1,354,251 research outputs found

    Mass action models of Falklands War battles

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    We develop a dataset describing variables associated with six Falklands War battles: combatant numbers; deaths; temporal aspects; and offensive support. Linear relationships between battle duration and deaths necessitate using force and loss ratios to remove temporal variation. Mass action models of battle attrition fit this dataset poorly (at best coefficient of determination R2=0.10R^{2}=0.10). The low level rules in simulations used by military force designers frequently share assumptions with, or are, mass action models. Errors in force balance or constitution are dangerous so exposing problems with and exploring improvements on existing combat models is important. While six data points are too few for a thorough analysis, our results are consistent with: a linear relationship between time in danger and number killed; different times in danger for the two sides, dependent on detection and lethality ranges; and data substructure, even when temporal aspects are removed through ratio models. This data substructure indicates at least one extra variable needs to be considered. We contend that this variable is related to suppression, and this contention is not falsified by the high use of offensive support in the most successful attacks. Mathematical modellers should consider cancelling out temporal variation in combat datasets through ratio models and/or exploring the effects of mutable detection and lethality ranges. Suppression is an attempt to manage exposure to death, to introduce non-stationarity and irregularity into the dataset to benefit the suppressor, to change the bounds of the system using a soft controller; we should investigate how to model it. Force designers should ask simulation modellers whether the mathematical models underlying their simulations represent suppression accurately (or at all) and rethink reductions of simultaneously delivered offensive support available on demand based on models ignoring suppression. References J. B. A. Bailey. Field artillery and firepower. Routledge, London, 2009. A. Baudry. La Bataille navale: etudes sur les facteurs tactiques. 1912. Translated by C. F. Atkinson. The naval battle: Studies of the tactical factors. Hugh Rees, London, 1914. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k11639411/f9.image S. Biddle. Military power: Explaining victory and defeat in modern battle. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2004. F. D. J. Bowden, B. M. Pincombe and P. B. Williams. Feasible scenario spaces: A new way of measuring capability impacts. In T. Weber, M. J. McPhee and R. S. Anderssen (eds), MODSIM2015, 836–842, 2015. http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim2015/D3/bowden.pdf D. Brown. The Royal Navy and the Falklands War. Pen and Sword Books, Barnsley, UK, 1987. J. V. Chase. Sea fights: A mathematical investigation of the effect of superiority of force in combats upon the sea. Naval War College Archives, RG 8, Box 109, XTAV (1902), 1902. A. J. Echevarria. After Clausewitz: German military thinkers before the Great War. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA, 2001. J. A. English and B. I. Gudmundsson. On infantry. Praeger, Westport, CT, USA, 1994. B. A. Fiske. American Naval Policy. U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1905. L. Freedman. The official history of the Falklands Campaign, Volume 2: War and diplomacy. Routledge, London, 2005. G. Fremont-Barnes. The Falklands 1982: Ground operations in the South Atlantic. Osprey, Oxford, UK, 2012. https://ospreypublishing.com/the-falklands-2130 S. Fitz-Gibbon. Not mentioned in despatches: The history and mythology of the Battle of Goose Green. The Lutterworth Press, Cambridge, UK, 1995. http://www.lutterworth.com/product_info.php/products_id/1019 T. R. Hogan. No shells, no attack! The use of fire support by three Commando Brigade Royal Marines during the 1982 Falkland Islands War. AD-A208862, US Army War College, PA, USA, 1989. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a208862.pdf. L. R. Kosowski, A. Pincombe and B. Pincombe. Irrelevance of the fractal dimension term in the modified fractal attrition equation. ANZIAM J, 52:C988–C1011, 2011. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v52i0.3963 F. W. Lanchester. Aircraft in warfare: The dawn of the fourth arm. Constable, London, 1916. https://archive.org/details/aircraftinwarfar00lancrich C. D. Landry. British artillery during Operation Corporate. Masters Thesis, United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2002. http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a401278.pdf. T. W. Lucas and T. Turkes. Fitting Lanchester equations to the Battles of Kursk and Ardennes. Nav. Res. Log., 51:95–116, 2004. doi:10.1002/nav.10101 J. Millikan, M. Wong and D. Grieger. Suppression of dismounted soldiers: Towards improving dynamic threat assessment in closed loop combat simulations. In J. Piantadosi, R. S. Anderssen and J. Boland (eds), MODSIM2013, 1054–1060, 2013. http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim2013/D1/millikan.pdf M. Osipov. The influence of the numerical strength of engaged forces in their casualties. Translated by R. L. Helmbold and A. S. Rehm. Nav. Res. Log., 42:435–490, 1995. doi:10.1002/1520-6750(199504)42:3<435::AID-NAV3220420308>3.0.CO;2-2 R. Peterson. On the logarithmic law of combat and its application to tank combat. Oper. Res., 15:557–558, 1967. doi:10.1287/opre.15.3.557 A. H. Pincombe and B. M. Pincombe. Markov modelling of the effectiveness of arms sanctions: A case study of the Falklands War. ANZIAM J., 48:C527–C541, 2006. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v48i0.80 A. H. Pincombe and B. M. Pincombe. Tractable approximations to multistage decisions in air defence scenarios. ANZIAM J., 49:C273–C288, 2007. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v49i0.349 A. H. Pincombe, B. M. Pincombe and C. E. M. Pearce. Putting the art before the force. ANZIAM J., 51:C482–C496, 2010. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v51i0.2584. A. H. Pincombe, B. M. Pincombe and C. E. M. Pearce. A simple battle model with explanatory power. ANZIAM J., 51:C497–C511, 2010. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v51i0.2585 A. H. Pincombe and B. M. Pincombe. Dispersed combat as many-on-many search: Solving generalised Lanchester equations. ANZIAM J. to appear. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v57i0.10447 B. M. Pincombe and A. H. Pincombe. Scoping a flexible deployment framework using adversarial scenario analysis. Int. J. Intell. Def. Supp. Sys., 3(3/4):225–262, 2010. doi:10.1504/IJIDSS.2010.037092 B. M. Pincombe, S. Blunden, A. H. Pincombe and P. Dexter. Ascertaining a hierarchy of dimensions from time-poor experts: Linking tactical vignettes to strategic scenarios. Technol. Forecast. Soc., 80(4):584–598, 2013. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2012.05.001 R. H. Scales. Firepower in limited war. National Defense University Press, Washington, DC, 1993. G. Smith. Battle atlas of the Falklands War 1982 by Land, Sea, and Air. Naval-History.net, Penarth, UK, 2006. http://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm G. Hubbard. HMS Yarmouth: Captains Diary. http://www.hms-yarmouth.com/co.diary.htm

