TRENDS AND MARKERS

The twin concepts of secrecy and transparency are central to any discourse on the freeness and fairness of elections, because they are universally accep ted yardsticks of the degree to which elections can be said to be legitimate. Without challenging this truism, this paper explores these concepts as both theoretical constructs and as manifes ted in empirical situations. It will highlight their ideological function and argue that they have an alienating effect in practice. The article will also attempt to show how secrecy and transparency have helped to shape Lesotho's electoral process and the mode of its management, and will also discuss the issues and questions that it raises. Next, the most critical issues in any debate concerning Lesotho's elections and their management are raised, followed by the recommendation of an ideal way of managing elections to serve the interest of voters better. Lastly, the paper demonstrates the danger of depoliticising elections and relegating them to the legal sphere, which only the courts of law are competent to interpret.     

Political influence on civil war mortality rates: The electoral college as a battlefield

This paper employs public choice analysis to explain certain kinds of military decision‐making during the Civil War. Specifically, the political costs and benefits which may have influenced policy with respect to casualty rates in the Union army are considered. A primary empirical finding is that electoral votes per capita are a strong explainer of casualties across Union states, all else equal.     

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Banning Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Frederick N. Mattis. Praeger Security International, 2009. 129 pages, $39.95.     

China's Global Equity Oil Investments: Economic and Geopolitical Influences

In this article, we construct and analyze an original database of overseas Chinese equity oil investments (EOI) in order to assess the relative importance of economic and geopolitical factors in determining the type of countries that are most likely to receive those investments. We find that China's national oil companies (NOCs) choose to make considerable investments in certain oil rich countries while ignoring others. We develop and examine ‘economic opportunity’ and ‘geopolitical relevance’ explanations of Chinese EOI. The economic explanation assumes that Chinese oil companies operate autonomously despite the fact that they are state owned, and that they seek international experience in countries offering less competition but more risk. The geopolitical explanation suggests that Chinese equity oil investments are developed and coordinated by the central government as part of a geopolitical strategy that is designed to bypass the so-called ‘Malacca Dilemma’ and deepen security ties with oil-rich states through the conduct of oil diplomacy. We argue that Chinese EOI tends to reflect both corporate interests and government priorities, and that it generates more liabilities rather than benefits for China.     

A decomposition procedure for convex quadratic programs

This article deals with the solution of convex quadratic programs by iteratively solving a master problem and a subproblem as proposed previously by Sacher. The approach has the advantage that the subproblems are linear programs so that advantage can be taken of existing schemes for solving large linear problems. At each step in solving the master problem, a closed-form solution can be specified so that the procedure is well suited for solving large quadratic programs and can take advantage of the constraint structure.     

Modeling the performance of a scanning radio communications sensor

A model which allows the prediction of long-term average report rates against an array of radio emitters by a scanning sensor is presented. The model is based on Markov renewal theory.     

Multiple criteria decision making in the USSR: A survey

A brief historical overview of the development of multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) in the USSR during the last fifteen years is presented. Soviet MCDM research is reviewed. Several applications of MCDM methodology in the USSR are described. Long-term trends in the research and application of MCDM in the Soviet Union are discussed.     

The value of observing the condition of a deteriorating machine

We examine a small lot production setting in which a machine may go out of control and begin producing defective units. Traditionally, managers have had to rely upon observations of the quality of the output to determine whether the machine is in or out of control. However, with advances in technology such as vibration analysis, it is increasingly possible to obtain much more accurate information about the state of the machine. In this paper, we model and analyze a deteriorating machine in order to gain insight into the conditions under which investments in such technology are most beneficial. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 46: 790–808, 1999