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.     

嵌入式装备测试系统设计研究

针对现代装备测试性需求,利用ARM微处理器构建了基于CAN总线网络的多路嵌入式数据采集系统,介绍了嵌入式数据采集系统硬件组成、硬件模块实现以及软件设计;检测数据经过CAN总线存入SD卡存储器,并进行后期数据的存取和处理．实验结果表明,该系统能够可靠、准确地对多路信号进行采集,实现对火炮装备的检测．     

面向实体的作战行动数据采集系统研究与设计

为满足基地对作战行动数据的实际需求,针对作战行动数据的特点,提出了以作战实体为中心的数据组织方式和作战行动的模板描述方法;运用软件工程技术对系统进行了需求分析和方案设计,并结合主流的web技术构建了系统解决方案。系统能够对训练、演习中的作战行动进行标准化数据描述并记录形成作战行动数据库,为演习评估、裁决等实际应用提供数据支撑。经过长期的数据积累和数据挖掘,能够对部队的作战行动进行合理的评价与预测,为建立长效的数据采集、使用机制提供保障。     

Book review

This paper investigates the economic roots of separatist terrorism in Turkey. The political conventional wisdom is that poverty in highly Kurdish‐populated, south‐eastern Turkey is one of the most important causes of separatist terrorism and Turkish–Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Therefore, many economic policies have been implemented to improve the economic conditions in the south‐eastern part of the country. Using the Global Terrorism Database and Vector Autoregression (VAR) methodology, I find that there is no causal relationship between economic conditions in south‐eastern Turkey and separatist terrorism. Therefore policy‐makers should be cautious in using economic measures to prevent separatist terrorism in Turkey.     

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.     

Prices and quantities in the arms trade*

There are two main sources of information about the Arms Trade, SIPRI and ACDA. These two sources give very different pictures of the evolution of the market, primarily because their measures are designed to capture conceptually different features. Although they are both expressed in constant dollars, the SIPRI series is designed to be a volume index of physical transfers, the ACDA series a constant price value index. Thus in principle, the ratio of the ACDA to SIPRI series should provide an implicit price index of arms; though in practice there are many measurement problems. In this paper, we discuss the basis of these indices and show that the ratio, the implicit price, not only looks plausible in the light of the evolution of the market, but has a significant negative effect on the demand for arms imports in an econometric equation.     

Defense Burden and the Effect of Democracy: Evidence from a Spatial Panel Analysis

ABSTRACT

Do democracies spend less on national defense? This paper provides new evidence of the effect of democracy on defense burden based on a Spatial Durbin Model with panel data for 98 countries for the years 1992–2008. While democracy measured by means of an index variable covering the entire range from perfect democracy to perfect autocracy turns out to be insignificant, dummy variables indicating transition to higher levels of democracy reveal a statistically highly significant negative effect of democracy on a country’s defense burden. Allowing for country-specific effects reveals heterogeneity in the effect of democracy across countries. Apart from the effect of democracy, the estimation results indicate strong spatial dependence of military burdens across countries. Moreover, they provide statistical evidence for a peace dividend, for substitution effects in defense spending and for a negative effect on the military burden for countries when they exhibit a trade surplus instead of a trade deficit.     

Emotions,Risk Perceptions and Precautionary Actions of Citizens During a Military Operation Using a New Defence Technology: The Israeli Case of the Iron Dome

Abstract

The current field study used unique data collected in Israel in July 2014, during a military operation that the Israel Defence Forces (I.D.F.) conducted in the Gaza Strip, in reaction to the thousands of missiles launched from there into Israel. During this operation, the new Iron Dome anti-missile defence system was used to protect Israelis exposed to missile attacks. The study examined factors that correlate with decisions to comply with I.D.F. defence instructions regarding behaviour during missile attacks. In addition, the study examined the relationship between attitudes towards the Iron Dome technology and emotions, risk perceptions, and the decision to comply with I.D.F. defence instructions. The results indicate that stronger positive opinions towards Iron Dome were correlated with lower levels of fear and anger, and beliefs that participant’s chances of being injured by a missile were lower than they had been during previous military operation. In addition, better compliance with I.D.F. defence instructions correlated with being more fearful, angrier at Hamas, living closer to Gaza Strip, and having more positive opinions about Iron Dome. The findings also indicate gender differences with respect to factors correlated with risk perceptions, opinions regarding Iron Dome, and precautionary actions during attacks.     

基于协同交战的战术数据链技术研究

介绍了外军典型战术数据链的发展情况,同时根据未来网络化作战需求,对基于协同交战的战术数据链的作战使用进行了研究,提出了基于协同交战的战术数据链体系结构、功能需求和指标需求,最后给出了基于协同交战的战术数据链的发展建议.     

面向时空交通栅格流量预测的3D通道注意力网络

城市交通流量预测对交通管理和公共安全具有重要意义。然而,交通栅格流量数据中的规律在时刻变化,在城市中存在全局范围的时空间关系,并且不同特征通道在每个城市区域上有不同的重要性。为解决这些挑战并做出更准确的预测,设计了一种新颖的时空神经网络模型——3D通道注意力网络(three-dimensional channel-wise attention networks,3D-CANet)。提出一个3D通道内注意力(three-dimensional inner channel attention,3D-InnerCA)单元来动态捕获各个通道中不同的全局时空相关性,同时设计通道间注意力(inter channel attention,InterCA)单元来自适应地重校准每个区域上不同特征通道的贡献。在3个真实交通栅格流量数据集上的实验结果表明,3D-CANet模型的预测能力优于其他对比方法,证明了模型的有效性。