Inside the Iraqi State Records: Saddam Hussein, ‘Irangate’, and the United States

This article uses captured Iraqi state records to examine Saddam Hussein's reaction to US arms to sales to Iran during the Iran–Iraq War (the Iran/Contra scandal). These records show that ‘Irangate’ marked a decisive departure in Saddam's relations with the United States. Irangate reinforced Saddam's preexisting suspicions of US policy, convincing him that Washington was a strategic enemy that could not be trusted. Saddam concealed his anger to preserve a working relationship with the Reagan administration, but this episode nevertheless cemented his negative views of the United States and forged a legacy of hostility and mistrust that would inform his strategic calculus for years to come.     

Micromechanical simulation and experimental investigation of aluminum-based nanocomposites

Ceramic reinforced metal matrix nanocomposites are widely used in aerospace and auto industries due to their enhanced mechanical and physical properties. In this research, we investigate the mechanical properties of aluminum/Nano-silica composites through experiments and simulations. Aluminum/Nano-silica composite samples with different weight percentages of silica nanoparticles are prepared via powder metallurgy. In this method, Nano-silica and aluminum powders are mixed and compressed in a mold, followed by sintering at high temperatures. Uniaxial tensile testing of the nanocomposite samples shows that adding one percent of Nano-silica causes a considerable increase in mechanical properties of nanocomposite compared to pure aluminum. A computational micromechanical model, based on a representative volume element of aluminum/silica nanocomposite, is developed in a commercial finite element software. The model employs an elastoplastic material model along with a ductile damage model for aluminum matrix and linear elastic model for nano-silica particles. Via careful determination of model parameters from the experimental results of pure aluminum samples prepared by powder metallurgy, the proposed computational model has shown satisfactory agreement with experiments. The validated computational model can be used to perform a parametric study to optimize the micro-structure of nanocomposite for enhanced mechanical properties.     

Contractual agreements for coordination and vendor‐managed delivery under explicit transportation considerations

We consider the coordination problem between a vendor and a buyer operating under generalized replenishment costs that include fixed costs as well as stepwise freight costs. We study the stochastic demand, single‐period setting where the buyer must decide on the order quantity to satisfy random demand for a single item with a short product life cycle. The full order for the cycle is placed before the cycle begins and no additional orders are accepted by the vendor. Due to the nonrecurring nature of the problem, the vendor's replenishment quantity is determined by the buyer's order quantity. Consequently, by using an appropriate pricing schedule to influence the buyer's ordering behavior, there is an opportunity for the vendor to achieve substantial savings from transportation expenses, which are represented in the generalized replenishment cost function. For the problem of interest, we prove that the vendor's expected profit is not increasing in buyer's order quantity. Therefore, unlike the earlier work in the area, it is not necessarily profitable for the vendor to encourage larger order quantities. Using this nontraditional result, we demonstrate that the concept of economies of scale may or may not work by identifying the cases where the vendor can increase his/her profits either by increasing or decreasing the buyer's order quantity. We prove useful properties of the expected profit functions in the centralized and decentralized models of the problem, and we utilize these properties to develop alternative incentive schemes for win–win solutions. Our analysis allows us to quantify the value of coordination and, hence, to identify additional opportunities for the vendor to improve his/her profits by potentially turning a nonprofitable transaction into a profitable one through the use of an appropriate tariff schedule or a vendor‐managed delivery contract. We demonstrate that financial gain associated with these opportunities is truly tangible under a vendor‐managed delivery arrangement that potentially improves the centralized solution. Although we take the viewpoint of supply chain coordination and our goal is to provide insights about the effect of transportation considerations on the channel coordination objective and contractual agreements, the paper also contributes to the literature by analyzing and developing efficient approaches for solving the centralized problem with stepwise freight costs in the single‐period setting. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2006     

压水堆运行中ΔT超温度/超功率保护分析

从核电站压水堆动力装置在运行中ΔT超温度 /超功率保护功能出发 ,介绍了压水堆ΔT超温度 /超功率保护系统 ,分析了确定极限限制线以及保护区的方法 ,并对此作出了评价 .     

