Bolstering components for maximizing system lifetime

This article considers the problem of which component should be “bolstered” or “improved” in order to stochastically maximize the lifetime of a parallel system, series system, or in general, k-out-of-n system. Various ways of bolstering including active redundance, standby redundancy, and burn-in are studied. Also the method of reducing working temperature or stress level according to Arrhenius models is investigated. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 497–509, 1998     

海军军事数据在指挥控制中的作用及层次关联分析

信息化条件下的海上作战中,数据的重要性不断凸显,数据建设已成为信息化建设的核心内容之一,加强数据研究愈发重要,因此以海军军事数据为研究对象,论述海军军事数据在指挥控制中的作用、特点,重点以海军水面舰艇作战能力数据为研究对象,对海军军事数据之间的层次关联性进行了分析研究,建立了海军水面舰艇作战能力数据的层次关系模型,为海军军事数据的进一步深入研究打下基础。     

Operating Costs of Aging Air Force Aircraft: Adjusting for Aggregate Budget Effects

The rate at which operating costs grow as aircraft age is important for setting operating budgets and for deciding when to replace aging systems. While studies using data from the 1990's typically found 1–3 percent real rates of growth in operating costs as aircraft age, studies using data from the 2000's found greater rates, for example in the 4–6 percent range. Growth in the total U.S. Air Force budget during the 2000s appears to explain much of the higher estimated annual growth rates in operating costs per flying hour beyond the growth rate intrinsic to the aging of the fleet.     

Xunzi on the Role of the Military in a Well-Ordered State

Chapter 15 of the Xunzi stands as the most comprehensive account of the early Confucian analysis of warfare. Unlike a range of other early, non-Confucian discussions on warfare, particular strategies and tactics are taken to be of secondary importance. Thus, Xunzi refuses to discuss practical military strategy without framing it within a much broader ethical, social, and political context. On his account, a well-ordered, flourishing state necessarily rests upon a particular set of rituals and social norms in which people can cultivate themselves morally. Such a state has nothing to fear from any enemy, no matter how tactically sophisticated or militarily skilled. To many, such a view seems overly optimistic. However, given that Xunzi is anything but Pollyannaish in other parts of the text and is quite pessimistic about human nature in general, it behooves us to dig a bit more deeply into his ideas about military affairs and examine whether they can be understood in a more plausible light. This article provides a reading of Xunzi’s views on military affairs that is internally consistent and corresponds with Xunzi’s broader ethical and political views, while also showing why someone of Xunzi’s obvious intellectual acumen might hold such a view.     

高精度CFD程序的内外子区域划分异构并行算法

对计算流体力学(Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD)程序CNS提出一种Offload模式下对任务内外子区域划分的异构并行算法,结合结构化网格下有限差分计算和四阶龙格-库塔方法的特点,引入ghost网格点区域,设计了一种ghost区域收缩计算策略,显著降低了异构计算资源之间的数据传输开销,负载均衡时CPU端的计算与MPI通信完全和加速器端的计算重叠,提高了异构协同并行性。推导了保证计算正确性的ghost区域的参数,分析了负载均衡的条件。在"CPU(Intel Haswell Xeon E5-2670 12 cores×2)+加速器(Xeon Phi 7120A×2)"的服务器上测得该算法较直接将任务子块整体迁至加速器端计算的异构算法性能平均提升至5.9倍,较MPI/OpenMP两级并行算法使用24个纯CPU核的性能,该算法使用单加速器时加速至1.27倍,使用双加速器加速至1.45倍。讨论和分析了性能瓶颈与存在的问题。     

From Westphalian Failure to Heterarchic Governance in MENA: The Case of Syria

Abstract

The problematic export of the Westphalian system to MENA is examined, taking Syria as exemplar. The export model is juxtaposed to actual non-lineal trajectories, semi-sovereignty and hybrid or failing states. This is manifested in post-uprising Syria in failing statehood, fragmented and overlapping governance, permeable and collapsing borders, the loss of sovereignty to trans-state movements, “competitive regime-building” between the Asad regime and jihadist warlords, and “competitive interventionism” by external powers filling the governance vacuum with their own proxies. The result is heterarchic zones of limited statehood in which state sovereignty is contested by both international (supra-state) penetration and sub-state fragmentation.     

Principles of Minimum Force and the Parachute Regiment in Northern Ireland, 1969–1972

Developing literature on Operation Banner, the codename for the British military operation in Northern Ireland, has indicated that the conduct of soldiers deployed was not always in line with principles of minimum force. Adherence to these principles would seem to have been essential to the success of the operation given the initial deployment of the soldiers was in the role of military aid to the civil power. This article will examine the role of one of the British Army’s most aggressive units, the Parachute Regiment, and will show how the responses of the regiment to the demands of the operation in Northern Ireland were frequently in contravention of minimum force principles.     

Exploring the subsidiarity principle in policing and the operations of the Nigeria Police Force

The provisions of the 1999 Constitution, which recognises the existence of a single police force and forbids parallel police organisations, have oftentimes generated controversies among actors in the Nigerian federal polity. Rising insecurity precipitates lingering questions on the utility and adequacy of a single, highly centralised and centrally controlled police force given Nigeria’s geographic vastness and demographic diversity. Conversely, arguments have also dwelt on the dangers of fragmentation considering Nigeria’s psychosocial, economic and political nature. This article attempts to balance these arguments by analysing policing and the operations of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) through the lens of the subsidiarity principle. Subsidiarity is a governance principle in federations, captured in the founding documents of the European Union (EU), which prescribes that governmental powers, authorities and duties should be held by the tier that can best perform them equitably, efficiently, effectively, suitably and based on interest and need. Drawing largely on interviews with purposively selected police scholars, political actors, civil society organisations and police personnel, the paper contends that this principle offers a pragmatic solution to the perennial problems of intergovernmental frictions on the use of the police within the context of governance in the Nigerian federation.     

South African defence policy: the rationale and impact of the SANDF’s primary role and conventional force design

The 2015 South African Defence Review set out to reverse the deterioration of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) capabilities. Within the South African Department of Defence (DOD) this deterioration is expressed mainly in terms of a decreasing defence budget, subsequent declining conventional capabilities and obsolete prime mission equipment. Contemporary research and defence expert debates on this theme, point out the disjuncture between policy ends and the available means, with scepticism for an increased defence budget given the DOD’s lack of internal reform and strategy adjustment. One question that remains largely unanswered in the literature regarding the decline of the SANDF, is why both the policy-makers and the SANDF have remained focused on the primary role of the military (defending territorial integrity) accompanied with an unaffordable conventional force design? This question relates to the aim of this paper and is explored by revisiting initial defence policy decisions and compromises that were made in the 1990s. It is argued that the primary role of the SANDF and its conventional force design suited the interests of both the politicians and the military, but that the drawbacks thereof have harshly caught up with the DOD.     

新编制体制下武警部队装备任务需求

为加快建设现代化武警部队,解决配属装备与日益增长的任务需求之间的矛盾,论文以武警部队指挥体系变更、警种部队调整的现实背景,围绕武警部队遂行任务情况,整理分析出新编各警种对装备的任务需求,为推动武警部队装备体系发展提供理论参考。