Optimal index shooting policy for layered missile defense system

In order to cope with the increasing threat of the ballistic missile(BM)in a shorter reaction time,the shooting policy of the layered defense system needs to be optimized.The main decisionmaking problem of shooting optimization is how to choose the next BM which needs to be shot according to the previous engagements and results,thus maximizing the expected return of BMs killed or minimizing the cost of BMs penetration.Motivated by this,this study aims to determine an optimal shooting policy for a two-layer missile defense(TLMD)system.This paper considers a scenario in which the TLMD system wishes to shoot at a collection of BMs one at a time,and to maximize the return obtained from BMs killed before the system demise.To provide a policy analysis tool,this paper develops a general model for shooting decision-making,the shooting engagements can be described as a discounted reward Markov decision process.The index shooting policy is a strategy that can effectively balance the shooting returns and the risk that the defense mission fails,and the goal is to maximize the return obtained from BMs killed before the system demise.The numerical results show that the index policy is better than a range of competitors,especially the mean returns and the mean killing BM number.     

基于偏好DEA模型的应急资源优化配置

从应急系统中应急资源的投入产出的整体相对效率考虑, 提出了新的资源优化配置的非参数DEA模型,对应急系统中应急资源总体利用情况进行了评价.在此基础上,考虑到决策者的偏好信息,构造了偏好的DEA资源配置决策模型.最后,通过对一个算例的具体分析,清楚地表明,在资源总量控制的情况下,利用本文提出的非参数偏好DEA模型对应急资源进行统筹安排和合理配置,可以大大提高应急系统的整体相对效率.     

Timing Prediction Error Volatility and Dynamic Asset Allocation

We solve a portfolio selection,problem in which,return predictability,risk predictability and transaction cost are incorporated.In the problem,both expected return,prediction error volatility,and transaction cost are time-varying.Our optimal strategy suggests trading partially toward a dynamic aim portfolio,which is a weighted average of expected future tangency portfolio and is highly influenced by the common fluctuation of prediction error volatility(CPE).When CPE is high,the investor would invest less and trade less frequently to avoid risk and transaction cost.Moreover,the investor trades more closely to the aim portfolio with a more persistent CPE signal.We also conduct an empirical analysis based on the commodities futures in Chinese market.The results reveal that by timing prediction error volatility,our strategy outperforms alternative strategies.     

An impact angle constraint integral sliding mode guidance law for maneuvering targets interception

An integral sliding mode guidance law(ISMGL)combined with the advantages of the integral sliding mode control(SMC)method is designed to address maneuvering target interception problems with impact angle constraints.The relative motion equation of the missile and the target considering the impact angle constraint is established in the longitudinal plane,and an integral sliding mode surface is constructed.The proposed guidance law resolves the existence of a steady-state error problem in the traditional SMC.Such a guidance law ensures that the missile hits the target with an ideal impact angle in finite time and the missile is kept highly robust throughout the interception process.By adopting the dynamic surface control method,the ISMGL is designed considering the impact angle constraints and the autopilot dynamic characteristics.According to the Lyapunov stability theorem,all states of the closed-loop system are finally proven to be uniformly bounded.Simulation results are compared with the general sliding mode guidance law and the trajectory shaping guidance law,and the findings verify the effectiveness and superiority of the ISMGL.     

Finite-Time and Fixed-Time Synchronization of Inertial Neural Networks with Mixed Delays

This paper considers the drive-response synchronization in finite-time and fixed-time of inertial neural networks with time-varying and distributed delays(mixed delays). First, by constructing a proper variable substitution, the original inertial neural networks can be rewritten as a first-order differential system. Second, by constructing Lyapunov functions and using differential inequalities,some new and effective criteria are obtained for ensuring the finite-time synchronization. Finally, three numerical examples are also given at the end of this paper to show the effectiveness of the results.     

Optimal Grading Policies in the Online Acquisition of Used Products

Although online reverse commerce(recommerce)is convenient and efficient,it is not without caveats.It limits recommerce firms’flexibility to offer personalized prices and may cause mismatched grading between the firms and sellers of used products.This study examines a recommerce firm’s decision on grading criteria and prices.We find that the firm’s optimal policy exhibits two distinctly different patterns depending on the trade value of the product.We demonstrate that sellers’overestimate and underestimate errors have qualitatively different effects on firm profitability,and the effects crucially rely on the type of optimal policy.These findings can apprise firms on how to preset sorting criteria and prices as well as reduce grading errors.     

