The Power of the NPT: International Norms and Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament

ABSTRACT

There is a lingering disagreement among scholars on how the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) affects nonproliferation and disarmament outcomes. Drawing on constructivist scholarship on international norms, this article examines the extent of the NPT's effect in the case of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine found itself host to the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. Despite Ukraine's initial commitment to become a non-nuclear state, it proceeded along a difficult path toward NPT accession. Most controversial and directly at odds with the NPT was Ukraine's claim to ownership of its nuclear inheritance as a successor state of the Soviet Union. This article argues that, while much domestic discourse about the fate of these nuclear weapons was embedded in the negotiation of Ukraine's new identity as a sovereign state vis-à-vis Russia and the West, the NPT played an important, structural role by outlining a separate normative space for nuclear weapons and providing the grammar of denuclearization with which Ukraine's decision makers had to grapple.     

Home-Grown Fighting: A Response to the Argument for a Byzantine Influence on MS I.33

Abstract

In an earlier issue, Dr. Timothy Dawson suggested that the fighting techniques found in Royal Armouries MS I.33 may have been influenced by earlier Byzantine sword and shield combat. For evidence, he cites a series of 9th-century ivory carvings depicting similar positions found in I.33. This article is a response to Dr. Dawson’s, in which it is argued that there is ample evidence for similar combat positions being found in Western Europe that both pre-date and are contemporary with I.33.     

Comparison between constant‐stress and step‐stress accelerated life tests under Time Constraint

By running life tests at higher stress levels than normal operating conditions, accelerated life testing (ALT) quickly yields information on the lifetime distribution of a test unit. The lifetime at the design stress is then estimated through extrapolation using a regression model. In constant‐stress testing, a unit is tested at a fixed stress level until failure or the termination time point of test, whereas step‐stress testing allows the experimenter to gradually increase the stress levels at some prefixed time points during the test. In this work, the optimal k‐level constant‐stress and step‐stress ALTs are compared for the exponential failure data under complete sampling and Type‐I censoring. The objective is to quantify the advantage of using the step‐stress testing relative to the constant‐stress one. Assuming a log‐linear life–stress relationship with the cumulative exposure model for the effect of changing stress in step‐stress testing, the optimal design points are determined under C/D/A‐optimality criteria. The efficiency of step‐stress testing to constant‐stress one is then discussed in terms of the ratio of optimal objective functions based on the information matrix. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 00: 000–000, 2013     

COIN fights: A response to Etzioni

Etzioni both exaggerates and minimizes the influence of my book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife on different components of US military doctrine, mischaracterizes my treatment of the Malayan Emergency, and unfairly denigrates the successes of counterinsurgency in Iraq from 2007 to 2011 while misattributing the reasons for its failures in both Iraq and Afghanistan.     

Investigation of the shock compression behaviors of Al/PTFE composites with experimental and a 3D mesoscale-model

The responses of AI/PTFE reactive materials (RMs) under shock compression were investigated by a single-stage gas gun.A 3D mesoscale-model was established based on micro-computed tomography(micro-CT) slice images and confirmed with experimental results.In the high-pressure stage,the com-posites reacted partially,whereas there were no deviations between the partially reacted Hugoniot and the inert simulation results.The simulation reveals that the Teflon matrix melting on the high shock pressure.Melts and decomposition of the PTFE accelerated the diffusion of the atoms.Thus,the reactions of the Al/PrFE composites are more like a combustion rather than a detonation.     

基于信息论的C3I系统决策性能的评价

信息熵是描述信息系统的一种比较成功的方法.采用信息论的方法对决策系统进行描述,在考虑了决策者的有界合理性限制和达到满意性能指标的要求下,分析了单人指挥决策系统的系统性能,并在此基础上分析了多人指挥决策系统的系统性能,最后得出采用决策系统的误差概率P和相互一致性度量Q作为评价C3I系统决策性能标准的结论.     

激光对富碳酸钡YBCO超导材料的改性

利用激光 (CO2 连续激光、YAG连续激光和脉冲激光 )对富碳酸钡YBCO超导材料进行辐照 ,并研究各种激光对超导块材临界电流密度Jc的影响。     

汽车驾驶模拟器软件系统

介绍了QJM主动式实时仿真三维计算机成像汽车驾驶模拟器软件系统的实现方法。这些方法已应用于桑塔纳型和东风型汽车驾驶模拟器。     

关于分布式开发环境

从分布式Ｃ￣３Ｉ系统体制的需求出发,分析分布式开发环境的技术背景与发展。通过讨论分布式开发环境的优缺点,从硬件平台、基础软件和开发支持软件三个层次分析建立分布式开发环境的基础技术。进而从结构模型、处理模型和开发模型三方面,着眼于软件技术,提出一种分布式开发环境的通用构造模型,最后讨论了该模型对未来研究工作的意义。