美关岛基地战略前景分析

关岛是美军在西太平洋地区的重要战略支撑点,既是战略轰炸机基地,又是海军在西太主要的作战、后勤保障中心,还是海军陆战队的集结基地,军力可有效辐射西太地区。对于美军来说,关岛具有政治可持续性、地理位置优越、自身规模适宜等自身优势,同时也面临着远程打击威胁增多、军力部署集中与分散两难、盟友顾虑被抛弃等问题。美国将持续加大对关岛的军事力量建设投入,进一步加强关岛在西太的军事核心地位。     

The security sector and the plunder of Zimbabwe’s Chiadzwa alluvial diamonds: the ‘goat mentality’ in practice

While the human rights impact of the deployment of state security agencies in the Chiadzwa diamond fields has been explored, it is important to continue to expose the increasing tendency within the sector to take public resources that should be protected by the state and used for the benefit of the people and channel them for personal gain. The security sector stranglehold of President Robert Mugabe and the ruling political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), has facilitated the siphoning of Chiadzwa diamond revenue into the pockets of individual security personnel. The unfolding sociopolitical crisis in Zimbabwe has also meant that these security personnel have been deployed beyond conflict zones and into traditionally civilian domains, with dire consequences for the public purse. With this in mind, it is asserted that these issues have driven state security agencies to enrich themselves through what is termed in this article as a ‘goat mentality’. The article thus explores the ways in which state security agencies have been deployed and gone on to promote personal enrichment in the Chiadzwa diamond fields.     

用状态空间法设计低灵敏度 SCFs 的研究

本文从双端接阻无源梯形结构出发,通过两次必要的换标,导出了一种新的完善的 SCFs 的状态空间综合方法。所得到的 SCFs 的状态空间矩阵集的一般形式具有低灵敏度,并且在特定频率下具有零灵敏度。     

Markovian approximation for manufacturing systems of unreliable machines in tandem

This paper studies production planning of manufacturing systems of unreliable machines in tandem. The manufacturing system considered here produces one type of product. The demand is assumed to be a Poisson process and the processing time for one unit of product in each machine is exponentially distributed. A broken machine is subject to a sequence of repairing processes. The up time and the repairing time in each phase are assumed to be exponentially distributed. We study the manufacturing system by considering each machine as an individual system with stochastic supply and demand. The Markov Modulated Poisson Process (MMPP) is applied to model the process of supply. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed method. We employ (s, S) policy as production control. Fast algorithms are presented to solve the average running costs of the machine system for a given (s, S) policy and hence the approximated optimal (s, S) policy. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 48: 65–78, 2001     

基于状态空间模型的航天器装配角偏误差研究

装配过程的误差建模是分析装配误差的重要手段之一。通过分析影响航天器装配结果的尺寸和形位误差、装夹定位误差,将其装配的偏差源分为夹具装夹误差和舱段制造误差两类。并将不同形式的误差通过虚拟夹具的概念进行了统一的表达,进而基于误差流理论针对航天器舱段建立其误差传播的状态空间模型,求出了该过程的状态空间表达式,应用该模型对装配过程中的角偏误差进行了分析。将分析得到的结果同蒙特卡洛仿真的结果进行了比较,两种方法的相对误差小于3%,说明了该方法的可行性。该方法的优势在于它不仅可以分析复杂装配过程,还可以对各工位的装配效果进行观测,从而进行向后分析。     

Conflict and fiscal capacity

We examine the role of war in retarding state fiscal capacity in developing countries, measured by tax revenue ratios to GDP. We build a simple theoretical model of a factionalized state, where patronage substitutes for common interest public goods, along with violent contestation over a rent or prize. Our dynamic panel empirical analysis applied to 79 developing countries, during 1980–2010, indicates that war, especially civil war, retards fiscal capacity, along with imperfect democracy, political repression, poor governance, and dependence on oil and macroeconomic mismanagement. High intensity conflict is particularly destructive of state capacity. In countries experiencing low intensity wars, other institutional factors may matter more than war. The diminution of fiscal capacity due to war appears less pronounced after the end of the cold war.     

Why internal conflict deteriorates state capacity? Evidence from Colombian municipalities

Previous work has documented a negative correlation between internal conflict and state capacity. We attempt to shed light on mechanisms that underlie this relationship, using data for Colombian municipalities. We rely on identifying heterogeneous effects of different types of violent events on state capacity, taking advantage of variability across municipalities in the prevalence of specific manifestations of conflict and their intensity. Our findings suggest that events making civilians feel targeted affect the state’s capacity to collect taxes, while those reflecting a stronger military capacity of illegal armies, in particular their large-scale attacks, affect the state’s capacity to provide public goods.     

The Central Asian Militants: Cannon Fodder of Global Jihadism or Revolutionary Vanguard?

Central Asians have long been present within the ranks of organisations linked to the global jihad movement, but has there been an acceleration in their recruitment in recent years? There is growing evidence of substantial numbers of Central Asians (mostly Uzbeks and Tajiks) present in Syria in the ranks of the Islamic State and of a number of organisations linked to Al-Qaida. There is also growing evidence of recruitment inside Kyrgizstan and Tajikistan at least (as opposed as among Central Asian emigrants). The authors argue that distrust towards information provided by the Central Asian regimes should not blind analysts towards an emerging trend, which has substantial destabilising potential. The factors driving this recruitment also seem to be much more complex than a rejection of the authoritarianism of the ruling elites.     

Supporting Non-State Armed Groups: A Resort to Illegality?

States have suffered equally, if not more, from violence generated by Non-state Armed Groups (NAGs), such as ethnic and religious insurgencies and terrorists, than violence directly generated by their counterparts. This does not undermine the fact that states occasionally provide support to these groups in the form of safe havens, weapons, and funding. This paper argues that state support is a function of the states’ vulnerability in extracting and mobilizing resources to secure their borders. In contrast to the conception that weak or failed states provide the largest pool of resources to NAGs, the relatively strong states still prevail as their most fervent supporters. The preliminary evidence also suggests that NAGs serve as substitutes for allies.