Witchcraft and African development

Impressive investment and growth figures and commercial write-ups enthusing about ‘Africa rising up’, ‘the continent of the future’, and so on, obscure the poverty, illiteracy, poor health and other hardships afflicting the vast majority of African people. Why has massive so-called development and technical ‘aid’ not created the expected dynamic, autonomous economic progress? A blind eye is delicately being turned to the decisive role of people – more specifically, the cultural element. Notwithstanding good intentions, outsiders seeking to promote development assume that black Africans think and act like they only need more education, training and finance in order to ‘catch up’. Outsiders easily forget that since time immemorial, Africans have developed and cherished worldviews and cultures of their own. While these are by no means immutable and do adapt to changing needs and outside influences, Africans refuse to cast off overnight the heritage that makes them the people they are. This paper examines the impact of witchcraft as an integral feature of traditional culture on African existence, notably community life, religion, politics, the law, and economic practice. It stresses the significance of traditional society's powerful egalitarian impulses as well as its profound conviction that all things – goods, wealth, well-being and life force – are in a strictly limited supply that cannot be increased, but can only be redistributed by force or through magical manipulation. While modern life gradually weakens the influence of witchcraft beliefs – in Europe these flourished well into the 18th century – the exasperation associated with Africa's headlong urbanisation actually bolsters these beliefs.     

“Disarmament Market” Effects of Information Disclosures

In yet another wave of discussion on nuclear disarmament among political scientists and practitioners, one of the topical issues concerns the problem of transparency, its mechanisms, costs, and benefits. Numerous—though often abstract—calls for greater transparency of nuclear arsenals and postures when promoting the idea of nuclear disarmament, however, do not give a clear rationale for states possessing nuclear weapons to pursue greater transparency. Meanwhile, many other research fields—such as economics and psychology—attempt to address problems related to the lack of exact information on the counterpart's activities and intentions. Economics offers one probable analog for the transparency problem: the issue of information asymmetry and its consequences. This article is an attempt to apply the classical model of a market with information asymmetry to the analysis of the transparency problem within the nuclear disarmament process. Such an approach could help pave the way for closer cooperation between economic and political scientists in the nuclear disarmament field.     

航母编队远程防空作战中预警机巡逻区域大小设置

提供了一种航母编队远程防空作战中预警机巡逻区域大小配置的优化方法。通过对航母编队防空区域划分,提出了大小配置的基本要求。以预警机平飞长度、转弯半径和巡逻速度为因素,以目标发现概率、覆盖率和目标发现距离作为评价指标对试验结果进行直观分析,得到对评价指标影响最显著的因素为平飞长度,进而采用正交设计、变步长搜索迭代的方法得到巡逻空域大小的最优布置方案。     

Can Afghanistan avoid the Natural Resource Curse?

Recent discoveries of significant mineral deposits offer Afghanistan the opportunity to attain a level of economic development sufficient to stabilize that country's volatile security situation while providing Afghans with a reasonable standard of living. Much, however, depends on whether Afghanistan can avoid the “Natural Resource Curse,” an inter-related set of economic and social pathologies that often bedevil resource-endowed countries. In this article, the authors describe the Natural Resource Curse, evaluate the obstacles it raises for Afghan economic development, and offer a strategy to minimize the risks Afghanistan faces in its efforts to exploit its mineral wealth for the benefit of the population.     

二级库存-运输系统的联合经济订购模型

结合器材供应的实际,构建了一个国家仓库-地区仓库形成的二级库存-运输系统,以最低费用为目标,建立了该系统的联合经济订购模型,求解了该系统各仓库的最佳订货量和订货次数;运用该模型对3种订货策略（年度1次订货、年度多次订货、零库存订货）进行了算例验证,表明了该模型在优化多级库存运输系统订货参数方面的意义。     

边疆地区政治社会化有效性思考

边疆地区有其独特的历史文化等传统,有着复杂的自然条件和环境,特殊的地理位置,边疆地区的政治社会化程度直接影响到主导型政治文化的实现,影响到该地区的稳定和发展,关系到边防的巩固和国家的统一。该地区的政治社会化要在重点对象确定的前提下,既要注重发挥其主要途径的作用、又要注重其内容的针对性和时效性、更要注意较大地区差距的负面影响并努力将其缩小,才能使边疆地区政治社会化有较好的效果。     

党对阶级阶层分析的价值判断

建国后党对中国社会结构的认识经历了从阶级到阶层的发展变化。党对中国社会结构认识的变化,是在总结对中国社会结构分析的经验教训的基础上,恢复了阶级阶层这两个范畴的本来面貌。我们应当正确地认识这一变化,澄清对阶级阶层的分析思路,这样才能正确看待新的社会阶层的社会属性,以便更充分地发挥他们在社会主义建设中的作用。     

新民主主义革命时期党领导根据地经济建设的思想探析

纵观新民主主义革命时期的根据地创建,总结了不同时期和不同地方革命根据地经济建设的共同特点,探析了党在根据地时期经济建设的经验和对我国现阶段经济建设的启示。     

基于运动特征的机载雷达目标断续量测处理

机载预警雷达对目标的量测经常出现断续现象,影响了航迹连续性要求。通过对机载脉冲多普勒雷达量测出现断续的机理分析,考虑目标进入雷达多普勒盲区的情况,基于目标运动特征提出利用联合关联波门与盲区预测相结合的处理方法,将重新出现的目标点迹与原有航迹进行关联,避免同一目标航迹因量测断续而重复起始。仿真结果表明了该方法的有效性与可行性。     

以促进新疆经济为导向的校本课程资源开发与功能建构

新疆是少数民族聚居的地区,发展少数民族教育意义重大。除了必要的硬件设施外,我们还需要适应少数民族地区特点的教育模式。开发校本课程,使之与国家课程相得益彰,共同促进少数民族教育的发展进而带动地区经济的发展成为必需。针对新疆这一具有民族特殊性的地方,如何有效的开发校本课程并使之落到实处成为解决问题的关键。