Reassessing Military Assistance to the Civil Powers: Are Traditional British Anti-Terrorist Responses Still Effective?

The provision of Military Assistance to the Civil Powers (MACP) encapsulates the traditional approach towards countering terrorism on the British mainland, which emphasises minimum force, proportionality, police primacy and the rule of law, with the military retained as a supporting instrument, being employed only as a measure of last resort. Recent terrorist incidents in major urban centres do, however, question the effectiveness of these established methods. This analysis initially codifies the conceptual issues that underscore the tensions between civil policing and military anti-terrorist approaches in the UK, and proceeds to evaluate and compare a number of operations that indicate the nature of the challenges facing the MACP apparatus. In particular, potential shortcomings in the MACP provisions are identified in the form of threat perception and deployment and enforcement gaps. The assessment finds that there are facets of MACP that are of enduring relevance in the current era, yet a continuing need persists to reconcile police and military imperatives toward serious civil disorder contingencies and conditions of emergency.     

Attrition through a partially coordinated area defense

An area defense consists of several groups that act independently, i.e., do not communicate with each other. Each group has a fixed number of defenders and a controller that allocates these defenders optimally against the individual attackers comprising an attack. We analyze the effectiveness of this partially coordinated defense against a simultaneous attack of known size in which all attackers are considered to be equally lethal. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

Stochastic modeling for computational warranty analysis

We examine two key stochastic processes of interest for warranty modeling: (1) remaining total warranty coverage time exposure and (2) warranty load (total items under warranty at time t). Integral equations suitable for numerical computation are developed to yield probability law for these warranty measures. These two warranty measures permit warranty managers to better understand time‐dependent warranty behavior, and thus better manage warranty cash reserves. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005.     

Scheduling with centralized and decentralized batching policies in concurrent open shops

This article considers batch scheduling with centralized and decentralized decisions. The context of our study is concurrent open shop scheduling where the jobs are to be processed on a set of independent dedicated machines, which process designated operations of the jobs in batches. The batching policy across the machines can be centralized or decentralized. We study such scheduling problems with the objectives of minimizing the maximum lateness, weighted number of tardy jobs, and total weighted completion time, when the job sequence is determined in advance. We present polynomial time dynamic programming algorithms for some cases of these problems and pseudo‐polynomial time algorithms for some problems that are NP‐hard in the ordinary sense. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 58: 17–27, 2011     

Using stochastic programming to solve an outpatient appointment scheduling problem with random service and arrival times

We study a stochastic outpatient appointment scheduling problem (SOASP) in which we need to design a schedule and an adaptive rescheduling (i.e., resequencing or declining) policy for a set of patients. Each patient has a known type and associated probability distributions of random service duration and random arrival time. Finding a provably optimal solution to this problem requires solving a multistage stochastic mixed‐integer program (MSMIP) with a schedule optimization problem solved at each stage, determining the optimal rescheduling policy over the various random service durations and arrival times. In recognition that this MSMIP is intractable, we first consider a two‐stage model (TSM) that relaxes the nonanticipativity constraints of MSMIP and so yields a lower bound. Second, we derive a set of valid inequalities to strengthen and improve the solvability of the TSM formulation. Third, we obtain an upper bound for the MSMIP by solving the TSM under the feasible (and easily implementable) appointment order (AO) policy, which requires that patients are served in the order of their scheduled appointments, independent of their actual arrival times. Fourth, we propose a Monte Carlo approach to evaluate the relative gap between the MSMIP upper and lower bounds. Finally, in a series of numerical experiments, we show that these two bounds are very close in a wide range of SOASP instances, demonstrating the near‐optimality of the AO policy. We also identify parameter settings that result in a large gap in between these two bounds. Accordingly, we propose an alternative policy based on neighbor‐swapping. We demonstrate that this alternative policy leads to a much tighter upper bound and significantly shrinks the gap.     

Damage mechanics and energy absorption capabilities of naturalfiber reinforced elastomeric based bio composite for sacrificial structural applications

The present study deals with the experimental, finite element (FE) and analytical assessment of low ballistic impact response of proposedflexible'green' composite make use of naturally available jute and rubber as the constituents of the composite with stacking sequences namely jute/rubber/jute (JRJ), jute/rubber/rubber/jute (JRRJ) and jute/rubber/jute/rubber/jute (JRJRJ). Ballistic impact tests were carried out by firing a conical projectile using a gas gun apparatus at lower range of ballistic impact regime. The ballistic impact response of the proposed flexible composites are assesses based on energy absorption and damage mechanism. Results revealed that inclusion of natural rubber aids in better energy ab-sorption and mitigating the failure of the proposed composite. Among the three different stacking se-quences of flexible composites considered, JRJRJ provides better ballistic performance compared to its counterparts. The damage study reveals that the main mechanism of failure involved in flexible com-posites is matrix tearing as opposed to matrix cracking in stiff composites indicating that the proposedflexible composites are free from catastrophic failure. Results obtained from experimental, FE and analytical approach pertaining to energy absorption and damage mechanism agree well with each other. The proposed flexible composites due to their exhibited energy absorption capabilities and damage mechanism are best suited as claddings for structural application subjected to impact with an aim of protecting the main structural component from being failed catastrophically.     

A higher order coupled frequency characteristics study of smartmagneto-electro-elastic composite plates with cut-outs using finite element methods

This article deals with investigating the effect of cut-outs on the natural frequencies of magneto-electro-elastic (MEE) plates incorporating finite element methods based on higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT). In order to consider the influence of cut-out, the energy of the cut-out domain is sub-tracted from the total energy of the entire plate. The governing equations of motions are derived through incorporating Hamilton's principle and the solution is obtained using condensation technique. The proposed numerical formulation is verified with the results of previously published literature as well as the numerical software. In addition, this research focuses on evaluating the effect of geometrical skewness and boundary conditions on the frequency response. The influence of cut-outs on the degree of coupling between magnetic, electric and elasticfields is also investigated.     

Improvement of VIS and IR camouflage properties by impregnating cotton fabric with PVB/IF-WS2

In order to examine the possibility to improve its camouflage properties standard cotton fabric with camouflage print was impregnated with poly(vinyl butyral), PVB and fullerene-like nanoparticles of tungsten disulfide, PVB/IF-WS₂. FTIR analysis excluded any possible chemical interaction of IF-WS₂ with PVB and the fabric. The camouflage behavior of the impregnated fabric has been examined firstly in the VIS part of the spectrum. Diffuse reflection, specular gloss and color coordinates were measured for three different shades (black, brown and dark green). Thermal imaging was applied to examine the camouflage abilities of this impregnation in IR part of the spectrum. The obtained results show that PVB/IF-WS₂ impregnation system induced enhacement of the materials camouflage properties, i.e. that IF-WS₂ have a positive effect on spectrophotometric characteristics of the fabric.