Evolutionary game analysis of problem processing mechanism in new collaboration

This paper analyzes a problem processing mechanism in a new collaboration system between the main manufacturer and the supplier in the"main manufacturer-supplier"mode,which has been widely applied in the collaborative development management of the complex product.This paper adopts the collaboration theory,the evolutionary game theory and numerical simulation to analyze the decision-making mechanism where one upstream supplier and one downstream manufacturer must process an unpredicted problem without any advance contract in common.Results show that both players'decision-makings are in some correlation with the initial state,income impact coefficients,and dealing cost.It is worth noting that only the initial state influences the final decision,while income impact coefficients and dealing cost just influence the decision process.This paper shows reasonable and practical suggestions for the manufacturer and supplier in a new collaboration system for the first time and is dedicated to the managerial implications on reducing risks of processing problems.     

Metropolis-Hastings自适应算法及其应用

首先阐述Metropolis-Hastings算法实现的具体步骤,然后证明由此产生的Markov链满足细致平衡条件,从而以目标分布为不变分布.接下来给出几个计算实例,以说明提议函数及其方差的选取对采样结果的影响,并由此推出一种改进的自适应算法用以寻找合适的提议函数及其方差.最后,通过贝叶斯Logistic模型的例子说明M-H方法在贝叶斯分析中的应用,同时也检验M-H自适应算法的效果.     

地面站系统服务能力评估指标及其计算方法

针对地面站系统服务能力评估问题,研究了其评估指标及其计算方法.首先从卫星、地面站两个方面建立了地面站系统服务能力评估指标,并就各个指标以及指标的应用进行了分析.然后给出了两种指标计算方法:FCFS(First Come First Service)方法和启发式方法.最后通过实例仿真,表明该指标及方法能够较好的解决地面站系统服务能力评估问题中的是否增建新地面站、是否在某地面站中增加天线等重大决策问题.     

飞机朝后座椅的保护作用模型研究

为了进一步提高民航旅客运输的安全性和减少飞机事故的伤亡率,对飞机座椅朝后这一新概念,从安全防护的改善方面进行了系统分析和定量的描述,建立了冲撞缓冲效果的估算模型,进行了相关的简单试验,并分析了空难幸存案例,从中得出结论,如果把飞机座椅朝后安装,可以主动地、大幅度地提高事故中对人体的防护能力,减少伤害率.另外,通过比较发现,由此带来的改善,并不减少飞机原有的性能指标,也不增加成本和维护的复杂性.最后提出了分级布置飞机客舱座椅的建议,以便保留部分朝前的座椅供一些有偏好的旅客进行选择,使所有的座椅安全性都有所提高,起到了系统优化的作用.此模型为新一代面向用户的飞机设计,提供了一个系统安全分析的基础.     

Feminist Systems Theory: Learning by Praxis

Feminist Systems Theory (FST) is an emerging theory grounded in cultural ecofeminism and critical systems theory. FST’s contribution is in a set of principles that contain implications for community development and social research. FST brings to the fore the importance of valuing and considering the voices of people at the margins of social research and community development projects and is an effort towards a new ontology and language of person and nature to adequately address environmental marginalization. The ‘systems’ theory contribution to FST enriches our repertoires of methods and tools with an emphasis on systems thinking characterised by the use of boundary analysis. FST is ideally situated to enhance systemic intervention practice, an application of action research and participatory research practices. This paper will examine ‘process philosophy’ necessary to understand the nature of boundary analysis and the implications for FST and praxis with relevant examples drawn from case studies of current applications of FST in action research settings; (1) economic analysis and transition pathways; (2) policy analysis of the Close the Gap strategy for Indigenous equality and equity in Australia; (3) a community food distribution system; and, (4) a community health and diabetes prevention program.     