    Tractable approximations to multistage decisions in air defence scenarios

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    Simulations are commonly used to investigate the control and resource allocation problems associated with pitting aircraft against ground based air defences. Such simulations rapidly become computationally intractable as units are added. Previous work described an envelope method that retains computational tractability if the lowest and highest cost target sequences can be defined a priori and used to establish solution bounds. This approach must be modified to be applied to the more common case where there are no obvious best or worst sequences of targets. We show that these bounding sequences can be approximated by using binary comparisons and by basing decisions on a heuristic. This approach compares well with exact results in some computationally tractable situations. References R. E. Ball, The Fundamentals of Aircraft Combat Survivability Analysis and Design (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1985). D. Ghose, M. Krichman, J. L. Speyer and J. S. Shamma, Modeling and analysis of air campaign resource allocation: A spatio-temporal decomposition approach, IEEE Transactions on systems, man and cybernetics- Part A: Systems and humans 32 (2002) 403--418. Jose B. Cruz Jr, Marwan A. Simaan, Aga Gacic, Huihui Jiang, Bruno Letellier, Ming Li and Yong Liu, Game-theoretic modeling and control of a military air operation, IEEE Transactions on aerospace and electronic systems 37 (2001) 1393--1405. Eric V. Larson and Glenn A. Kent, A new methodology for assessing multilayer missile defence options, Monograph Report, RAND Corporation (1994) . W. McEneany, B. Fitzpatrick and I. Lauko, Stochastic game approach to air operations, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems 40 (2004) 1191--1216. A. H. Pincombe and B. M. Pincombe, A Markov decision model for tactical military engagements, Proceedings of ASOR2001 (2001) . A. H. Pincombe and B. M. Pincombe, A Markov based method for military analysis, Bulletin of the Australian Society for Operations Research 22 (2003) . A. H. Pincombe and B. M. Pincombe, Markov modelling on the effectiveness of sanctions: A case study of the Falklands war, in Proceedings of the 13th Biennial Computational Techniques and Applications Conference, CTAC-2006 (eds. Wayne Read and A. J. Roberts), Volume 48 of ANZIAM J., http://anziamj.austms.org.au/ojs/index.php/ANZIAMJ/article/view/80 [November 14, 2007], C527--C541. A. Tversky and I. Simonson, Context-dependent preferences, Management Science 39 (1993) 1179--1189. Yong Liu, Marwan A. Simaan and Jose B. Cruz Jr, An application of dynamic Nash task assignment strategies to multi-team military air operations, Automatica 39 (2003) 1469--1479

