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The Middle East is a region of chronic insecurity due to internal and external tensions. These tensions and insecurity have made the Middle East one of the world's leading regions in military armaments. This study investigates the stochastic convergence of military burden in 10 selected Middle Eastern countries using comprehensive unit root analysis. Stochastic convergence for each country from 1977 to 2020 is examined using conventional, structural break, nonlinear, and Fourier‐based unit root tests. Empirical results provide strong evidence of convergence with regional averages in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. There is also some evidence of convergence in the case of Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Turkiye. However, evidence for the existence of convergence in Iran and Jordan is weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Republic of China (PRC)'s rapid development of military maritime capabilities, and their harnessing under strong personalist paramount leader Xi Jinping to address ambitious national goals, is one of the most important subjects concerning great power security in the international system today. Understanding the key dynamics is thus inherently important. This article surveys Chinese-language publications, U.S. government analyses, and related research, and applies it to a larger framework that addresses both conceptual and empirical issues, considers comparative cases, and offers suggestions for further examination. Its findings are relevant to scholars and practitioners alike: China's military maritime power radiates outward, backstopped by a land-based "anti-Navy." Its Navy focuses on proximate seas--supported by Coast Guard, Maritime Militia, and survey vessel fleets; and extends into the farthest oceans. China's sea forces and the strategy informing them has become progressively less distinctive with time and distance--trends continuing today. Herein lies one of the greatest strengths, and limitations, of Beijing's dramatic military maritime development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ever-evolving landscape of modern technology, integrating communication and sensing systems has become increasingly essential for a wide range of applications, from military and defense to autonomous vehicles and beyond. The integration offers a convergence of capabilities that enhances operational efficiency and provides adaptability in complex environments. In this paper, we develop, in simulation and experiment, an integrated communication and sensing system, exploring the cutting-edge utilization of spread spectrum and radio-over-fiber (RoF) photonic technologies. RoF technology inherits the benefits of optical fibers, which include low attenuation and longer reach distance compared to other media. First, we consider the integration of communication and sensing functions using a spread spectrum–binary phase-shift keying waveform. In this integrated system, the sensing function is performed using a radar system. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated in terms of the peak-to-sidelobe ratio of the radar correlator output and the bit error rate for the communication system. The results are obtained through extensive MATLAB simulations. Next, we consider the realization of the proposed integrated communication and sensing system using photonics technology. This phase commences with the utilization of specialized photonics-based software for extensive simulations at different fiber lengths, which is an essential foundational step toward the practical implementation of the proposed system using photonics. Lab experiments are also presented to validate the simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lightweight, load-bearing, and penetration-resistant integrated meta-structures have significant potential in military equipment and defense facilities, as they can effectively reduce weight and improve space utilization compared to traditional load-bearing structures and armors. Based on hybrid sandwich meta-structures the load-deflection curves of the meta-structure and the traditional corrugated sandwich under 3-point bending loads were compared. The protective performance and energy absorption mechanism of the meta-structure under multiple ballistic impacts were experimentally studied. The research results indicate that, the hybrid sandwich meta-structure mainly experiences brittle fracture of ceramic, plastic fracture of face-sheets, and debonding of the adhesive layer under bending loads. Its load-bearing capacity is higher than those of traditional corтиgated sandwiches. Furthermore, the study also reveals that the impact location and the lattice core type influence the multi-impact resistance of the meta-structure, with the honeycomb core demonstrating superior multi impact resistance compared to the corrugated core. The corrugated sandwich lacks longitudinal constraints on the ceramic, while the honeycomb core provides stronger constraints on the ceramic, limiting the area of ceramic damage. As a result, the penetration-resistant performance remains relatively consistent as the number of impacts increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secret sharing schemes play a vital role in securely distributing a secret among multiple participants, ensuring confidentiality and access control. However, traditional secret sharing schemes face limitations in resource-constrained environments, such as IoT devices, embedded systems, and low-power sensors, due to constraints in computational