Moral hazard strategy and quality contract design in a two-echelon supply chain

Based on game theory and principal-agent theory, this paper focuses on how to control product quality and design quality contract in supply chain when moral hazard exists. We set up the supplier and buyer’s expected profits function model, in which the supplier makes production process investment-level decision and decides on the product quality prevention level, whereas the buyer makes quality evaluation decision and decides on the product quality inspection level. The supplier with a moral hazard of reducing investment level may lack investment in the production process; thus, the buyer will pay the information rent to incentivize the supplier to improve the investment level. The buyer creates the moral hazard of exaggerating the product quality defective rate, who may overinvest in the inspection process. We use the optimal condition to solve supplier’s first-best investment level, product quality prevention level, and buyer’s first-best quality inspection level, internal penalty, and apportionment ratio of external failure cost. We also conduct a simulation test that shows the following: When the supplier improves its investment level, its product quality prevention level will increase, and the buyer’s quality inspection level will decrease. With the improvement in the buyer’s product quality inspection level, its internal penalty will increase, and the supplier’s external failure cost will also increase while its expected profits will decrease. Hence, the buyer will design an incentive contract, the expected profits of which will increase, and the whole supply chain’s joint expected profits function may become an inverse U shape. Finally, we develop a simulation example and propose suggestions for quality control strategy and contract design in the supply chain under the conditions of asymmetric information.     

The buyer’s procuring mechanism under operating cost sharing in supply chain

This paper considers a buyer’s procuring strategy where the buyer purchases products from a supplier in order to minimize his total cost. Assume that the customer arrivals follow a Poisson process, a base-stock policy is implemented by the buyer, and the supplier will afford partial operating cost incurred by the buyer; The cost shared by the buyer includes procuring cost and some operating cost; The supplier does not hold the inventory and her production time is exponentially distributed. The objective of the supplier is to maximize her profit. The buyer designs a contract to minimize his total expected cost. Two different cases are considered: One potential supplier and many competing suppliers. The optimal control approaches are used to design the buyer’s optimal mechanism and some simple procurement mechanisms are presented.     

A Systems Theoretical Approach to Interoperability of Information

A rapid process of hybridisation of man and technology, organisation and technology and society and technology is currently sweeping the world. This process requires a way of (scientific) thinking that takes hybrid systems as the starting point. Such an approach makes it increasingly important for hybrid systems to be interlinked, enabling them to exchange and share information through these links. This linking of (hybrid) systems to enable them to exchange and share information can also be denoted as the realisation of interoperability between (hybrid) systems. Five principles from Luhmann’s systems theory can help us understand interoperability. Interoperability enables (hybrid) systems to join random coalitions and networks. The network centric warfare concept is currently the basis for international efforts aimed at the development and application of interoperability that would enable armed forces to act effectively and efficiently. This paper demonstrates what we can learn from Luhmann’s system’s theory.     

基于元胞自动机的行业危机扩散博弈分析

元胞自动机(Cellular Automata,CA)模拟仿真实现了行业危机扩散博弈过程的可视化,简化了博弈分析过程。本文首先进行了行业危机扩散的博弈分析,通过纳什均衡解的求解误差发现危机扩散受到很多因素影响,并且具有一定的随机性,增加了博弈分析的难度。基于此,引用元胞自动机结合行业危机扩散博弈的策略组合,构建了行业危机扩散的CA算法,解决了行业危机扩散博弈的有限理性假设问题,并使用仿真效果较好的多主体可视化软件Netlogo进行仿真,结果符合实际情况。     

A Systemic Model for Managing and Evaluating Conflicts in Organizational Change

Change or innovation diffusion is a key issue for most business organizations but is yet difficult to implement as the change management process is often complex as it relies on an organized methodology to complement an organization’s commitment and participation. An ambiguous environment surrounding change mechanism tends to develop unintended attitudes, resulting in resistance and conflict. The study proposes a model for the management of such conflicts among change participants (involved and affected) in the context of organizational change. The authors consider organizational change process as an innovation project that treats change and conflicts holistically with the Ulrich’s notion of boundary considerations (boundary critique). A social network setting of multiple stakeholders is considered to effectively help in resolving problematic situations that hinder organizational learning and change. The proposed model provides a theoretical foundation based on concepts governing Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH), change theory, stakeholder theory and conflict management.     

