The Israel Defense Forces as an epistemic authority: An intellectual challenge in the reality of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict

The changes in the nature of warfare and its transformation toward Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) intrastate conflict have challenged the patterns of interaction between the political and the military echelons in Israel. It seems that the political echelon's superiority is maintained at the institutional and formal levels, but on the substantive level, which demands relying on knowledge and systematic staff work, the political echelon's position is weakened and loses its validity.

Introducing the military echelon in Israel as an epistemic authority regarding the violent confrontation and the main outlines of the military knowledge development process might clarify why the absence of the required dialogue between the echelons and the weakness of the intellectual effort increased the military's influence over the shaping of Israeli conflict-management strategy. The argument's validity and its explanatory power can be found relevant for other countries whose militaries are deeply involved in the management of LIC.     

A note on scheduling parallel machines subject to breakdown and repair

In this paper we consider n jobs and a number of machines in parallel. The machines are identical and subject to breakdown and repair. The number may therefore vary over time and is at time t equal to m(t). Preemptions are allowed. We consider three objectives, namely, the total completion time, ∑ C_j, the makespan C_max, and the maximum lateness L_max. We study the conditions on m(t) under which various rules minimize the objective functions under consideration. We analyze cases when the jobs have deadlines to meet and when the jobs are subject to precedence constraints. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.     

On reversibility of tandem queues with blocking

We study the effect of the order of service stations on the departure process in a tandem system with finite buffers and blocking. A reversibility result for a twostation system with various types of blocking mechanisms has been shown before. We show that a similar result holds for a three-station tandem system with no buffers between stations and a so-called communication type of blocking. A general conjecture is stated regarding the reversibility of tandem systems with finite buffers and blocking. © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Evaluation of an integrated supplier-buyer quality-control system

In this article, a quality-control design framework that employs information for the supplier-buyer system is modeled. Significant operational savings may be obtained by using the integrated plans developed under this framework. This is especially true when the cost of a defective is high, and the variable sampling and rework costs are low. Analysis of the interaction of defective, rework, and variable sampling costs reveals that the savings are the result of a shift of control effort from the process-control to the lot-acceptance stage, which is the consequence of tradeoffs involving both stages. The managerial impact of adopting integrated plans is discussed.     

Note: Normal prediction under linear-quadratic loss

The prediction of the value of a normal random variable is considered in the presence of combined linear and quadratic loss. It is shown that the optimal prediction is an additive adjustment to the predictive mean, the adjustment being the product of the predictive standard deviation and an appropriate adjustment factor. An extensive table of adjustment factor values is presented, and it is noted that for given loss parameters the adjustment is positive unless the predictive variance is sufficiently large. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Scheduling about a large common due date with tolerance to minimize mean absolute deviation of completion times

In this article the problem of minimizing the mean absolute deviation (MAD) of job completion times about an unrestricted given common due date with tolerance in the n-job, single-machine scheduling environment is considered. We describe some optimality conditions and show that the unrestricted version of the MAD problem with an arbitrary due date tolerance is polynomial by proposing a polynomial-time algorithm for identifying an optimal schedule. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Late Medieval Lance Use: Mounted Combat and Martial Arts in Western Europe from the 14th to the 16th Century

Despite the lance’s status and the amount of attention the couched lance has received in historiography, study of its martial art has been neglected. The various lance types and techniques used by western European cavalry have only recently begun to receive scholarly attention. Additionally, Medieval European lance use has too often been studied in isolation, without an adequate understanding of the idiosyncratic and asymmetrical dynamics of mounted combat. Although the charge with the couched lance was a valid tactic, it was only one of many. Light and heavy lances were used in one hand or two to trip, block, unhorse, and wrestle. These techniques were governed by the harsh laws of distance, speed, impact, iron, and asymmetry. By utilizing the surviving Fechtbücher and several Peninsular and Near Eastern sources, a brief foray into the diverse techniques of lance use and their purposes has been attempted here.