power, memory, energy, and communication capabilities. To address these challenges, lightweight secret sharing schemes have emerged as a promising solution, aiming to provide efficient techniques for secret sharing while maintaining an acceptable level of security. One such lightweight scheme is the counting-based secret sharing scheme, specifically designed to meet the needs of resource-constrained devices and environments. This scheme leverages parallel bits counting operations to reconstruct the secret and introduces innovative techniques for generating shares, optimizing the trade-off between security and computational efficiency. This survey provides a comprehensive overview of counting-based secret sharing schemes for resource-constrained environments. It highlights recent advancements in the field, identifies promising research directions, and discusses the open challenges that lie ahead in the development and utilization of counting-based secret sharing schemes. Additionally, potential applications of counting-based secret sharing schemes in various domains such as IoT, embedded systems, low-power sensors, secure multi-party computation, cloud computing, healthcare systems, financial services, supply chain management, military and defense, smart grids, and blockchain technology are discussed to emphasize the relevance and versatility of these schemes in real-world scenarios. Through this survey, researchers gain a comprehensive understanding of counting-based secret sharing schemes. This survey aims to inspire further innovation and advancements in the field of counting-based secret sharing schemes, ultimately contributing to the development and utilization of efficient and secure secret sharing techniques in resource-constrained environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a famous coastal defense heritage in the world's military history, the maritime defense heritage of China's Ming Dynasty represents the highest achievement of China's ancient coastal military defense. There is a relative lack of holistic research on this defense system from its establishment to stabilization. Additionally, there is a lack of comparative research on the combination of Wokou invasions and defense patterns from a spatio-temporal perspective. The study aims to offer insights into the temporal and spatial evolution of ancient military defense heritage and investigate the significance of Ming Dynasty coastal defense. This study focuses on Zhejiang, a key coastal defense during the Ming Dynasty. Using GIS tools, it analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of Wokou invasions and defense mode in the process of Zhejiang coastal defense from its establishment to its perfection by using GIS analytical tools, and explores the driving factors of the dynamic adjustment of this coastal defense system. The results show that: (1) Hongwu 1 to 31 (1368–1398) witnessed the construction of a 12-area defense system, encompassing Wei and Suo citadels. This followed a multi-point defense strategy, with Wei citadels controlling the coastline and Suo citadels supporting them; (2) Hongwu to Wanli (1368–1588) saw the evolution of five defense modes, evolving from decentralized to centralized and then to a coexistence of both. This culminated in the establishment of 4–6 Defense Mode (4 Canjiang and 6 Bazong); (3) the evolution of the defense paradigm is largely driven by Wokou incursions and is an adaptation from small-scale, short-duration infestations to large-scale, long-duration infestations. The findings show that the Ming Dynasty's coastal defense system in China was flexible and adaptive, evolving to meet changing defense needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate detection of underwater objects is a key indicator technology to effectively enhance the field of marine development and application, and is of great importance to various fields including marine military defense and seafood aquaculture. Efficient and rapid detection of underwater targets is a crucial technological challenge in this field. To meet the challenges posed by these issues, this study applies the convolutional omni‐efficient layer aggregation network (CO‐ELAN) module to the detector backbone to improve the ability of the network structure to acquire underwater objects from image information. The module improves the feature representation of gradient branching through a multi‐dimensional dynamic convolution and attention mechanism. In terms of loss calculation, the optimized normalized Wasserstein distance approach is used to predict the box distribution probabilistic modelling method to determine comparable distances to the ground box and obtain better samples of small target labels. Here, an underwater image enhancement algorithm based on white balance and underwater blur fusion is used to obtain clear images that enable improved detector performance. After the verification experiment on the URPC2018 dataset, it is found that the detector has better underwater detection ability compared with other detectors in the complex underwater environment. The proposed method achieves a 2.4% improvement over the YOLOv7 baseline model, while reducing computation costs by 5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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While increased strategic competition poses a challenge to the global governance agenda writ large, the concomitant increased demand for security is in principle a boon to international security governance's prime exemplar, NATO. Adding insights from international policy diffusion to