein a unit is produced if, and only if, all machines are functioning. A single buffer stock with finite capacity is to be placed immediately after one of the first N-1 machines in the N machine line. When all machines have equal probability of failure it is shown that the optimal buffer position is exactly in the middle of the line. This result is synthesized with the earlier work of Koenigsberg and Buzacott including an analysis of the covariance between transition states. An alternative model formulation is presented and integrated with previous results. Finally, a sufficient condition and solution procedure is derived for the installation of a buffer where there is a possible trade-off between increasing the reliability of the line versus adding a buffer stock.     

Stochastic duels with bursts

In this analysis we extend the theory of stochastic duels to include the situation where one of the contestants fires a single infinitely long burst at a fixed rate of fire and secondly where he fires fixed-length, fixed-rate of fire bursts randomly spaced. In both cases the opponent fires single rounds randomly spaced. Special cases and parameter effects are considered.