Assessing the value of demand sharing in supply chains

We consider the problem of assessing the value of demand sharing in a multistage supply chain in which the retailer observes stationary autoregressive moving average demand with Gaussian white noise (shocks). Similar to previous research, we assume each supply chain player constructs its best linear forecast of the leadtime demand and uses it to determine the order quantity via a periodic review myopic order‐up‐to policy. We demonstrate how a typical supply chain player can determine the extent of its available information in the presence of demand sharing by studying the properties of the moving average polynomials of adjacent supply chain players. The retailer's demand is driven by the random shocks appearing in the autoregressive moving average representation for its demand. Under the assumptions we will make in this article, to the retailer, knowing the shock information is equivalent to knowing the demand process (assuming that the model parameters are also known). Thus (in the event of sharing) the retailer's demand sequence and shock sequence would contain the same information to the retailer's supplier. We will show that, once we consider the dynamics of demand propagation further up the chain, it may be that a player's demand and shock sequences will contain different levels of information for an upstream player. Hence, we study how a player can determine its available information under demand sharing, and use this information to forecast leadtime demand. We characterize the value of demand sharing for a typical supply chain player. Furthermore, we show conditions under which (i) it is equivalent to no sharing, (ii) it is equivalent to full information shock sharing, and (iii) it is intermediate in value to the two previously described arrangements. Although it follows from existing literature that demand sharing is equivalent to full information shock sharing between a retailer and supplier, we demonstrate and characterize when this result does not generalize to upstream supply chain players. We then show that demand propagates through a supply chain where any player may share nothing, its demand, or its full information shocks (FIS) with an adjacent upstream player as quasi‐ARMA in—quasi‐ARMA out. We also provide a convenient form for the propagation of demand in a supply chain that will lend itself to future research applications. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 515–531, 2014     

Poachers turned gamekeepers: A study of the guerrilla phenomenon in Spain, 1808–1840

This article modifies the associations made by historians and political scientists of Spanish guerrilla warfare with revolutionary insurgency. First, it explains how the guerrilla phenomenon moved from a Leftist to a reactionary symbol. Second, it compares the insurgency and counter-insurgency features of the Carlist War (1833–1840) with those of the better-known Peninsular War (1808–1814). Third, it shows how erstwhile guerrilla leaders during the Carlist War made their expertise available to the counter-insurgency, in a socio-economic as well as military setting. This article revises the social banditry paradigm in nineteenth-century Spain in the under-researched context of Europe bloodiest nineteenth-century civil war.     

卫星位置视觉测量

目前卫星轨道参数的测量主要依靠地面测控站的无线电测量,使得测量受限于测控站的观测弧段;另一方面随着深空探测的不断深入,也对现有测控方法提出了新的挑战。利用卫星上已有的相机通过景象匹配对卫星自身位置进行精确测量,可以有效摆脱地面测量观测弧段和测量距离的约束。本文提出了一种基于星载实时图与基准图匹配的视觉测轨方法:通过景象匹配建立实时图中特征点与基准图的对应关系,再根据成像关系解算卫星的三维位置。利用卫星获取的立体图像和轨道测量数据进行了验证实验,证明了本文提出的方法具有较高的精度,实现了地基无线电测轨和视觉测轨的相互验证。本文提出的视觉测轨方法可以弥补现有测轨方式的不足,减轻地面测控系统负担,在深空探测等领域具有良好的应用前景。     

基于灰色神经网络的装甲部队油料消耗预测

油料消耗量的精确预测直接影响装甲部队后勤保障能力的提升,而传统预测模型精度不高,应用范围也有一定的局限,难以满足信息化战争精确保障的需要。提出一种装甲部队油料消耗预测的组合模型,对历史油料消耗数据和油耗影响因素进行统计分析,求出各影响因素与油耗量的关联度作为权重系数;通过改进GM(1,1)模型预测某部队下一次军事行动的油耗量;用GM(1,1)模型的预测值、加权后的各影响因素值和油耗实际值训练网络,对下一次想定的军事行动油耗量进行预测。通过平均相对误差计算表明,组合预测模型比单一的GM(1,1)模型预测精度高,能够较好地指导部队进行下一步的油料供管工作。     