the agenda of strategic competition, this article proposes that NATO supports the alliance's primary, external function of deterrence and defense by providing strategic epistemic capital to its members through meditative and inquisitive forms of governance. These ensure that member nations keep abreast of the evolving best practice of defense and military affairs, and underpin overall convergence of defense policies and military practices, from consensus-based strategic wayfinding to tactical interoperability on the battlefield. Crucially, the alliance is also a brokerage of strategic sensemaking. Seeing NATO through the prism of an international organization like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development thus deepens our understanding of how the alliance functions as well as of its resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the NATO member nations have committed to a coordinated approach to strengthening resilience among the Allies, including the development of National Resilience Plans (NRPs). The Allies outlined the extent to which the robustness of their respective military capacities requires the designed resilience of systems that bridge civilian and military domains. This article outlines the role that resilience plays in supporting tactical and strategic measures of national security and defense within military and civilian domains. This exploration provides an outline of how resilience is currently applied in practice by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and NATO. Building on this diversity of applications, various categorical forms of resilience drawn from the empirical science of resilience are positioned within NATO’s emerging frame for ‘layered’ resilience. This article reinforces the scientific debate that an optimal orientation to resilience leaves open the door for the transformative adaptation of function and identity when the single-equilibrium processes of resilience reach their limits. This article concludes with a normative perspective on how military and civilian resilience planning could support the development of NRPs that would amplify the Allies’ collective capacity to face shared security threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the Cold War, Sweden adopted a doctrine promoting perpetual peace, resulting in significant reductions in military defense capabilities and the dismantling of civil defense infrastructure. However, geopolitical events such as the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 prompted Sweden to reassess its security posture in 2015, leading to the reconstruction of total defense, and an emphasis on collaboration between the civilian and military defense sectors. Exercises have been instrumental in fostering civil‐military collaboration capability. This study aims to investigate whether these exercises are effective in enhancing capability for civil‐military collaboration. Data collection involved participant observation during seven exercises and was analyzed using constructive alignment (CA). Findings indicate that the exercises did not yield discernible learning outcomes, and this is attributed to the Swedish principles of responsibility, deficiencies in CA, contextual support, and entrenched defensive routines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poor performance of the Russian military during the invasion of Ukraine came as a surprise to many in the West. This prompted a debate about why Russian capabilities had been overestimated. Fingers were pointed at the work of Western military analysts who, in the eyes of some critics, had based their estimates almost entirely on numbers and technology, resulting in mistaken predictions of a quick and decisive Russian victory. It has since been suggested that changes to the practices of Western military analysis are required if similar future failures are to be avoided. This article takes stock of this debate, proposing that the reasons for Western overestimates of Russian military capabilities and the lessons to be learned from this are far more complex than suggested by the critics. Discussing the political nature of military assessments and defense debates, the problems inherent in military analysis, and the difficulties associated with predicting outcomes in war, it concludes that laying blame for overestimates of Russian military power on Western experts is a fallacy. Expectations of achieving accurate future military assessments by refining the analytical base need to be tempered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientifically validating the value of rural heritage and exploring construction wisdom has emerged as a significant challenge in the study of rural settlements worldwide. Rural heritage shows significant differences according to the natural environment, history, culture, and socio-economic factors. However, the assessment of the authenticity and effectiveness of heritage values have yet to be quantified due to the difficulty in obtaining evidence directly from samples. By constructing a multi-dimensional model of villages for quantitative analysis, we proposed a multifaceted spatial visibility analysis method based on individual and combined defense structures to empirically study the remains of eight towers in Moluo village, western China. This study demonstrated that towers serve as regional defense structures and are essential for constructing a comprehensive and effective visual defensive system (VDS) in Moluo village, a typical military defense village. The effectiveness and coverage of the towers vary depending on their