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.     

某高低机蜗轮磨损寿命计算研究

针对某型火炮高低机蜗轮蜗杆因磨损产生不自锁的现状,通过分析蜗轮表面磨损形貌,采用Archard磨损理论,根据蜗轮蜗杆传动的实际情况,推导出磨损计算公式并结合有限元方法,对蜗轮的磨损寿命进行计算,为预测火炮故障和实现精确化保障打下基础.     

一类随机生态-流行病系统的分析

对一类食饵染病的随机食饵-捕食者系统,应用伊藤公式,给出系统均衡解的全局随机渐近稳定的条件,并通过数值模拟对理论结果进行论证.     

难加工材料3种优化指标的应用特性

采用刀具耐用度、切削里程、材料去除总量对同一组难加工材料进行正交试验,结果表明:采用刀具耐用度作为评价指标进行优化时,其结果往往是对应于最小的切削用量,高的刀具耐用度并不对应于高的切削能力和切削效率,优化结果存在较大的局限性;切削里程和材料去除总量在实际生产中分别代表已加工表面的形成量和总切削量,可以较好地反映切削参数与应用效果之间的关系,作为评价指标时,两者较刀具耐用度的评价更为有效。不同指标的评价结果不同,应用时需根据实际情况进行有针对性的选择。     

New results on a stochastic duel game with each force consisting of heterogeneous units

Two forces engage in a duel, with each force initially consisting of several heterogeneous units. Each unit can be assigned to fire at any opposing unit, but the kill rate depends on the assignment. As the duel proceeds, each force—knowing which units are still alive in real time—decides dynamically how to assign its fire, in order to maximize the probability of wiping out the opposing force before getting wiped out. It has been shown in the literature that an optimal pure strategy exists for this two‐person zero‐sum game, but computing the optimal strategy remained cumbersome because of the game's huge payoff matrix. This article gives an iterative algorithm to compute the optimal strategy without having to enumerate the entire payoff matrix, and offers some insights into the special case, where one force has only one unit. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 56–65, 2014     

发射装药非稳态温度场仿真

弹药在长期贮存过程中,极易受环境温度和湿度的作用,使发射装药出现热分解、裂解、结霜等,严重影响弹药装药的贮存可靠性;在射击试验中,发射药温度也会对弹道性能产生极大的影响。由于不允许对弹药进行破坏性开孔,因此借助Ansys的热分析模块,对发射装药非稳态温度场进行仿真研究,获取发射装药在不同环境条件下的温度场及不同节点的温度变化规律,为弹药的贮存、试验提供一定的参考价值。     

Designing acceptance sampling schemes for life testing with mixed censoring

Mixed censoring is useful extension of Type I and Type II censoring and combines some advantages of both types of censoring. This paper proposes a general Bayesian framework for designing a variable acceptance sampling scheme with mixed censoring. A general loss function which includes the sampling cost, the time‐consuming cost, the salvage value, and the decision loss is employed to determine the Bayes risk and the corresponding optimal sampling plan. An explicit expression of the Bayes risk is derived. The new model can easily be adapted to create life testing models for different distributions. Specifically, two commonly used distributions including the exponential distribution and the Weibull distribution are considered with a special decision loss function. We demonstrate that the proposed model is superior to models with Type I or Type II censoring. Numerical examples are reported to illustrate the effectiveness of the method proposed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004     

A sequential dynamic pricing model and its applications

Consider a sequential dynamic pricing model where a seller sells a given stock to a random number of customers. Arriving one at a time, each customer will purchase one item if the product price is lower than her personal reservation price. The seller's objective is to post a potentially different price for each customer in order to maximize the expected total revenue. We formulate the seller's problem as a stochastic dynamic programming model, and develop an algorithm to compute the optimal policy. We then apply the results from this sequential dynamic pricing model to the case where customers arrive according to a continuous‐time point process. In particular, we derive tight bounds for the optimal expected revenue, and develop an asymptotically optimal heuristic policy. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.     

A fluid queueing model for link travel time moments

We analyze the moments of the random time required for a vehicle to traverse a transportation network link of arbitrary length when its speed is governed by a random environment. The problem is motivated by stochastic transportation network applications in which the estimation of travel time moments is of great importance. We analyze this random time in a transient and asymptotic sense by employing results from the field of fluid queues. The results are demonstrated on two example problems. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004     

Properties of some stochastic orders: A unified study

The notions of the likelihood ratio order of degree s (s ≥ 0) are introduced for both continuous and discrete integer‐valued random variables. The new orders for s = 0, 1, and 2 correspond to the likelihood ratio, hazard rate, and mean residual life orders. We obtain some basic properties of the new orders and their up shifted stochastic orders, and derive some closure properties of them. Such a study is meaningful because it throws an important light on the understanding of the properties of the likelihood ratio, hazard rate, and mean residual life orders. On the other hand, the properties of the new orders have potential applications. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2004.