Artisanal small-scale opal mining (ASOM) insecurity in the Delanta wereda,Ethiopia: The shifting landscape of multidimensional insecurity in the face of emergent ASOM wealth

The commencement of opal mining in Ethiopia a decade ago has attracted the involvement of poor peasants, wealthy traders and traffickers. Although the academic and official literature on artisanal small-scale opal mining (ASOM) has primarily focused on the loss of wealth owing to a lack of skill and its traditional nature, this study explores the multidimensional insecurity that the discovery and mining of opal stones in the Delanta wereda of Wollo has brought about. This study contends that the ASOM industry has brought a new and previously unknown body of wealth to a society that is not used to the circulation of huge amounts of money in its narrow geography of commerce, engendering multidimensional insecurity. To make things worse, the network of patrimony and rentierism connecting locals with powerful people at the regional and federal level has given licence to illegal wealth extraction at the cost of exacerbating local insecurity. The qualitative data for the study was collected using interviews, focus group discussions, non-participant observations and document analyses at Delanta mining sites, the Wegel Tena town administration and Dessie city.     

数据挖掘在器材保障决策支持中的应用研究

针对器材保障现状,运用数据挖掘技术,探索器材保障决策支持问题.设计了器材保障决策支持系统中数据挖掘应用的解决方案,该方案包括了项目规划和应用设计,并以器材平时消耗预测为例,运用多元回归模型算,法进行了挖掘实现.数据挖掘为保障决策提供了更加丰富和科学的信息,可以较好地满足器材保障决策支持的需要.     

Optimal switchover times between two activities utilizing the same resource

The “gold‐mining” decision problem is concerned with the efficient utilization of a delicate mining equipment working in a number of different mines. Richard Bellman was the first to consider this type of a problem. The solution found by Bellman for the finite‐horizon, continuous‐time version of the problem with two mines is not overly realistic since he assumed that fractional parts of the same mining equipment could be used in different mines and this fraction could change instantaneously. In this paper, we provide some extensions to this model in order to produce more operational and realistic solutions. Our first model is concerned with developing an operational policy where the equipment may be switched from one mine to the other at most once during a finite horizon. In the next extension we incorporate a cost component in the objective function and assume that the horizon length is not fixed but it is the second decision variable. Structural properties of the optimal solutions are obtained using nonlinear programming. Each model and its solution is illustrated with a numerical example. The models developed here may have potential applications in other areas including production of items requiring the same machine or choosing a sequence of activities requiring the same resource. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 49: 186–203, 2002; DOI 10.1002/nav.10008     

过程挖掘算法

过程挖掘又称工作流挖掘,主要依据日志中记录的过程实例执行信息重构工作流过程模型,是工作流再设计与分析方法的一项关键技术。对目前主流的过程挖掘算法和相关工具进行了研究,把过程挖掘算法按照特性及解决问题分成了4类,对每类算法的优缺点进行比较研究。最后指出了目前过程挖掘研究中存在的问题。     

光流算法研究

光流的测量是视频序列处理和视频挖掘中的基本问题。首先简述了光流法的基本原理,即物体亮度不变特性;然后阐述了计算光流的4类算法:微分方法、区域匹配方法、基于能量的方法和基于相位的方法,并对当前主流的能量算法进行了详细探讨;最后对各种光流算法的评测方法与测试集进行了说明。     

Confronting the “Perpetual Menace to Human Security”

Nuclear weapon states historically have attached great secrecy to their nuclear weapon and fissile material production programs and stockpiles, despite warnings that this would fuel fears, handicap informed debate and decision making, and drive arms races. As evidenced by the “Action Plan on Nuclear Disarmament” agreed upon at the 2010 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference, however, the international community now sees greater transparency about nuclear weapon and fissile material stocks as necessary for enabling and monitoring progress toward nuclear disarmament. To support this effort, the International Panel on Fissile Materials has proposed a step-by-step program for weapon states to declare their inventories, production histories, and disposition of nuclear warheads and fissile materials, and to set up joint projects to develop methods for verifying these declarations. This openness initiative is described here, and could be adopted at the 2015 NPT Review Conference, laying a basis for negotiating verifiable deep reductions in nuclear arsenals and their eventual elimination.     