location, height, type, and other factors. They form a complementary and synergistic relationship, playing a dual mechanism of public and private, local and overall defense. In summary, this method enables the feasible quantification and analysis of the functional value of rural heritage through landscape visual analysis. It provides a new perspective for studying the authenticity of heritage functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defensive capability is one of the essential attributes of traditional military settlements. In the Ming dynasty, coastal Wei fort was the one of the most functionally complex and wide-ranging fortifications in the military defense system of China. Because many factors affect their defensive capacities, including three dimensions: individual construction, synergistic links, and regional jurisdiction, it is not easy to compare different settlements' defensive capacities or to judge the degrees of different factors' influences. Through principal component analysis, this study determines the weights of each minor factor. It constructs a model for evaluating traditional Chinese military settlements' defensive capabilities, to quantify the defensive capability. The results show that the synergistic relationship between the settlements, especially settlement accessibility, has the most significant impact on defensive capability, much higher than a single castle's defensive construction. The defensive capability index of the Wei forts in Guangdong is the highest, consistent with the highest rate of victory in the wars fought on the coast during the Ming dynasty. The defensive capacity is directly proportional to the rate of victory, which validates this evaluation model's soundness. This study not only comprehensively evaluates the coastal Wei forts' defensive capacity in the Ming Dynasty, but also provides new methods for the quantitative or comparative analysis of military settlements at other temporal and spatial scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ming Great Wall Military Defense System is the most complete ancient military cultural heritage in China, which is of great significance to the study of China's ancient military defense mechanism and pattern. Military settlement is an important carrier of this mechanism. The estimation and in-depth understanding of its value can further excavate the profound connotation of the military defense system and the Great Wall spatial pattern in the Ming Dynasty. This paper adopts the AHP-CRITIC weighting approach to determine the weights of the historical value, scientific value, social value, cultural value and artistic value of the settlement heritage, so as to construct the value evaluation model of military settlements, and takes 34 Ming Great Wall military settlements in the Liaoxi Corridor as an example for evaluation. The results of the evaluation identified the priority settlements for conservation and development, and also explored their relationship with historical status, urbanization processes and official policies. The evaluation model constructed in this paper has a certain universality, and can also be followed in the evaluation of other military settlements in the Ming Great Wall Defense System, so as to obtain the overall cognition of the settlement system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) was the most prominent engineering volume and the most perfect military defense structure in the history of China. By combining traditional historical textual research, site surveys, and GIS database analysis, this paper reveals the Ming Great Wall's spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and the immediate causes of their formation are discussed in the nine military districts of the frontier. The results show that: (1) The general rule of the Ming Great Wall was to set up military forts, passes, piers, and other related defensive facilities before constructing the continuous wall. (2) The Great Wall spatial and temporal distribution of the phases is relatively apparent, divided into five construction phases in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1620): Hongwu to Xuande (1368–1435), unbuilt the wall; Zhengtong to Tianshun (1436–1464), the consecutive wall appeared; Chenghua to Zhengde (1465–1521), the first construction climax of the Great Wall; Jiajing period (1522–1566), the second construction climax of the Great Wall; Longqing to Wanli (1567–1620), the completion of the whole line of the Great Wall.(3)The warfare and defense posture was the immediate factor that prompted the construction of the Great Wall between the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia. This study has some reference significance for restoring the integrity and authenticity of the Ming Great Wall, and contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage of. