Is the Horn of Africa’s ‘Cold War’ over? Abiy Ahmed’s early reforms and the rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea

ABSTRACT

On 9 July 2018, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a historical agreement pledging to end their mutual animosity and work for peace. The unprecedented rapprochement was facilitated by the new leadership in Ethiopia, merging interests between the two states and external mediation. This commentary looks into Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali’s early reform initiatives and the dynamics of the rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea.     

A survey of performance issues in defence innovation

This article reviews innovation processes in defence. It analyses the way and the context under which these processes are carried out. The article covers the features of defence goods with impact on innovation, the development of a new good, the institutional arrangements that support these processes and the effect of innovation on industrial market. The analysis helps to identify the causes of facts observed in practice, such as poor performance in terms of product quality, cost or delivery time, as well as to assess potential remedies. Some policy implications, which can be derived from this analysis, are finally outlined.     

Financial versus human resources in the Greek‐Turkish arms race: A forecasting investigation using artificial neural networks

This paper aims at forecasting the burden on the Greek economy resulting from the arms race against Turkey and at concentrating on the leading determinants of this burden. The military debt and the defence share of GDP are employed alternatively in order to approximate the measurement of the arms race pressure on Greece, and the method used is that of artificial neural networks. The use of a wide variety of explanatory variables in combination with the promising results derived, suggest that the impact on the Greek economy resulting from this arms race is determined, to a large, extent, by demographic factors which strongly favour the Turkish side. Prediction on both miltary debt and defence expenditure exhibited highly satisfactory accuracy, while the estimation of input significance, indicates that variables describing the Turkish side are often dominant over the corresponding Greek ones.     

Offsets as industrial policy: Lessons from aerospace

Since 1975 “offsets” have begun to appear frequently in contracts covering international sales of aircraft and other products incorporating advanced technology. Offsets involve reciprocity beyond that normally found in an exchange of goods for money. They may involve co‐production or co‐design of the principal item to be exchanged, or acceptance by the seller of goods or services unrelated to it as partial payment (indirect offsets or countertrade).

The United States has become the major provider of offsets and anti‐offset sentiment has grown. Economists interpret them as trade diverting. Politicians from regions suffering loss of employment view them as bestowing unfair advantage to foreign competitors.

The authors examine offsets from both theoretical and policy perspectives and conclude that in such noncompetitive markets, second‐best considerations dominate, requiring case‐by‐case evaluation of impacts and rendering across‐the‐board determinations of welfare loss suspect.     

位置信息与替换概率相结合的多核共享Cache管理机制

多核系统中末级Cache是影响整体性能的关键。为了提出一种细粒度、低延迟、低代价的末级共享Cache资源管理机制,将系统性能目标转换为每个内核当前占用Cache资源的替换概率,以决定每个内核能够提供的被替换资源的数量;对某个需要增加Cache资源的内核,从可提供被替换资源的候选内核中选出距离较近且替换概率较高的一个内核,并以Cache块为粒度进行替换,从而实现Cache资源在不同内核间的动态划分。与传统以相联度为粒度的粗粒度替换机制相比,以Cache块为单位的替换机制具有更细的替换粒度,灵活性更高。另外,通过将位置信息和替换概率结合,保证了Cache资源与相应内核在物理布局上的收敛,降低了访问延迟。同时,所提出的方法只需要增加极少的硬件代价。实验结果表明,根据实验场景和对比对象的不同,所提方法与其他已有研究成果相比,可以实现从6.8%到22.7%的性能提升。     

试述中国维和警察工作的开创与发展

中国参与联合国维和行动的历程到中国维和警察工作的发展,以及参与维和行动的具体实践,体现了大国责任,实践证明,参与维和行动已经成为可调动的战略资源,为融入国际安全机制提供有效途径。     

中美外语课堂教学差异比较研究

中国和美国在教育理念和教学方式方面存在着较大差异,从中美教师在外语课堂上对学生的培养方式、培养重点和评价标准以及课堂的教学方式方法、教学手段等诸多方面进行比较,发现中美外语教学中的差异,进而找出我国现行外语课堂教学的不足,并有针对性地提出了几点改进建议,希望能对我国外语教学质量的提高起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

我国外警培训管理模式研究

外警培训是国家整体外交和国际警务合作的重要组成部分.通过分析比较封闭式管理模式和开放式管理模式的运行方式及优缺点,研究不同的管理模式对外警培训的质量和效果产生的影响,结合我国当前国情和国际执法培训发展趋势,提出了框架式外警培训管理模式。     

A nonatomic‐game model for timing clearance sales under competition

We deal with dynamic revenue management (RM) under competition using the nonatomic‐game approach. Here, a continuum of heterogeneous sellers try to sell the same product over a given time horizon. Each seller can lower his price once at the time of his own choosing, and faces Poisson demand arrival with a rate that is the product of a price‐sensitive term and a market‐dependent term. Different types of sellers interact, and their respective prices help shape the overall market in which they operate, thereby influencing the behavior of all sellers. Using the infinite‐seller approximation, which deprives any individual seller of his influence over the entire market, we show the existence of a certain pattern of seller behaviors that collectively produce an environment to which the behavior pattern forms a best response. Such equilibrium behaviors point to the suitability of threshold‐like pricing policies. Our computational study yields insights to RM under competition, such as profound ways in which consumer and competitor types influence seller behaviors and market conditions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 365–385, 2014     

India's Evolving Nuclear Posture

This article analyzes India's nuclear doctrine, finding it to be critically flawed and inimical to strategic stability in South Asia. In pursuing an ambitious triad of nuclear forces, India is straying from the sensible course it charted after going overtly nuclear in 1998. In doing so, it is exacerbating the triangular nuclear dilemma stemming from India's simultaneous rivalries with China and Pakistan. Strategic instability is compounded by India's pursuit of conventional “proactive strategy options,” which have the potential to lead to uncontrollable nuclear escalation on the subcontinent. New Delhi should reaffirm and redefine its doctrine of minimum credible nuclear deterrence, based on small nuclear forces with sufficient redundancy and diversity to deter a first strike by either China or Pakistan. It should also reinvigorate its nuclear diplomacy and assume a leadership role in the evolving global nuclear weapon regime.