对转涡轮用于水下航行器的初步研究

阐述了对转涡轮在航空航天领域的发展现状,总结出对转涡轮的优点和应用前景,提出了一种可用作水下航行器动力主机的涡轮机类型.分析了水下航行器涡轮机与航空航天涡轮机的差别,论证了对转涡轮使用在水下航行器上的可行性,建立了水下航行器对转涡轮机的设计框架.     

基于改进TOPSIS法的维修保障系统效能评估研究

维修保障系统涉及因素众多,对其进行效能评估是一项非常复杂的问题.在分析TOPSIS及其改进方法的基础上,构建了维修保障系统效能评估指标体系,应用改进TOPSIS法对维修保障系统效能进行了综合评估,并将评估结果与AHP和突变评价法的结果进行比较,结论一致.为维修保障系统效能评估问题寻求出一种新的方法,其评估结果可为决策提供定量依据.     

模糊逻辑系统在船舶风险评估中的应用

为了合理进行船舶风险评估,提出了一种基于模糊逻辑系统的船舶风险评估方法.根据模糊逻辑系统的基本原理,建立了船舶风险评估的模糊逻辑模型;按照国家标准、规范,并结合经验建立了风险指标的模糊集合、风险矩阵及模糊规则,然后进行了模糊推理,得到了系统的风险等级,并制定了预防风险的措施.以某艇消防系统的风险评估为例,证明了其能够合理地评估出系统的风险,可为决策提供参考.     

动态灰色时序系统 DGTS 及其在安全策略规范中的应用

设计安全策略模型时应考虑安全策略的时序特性和灰色特性,还应综合考虑保密性、完整性和可用性三方面的需求。已有的安全模型没有描述时序性和灰色特性,而且一般只侧重描述保密性或完整性。为此,本文提出了动态灰色时序系统（简称ＤＧＴＳ）。本文详细描述了ＤＧＴＳ,以及基于ＤＧＴＳ的动态语义设计的灰色时序安全策略规范语言ＧＴＳＬ。     

From the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region-led negotiation to the Intervention Brigade

The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been characterised by chaos and insecurity for a number of years, but the rise of the M23 rebellion in 2012 once again highlighted just how dire the humanitarian and security situation is. For most of 2012, the crisis was addressed through negotiations between M23 and Kinshasa, mediated by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). However, 2013 marked the signing of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework Agreement (PSC Framework), and the United Nations Security Council's adoption of Resolution 2098, which contains the mandate of the long-awaited Intervention Brigade (IB). The PSC Framework calls on Kinshasa to implement substantial political reforms while also urging the neighbours of the DRC to stop interfering in its internal affairs. The IB is mandated to carry out targeted operations against the so-called ‘negative forces’ that operate in the eastern DRC. For now, hope of resolving this ongoing crisis hinges on the continuing ICGLR negotiations, the implementation of the PSC Framework and the success of the IB. However, there are critical questions about all of these processes that need to be answered and understood, as the expectations for these processes – especially in the case of the IB – are extremely high. Will the ICGLR manage to negotiate a peace agreement and will the IB succeed, or will they go down in history as yet another failure to save the eastern DRC?     

Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria

Since the July 2009 Boko Haram terrorist outburst in Nigeria, there have been increasing questions on the phenomenon in the country. There has not been any substantial analysis on the emergence of the Boko Haram group and its terrorist activities in Nigeria as the out-rage continues. This study is advanced to explain the phenomenon of Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria. It employs the levels of analysis framework popular in the field of international relations to explain the terrorism at three major levels: individual, state and international. The study relies on dependable news reports, which include interviews with key actors relevant to the subject matter, and finds that Boko Haram terrorism has its roots in the ideology and motivations of its founder and members, the failures and deficiencies of the Nigerian state, and the modern trend of religious terrorism in the international system.     

The Power of the NPT: International Norms and Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament

ABSTRACT

There is a lingering disagreement among scholars on how the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) affects nonproliferation and disarmament outcomes. Drawing on constructivist scholarship on international norms, this article examines the extent of the NPT's effect in the case of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament. In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Ukraine found itself host to the world's third largest nuclear arsenal. Despite Ukraine's initial commitment to become a non-nuclear state, it proceeded along a difficult path toward NPT accession. Most controversial and directly at odds with the NPT was Ukraine's claim to ownership of its nuclear inheritance as a successor state of the Soviet Union. This article argues that, while much domestic discourse about the fate of these nuclear weapons was embedded in the negotiation of Ukraine's new identity as a sovereign state vis-à-vis Russia and the West, the NPT played an important, structural role by outlining a separate normative space for nuclear weapons and providing the grammar of denuclearization with which Ukraine's decision makers had to grapple.     

CIVIL SOCIETY AND VIOLENCE—HOW TO MANAGE IN THE TOWNSHIPS WITHOUT THE ARMY

This article discusses the validity of national security threats in Botswana and whether they justified the creation of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DISS), which has been controversial since its formation. Since its inception in 2008, the DISS has been accused of many human rights violations and politicisation. Without fully deliberating on the basis for its creation, some discourses have focused on the politicised operations without relation to what the DISS is supposed to be doing. The author works under the assumption that debates should be shaped by whether it was necessary to create the DISS, and, if so, how we can shape and steer debates on its oversight, management, reform and operations. This article argues that despite the politicisation of the DISS, Botswana's national security threats are both real and imagined; and that domestic threats to national security have moved from the conceptual ‘imagined’ category to the ‘real’. However, that in itself did not warrant the design and mandate of the DISS, and the article argues that it was external threats that really warranted the creation of a civilian intelligence agency. The article concludes that Botswana faces a plethora of external security threats – traditional and non-traditional – that warranted the creation and continuance of the DISS.     

Africa's toy soldiers,non-state armed groups,and ‘voluntary’ recruitment

Armed conflict on the African continent has witnessed increasing recruitment of child soldiers, often at the hands of non-state armed groups. Unfortunately this practice continues unabated in the face of legal obligations prohibiting the recruitment of child soldiers under international humanitarian law, and international and regional human rights law. While international condemnation of the practice has led to attempts to increase the minimum age for recruitment to 18, a disjuncture persists between the legal obligations states sign up to, and the actual enforcement of these prohibitions at a domestic level.

International criminal law jurisprudence emanating from the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court is being monitored closely, as these courts seek to enforce the prohibition in all armed conflicts, and against both state actors and non-state armed groups. International humanitarian law only protects child soldiers who have been unlawfully recruited. In this piece, the authors take a closer look at what amounts to unlawful recruitment in light of customary international humanitarian law, since this body of law also binds non-state actors, even without further criminalising legislation at a domestic level. Moreover, the article briefly explores whether a child can ever void this protected status by volunteering to participate directly in hostilities.     

Democracy and peace: Reply to oneal and russett

The criticism of James, Solberg and Wolfson (JSW) (1999) by Oneal and Russett (OR) is not responsive to the methodologica] issues at stake. JSW argued that war is an endogenous feature of the world political and economic system. If its causes are to be measured, it must be as a structural equation in a simultaneous system. Wedded to the idea that “democracies never fight each other,” OR rely on a single equation to justify their view. JSW claim that such an equation may be an ad hoc reduced form with no causal implications unless the equation is explicitly identified as a structural equation. JSW expand the model to explain democracy and conflict as two endogenous variables. JSW do not claim to have discovered the true relationships between these variables by their minimal expansion of the structural relation. They do show that unless these (and other) variables are treated as part of a system, the results are unstable, contradictory, of minimal size and not a reliable guide to public policy.