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Joseon period, the maritime ban policy gradually became a means of controlling the people when a reorganization of the military defense system and the preparation of countermeasures against the appearance of unidentified vessels were required. In the process, a maritime boundary consciousness was formed, and a defense system centered on the inner sea was established. As a result, islands located in the West and South Seas were transformed into garrison areas, receiving increased attention from the central government. By contrast, the change in the island policy toward Ulleungdo was relatively uncomplicated. In the early Joseon period, the governance of evacuating residents of Ulleungdo and the so-called island vacancy policy were carried out as a way of preventing damage from Japanese pirates. And the sutoje of Ulleungdo was formalized when the territorial dispute over Ulleungdo with Japan began in earnest at the end of the 17th century. The character of Ulleungdo was the same as that of the islands located on the West and South Seas in that it revealed the government's determination to properly control domestic territory. The development of the sutoje of Ulleungdo was also related to changes in maritime territorial consciousness and island policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 1944, the future Allied landing sites in Normandy were lightly defended by Germany. By D-Day, 6 June 1944, that had changed. Erwin Rommel's beach obstacles and onshore "asparagus" intended to disrupt any landings are well known. But the defending forces had increased markedly: two airborne units protecting the Cotentin, a Panzer division at Caen, two others within reach, and all coastal sectors reinforced. What caused the sudden attention to Normandy? The impetus clearly came from Adolf Hitler, and a common explanation is his "intuition." A far better one, this account argues, comes from examining the Kriegsmarine analysis of Luftwaffe photoreconnaissance efforts, which can directly explain Hitler's actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1960s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's U-2 spy planes, piloted by Chinese Nationalist airmen from Taiwan, flew routinely over the Chinese mainland monitoring the Chinese nuclear weapons program; the overflights also demonstrated Beijing's military weakness and inability to control its airspace. In spite of having only a few Soviet-made surface-to-air missile systems, the People's Liberation Army Air Force was convinced that human factors, especially agility in strategy, operations, and tactics, could overcome a superior enemy. Although much remains secret, sources now available provide new insights into this secret Cold War history. Moreover, as the Chinese claimed themselves, these experiences remain valuable for China's military response to war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial morphology is an important part of traditional settlement and an important carrier of settlement formation and evolution. As a unique military defense and royal tombs settlement in history, Baiyangcheng Village, Liucun Town, Changping District, Beijing, has a unique spatial morphology of settlement, but there is no relevant research in the academic field, which is not conducive to scientific cognition of the value and characteristics of traditional Beijing settlements represented by this village. Therefore, through literature review and field investigation, a systematic study on the historical evolution and spatial form of the village is made by using research methods of history, human geography and architecture. It is found that the spatial form of the settlement in the historical development is continuously affected by various factors such as deep terrain environment, defense needs, feng shui site selection, tomb construction and so on, and the characteristics of dynamic evolution is presented. Based on this, the value of the village is evaluated and suggestions for future protection and development are put forward, hoping to be helpful to the protection, utilization, inheritance and development of similar settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russia-Ukraine war has clearly shown that critical infrastructures are prime targets for cyber operations in addition to the physical domain. In practice, in many cases, these critical infrastructures are protected by civilian cybersecurity companies in the context of a managed security service, so their defense operations must necessarily be coordinated with military defense activities. This includes among others the sharing of information classified under different classification systems (national, EU, NATO) between different actors in national cyber defense, the inclusion of appropriate civilian experts in the armed forces, and the usage of cutting-edge cybersecurity technologies (e.g. AI-enabled solutions) that are first introduced for civilian use, with military organizations only having access to them later or possibly not encountering them at all due to procurement difficulties. The main goal of this paper is to introduce the existing opportunities and obstacles to civilians' involvement in military cyber operations in the areas of legislation, technology, and human resources from the European perspective. Moreover, the paper deals with the actual questions of cybersecurity intelligence sharing between civilian and military entities and the European Union's actions in order to improve the overall cybersecurity posture of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is the first analysis of Wrocław’s fire regulations from 1602 and 1630. The origin of such acts can be derived from medieval city council regulations. One of the oldest dates back to March 19, 1324. Over time, the originally laconic sets of provisions evolved into multi-faceted fire protection regulations, which included issues concerning the organization of fire protection, fire alarms, fire tools, water supply and extinguishing methods. Both documents have a similar structure and content, as the one from 1630 is an amendment to the act of 1602. The main difference concerns the regulations related to the military defense of the city, which appeared for the last time in 1602. These documents were continued with amendments from 1751, 1760 