The political economy of drones

This paper provides a political economy analysis of the evolution of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or ‘drones’ in the USA. Focus is placed on the interplay between the polity and private economic influences, and their impact on the trajectory of political, economic, and military outcomes. We identify the initial formation of the drone industry, trace how the initial relationships between the military and the private sector expanded over time, and discuss present relationships. Understanding the historical evolution of UAV technology, as well as the major players in the industry today, is important for ongoing policy debates regarding the use of drones both domestically and internationally.     

Financial versus human resources in the Greek‐Turkish arms race: A forecasting investigation using artificial neural networks

This paper aims at forecasting the burden on the Greek economy resulting from the arms race against Turkey and at concentrating on the leading determinants of this burden. The military debt and the defence share of GDP are employed alternatively in order to approximate the measurement of the arms race pressure on Greece, and the method used is that of artificial neural networks. The use of a wide variety of explanatory variables in combination with the promising results derived, suggest that the impact on the Greek economy resulting from this arms race is determined, to a large, extent, by demographic factors which strongly favour the Turkish side. Prediction on both miltary debt and defence expenditure exhibited highly satisfactory accuracy, while the estimation of input significance, indicates that variables describing the Turkish side are often dominant over the corresponding Greek ones.     

TERRORISM: FACTS FROM FIGURES 1

If international terrorism is on a rising trend, an important source of confirmation or refutation of this is time‐series data on terrorist activity. Using chiefly data collected by the RAND/MIPT consortium we show using basic statistical analysis that in the period 1968–2005 the yearly number of all international terrorist incidents shows no trend over time, but fluctuates year on year in a random manner. On the other hand some indicators do show a definite trend over time, principally the steady rise in the number of incidents that are death‐dealing in nature. A further conclusion is drawn, showing that the proportion of these incidents leading to deaths above a given level is virtually fixed.     

Reading the Riot Act: Toward a More Comprehensive Ban on Chemical Weapons

ABSTRACT

The recent use of chemicals in warfare in Syria and Iraq illustrates that, despite the important work of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), the world has not yet been totally successful in stopping the use of indiscriminate toxic agents in conflicts, either by states or non-state actors. Michael Crowley's excellent and timely new book, Chemical Control, analyzes the use of “riot control agents” (RCAs) and “incapacitating chemical agents” (ICAs), including launch and dispersal systems, by police, paramilitary, and military forces over the last decades and raises the challenging question about where the red line might be drawn between banned and permitted uses of chemicals. He discusses this problem not only in the context of the CWC, which allows use of RCAs for civilian riot control, but also in the context of international law, human rights, and criminal justice, including the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and other disarmament and abolition regimes. He proposes a “holistic, three-stage approach” to addressing this issue “for effective regulation or prohibition of the weapon or weapon-related technology of concern.” As we approach the global abolition of a whole class of weapons of mass destruction in the next decade or even sooner, Chemical Control is helpful in better understanding and solving the dilemma of what's actually banned or permitted under international law, and precluding states undermining the chemical weapons ban.     

基于多传感器信息系统的仿人机器人步态规划算法改进研究

摘要：基于视觉传感器、角度传感器和力／力矩传感器组成的多传感器信息系统,对仿人机器人理想的步态规划算法进行了改进．以双目视觉立体标定原理处理视觉传感信息,从而判断目标距离及目标路径的可达性;通过角度传感器获取实时旋转角度,经参数调整减小执行误差;根据力／;5矩传感信息对支撑脚踝关节的侧摆角度进行增量式补偿．经实验验证,改进后的算法对机器人的步态稳定性控制具有良好的效果．     

具有时滞的Cohen—Grossberg神经网络的Hopf分支全局存在性研究

摘要：利用泛函微分方程的度理论,研究一类具有时滞的Cohen-Grossberg神经网络的全局分支的存在性,研究结果为该类神经网络的应用设计提供理论基础．