Technical note: A computationally efficient algorithm for undiscounted Markov decision processes with restricted observations

We present a computationally efficient procedure to determine control policies for an infinite horizon Markov Decision process with restricted observations. The optimal policy for the system with restricted observations is a function of the observation process and not the unobservable states of the system. Thus, the policy is stationary with respect to the partitioned state space. The algorithm we propose addresses the undiscounted average cost case. The algorithm combines a local search with a modified version of Howard's (Dynamic programming and Markov processes, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1960) policy iteration method. We demonstrate empirically that the algorithm finds the optimal deterministic policy for over 96% of the problem instances generated. For large scale problem instances, we demonstrate that the average cost associated with the local optimal policy is lower than the average cost associated with an integer rounded policy produced by the algorithm of Serin and Kulkarni Math Methods Oper Res 61 (2005) 311–328. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009     

一类多对二随机格斗中的最优射击策略

射击策略的选择在随机格斗中是一重要战术问题,当一方武器面临多个武器目标时,如何确定射击目标顺序的研究,显然是具有实际意义的。依据发射间隔服从负指数分布的多对一随机格斗中最优策略应满足的条件,推出求解此类多对一格斗最优策略的方法。进而研究了射击间隔服从此类分布的多对二随机格斗中处于劣势一方的射击策略选择问题,得出寻求最优射击策略的一般方法。     

有源、无源联合探测系统综合性能分析

根据无源探测系统与有源雷达组成的联合探测系统,给出了一种有源、无源联合探测系统的探测模型,定性、定量的仿真分析了不同布站方法时,系统的探测精度、探测模糊区分布问题,得出了联合探测系统的最优布站方法;与无源探测系统相比较,联合探测系统提高了系统探测精度,改善了探测模糊区.仿真结果可为工程实践中雷达组网的优化部署提供理论依据.     

基于共词分析的国内语言规划与政策研究现状分析

本文以中国学术期刊网收录的1637篇文献记录为分析对象,利用聚类分析、战略坐标分析和社会网络分析等方法,对国内语言规划与政策领域的主要研究方向、发展状态和核心作者群进行分析。研究结果表明,国内语言规划与政策研究主要涉及八个方向:少数民族语言研究、官方语言研究、语言态度研究、推广普通话研究、方言研究、外语研究、语言问题研究、语言文字规范研究。其中,少数民族语言研究、官方语言研究和方言研究处于领域核心且发展比较成熟。推广普通话研究也是领域关注的核心问题,但目前发展尚不成熟。相比之下,语言态度研究、外语研究、语言文字规范研究和语言问题研究相对处于领域边缘且尚不够成熟。围绕各个研究方向均已形成了较稳定的杰出作者群体,多数学者都反映出"多主题跟进、单主题深入"的研究模式。     

科技军民融合政策制度

科技军民融合政策制度是推动军民科技协同创新向纵深发展的基本保障和环境条件。分析了我国科技军民融合政策与管理制度的内涵、分类和组成,调研了我国科技领域军民融合有关政策现状及最新试点情况,分析了当前我国科技军民融合政策制度的缺陷点、薄弱环节,研究了国外科技有关的军民融合政策体系构建的规律及启示,提出了我国科技军民融合政策制度建设的基本思路、组织框架、建设重点和推进措施,以为我国科技军民融合政策的制定提供理论保障和决策依据。     

Nuclear opportunism: A theory of how states use nuclear weapons in international politics

How do states use nuclear weapons to achieve their goals in international politics? Nuclear weapons can influence state decisions about a range of strategic choices relating to military aggression, the scope of foreign policy objectives, and relations with allies. The article offers a theory to explain why emerging nuclear powers use nuclear weapons to facilitate different foreign policies: becoming more or less aggressive; providing additional support to allies or proxies, seeking independence from allies; or expanding the state’s goals in international politics. I argue that a state’s choices depend on the presence of severe territorial threats or an ongoing war, the presence of allies that provide for the state’s security, and whether the state is increasing in relative power. The conclusion discusses implications of the argument for our understanding of nuclear weapons and the history of proliferation, and nonproliferation policy today.     