and 1777, later replaced by regulations of state authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article utilizes the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to decide how to choose an effective weapon system for the A2/AD (anti-access/area denial) strategy at the Sunda Strait, Indonesia's strategic choke point. The main discussion is limited to selecting the types of weapon systems considered effective in implementing A2/AD at Indonesia's strategic choke points. The next step is to decide which primary, secondary, and alternative criteria are the most important. Each of these will then be put together mathematically by measuring consistency using the Consistency Index (CI), the Consistency Ratio (CR), and the Consistency Hierarchy, which is the ranking as the result of the analysis. This method resulting in a weight for the navigation criteria of 66%, projection of 19%, and operability of 16%. Furthermore, in conclusion, the order of the best weapon systems is RBS15 MK4 with a weight of 66%, Brahmos II at 18%, and Neptune 360ST at 16%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Submarine recognition plays a critical role in maritime security and military defense. However, traditional submarine recognition algorithms face limitations in feature representation capability and robustness. Additionally, deploying deep learning methods on embedded and mobile platforms presents a bottleneck. To address these challenges, we propose an innovative and practical approach—an improved YOLOv5-based lightweight submarine automatic recognition detection algorithm. Our method leverages the Feature Pyramid based on MobileNetV3 and the C3_DS module to reduce computation and parameter complexity while ensuring high precision in submarine recognition. The integration of the adaptive neck from the SA-net strategy further mitigates missed detections, significantly enhancing the accuracy of submarine target detection and recognition. We evaluated our improved model on a submarine dataset, and the results demonstrate remarkable advancements in Precision, Recall, and mAP0.5, with respective increases of 8.54%, 6.02%, and 3.36%. Moreover, we achieved a notable reduction of 34.1% in parameter quantity and 67.9% in computational complexity, showcasing its lightweight effects. Overall, our proposed method introduces novel improvements to submarine recognition, addressing existing limitations and offering practical benefits for real-world deployment on embedded and mobile platforms. The enhanced performance in precision and recall metrics, coupled with reduced computational requirements, emphasizes the significance of our approach in enhancing maritime security and military applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining the death marches from Stutthof's East Prussian subcamps in January 1945 and the following "Palmnicken Massacre," this article retraces the role of the Wehrmacht in late-war genocidal violence. Scholars have established the complicity of Wehrmacht soldiers in acts of genocide during their stay on the Eastern Front, and documented the racist mindset that underpinned their behavior. Yet no such research exists on the final year of the war. From Summer 1944 until May 1945, the Wehrmacht 's main task was to defend its home soil. Scholarship has thus focused more on the military's defense of Germany rather than their willingness to support the regime's genocidal demands. This article argues that many Wehrmacht commanders were fully aware of the genocide perpetrated in their midst during the war's final months, and when called upon, different Wehrmacht commanders actively assisted the SS in carrying out the regime's racist mission even at the very end of the war. Finally, the author reveals how the military attempted to conceal these acts of violence throughout the postwar years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study of the defense capacity of ancient military settlements, most existing studies have evaluated the defense capacity of citadels qualitatively from a historiographical perspective. There are fewer quantitative studies on defense efficiency in a specific regional context. This paper takes the coastal defense citadels system of Zhejiang in the Ming Dynasty of China as the research object. It adopts a combination of digital historical data mining and quantitative research to study the defense efficiency of the military defense area in Zhejiang in the Ming Dynasty. This paper first analyzes the defense pattern of Zhejiang's sea defense citadels system in the Ming Dynasty. It determines the control points of defense groups, quantifies the defense group area with a Voronoi diagram, and classifies and assigns the entropy value to the deployment data of guard forts in historical data. Finally, the assigned forces are superimposed on the defense area to obtain the quantified defense efficiency of each defense group, and the defense results are verified. This paper innovatively proposes an "area-force" perspective. It introduces spatial segmentation and quantitative research methods to study the defense efficiency of a specific regional defense group system in ancient times. It proves that this method is feasible and can be applied to the study of other ancient military defense areas. It also expands the scientific perspective of ancient military fortification systems, which can contribute to systematically preserving ancient military settlement heritage on a larger scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trenches, as important military defense measures, have significant practical