Securitising humanitarian assistance and post-conflict reconstruction in Africa: A critical review of South Africa's new defence policy

The South African Defence Review 2014 is the country's new defence policy. The Review, which is expected to steer South African defence policymaking for the next few decades, discusses in detail the role of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in peace missions in Africa and proposes the direct involvement of the country's soldiers in both military and civilian tasks, from peacekeeping to humanitarian assistance, post-conflict reconstruction and development. This paper contains a critical review of the Review with regard to South Africa's envisaged contribution to regional and continental peace and stability. It is argued that humanitarian assistance and post-conflict reconstruction should not be securitised and that the SANDF should only be tasked with peacekeeping and the establishment of stability and security in fragile in-conflict and post-conflict settings. The humanitarian work should be left to humanitarian and aid agencies, while reconstruction and development should be left to organisations such as the New Partnership for Africa's Development, continental and international development organisations, and local actors.     

Optimal burn‐in procedure for periodically inspected systems

Burn‐in is a widely used method to improve the quality of products or systems after they have been produced. In this paper, we study burn‐in procedure for a system that is maintained under periodic inspection and perfect repair policy. Assuming that the underlying lifetime distribution of a system has an initially decreasing and/or eventually increasing failure rate function, we derive upper and lower bounds for the optimal burn‐in time, which maximizes the system availability. Furthermore, adopting an age replacement policy, we derive upper and lower bounds for the optimal age parameter of the replacement policy for each fixed burn‐in time and a uniform upper bound for the optimal burn‐in time given the age replacement policy. These results can be used to reduce the numerical work for determining both optimal burn‐in time and optimal replacement policy. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Understanding China’s goals and strategy in the South China Sea: bringing context to a revisionist systemic challenge – intentions and impact

ABSTRACT

The slow moving conflict in the South China Sea has been characterized by some as “not worth the candle.” China claims the entirety of the South China Sea pursuant to a nine-dash line, the legal impact of which has been limited by international courts. At the same time, China has changed the reality of control over the South China Sea by building a number of fortified islands in the Spratly Islands and elsewhere. The US has either refused to stand up to China's behavior (Obama) or responded unevenly (Trump). This paper examines the impact of China's behaviour on local parties, US interests, and the liberal international system.     

基于Citespace的国内公共政策研究现状分析

推进社会经济发展和管理需要科学制定和实施公共政策对当前研究现状进行分析梳理,有利于该领域的发展,使公共政策的制定和执行更加科学有效。以CNKI数据库收录的5799篇国内公共政策研究期刊论文为样本,采用文献计量法和知识可视化分析工具CiteSpace,对国内公共政策研究的现状、演进与热点等进行深入探讨。结果表明,21世纪以来,公共政策研究进入了高潮,但作者、机构之间学术联系较弱,还处于比较分散的状态。研究热点主要集中在政策制定、合法性有效性评估、群众认可及产业应用方面,新的研究前沿将是开拓民主渠道、完善监督机制、推动政府决策科学化等方面。     

欧盟太空安全政策与发展动向

欧盟具有相对成熟的太空技术,处于国际太空力量发展的第一梯队,其太空安全政策是在基于维护太空自主权的前提下,寻求太空与安全防务政策的统一,从而实现共同外交和安全政策的整体目标,目前已取得了较大进展。本文认为,从未来发展来看,面对有限的太空资源优势和脆弱的太空环境,欧盟将会继续利用其技术优势和集体力量,努力保障其太空关键基础设施安全和太空自主权,同时进一步将太空安全重点向军事竞争领域聚焦,将其作为拓展战场空间维度的重要途径。     

基于IP层的保密通信技术研究及实现

针对W indows2000下自带的IPSec与L inux的IPSec相互通讯比较困难的问题,对L inux IPSec、ND IS网络驱动程序以及WDM设备驱动程序进行了研究,在W indows平台下设计并实现了一个基于中间层驱动程序的IP-Sec,它能与L inux IPSec通讯。中间层驱动程序对过往的数据包进行加密或者解密操作是通过WDM设备驱动程序与上层应用程序的通讯机制,以此来实现应用层与内核的双向通讯,即应用层向内核传递密钥及其他配置信息,内核向上层应用程序提供底层的配置信息。此外,在L inux IPSec源代码的基础上增加了安全审计功能,具体测试结果表明,这个系统可以与L inux IPSec通信。     

特定m维修策略更新过程系统可用度模型

将武器装备系统的组成部分分为3类,通过分析得出适合装备系统的特定m维修策略,能够在保证装备较高使用可用度的同时,最大程度地缩减维修保障成本.利用更新过程某些特性,建立特定m维修策略下的使用可用度模型,简化了使用可用度的计算.     