THE HARD CASES

Many countries received Soviet-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) for civilian nuclear research purposes. Because of inadequate nuclear security at a number of the research sites, U.S. policy has sought to remove or otherwise safely dispose of their HEU stocks as quickly as possible. Although the pace of HEU disposition has accelerated significantly in recent years, several sites have posed formidable technical, economic, and political challenges. This article identifies the major obstacles to HEU removal at two key installations—Kharkiv in Ukraine, and Sosny in Belarus—and recommends a strategy for overcoming these impediments. Key components for a successful disposition strategy include: treating these cases with the urgency they deserve, expanding potential compensation packages, explicitly addressing the institutional and political issues involved, engaging high-level political leaders, working with third parties, and promoting these efforts as part of a nondiscriminatory initiative to phase out HEU in the civilian nuclear sector globally.     

REFASHIONING AUSTRALIA'S NUCLEAR BARGAIN?

This article explores the challenges that Australia faces in reconciling its commitments to nonproliferation and uranium exports during a time when the international nuclear nonproliferation regime is under major stress and the world uranium market is bullish. The “grand bargain” that has framed Australian participation in the nonproliferation regime and the nuclear fuel market since the 1970s was only tenable in an era of stagnant uranium demand and a stable nuclear balance. However, contemporary nuclear proliferation dynamics and the revival of interest in nuclear energy have accentuated the incompatibility between Australia's commitment to nonproliferation and the desire to profit from uranium exports. The contemporary international strategic environment, international nonproliferation regime, and nuclear energy market are characterized by developments that not only undermine the basis of Australia's grand bargain, but also present challenges and opportunities for the refashioning of Australian policy.     

The Trust Paradox in Nuclear Smuggling

ABSTRACT

This article explores the paradox of trust in the largest nuclear smuggling operation involving highly enriched uranium (HEU) discussed in open source literature. In the first effort to understand the type, extent, and role of trust in nuclear smuggling enterprises, it draws from literature on trust development in legitimate businesses as well as criminal enterprises. Observed behavioral patterns in this case challenge traditional notions of the internal dynamics of temporary groups engaged in nuclear smuggling and operational realities of such activities. The article seeks to explain why individuals agree (and continue) to operate in this high-risk environment, unbound by close personal ties, without any effort to verify the background, motives, or qualifications of the fellow conspirators. It offers ways to advance current nonproliferation efforts in non-state actor interdiction by exploiting the environment of shallow trust in temporary groups.     

Nuclear Subsidies and Proliferation: Clarifying the Link

ABSTRACT

In March 2015, the South Australian state government established a royal commission to investigate the financial, social, technical, diplomatic, and nonproliferation benefits and risks of expanding its nuclear industry, including activities related to uranium mining; enriching, reprocessing, and fabricating nuclear fuels for both domestic use and export; producing nuclear power; and storing radiological waste, including foreign spent reactor fuel. Given its enormous uranium reserves and current mining activities, some Australians have argued that Australia could benefit financially by expanding the mining sector and by adding value to its uranium exports by enriching the material and fabricating it into reactor fuel assemblies. Others have maintained that Australia can realize significant economic benefits by recycling and storing foreign spent fuel and producing carbon-free nuclear power. In the end, the commission recommended that Australia consider opening up a high-level waste repository to take in foreign spent fuel. It did not recommend any other nuclear activities at this time. The following viewpoint is based on testimony I delivered to the commission on the nuclear weapon proliferation implications of the proposed activities. If Australia wants to avoid the temptation of selling nuclear goods to states that might use these goods to make bombs, it should only consider new nuclear activities that can be entirely financed by the private sector and turn a profit without having to resort to foreign sales. This policy would also enable Australia to set an important, new international nonproliferation standard.