Meanings of military ranks

This paper studies what kinds of meanings reserve officers ascribe to military ranks. The study builds on existing literature on reserve forces and hypothesizes that military ranks among reserve officers are subject to rendering the ranks with multiple meanings, and which are bound to create ambiguity of interpretation. To elaborate these theoretical insights a survey among Finnish reserve officers was conducted (N = 6193). The data was analyzed using factor analysis and correlation analysis. The results show that military ranks are ascribed, in addition to the functionalistic, hierarchical meaning, also with meanings of prestige, proficiency, and identity. The main theoretical contribution of the paper is in complementing the previous literature on ambiguity of military ranks by specifying four different meanings in the interpretation of the ranks.     

Does military spending promote social welfare? A comparative analysis of the BRICS and G7 countries

Whether military spending is capable of promoting social welfare is currently a controversial issue. The aim of this paper is to investigate how military spending affects the input and output of social welfare (i.e. social welfare expenditures and social welfare index). A panel cointegration analysis and an impulse response function are conducted with multi-country panel data, over two time periods, 1998–2011 and 1993–2007. In addition, to extend a comparative analysis over different economies, BRICS (i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and G7 (i.e. the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Canada) countries are selected as representatives of emerging economies and developed countries, respectively. The empirical results show that military spending enhances social welfare expenditures in developed countries, while the effect is ambiguous in emerging economies. Also, military spending is capable of promoting the social welfare index based on the FMOLS estimation. The comparative analyses indicate that unlike in the G7, the effect of the growth of military spending on the growth of social welfare expenditures is negative and shorter in the BRICS.     

Noncognitive skills and job match: evidence from military applicants

The study examines the effect of noncognitive skills on early career choices among young job seekers. Specifically, we analyze the influence of personality traits on the decision by military applicants either to choose the military or a civilian career option. We use a unique micro-level data-set of applicants to the US Navy and exploit the fact that many individuals who initially apply for military jobs eventually choose civilian careers instead. In this institutional setting, job candidates use new information to update their beliefs about the military job match. Personality traits are viewed as productive abilities that influence applicants’ expectations about the economic return to the job and occupational training offered by the Navy. The study finds that many of the 15 lower order personality facets associated with the Big Five traits are predictive of applicants’ job choices and provides suggestive evidence of a link between personality traits, job match expectations, and career choice.     

Measuring hard power: China’s economic growth and military capacity

China’s rapid economic growth is facilitating massive increases in its military spending and causing increased security concerns in Asia and the Western Pacific. But there is uncertainty over how large China’s military spending is relative to other countries, or how fast it is growing in real terms. We address this issue by deriving a relative military cost price index based on the relative unit costs of inputs. We find that China’s real military spending is much larger than suggested by exchange rate comparisons, and even larger than standard purchasing power parity comparisons. We also find, however, that the real growth of China’s military spending has been smaller than conventionally thought. This is due to rapidly growing wages in China and the large share of personnel in China’s military budget.     

美军无人化装备的影响分析及我军后勤发展

美军装备建设起步较早,其信息化、智能化程度较高,已具备向无人化作战及无人化后勤保障转型的趋势。通过分析研究美军无人化装备发展,准确定位我军后勤装备发展思路,提出并确定我军无人化后勤装备发展策略,对于指导我军现代后勤建设具有重要的现实意义。     

How might Democratisation Affect Military Professionalism in Africa? Reviewing the Literature

The search continues for methods to improve security for development in Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the important actors in this security arena is Sub-Saharan African governments’ armies. Much of their capability to meet security challenge depends on how militarily professional they are. The wave of democratic evolution in Africa since 1990 also affected military professionalism. This article reviews three models for assessing how democratisation might affect military professionalism in Sub-Saharan Africa, with special attention to post-conflict states. This should make it possible to decide which analytical methods are most appropriate to measure military professionalism in the particular circumstances of Sub-Saharan African post-conflict democratisation. Depending upon the particular nation-state in question, this decision on analytical methods may be useful for other Sub-Saharan states as well.     

Flexible capacity strategy in an asymmetric oligopoly market with competition and demand uncertainty

This article studies flexible capacity strategy (FCS) under oligopoly competition with uncertain demand. Each firm utilizes either the FCS or inflexible capacity strategy (IFCS). Flexible firms can postpone their productions until observing the actual demand, whereas inflexible firms cannot. We formulate a new asymmetrical oligopoly model for the problem, and obtain capacity and production decisions of the firms at Nash equilibrium. It is interesting to verify that cross‐group competition determines the capacity allocation between the two groups of firms, while intergroup competition determines the market share within each group. Moreover, we show that the two strategies coexist among firms only when cost differentiation is medium. Counterintuitively, flexible firms benefit from increasing production cost when the inflexible competition intensity is sufficiently high. This is because of retreat of inflexible firms, flexibility effect, and the corresponding high price. We identify conditions under which FCS is superior than IFCS. We also demonstrate that flexible firms benefit from increasing demand uncertainty. However, when demand variance is not very large, flexible firms may be disadvantaged. We further investigate the effects of cross‐group and intergroup competition on individual performance of the firms. We show that as flexible competition intensity increases, inflexible firms are mainly affected by the cross‐group competition first and then by the intergroup competition, whereas flexible firms are mainly affected by the intergroup competition. Finally, we examine endogenous flexibility and identify its three drivers: cost parameters, cross‐group competition, and intergroup competition. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 64: 117–138, 2017     

加强建筑消防设计审核工作之思考

结合自己的工作实践 ,分析建筑消防设计审核工作的重要性 ,并对如何加强建筑消防设计审核工作提出了看法。     

地下建筑消防通信问题研究

结合消防通信指挥系统建设现状,对地下建筑的消防通信问题进行了总结归纳,有针对性地提出了相应的措施,并就火灾时如何组建地下建筑的消防无线通信网进行了探讨。     

中水回用技术及其在建筑消防中的应用

随着我国经济的迅速发展,火灾起数和损失也不断增加,在许多城市总结火灾原因时,往往涉及消防水源缺乏导致小火酿成大灾的问题,更显消防供水设施建设的重要性。因此,消防给水规划是城市消防规划的一个重要方面。水仍然是我国目前应用最广泛的灭火剂,消防用水对水的质量并无特殊要求,用城市污水处理系统的产物——中水,来满足城市消防供水的需要,解决目前城市消防供水水压偏低,无法保证火场需要的问题,是城市消防供水的新途径,既环保又适用而且节约宝贵的水资源,是未来城市消防供水的发展方向。