The effect of deployment on first‐ and second‐term re‐enlistment in the US active duty force

Why should deployment affect re‐enlistment? In our model, members enter the military with naïve beliefs about deployment and use actual deployment experience to update their beliefs and revise their expected utility of re‐enlisting. Empirically, re‐enlistment is related to the type and number of deployments, consistent with the learning model. Non‐hostile deployment increases first‐term re‐enlistment but hostile deployment has little effect except for the Army, where the effect is positive. Both types increase second‐term re‐enlistment. Interestingly, first‐term members with dependants tend to respond to deployment like second‐term members. In addition, deployment acts directly to affect re‐enlistment, not indirectly through time to promotion.     

Aid versus sanctions for taming oppressors: theory and case study of the Iraqi Kurds

We model an oppressor aiming at victimizing an excluded group in his country, with two main variants. A foreign power affects his behaviour using either conditional aid, subject to the dictator’s participation constraint, or the threat of sanctions, broadly defined, subject to the credibility constraint. The choice between the two is either determined by the latter, or by their relative cost. Aid is preferred when the threat of sanctions is ineffective, and sanctions are too expensive. Sanctions might be imposed, if the threat is ineffective. A case study of the Iraqi Kurds after Iraq was subject to sanctions is presented.     

Military expenditure and economic growth: peru 1970–1996

The present study examines the effects of military expenditure on growth in Peru in the period from 1970 to 1996. By using a Deger‐type Simultaneous Equations Model it is possible to break up the net effect into supply‐ and demand‐side influences. The former consist of positive externalities of defence activities on the other sectors of the economy, while the latter can be described as crowding‐out of civilian investment. Estimations find the supply‐side effects to be insignificantly different from zero, while the crowding‐out effect of defence spending is significant and substantial. It is thereby established that defence expenditure has a negative overall effect on economic growth in Peru. Although several caveats – including specification problems of the Deger model, the quality of the data used, a relatively small sample and the presence of autocorrelation in the estimations – must be considered, these results turn out to be quite robust with respect to estimation methods (3SLS, 2SLS, OLS) and slight modifications to the model. They are also consistent with previous empirical findings from other countries and cross sectional studies.     

Resourcing for defense: Solving the roles and missions puzzle

One of the most important issues facing the post‐Cold War U.S. defense establishment concerns the future allocation of combat tasks and responsibilities among different branches of the armed forces. The challenge is to reduce unnecessary redundancy across roles and missions when resources are highly constrained, without compromising military effectiveness. Defining the policy problem as one of resource allocation rather than operational effectiveness, we develop a methodology for allocating roles and missions. Our methodology focuses at the highest level of force aggregation and uses a mathematical programming model to produce cross‐service cross‐mission trade‐offs that will yield the best total force combat and non‐combat potential within resource consumption constraints.     

Coordination mechanisms for a three‐stage reverse supply chain to increase profitable returns

In this article, we consider a generic electronic product that can be remanufactured or recycled at the end of its life cycle to generate new profit. We first describe the product return process and then present a customer segmentation model to capture consumers' different behaviors with respect to product return so that the retailer can work more effectively to increase the return volume. In regard to the collaboration between the retailer and the manufacturer, we explore a revenue‐sharing coordination mechanism for achieving a win‐win outcome. The optimality and sensitivity of the critical parameters in four strategies are obtained and examined both theoretically and numerically, which generate insights on how to manage an efficient consumer‐retailer‐manufacturer reverse supply chain, as well as on the feasibility of simplifying such a three‐stage chain structure. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2013     

航空发动机燃滑油附件后盖裂纹原因分析与预防对策

针对某型航空发动机燃-滑油附件后盖同部位成批次出现裂纹的问题,提出了裂纹故障引导转移的避障策略。通过研究裂纹产生的主要原因,分析后盖不同部位所产生的裂纹可能对航空发动机造成的危害程度,调整改变原支撑结构,在后盖非关键部位形成新的应力集中点,降低关键部位应力集中区的应力幅值,迫使故障从不可修复的关键部位转移到可修复的非关键部位。经计算机仿真,确定了裂纹引导缺口的最佳参数;同时,仿真结果表明,裂纹故障引导转移策略合理可行。     

通信受限下分布式多传感器协同跟踪算法

在分布式多传感器目标跟踪系统中,由于局部融合中心(LFC)的物理限制(如:有限的频率信道、处理器容量有限等),只能接收有限个传感器的传送数据。此外,信息传输的方式也将影响传感网的使用寿命,因此,研究了通信受限下的分布式多传感器目标协同跟踪问题。首先对监视区内分布的传感器进行聚类分簇形成若干个子网,接着从通信能耗的角度出发,对传感器采集信息的传递路径进行最优路径规划;进而对子网局部状态进行估计,在子网信息融合中,分别采用最大距离和、最大化信息增量两种准则进行最佳传感器选择,最后通过各子网全局航迹融合实现分布式多传感器协同跟踪。仿真验证了算法的有效性。     

Analysis of algorithms for two‐stage flowshops with multi‐processor task flexibility

In this article we introduce a 2‐machine flowshop with processing flexibility. Two processing modes are available for each task: namely, processing by the designated processor, and processing simultaneously by both processors. The objective studied is makespan minimization. This production environment is encountered in repetitive manufacturing shops equipped with processors that have the flexibility to execute orders either individually or in coordination. In the latter case, the product designer exploits processing synergies between two processors so as to execute a particular task much faster than a dedicated processor. This type of flowshop environment is also encountered in labor‐intensive assembly lines where products moving downstream can be processed either in the designated assembly stations or by pulling together the work teams of adjacent stations. This scheduling problem requires determining the mode of operation of each task, and the subsequent scheduling that preserves the flowshop constraints. We show that the problem is ordinary NP‐complete and obtain an optimal solution using a dynamic programming algorithm with considerable computational requirements for medium and large problems. Then, we present a number of dynamic programming relaxations and analyze their worst‐case error performance. Finally, we present a polynomial time heuristic with worst‐case error performance comparable to that of the dynamic programming relaxations. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.     

Waypoint analysis for command and control

Command and Control (C2) in a military setting can be epitomized in battles‐of‐old when commanders would seek high ground to gain superior spatial‐temporal information; from this vantage point, decisions were made and relayed to units in the field. Although the fundamentals remain, technology has changed the practice of C2; for example, enemy units may be observed remotely, with instruments of varying positional accuracy. A basic problem in C2 is the ability to track an enemy object in the battlespace and to forecast its future position; the (extended) Kalman filter provides a straightforward solution. The problem changes fundamentally if one assumes that the moving object is headed for an (unknown) location, or waypoint. This article is concerned with the new problem of estimation of such a waypoint, for which we use Bayesian statistical prediction. The computational burden is greater than an ad hoc regression‐based estimate, which we also develop, but the Bayesian approach has a big advantage in that it yields both a predictor and a measure of its variability. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004     

多雷达多目标航迹跟踪中FMM神经网络的应用与仿真

提出了一种基于Fuzzy Min-Max (FMM)人工神经网络的多雷达多目标航迹跟踪的方法。仿真应用的实验结果表明,这种方法能够有效地完成多雷达多目标的数据融合,并比较理想地实现了多雷达多目标的航迹相关。