Multiple common due dates

Common due date problems have been extensively discussed in the scheduling literature. Initially, these problems discussed finding a common due date for a set of jobs on a single machine. These single machine problems were later extended to finding the common due date on a set of parallel machines. This paper further extends the single machine problem to finding multiple common due dates on a single machine. For a basic and important class of penalty functions, we show that this problem is comparable to the parallel machine problem. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 293–298, 2001     

The selection allocation problem

The Selection Allocation Problem (SAP) is a single period decision problem which involves selecting profit‐maximizing (or cost‐minimizing) activities from various distinct groups, and determining the volume of those activities. The activities in each group are selected subject to the availability of that group's resource, which is provided by either pooling or blending raw inputs from several potential sources. Imbedded in the decision process is the additional task of determining how much raw input is to be allocated to each group to form the resource for that group. Instances of this problem can be found in many different areas, such as in tool selection for flexible manufacturing systems, facility location, and funding for social services. Our goal in this paper is to identify and exploit special structures in the (SAP) and use those structures to develop an efficient solution procedure. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 46: 707–725, 1999     

数字式鉴相器的相位失真分析

数字式鉴相器的相位失真是导致产生寄生信号和额外相位噪声并使锁相环路不稳定的主要因素之一。锁相环路是通讯设备、测试仪器和雷达中的一个关键部件,因此,减少鉴相器相位失真,对于系统设计是很重要的。利用差分电路,可以有效地减小鉴相器相位失真的影响。     

阅读理解测试中常用题型的对比研究

运用定量研究的方法,探讨阅读测试中多项选择、简答和正误判断三种题型与阅读理解能力之间的关系。研究设计中的受试者为390名武警学院的战士学员。统计程序使用SPSS对数据进行相关分析和回归分析。研究结果表明：多项选择、简答和正误判断三种题型都适合测试考生的阅读理解能力,但简答题是最有效的测试题型。     

超音速等离子制备Al/Ni涂层的性能特点

以超音速等离子喷涂系统(HEPJet)为平台,采用铝包镍(Al/Ni)自粘结粉末,借助Spray Watch2i在线监测系统、扫描电子显微镜(SEM)、X射线衍射仪(XRD)和WE-10A万能拉伸试验机,研究了超音速等离子喷涂Al/Ni粒子的速度、温度及涂层的组织性能。研究结果表明:超音速等离子喷涂Al/Ni自粘结粉末时,与普通火焰喷涂不同,射流中无明显的放热反应特征,涂层中也未发现Al-Ni化合物;超音速等离子的喷涂功率、喷涂距离等参数对Al/Ni喷涂粒子的状态和涂层组织性能影响显著,当功率为54.6kW、喷涂距离为150mm时,Al/Ni涂层组织致密,与基体的结合强度高达56MPa。     

Introduction: Exploring the jungle of terminology

When twentieth-century authors wrote about ‘partisan warfare’, they usually meant an insurgency or asymmetric military operations conducted against a superior force by small bands of ideologically driven irregular fighters. By contrast, originally (i.e. before the French Revolution) ‘partisan’ in French, English, and German referred only to the leader of a detachment of special forces (party, partie, Parthey, détachement) which the major European powers used to conduct special operations alongside their regular forces. Such special operations were the classic definition of ‘small war’ (petite guerre) in the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries. The Spanish word ‘la guerrilla’, meaning nothing other than ‘small war’, only acquired an association with rebellion with the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon. Even after this, however, armies throughout the world have continued to employ special forces. In the late nineteenth century, their operations have still been referred to as prosecuting ‘la guerrilla’ or ‘small war’, which existed side by side with, and was often mixed with, ‘people's war’ or popular uprisings against hated regimes.