Integrated scheduling of loading and transportation with tractors and semitrailers separated

Motivated by some practical applications, we study a new integrated loading and transportation scheduling problem. Given a set of jobs, a single crane is available to load jobs, one by one, onto semitrailers with a given capacity. Loaded semitrailers are assigned to tractors for transportation tasks. Subject to limited resources (crane, semitrailers, and tractors), the problem is to determine (1) an assignment of jobs to semitrailers for loading tasks, (2) a sequence for the crane to load jobs onto semitrailers, (3) an assignment of loaded semitrailers to tractors for transportation tasks, and (4) a transportation schedule of assigned tractors such that the completion time of the last transportation task is minimized. We first formulate the problem as a mixed integer linear programming model (MILPM) and prove that the problem is strongly NP‐hard. Then, optimality properties are provided which are useful in establishing an improved MILPM and designing solution algorithms. We develop a constructive heuristic, two LP‐based heuristics, and a recovering beam search heuristic to solve this problem. An improved procedure for solutions by heuristics is also presented. Furthermore, two branch‐and‐bound (B&B) algorithms with two different lower bounds are developed to solve the problem to optimality. Finally, computational experiments using both real data and randomly generated data demonstrate that our heuristics are highly efficient and effective. In terms of computational time and the number of instances solved to optimality in a time limit, the B&B algorithms are better than solving the MILPM. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 62: 416–433, 2015     

Book review

La Conversion économique du secteur militaire, J. FONTANEL, Economica, Paris, 1994, pp. 112. Paperback. ISBN 2–7178–2650–5.     

Sequential learning versus no learning in Bayesian regression models

We consider two regression models: linear and logistic. The dependent variable is observed periodically and in each period a Bayesian formulation is used to generate updated forecasts of the dependent variable as new data is observed. One would expect that including new data in the Bayesian updates results in improved forecasts over not including the new data. Our findings indicate that this is not always true. We show there exists a subset of the independent variable space that we call the “region of no learning.” If the independent variable values for a given period in the future are in this region, then the forecast does not change with any new data. Moreover, if the independent variable values are in a neighborhood of the region of no learning, then there may be little benefit to wait for the new data and update the forecast. We propose a statistical approach to characterize this neighborhood which we call the “region of little learning.” Our results provide insights into the trade‐offs that exist in situations when the decision maker has an incentive to make an early decision based on an early forecast versus waiting to make a later decision based on an updated forecast. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 61: 532–548, 2014     

The sixteenth-century antecedents of special operations ‘small war’

The first conceptual, theoretical treatises about small war (la petite guerre) as special operations appeared only from the middle of the seventeenth century. The term is not used in the eighteenth-century sense of ‘special operations’ in older sources. The supposed absence of any treatment of the subject is surprising considering the obsession with the ‘art of war’ in the Renaissance, but other authors attribute it to a supposed antinomy between chivalric ideals and irregular warfare. But the absence of explicit manuals on the subject is not evidence of absence of advanced reflection on this kind of operations in the Middle Ages and in Early Modern times. We should thus look elsewhere, in other genres, for writings that contain and pass on military knowledge. Epics, romances, educational and military treatises, and memoirs in fact contain elements of a theory of special operations, even though these genres differ from our conception of rationality inherited from the Enlightenment.     

Guerrillas and bandits in the Serranía de Ronda, 1810–1812

The Spanish Guerrilla (1808–1812) which has given its name to ideologically motivated insurgencies is usually portrayed as a patriotic uprising against the French occupation forces of Napoleon. It was that, in part, but also many other things besides. This case study illustrates its overlap and convergence with banditry but also with social unrest turned into uprisings directed by poor Spaniards against their creditors, as in the storming of Ronda by insurgents in 1810. From the propaganda of the day to the subsequent Spanish patriotic historiography, there has been a tendency to exaggerate the amplitude of events and also the damage that was done to the French forces and the casualty figures inflicted on them.     

弹药库防静电方法研究

根据弹药库静电危险场所的分类等级,以形成静电危害的3个基本条件为依据,讨论了弹药库防静电危害常用措施:设施设备静电接地、防静电工作台、人体静电防护、铺设导电(或防静电)地面以及各自防静电要求.这些措施为防止和消除弹药库的静电危害提供了根本保障.     

美国2014年《四年防务评估报告》特点

2014年3月4日,美国国防部向国会提交了2014年版《四年防务评估报告》和《2015财年国防预算报告》。《四年防务评估报告》更新了再平衡战略,为美军建设提出了优先发展方向,要求美军联合部队向“更小型化”转型,以满足未来军事行动需求。     

一类具有饱和发生率的离散型SIS传染病模型

研究一类具有饱和发生率的离散型SIS传染病模型,得到了模型的基本再生数.通过线性化的方法,运用LaSalle-Lyapunov定理,证明当基本再生数R01时,无病平衡点是全局渐近稳定的;通过迭代的方法,证明当基本再生数R01时,地方病平衡点是全局渐近稳定的.     

Exact algorithms for integrated facility location and production planning problems

We consider a class of facility location problems with a time dimension, which requires assigning every customer to a supply facility in each of a finite number of periods. Each facility must meet all assigned customer demand in every period at a minimum cost via its production and inventory decisions. We provide exact branch‐and‐price algorithms for this class of problems and several important variants. The corresponding pricing problem takes the form of an interesting class of production planning and order selection problems. This problem class requires selecting a set of orders that maximizes profit, defined as the revenue from selected orders minus production‐planning‐related costs incurred in fulfilling the selected orders. We provide polynomial‐time dynamic programming algorithms for this class of pricing problems, as well as for generalizations thereof. Computational testing indicates the advantage of our branch‐and‐price algorithm over various approaches that use commercial software packages. These tests also highlight the significant cost savings possible from integrating location with production and inventory decisions and demonstrate that the problem is rather insensitive to forecast errors associated with the demand streams. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2011     

Holmes’ front: constructing a new face of battle for America’s Civil War

ABSTRACT

In his seminal study of the changing nature of warfare between Agincourt and the Somme, military historian John Keegan proposed that future historians might consider combatants’ emotions in their assessments of the impact and nature of conflict. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of the history of emotions as an analytical approach, but rarely, if ever, is this directed toward the study of military history, far less the history of insurgencies and counter-insurgencies. This paper examines America’s civil war (1861–1865) as a case study of the ways in which an emotional history approach might illuminate not the physical experiences of but rather the immediate and longer-term reactions to counter-insurgency conflict through a focus on one specific individual, the future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. It proposes that Holmes, whilst not a man of the ranks, nevertheless can reveal the wider ramifications of civil war and its emotional impact, both individually and culturally. As a relatively limited internecine war, one not fought by professional armies but by volunteer forces, America’s civil war highlights the ways in which the soldier’s response points us toward the kind of emotional revolution that has, to date, mainly been located within the European nations.