significance in studying the impact of trench terrain on the propagation patterns of explosive shock waves. This research is based on numerical simulations and establishes six trench models with depths of 0 mm, 200 mm, 400 mm, 600 mm, 800 mm, and 1000 mm, as well as five different lengths of trenches: 400 mm, 600 mm, 800 mm, 1000 mm, and 1200 mm. The internal and front-to-back shock wave pressures within the trenches were numerically calculated. The research findings indicate that as the depth of the trench increases, the pressure at the midpoint of the trench bottom gradually decreases within a depth of 800 mm, and then slowly increases beyond 800 mm. As the length of the trench increases, the pressure on the trench bottom significantly decreases when the length does not exceed 600 mm, but steadily increases after reaching 600 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of the terrain and its use are essential for successful combat. This paper highlights the importance of these facts through the deeds of general Miklós VII Zrínyi (1620—64). His efforts to strengthen the defense of Međimurje resulted in a complex defense system that actively used the terrain to its advantage, established primarily for the protection of the Kakonya Crossing. The selection of the location of Novi Zrin, its strengthening, and the construction of the Zrínyi Ditch all prove that he was thinking of a complex system, and actively used the terrain to his advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of the rear in warfare, particularly in the context of Vietnam's 30-year resistance against the French and the Americans from 1945 to 1975, cannot be overstated. The rear area, which encompasses a vast range of activities, proved to be crucial in determining the success or failure of the conflict. During this period, the Vinh Linh Rear in Quang Tri, Vietnam, from 1965 to 1975, emerged as a paradigmatic example of how the rear operations could significantly impact the outcome of the war. It demonstrated remarkable achievements in various domains such as construction, economic development, culture, and societal organization. Moreover, Vinh Linh's rear area effectively deployed the people's war strategy, successfully resisting attacks from the air force, navy, and U.S. spy and commando operations. This not only ensured the safety of the populace but also provided support to the southern battlefield, particularly the Tri Thien theater. The Vinh Linh rear area's ability to combine economic development with military defense, social cohesion, and cultural resilience illustrates the multifaceted nature of rear operations in a protracted conflict. Its successes serve as a testament to the importance of comprehensive rear support in achieving strategic objectives in warfare. The article utilizes statistical research methods, along with incorporating several other methodologies such as classification method, retrospective method, periodic method, structuralsystematic method, and comparative method. Delving deeply and comprehensively into the rear area, particularly Vinh Linh's rear area, during the resistance against the United States, is a significant and essential subject matter. Therefore, in the forthcoming period, it is imperative to have numerous research projects focusing on this content to extract valuable lessons and experiences in the endeavor to construct and safeguard the nation in the current context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates experimentally a novel strategy for solving a variant of the differential game of target defense in presence of obstacles. The game is widely applied in the areas of military defense for protecting important equipment such as a ship, an aircraft, a moving vehicle, or a sensitive installation from a malicious attacker. The state‐of‐the‐art approaches mostly employ an offline optimization strategy that is only applicable to holonomic robots. Moreover, most of the approaches could not autonomously avoid obstacles or take into account uncertainties. As a consequence, this paper presents an online optimization technique, by designing a trade‐off parameter that integrates game theory with the model predictive control, which allows a nonholonomic defender to intercept the attacker while simultaneously defending the target. Simulations under different conditions as well as several indoor laboratory experiments validate the proposed approach. Moreover, performance is compared with a standard model predictive control approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the evolving landscape of cyberspace, cyberwarfare, and the U.S. cyber strategy. It discusses the shift from a primarily defensive posture to an offensive one, with a focus on the "Defending Forward" strategy implemented by the Department of Defense. It explores the nature of cyberwarfare, the effect of cyberspace as a new warfighting domain, and the need for updated domestic legal frameworks.

