HARNESSING GLOBAL TRADE DATA FOR BIOLOGICAL ARMS CONTROL

Unlike treaties dealing with nuclear and chemical weapons, the Biological Weapons Convention still lacks formal verification measures, 31 years after entering into force. Here we propose a global export-import monitoring system of biological dual-use items as an additional measure for a web of biological arms controls that could complement traditional export controls. We suggest that such a measure may help to guide consultation or verification processes in the biological area.     

“GOOD COP/BAD COP” AS A MODEL FOR NONPROLIFERATION DIPLOMACY TOWARD NORTH KOREA AND IRAN

Scholarly and popular literature in the recent past has framed nonproliferation diplomacy toward both Iran and North Korea as an example of “good cop/bad cop,” a social-psychological strategy borrowed from law enforcement to describe a process for forcing a confession by subjecting a target to stressful emotional contrast. This article examines those two cases, roughly covering the period since 2003, when the most recent attempts to deal with the Iranian and North Korean proliferation threats began, in light of criteria for employment of the good cop/bad cop strategy. There is some evidence that within the framework of the six-party talks with North Korea and within the framework of the EU-3-U.S. diplomacy toward Iran, the players seeking nonproliferation have adopted good cop/bad cop roles to that end. The article concludes, however, that while there are similarities to the interrogation room technique, the complexity of the international political environment as compared to the interrogation room has prevented the states involved from successfully adopting or effectively exploiting good and bad cop roles. Substantial and exploitable differences of interest among them, and the availability of alternative “escape routes” for the target state, raise serious questions about the applicability of the good cop/bad cop strategy to these two nonproliferation cases, and even about its applicability in future nonproliferation challenges.     

Potential and actual arms production: Implications for the arms trade debate

In this paper I develop indices and rankings of potential and actual arms production for about one hundred and fifty countries for data pertaining to the early to mid‐1990s. The countries’ ranked indices are then compared. I find evidence that countries that can produce arms (potential) do produce arms (actual). I also compare the current findings to findings published nine years ago, pertaining to potential and actual arms production in developing nations for the early 1980s. A number of countries then having the potential to produce arms have, in fact, become major arms producers ten years later. The results presented in this paper carry policy implications for the arms trade debate: shall policymakers continue to focus on arms supply restriction and continue to ignore the increasing capacity of developing nations to self‐supply their arms demand?     

The impact of arms production on the South African manufacturing industry

The 1977 UN arms embargo was one of the main factors which led South Africa to establish a largely self sufficient import‐substituting arms industry capable of meeting the apartheid state's demand for sophisticated weaponry. While macroeconomic studies suggest that high military spending had a damaging effect on economic growth, no studies have investigated the disaggregated impact of military expenditure on industrial development. This paper applies panel data methods to the Industrial Development Corporation's Sectoral Database in order to analyse the level effects of military spending.     

Measuring defense conversion in Russian industry

This paper develops and implements a methodology for quantifying defense conversion in Russian manufacturing in the early 1990s. A two‐sector, three‐good model is employed to analyze the flows of resources from military to non‐military uses and applied to firm‐level survey data under alternative definitions of military production and the MIC. An aggregation framework is constructed to estimate the total quantity and change in Russian military production, the latter decomposed into intrafirm and intersectoral resource reallocation and overall industrial decline. Although there is evidence of substantial decline in military production, the data show little reallocation to productive civilian uses, neither within the MIC nor to other manufacturing sectors.     

Country survey XII: South Africa

This article examines the relationship between defence expenditure and economic performance in South Africa, both prior to and after that country's first fully democratic election in 1994. Prior to 1994 defence expenditure decisions were largely dominated by non‐economic factors; since then defence spending has declined in reaction to, inter alia, the need to address a number of socio‐economic inequities.

After 1975 in particular, military industrialisation in South Africa placed a disproportionately high burden on the country's industrial resources and natural economic and technical capabilities. However, although this suggests that the opportunity cost of domestic arms production has been fairly high, the country's poor economic and development performance since the mid‐1970s is a function of underlying structural deficiencies and institutional constraints rather than the consequence of inordinately high defence spending levels.     