Implementing defence policy: a benchmark-“lite”

Most countries put significant amounts of time and effort in writing and issuing high-level policy documents. These are supposed to guide subsequent national defence efforts. But do they? And how do countries even try to ensure that they do? This paper reports on a benchmarking effort of how a few “best of breed” small- to medium-sized defence organisations (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) deal with these issues. We find that most countries fail to link goals to resources and pay limited attention to specific and rigorous ex-ante or post-hoc evaluation, even when compared to their own national government-wide provisions. We do, however, observe a (modest) trend towards putting more specific goals and metrics in these documents that can be – and in a few rare cases were – tracked. The paper identifies 42 concrete policy “nuggets” – both “do’s and don’ts” – that should be of interest to most defence policy planning/analysis communities. It ends with two recommendations that are in line with recent broader (non-defence) scholarship on the policy formulation-policy implementation gap: to put more rigorous emphasis on implementation (especially on achieving desired policy effects), but to do so increasingly in more experiential (“design”) ways, rather than in industrial-age bureaucratic ones (“PPBS”-systems).     

A usable past: a contemporary approach to history for the Western profession of arms

The most effective way for the Western profession of arms to use history is to disavow the purism and narrow specialisation of today’s academia in favour of developing a contemporary approach to the subject. The latter aims to foster a range of applied diagnostic skills that transcend the temporal dimensions of past, present, and future. A contemporary approach to history for military professionals emphasises the use of inter-disciplinary war studies to enhance policy relevance. In any defense and security organisation, history must be usable in the sense of providing cognitive and interpretative skills for probing relationships between possibility and actuality, between experience and expectation, and between singularity and repetition. Using history to examine such dialectical interconnections is particularly valuable when military establishments confront their essential task of analyzing emerging trends in the future of war.     

Doubly Stochastic Sequential Assignment Problem

This article introduces the Doubly Stochastic Sequential Assignment Problem (DSSAP), an extension of the Sequential Stochastic Assignment Problem (SSAP), where sequentially arriving tasks are assigned to workers with random success rates. A given number of tasks arrive sequentially, each with a random value coming from a known distribution. On a task arrival, it must be assigned to one of the available workers, each with a random success rate coming from a known distribution. Optimal assignment policies are proposed for DSSAP under various assumptions on the random success rates. The optimal assignment algorithm for the general case of DSSAP, where workers have distinct success rate distribution, has an exponential running time. An approximation algorithm that achieves a fraction of the maximum total expected reward in a polynomial time is proposed. The results are illustrated by several numerical experiments. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 124–137, 2016     

Optimal staffing in nonstationary service centers with constraints

This paper considers optimal staffing in service centers. We construct models for profit and cost centers using dynamic rate queues. To allow for practical optimal controls, we approximate the queueing process using a Gaussian random variable with equal mean and variance. We then appeal to the Pontryagin's maximum principle to derive a closed form square root staffing (SRS) rule for optimal staffing. Unlike most traditional SRS formulas, the main parameter in our formula is not the probability of delay but rather a cost‐to‐benefit ratio that depends on the shadow price. We show that the delay experienced by customers can be interpreted in terms of this ratio. Throughout the article, we provide theoretical support of our analysis and conduct extensive numerical experiments to reinforce our findings. To this end, various scenarios are considered to evaluate the change in the staffing levels as the cost‐to‐benefit ratio changes. We also assess the change in the service grade and the effects of a service‐level agreement constraint. Our analysis indicates that the variation in the ratio of customer abandonment over service rate particularly influences staffing levels and can lead to drastically different policies between profit and cost service centers. Our main contribution is the introduction of new analysis and managerial insights into the nonstationary optimal staffing of service centers, especially when the objective is to maximize profitability. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 615–630, 2017