Porous Si 3 N 4 ceramics with high strength and high transmittance have been widely used in the field of defense and military. Additive manufacturing (AM) technology is one of the effective means to fabricate porous Si 3 N 4 ceramics. Nevertheless, it is difficult to prepare porous Si 3 N 4 ceramics by using digital light processing (DLP) because of the large refractive index difference between Si 3 N 4 powders and photosensitive resin. In this study, the effects of the amount of polystyrene (PS) powders on the properties of Si 3 N 4 ceramic slurries and sintered ceramics were systematically discussed. The addition of PS reduced the overall refractive index of powders and increased the average particle size of powders, thus improving the cure depth of Si 3 N 4 ceramic slurries from 11.0 ± 2.0 μm to 55.7 ± 1.8 μm. With the increase of PS content, the shrinkage and porosity of Si 3 N 4 ceramics gradually increased, and the bulk density and flexural strength showed the opposite trend. The slurry with low viscosity (2.38 Pa٠s at a shear rate of 30 s−1) and high cure depth (51.2 ± 4.6 μm) was obtained when the content of PS was 15 wt%, which met the thickness requirements for printing. The total porosity of Si 3 N 4 ceramics reached the maximum values at 28.21 ± 2.58%. The addition of PS solved the problem of low cure depth of slurries, and PS as a pore-forming agent could help Si 3 N 4 ceramics form porous structure. This research provides valuable insights into the fabrication of non-oxide ceramics with high refractive index using DLP technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving a photodetector with high bandwidth, high sensitivity, high speed, and high operating temperature is a common goal for researchers, especially for infrared and terahertz regions due to its important application in various fields like military defense and biochemical analysis. Among photon-type terahertz (THz) detectors, heterojunction interfacial work function internal photoemission (HEIWIP) detectors demonstrate high bandwidth, high sensitivity, and high speed, but are limited by the low operating temperature. In this work, we developed an effective strategy for raising its operating temperature by introducing ratchet structures. By comparing with traditional HEIWIP, the ratchet HEIWIP exhibits a low dark current and high detectivity while retaining the ultra-broad response bandwidth. The operating temperature has been raised from 7 to 20 K in the terahertz region, which is meaningful progress in THz photon-type detection. The universality of this scheme makes it possible to be further migrated to general photon-type semiconductor detectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates the design of a novel planar millimeter (mm)-wave absorber for RADAR application. The proposed mm-wave absorber is constructed using integrated and distributed elements to reduce the complexity of the design. The proposed absorber exhibits a dual resonance by exploiting the mutual coupling between two concentric square rings. The impedance matching is achieved by introducing corrugations between the square rings. The mm-wave absorber operates in the frequency range of 31.4–33 GHz (1.64 GHz) with a minimum absorptivity of 95–100%, respectively. The performance of the proposed absorber is demonstrated using equivalent circuit modelling. Owing to the symmetric nature of the unit cell, the proposed absorber offers stable performance for both TE and TM modes of operation. The prototype of the proposed absorber is fabricated on a single-layered FR-4 substrate with a thickness of λ 0 5.97 and periodicity of λ 0 1.91 , where λ 0 is free space wavelength at the lowest resonant frequency. The observed result is validated using experimental measurements in free space and has good agreement with the simulated results. Hence, the proposed mm-wave absorber is a promising entity for stealth engineering in military and defense systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Journal of Beijing University of Civil Engineering & Architecture is the property of Journal of Beijing University of Civil Engineering & Architecture Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The military defense was one of the main variables that explains the creation of public companies and the intervention of the State in Argentina in the 20th century. The Armed Forces managed an important part of Argentine industry and had a notable influence on the orientation of economic policy. However; within this concern for the basic industry not all forces acted in the same way. In addition to giving an account of the general role of the military industries, we will conduct a comparative study of basic petrochemicals (where the Army took direct involvement) and aluminum (developed by private capital driven by Air Force). In sum, we are interested to appreciate both the mechanisms used and the achievements made with these two "tactics" derived from the same "strategy", born of the military need to ensure the local provision of "strategic materials", whose results effectively modified the industrial structure of Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Qing Dynasty, 8 million dans (1 dan equals 60kg) of grain were collected from eight provinces of the country every year and transported to the capital or designated places for royal expenses, official salaries, military pay and defense. Thanks to the superior natural environment and large-scale social development, the Hubei and Hunan Provinces became important grain collection areas. The grain collecting administration in Hubei and Hunan Provinces played an important role for the central government in strengthening local social control. There were extremely detailed and strict regulations from grain collection to delivery and acceptance. From the perspective of social history, the development of the grain collecting administration in Hubei and Hunan Provinces in the Qing Dynasty was carried out in close interaction with the local society. Water transportation connected the people, agriculture, trade, social relations, people’s livelihood and other elements of the local society in the two provinces, thus unfolding a vivid social picture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]