某小型武器稳定系统的建模及仿真

针对某小型武器稳定系统稳定精度差的问题,构建了其控制系统的数学模型,通过仿真施加试验台架扰动信号,对现系统采用的传统PID控制器进行仿真计算,得到其动态稳定精度,并把得到的和定型试验稳定精度数据对应的外扰模拟信号作为改造后系统的标准扰动输入,对线性自抗扰控制器进行了比对仿真研究.仿真结果表明,系统采用线性自抗扰控制器具有响应速度快、稳定精度高、抗扰能力强的优点.这一方法得到的仿真结果和实车具有较高一致性,可以有效解决实车参数调试困难的问题.     

Assessing the value of demand sharing in supply chains

We consider the problem of assessing the value of demand sharing in a multistage supply chain in which the retailer observes stationary autoregressive moving average demand with Gaussian white noise (shocks). Similar to previous research, we assume each supply chain player constructs its best linear forecast of the leadtime demand and uses it to determine the order quantity via a periodic review myopic order‐up‐to policy. We demonstrate how a typical supply chain player can determine the extent of its available information in the presence of demand sharing by studying the properties of the moving average polynomials of adjacent supply chain players. The retailer's demand is driven by the random shocks appearing in the autoregressive moving average representation for its demand. Under the assumptions we will make in this article, to the retailer, knowing the shock information is equivalent to knowing the demand process (assuming that the model parameters are also known). Thus (in the event of sharing) the retailer's demand sequence and shock sequence would contain the same information to the retailer's supplier. We will show that, once we consider the dynamics of demand propagation further up the chain, it may be that a player's demand and shock sequences will contain different levels of information for an upstream player. Hence, we study how a player can determine its available information under demand sharing, and use this information to forecast leadtime demand. We characterize the value of demand sharing for a typical supply chain player. Furthermore, we show conditions under which (i) it is equivalent to no sharing, (ii) it is equivalent to full information shock sharing, and (iii) it is intermediate in value to the two previously described arrangements. Although it follows from existing literature that demand sharing is equivalent to full information shock sharing between a retailer and supplier, we demonstrate and characterize when this result does not generalize to upstream supply chain players. We then show that demand propagates through a supply chain where any player may share nothing, its demand, or its full information shocks (FIS) with an adjacent upstream player as quasi‐ARMA in—quasi‐ARMA out. We also provide a convenient form for the propagation of demand in a supply chain that will lend itself to future research applications. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 515–531, 2014     

An exact analysis of a joint production‐inventory problem in two‐echelon inventory systems

We consider a two‐echelon inventory system with a manufacturer operating from a warehouse supplying multiple distribution centers (DCs) that satisfy the demand originating from multiple sources. The manufacturer has a finite production capacity and production times are stochastic. Demand from each source follows an independent Poisson process. We assume that the transportation times between the warehouse and DCs may be positive which may require keeping inventory at both the warehouse and DCs. Inventory in both echelons is managed using the base‐stock policy. Each demand source can procure the product from one or more DCs, each incurring a different fulfilment cost. The objective is to determine the optimal base‐stock levels at the warehouse and DCs as well as the assignment of the demand sources to the DCs so that the sum of inventory holding, backlog, and transportation costs is minimized. We obtain a simple equation for finding the optimal base‐stock level at each DC and an upper bound for the optimal base‐stock level at the warehouse. We demonstrate several managerial insights including that the demand from each source is optimally fulfilled entirely from a single distribution center, and as the system's utilization approaches 1, the optimal base‐stock level increases in the transportation time at a rate equal to the demand rate arriving at the DC. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011