基于TCP/IP协议的无人机IFFC系统仿真

为了提高无人机自主飞行、自主攻击的能力,设计一种整体式的无人机综合火力/飞行控制系统(IFFC系统),并对激光制导炸弹模态下的系统进行数字仿真.系统基于Winsock的TCP/IP协议的C/S模式,在服务器上完成无人机火控解算、火飞耦合器设计,在客户端设计基于PID算法的飞行控制模块.火控系统根据飞行状态和目标信息实时计算炸弹可达区域,瞄准距离误差经过火飞耦合器形成航向和俯仰控制命令反馈给飞控系统,驱动载机消.除瞄准误差,实现闭环控制.实验结果表明,无人机的瞄准速度和攻击精度都有所提高,为进一步开展自主式UAV的研究打下基础.     

Effects of Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic compositions on reignition characteristics of base bleed propellants and heating mechanism

The effects of magnesium/polytetrafluoroethylene (Mg/PTFE) pyrotechnic compositions on the coupled flow field and reignition mechanism are important aspects governing the performance and range of base bleed projectiles (BBPs).Owing to a decrease in pressure and temperature when the BBP leaves the muzzle,rapid depressurization occurs,which extinguishes the base bleed propellant.The Mg/PTFE py-rotechnic composition pressed in the igniter of the base bleed unit (BBU) provides additional energy to the BBU via a chemical reaction.Thus,the extinguished base bleed propellant is reignited under the effect of high-temperature combustion gas jets from the igniter.In this study,a numerical analysis is conducted to evaluate the effects of PTFE and Mg granularity as well as Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic compo-sitions.Owing to the rapid depressurization,the temperature and pressure was found to decrease for different Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic compositions.However,the depressurization time increased as the PTFE granularity increased,the Mg granularity decreased,and the Mg content increased.When the pressure in the combustion chamber of the BBU decreased to the atmospheric pressure,the combustion gas jets from the igniter expand upstream (rather than downstream).However,these combustion gas jets exhibit different axial and radial expansion characteristics depending on the pyrotechnic compositions used.The results show that the reignition delay time,td,of the base bleed propellant was 377.608,94.27,387.243,523.966,and 221.094 ms for cases A-E,respectively.Therefore,it was concluded that the Mg/PTFE pyrotechnic composition of case B was the most beneficial for the reignition of the base bleed propellant,with the earliest addition of energy and mass to the BBP.     

Interval scheduling: A survey

In interval scheduling, not only the processing times of the jobs but also their starting times are given. This article surveys the area of interval scheduling and presents proofs of results that have been known within the community for some time. We first review the complexity and approximability of different variants of interval scheduling problems. Next, we motivate the relevance of interval scheduling problems by providing an overview of applications that have appeared in literature. Finally, we focus on algorithmic results for two important variants of interval scheduling problems. In one variant we deal with nonidentical machines: instead of each machine being continuously available, there is a given interval for each machine in which it is available. In another variant, the machines are continuously available but they are ordered, and each job has a given “maximal” machine on which it can be processed. We investigate the complexity of these problems and describe algorithms for their solution. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007     

Integrated production scheduling and preventive maintenance planning for a single machine under a cumulative damage failure process

This paper finds the optimal integrated production schedule and preventive maintenance plan for a single machine exposed under a cumulative damage process, and investigates how the optimal preventive maintenance plan interacts with the optimal production schedule. The goal is to minimize the total tardiness. The optimal policy possesses the following properties: Under arbitrary maintenance plan when jobs have common processing time, and different due dates, the optimal production schedule is to order the jobs by earliest due date first rule; and when jobs have common due date and different processing times, the optimal production schedule is shortest processing time first. The optimal maintenance plan is of control limit type under any arbitrary production schedule when machine is exposed under a cumulative damage failure process. Numerical studies on the optimal maintenance control limit of the maintenance plan indicate that as the number of jobs to be scheduled increases, the effect of jobs due dates on the optimal maintenance control limit diminishes. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007