Filibustering from Africa to the Americas: non-state actors and empire

This article looks at dominant definitions of empire, in particular those emphasizing large polities as the sole agents of imperial expansion. By doing so, it draws attention to the overlooked role of filibusters: private, non-state actors who initiate unauthorized military endeavours, either in an attempt to carve out empires for themselves or for their home state. It demonstrates that filibustering is not a practice unique only to the Americas or to the nineteenth century as so much of the literature suggests. Lastly, it scrutinizes the cultural and historical impact of the phenomenon. In terms of the former, it argues that filibustering had an important literary and filmic influence. Regarding the latter, it advocates that it frequently led to further violent intercessions in many of the countries occupied and influenced a particular style of proto-fascistic and charismatic militarism.     

The demand for military expenditure in authoritarian regimes

This paper examines whether there are systematic differences in military spending between different types of autocratic regimes. We view military expenditure as an instrument a dictator can exploit in order to stay in power. How he utilises this instrument depends on the institutional set-up of his regime. We distinguish between military regimes, single party states and personalist regimes, and predict that military regimes should have the highest, whereas personalist dictatorships should have the lowest level of military spending. Using panel data on 64 dictatorships from 1960 to 2000, we find empirical evidence that our hypotheses are not rejected.     

Capacity investment decisions under risk aversion

This article studies the optimal capacity investment problem for a risk‐averse decision maker. The capacity can be either purchased or salvaged, whereas both involve a fixed cost and a proportional cost/revenue. We incorporate risk preference and use a consumption model to capture the decision maker's risk sensitivity in a multiperiod capacity investment model. We show that, in each period, capacity and consumption decisions can be separately determined. In addition, we characterize the structure of the optimal capacity strategy. When the parameters are stationary, we present certain conditions under which the optimal capacity strategy could be easily characterized by a static two‐sided (s, S) policy, whereby, the capacity is determined only at the beginning of period one, and held constant during the entire planning horizon. It is purchased up to B when the initial capacity is below b, salvaged down to Σ when it is above σ, and remains constant otherwise. Numerical tests are presented to investigate the impact of demand volatility on the optimal capacity strategy. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 218–235, 2016     

电流变技术在工程中的应用

电流变液是一种在电场作用下能瞬间从液态变为固态的智能材料．简要介绍了电流变液及电流变效应、电流变液的组成及影响电流变效应的主要因素．综述了国内外电流变技术在工程中的应用研究进展及发展趋向,展望了这一技术在军事领域中的应用前景．     

A novel DOA estimation algorithm using directional antennas in cylindrical conformal arrays

In this paper, a novel direction of arrival (DOA) estimation algorithm using directional antennas in cy-lindrical conformal arrays (CCAs) is proposed. To eliminate the shadow effect, we divide the CCAs into several subarrays to obtain the complete output vector. Considering the anisotropic radiation pattern of a CCA, which cannot be separated from the manifold matrix, an improved interpolation method is investigated to transform the directional subarray into omnidirectional virtual nested arrays without non-orthogonal perturbation on the noise vector. Then, the cross-correlation matrix (CCM) of the sub-arrays is used to generate the consecutive co-arrays without redundant elements and eliminate the noise vector. Finally, the full-rank equivalent covariance matrix is constructed using the output of co-arrays, and the unitary estimation of the signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) is performed on the equivalent covariance matrix to estimate the DOAs with low computational complexity. Numerical simulations verify the superior performance of the proposed algorithm, especially under a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environment.     

Visual-attention gabor filter based online multi-armored target tracking

The multi-armored target tracking (MATT) plays a crucial role in coordinated tracking and strike. The occlusion and insertion among targets and target scale variation is the key problems in MATT. Most state-of-the-art multi-object tracking (MOT) works adopt the tracking-by-detection strategy, which rely on compute-intensive sliding window or anchoring scheme in detection module and neglect the target scale variation in tracking module. In this work, we proposed a more efficient and effective spatial-temporal attention scheme to track multi-armored target in the ground battlefield. By simulating the structure of the retina, a novel visual-attention Gabor filter branch is proposed to enhance detection. By introducing temporal information, some online learned target-specific Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are adopted to address occlusion. More importantly, we built a MOT dataset for armored targets, called Armored Target Tracking dataset (ATTD), based on which several comparable experiments with state-of-the-art methods are conducted. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves outstanding tracking performance and meets the actual application requirements.     

The Organization of the Defense Support System: An Economic Geography Perspective

In the context of restricted budgetary resources and the growing cost of maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) activities, a major issue for modern armed forces is to sustain defense platforms. A possible method consists of realizing economies of scale through the concentration of maintenance activities, which involves the spatial reorganization of existing industrial sites dedicated to MRO. This article provides a formalized framework to discuss the optimal organization for the MRO of defense platforms in space. The public planner organizes the maintenance of defense platforms with only two possible spatial configurations. In the dispersed configuration, two industrial production units in charge of the maintenance optimally cover space, whereas in the concentrated configuration, a unique industrial unit covers space. Focusing on the tipping point between the two configurations, the balance of forces between agglomeration and dispersion in defense support activities is described and discussed. On the one hand, economies of scale provide an opportunity to optimize defense support costs, favoring concentration in a unique industrial unit. On the other hand, space causes dispersion to reduce both transport costs and operational social costs. This trade-off illustrates a general principle in spatial economics with an application to MRO production in the French case.     

Mirror,mirror on the wall,who is the most offensive of them all? – Explaining the offensive bias in military tactical thinking

This article explores why the offensive predominates military tactical thinking. With survey results showing an offensive bias among 60 per cent of senior Swedish officers and as many as 80 per cent in the case of the army, it is clear that this is not just a problem of the past but is equally relevant today. The article asks why there is a tendency to perceive and understand offensive tactics as the preferred choice and the way to conduct battle that should be encouraged and preferred. Drawing on existing research and the findings of a pilot study, ten propositions for why the offensive bias exists are tested using a mixed-method approach. Based on the findings, the article develops a model to understand why the offensive dominates military tactical thinking. It is found that the two key constitutive factors behind the offensive bias are military culture and education. These factors most directly and profoundly influence an officer’s identity, perceptions, and thinking. Military culture and education, in turn, work as a prism for four other factors: military history, the theory and principles of war, doctrine and TTPs, and psychological factors.     

海洋环境影响航母编队反潜效能的三级评估模型*

针对海洋环境影响航母编队作战效能的评估问题,采用层次分析法分析了影响编队效能的海洋环境因子,以美军航母战斗群为例给出了经典航母编队的体系结构,并以该编队结构体系中反潜效能为例,建立了海洋环境影响的三级评估模型。研究思想对航母编队的效能评估有一定参考意义。