China's Global Equity Oil Investments: Economic and Geopolitical Influences

In this article, we construct and analyze an original database of overseas Chinese equity oil investments (EOI) in order to assess the relative importance of economic and geopolitical factors in determining the type of countries that are most likely to receive those investments. We find that China's national oil companies (NOCs) choose to make considerable investments in certain oil rich countries while ignoring others. We develop and examine ‘economic opportunity’ and ‘geopolitical relevance’ explanations of Chinese EOI. The economic explanation assumes that Chinese oil companies operate autonomously despite the fact that they are state owned, and that they seek international experience in countries offering less competition but more risk. The geopolitical explanation suggests that Chinese equity oil investments are developed and coordinated by the central government as part of a geopolitical strategy that is designed to bypass the so-called ‘Malacca Dilemma’ and deepen security ties with oil-rich states through the conduct of oil diplomacy. We argue that Chinese EOI tends to reflect both corporate interests and government priorities, and that it generates more liabilities rather than benefits for China.     

The Naval Intelligence Underpinnings of Reagan's Maritime Strategy

Washington's so-called Maritime Strategy, which sought to apply US naval might against Soviet vulnerabilities on its maritime flanks, came to full fruition during the 1980s. The strategy, which witnessed a major buildup of US naval forces and aggressive exercising in seas proximate to the USSR, also explicitly targeted Moscow”s strategic missile submarines with the aim of pressuring the Kremlin during crises or the early phases of global war. Relying on a variety of interviews and newly declassified documents, the authors assert that the Maritime Strategy represents one of the rare instances in history when intelligence helped lead a nation to completely revise its concept of military operations.     

Shielding the ‘Hot Gates’: Submarine Warfare and Japanese Naval Strategy in the Cold War and Beyond (1976–2006)

The build-up of Japan's military apparatus in the 1990s and 2000s has been often regarded by security analysts as indicative of a departure from the country's Cold War strategic posture. Japan appears to be engaged in a process of militarisation that is eroding the foundations of its ‘exclusively defence-oriented’ policy. In the case of the archipelago's naval strategy, such assessments overlook the longstanding significance of a core feature of its defence policy, namely the surveillance of maritime crossroads delivering the wealth of the country. The paper reassesses the evolution of the Japanese strategy since the Cold War by examining the development of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force's submarine force, one of the key components of the defensive shield for these crossroads. The paper argues that with the changes in the security environment of the 1990s, Japan already fielded a mature force with state-of-the-art submarines, and that the rise of a new naval competitor aiming at controlling key strategic points along Japan's sea lanes reconfirmed the critical importance of submarine operations to Japanese national security.     

Operation ‘enduring freedom’: a victory for a conventional force fighting an unconventional war

The track record of the US military in unconventional wars has not been good and there were fears that Operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ might suffer the same fate as previous campaigns. This contribution explores why the Taliban were defeated so easily by the US in 2001. It challenges the view that America's victory was due solely to changes in its modus operandi or that the outcome heralds a change in the fortunes of the US when fighting unconventional war. It also questions the idea that America's victory was a consequence of Taliban incompetence. Instead, it explains the defeat of the Taliban in terms of the prevailing political conditions within Afghanistan, which made them vulnerable to attack. The essay concludes that current political circumstances could, in the long run, permit the resurrection of the Taliban and undermine the US-led coalition's victory.     

The Zimbabwe people’s revolutionary army military operations in Makonde district and the attack on Salisbury’s fuel storage tanks, 1965-1979

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army operations in Mashonaland West province with particular reference to Makonde District during the country’s war of liberation. Despite the growing literature on ZAPU and ZPRA in Zimbabwe’s war of liberation there is little that has been written concerning the operations of ZPRA guerrillas in Mashonaland provinces. Guided by evidence drawn from secondary and primary sources the article further asserts that ZPRA adopted a four pronged strategy in Makonde District. This strategy in part was hinged on the politicization of the population on the one hand and annihilation of the enemy forces, attrition and manoeuvre warfare on the other. Again, the article argues that ZPRA guerrillas attempted to capture Salisbury (Harare) in order to conquer the Rhodesian Security Forces’ centre of gravity. It was hoped that the capture of the capital city would Makoni District was of strategic significance to the conduct of ZPRA operations and arguably hastened Ian Smith’s decision to attend the Lancaster House Conference negotiations that led to the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980.     