Peirce and Beer

This paper considers the philosophical background of Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Diagnosis (VSD) as profoundly influenced by Charles Peirce. In a general sense, our work discusses the VSD theory base in the development of a model for actionable theory in organizations. This paper examines VSD theory in the Beer trilogy ‘Brain of the Firm,’ ‘The Heart of the Enterprise’ and ‘Diagnosing the System’ and we propose that a sound set of VSD action principles can be derived from this trilogy. We contend that the philosophical background underpinning these principles is important. Using Beer’s ‘Decision and Control,’ we consider that philosophical background and link Operational Research and the interdisciplinary learning within Cybernetics to modern general systems theory. We explore Beer’s viewpoint on the Peirce depiction of four main methods of fixing belief; tenacity, authority, a priori and finally the scientific to assist in that expansion. We consider how knowledge of Beer’s perspective on making sense of the world is important in the linkage of VSD theory to the managerial problem arena. We relate the Peirce methods to previously reported problem solving exercises involving the VSD ideology, which we will develop individually at a later date. This paper reflects our desire to express the interpretation of VSD theory in a language that the well-informed manager may readily translate into the third step of testing theory in practice.     

Towards a theory of game-based non-equilibrium control systems

This paper considers optimization problems for a new kind of control systems based on non-equilibrium dynamic games.To be precise,the authors consider the infinitely repeated games between a human and a machine based on the generic 2×2 game with fixed machine strategy of finite k-step memory.By introducing and analyzing the state transfer graphes(STG),it will be shown that the system state will become periodic after finite steps under the optimal strategy that maximizes the human’s averaged payoff,which helps us to ease the task of finding the optimal strategy considerably. Moreover,the question whether the optimizer will win or lose is investigated and some interesting phenomena are found,e.g.,for the standard Prisoner’s Dilemma game,the human will not lose to the machine while optimizing her own averaged payoff when k = 1;however,when k≥2,she may indeed lose if she focuses on optimizing her own payoff only The robustness of the optimal strategy and identification problem are also considered.It appears that both the framework and the results are beyond those in the classical control theory and the traditional game theory.     

The Viable System Model and Its Application to Complex Organizations

Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model is the best known of the many cybernetic models he constructed over a career spanning more than 50 years. He explored the necessary conditions for viability in any complex system whether an organism, an organization or a country. Although the model was first applied in his work in the steel industry, many further applications were made during his later work as a consultant. The best known of these was when he was invited by President Salvadore Allende of Chile in 1970 to model the social economy of that country. That experiment was brutally cut short in 1973 by the CIA assisted coup during which Allende was killed and Pinochet’s dictatorship installed. The model itself draws on mathematics, psychology, biology, neurophysiology, communication theory, anthropology and philosophy. It was first expressed in mathematical terms in ‘The Cybernetic Factory’; next it was described in neurophysiological terms in Brain of the firm; and finally according to logic and graphic presentation in Heart of Enterprise and Diagnosing the System for Organizations. This last version is the one that is most accessible. It enables people to address organizational issues in a way that skirts the usual categories and organization charts and gets down to the actual necessary functions, no matter who is performing them. With this model people can get a boost as they diagnose or design an organizations. One aspect is to discover what the organization’s critical variables are and to find or install the homeostats that will show that they are maintaining equilibrium. Within that context, the model will help you ascertain that the principle functions and communications channels are in place and can function effectively. A crucial aspect of the VSM is that it is recursive; that is that the same relationships can be traced from the shop floor to the corporation or from the village to the country. Two examples will be discussed: a small business and the Chilean work from the 1970s. It is hoped that this will encourage people to imagine a world that works much better than it does now and where management is not defeated by complexity. A version of this paper was delivered as the first Stafford Beer Memorial Lecture on July 8, 2007 at the World Multiconference on Systems, Cybernetics and Informatics in Orlando Florida.     

多目标火力分配的系统动力学模拟

单兵种对多兵种作战的最优策略是研究多兵种对多兵种作战最优策略的基础。利用微分对策论,通过建立一对多交战的微分动力学模型,推导了单兵种对抗多兵种作战过程中火力分配最优策略的表达式,给出了推导过程。利用系统动力学的建模理论,以一对二交战为例,说明了系统动力学建模及仿真方法,建立系统动力学流图并进行了仿真。系统仿真模型编程简单,运算速度快,可实时跟踪所有中间变量,有利于对建模和计算机作战模拟不熟悉的决策人员参与设计、分析。