Past failures and future problems: the psychology of irregular war

Personal cognitive processes inform how individuals understand their environment. Cultural variation, fundamental attribution error, causal attribution, and durability bias create obstacles to Western understanding of irregular war and have created a significant institutional bias in how the US military perceives its enemies- a perception only somewhat softened after a decade of irregular war. United Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is in a better position to overcome these problems through persistent engagement. In the event of major conflict, environmentally sensitized military planners will be better able to achieve military and policy objectives.     

卫星双向与单向载波联合的北斗星载钟短稳评估方法

卫星导航系统评估星载钟稳定度通常需要大型地面监测网的观测数据和复杂的钟差确定算法,不能基于单站观测数据实现。论文在分析利用单站观测数据评估星载钟短稳方法的基础上,提出了一种相对容易实现的联合卫星双向载波测距值与GNSS单向载波观测值的星载钟短稳评估方法。该方法通过卫星双向载波测距确定星地几何距离,基于消除星地几何距离的GNSS接收机载波相位观测值估算卫星相对钟差,进而实现其短稳评估。利用北斗系统观测数据进行了有效性验证,并与复杂钟差确定算法以及利用平滑广播星历的方法(SBE法)进行了对比,本文方法与复杂钟差确定算法计算的结果相符,在1000s平滑间隔内与SBE法结果一致,相对误差小于10%,1000s以上好于SBE法。     

信息推荐系统中的朋友关系预测算法设计

伴随着互联网规模的不断扩展,信息过载问题越来越突出。信息推荐系统被视为解决信息过载问题的最有效方法。然而目前的方法大多数仅考虑用户独立的反馈,而忽略用户的社会属性对推荐的重要作用,这对信息推荐系统的性能会造成巨大的影响。为此,本文提出了基于朋友关系预测的信息推荐算法,将用户的社会关系预测引入信息推荐过程中,分别基于用户的拓扑信息及历史交互信息建立用户社会关系的存在性判定及关系类型判定,并利用线性回归分析方法和逻辑回归分析方法实现了基本特征的融合。最后,通过在Epinions和Slashdot真实数据集上的实验证明,本方法能够有效提高用户社会关系预测的准确性。     

一种面向大型地理栅格数据的并行处理框架

随着高分辨率数据获取技术的发展,地理栅格数据的数据量不断增大,串行计算方式无法快速处理大型栅格数据,因此需要通过并行技术提高效率。传统开发过程将算法与进程调度、内存管理以及数据I/O混杂在一起的编程方式,对程序员要求较高,代码质量不易控制。本研究提出了一种面向大型地理栅格数据的并行处理框架,利用核心类的真实和虚拟两种读取方式,实现了大型数据的分步骤、分块的快速加载和写入,并将所有的并行任务调度、进程间的数据传输过程以及特定的栅格算法步骤归结为任务;通过该框架可以将算法本身与并行调度、磁盘I/O等底层操作分离,使算法编写者可以专注于算法本身,降低开发难度,提高代码质量,解决了快速编写大型地理栅格数据算法程序的目的。实验表明,本框架可实现较好的并行效果,并显著降低代码量、提高软件质量。     

PHEV电池电荷状态估计设计及仿真

电池管理系统(battery management system,BMS)是混合动力汽车(parallel hybrid electric vehicle,PHEV)能量管理系统中的核心组成部分,而其中电池电荷状态(state of charge,soc)则是PHEV控制策略中的重要参数.针对PHEV动力电池组SOC系统高度非线性和复杂性的特点,提出了一种基于改进的BP神经网络的HEV动力电池组的实时SOC估计,并对网络的收敛性进行了证明.利用大量PHEV动力电池组在行驶过程中充放电的数据样本,对神经网络进行网络训练并且进行仿真.结果表明,与传统离线SOC估计方法相比,能够有效地减小误差,提高电池SOC的精度.