    A simple battle model with explanatory power

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    Attrition equations have military use and are also used in biological and economic modelling. We model the aggregation of attrition in a battle to explain the strong support in historical data for the log law, which conventionally is thought to apply mainly to losses through accident or illness. Support for the log law has been found in many studies of battle data and this has yet to be explained. Several historical studies found support for a mixture of attrition laws, suggesting that different laws could apply to different parts of the battle. We hypothesise that the log law could be supported through aggregation effects when other laws apply on a micro scale. We assume that all laws work at skirmish level and show that aggregation effects will only support the log law if the individual skirmishes being aggregated are themselves modelled by the log law. We argue that the extreme support for the log law in the Kursk dataset is due to an overwhelming support for that law at the level of individual skirmishes, and that the conventional use of square and linear law for skirmishes is incorrect. These results suggest that theoretical changes to attrition equations should be based on studies of small unit attrition as aggregation effects do not cause cross over from square or linear laws to log law.Adrian Hall Pincombe, Brandon Pincombe and Charles Pearc

    Dispersed combat as mass action with finite search

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    Improvements to models of battle attrition are necessary because current models cannot explain battle attrition. Agent based simulations indicate that calculated attrition is substantially different when agents are not assumed to have unlimited detection capabilities. However, agent based models are limited to small force sizes and there is no evidence that the changes in calculated attrition occur for large force sizes. We develop a probabilistic model, based on Bernoulli trials, to check if limited detection capabilities result in significant changes to calculated attrition when force sizes are large, as in battle datasets. Our model is a search model and we convert it to an attrition model via the same processes used in current models, and include the same assumptions for factors other than detection range. We find two series solutions to the model, one for small force sizes, the other for large force sizes, and find numerically that the two solutions strongly overlap. The new model makes a difference to calculated attrition when force sizes are small, but not when they are large. However, the model makes a difference to calculated attrition for all force sizes if the battlefield area is increased to maintain a sparse force density. Our approach is mathematical, not requiring application knowledge, and several of the assumptions underlying mass action models are raised in our discussion. References J. V. Chase. Sea fights: A mathematical investigation of the effect of superiority of force in combats upon the sea. Naval War College Archives, RG 8, Box 109, XTAV (1902), 1902. N. R. Franks and L. W. Partridge. Lanchester battles and the evolution of combat in ants. Anim. Behav., 45:197–199, 1993. doi:10.1006/anbe.1993.1021 G. S. Gradschtein and I. M. Ryzhik. Tables of Series, Products and Integrals. Deutcher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1996. N. C. Grassly and C. Fraser. Mathematical models of infectious disease transmission. Nat. Rev. Microbiol., 6:477–487, 2008. doi:10.1038/nrmicro1845 D. Kahneman. Thinking Fast and Slow. Penguin, London, 2013. L. R. Kosowski, A. Pincombe and B. Pincombe. Irrelevance of the fractal dimension term in the modified fractal attrition equation. ANZIAM J., 52:C988–C1011, 2011. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v52i0.3963 F. W. Lanchester. Aircraft in warfare: The dawn of the fourth arm. Constable, London, 1916. http://edc448uri.wikispaces.com/file/view/Lanchester+-+Aircraft+in+Warfare.pdf T. W. Lucas and T. Turkes. Fitting Lanchester equations to the Battles of Kursk and Ardennes. Nav. Res. Log., 51:95–116, 2004. doi:10.1002/nav.10101 T. W. Lucas and J. A. Dinges. The effect of battle circumstances on fitting Lanchester equations to the Battle of Kursk. Mil. Oper. Res., 9:17–30, 2004. http://www.mors.org/Publications/MOR-Journal/Online-Issues P. M. Morse and G. E. Kimball. Methods of Operations Research. Wiley, 1951. M. Osipov. The influence of the numerical strength of engaged forces in their casualties. Translated by R. L. Helmbold and A. S. Rehm. Nav. Res. Log., 42:435–490, 1995. doi:10.1002/1520-6750(199504)42:3<435::AID-NAV3220420308>3.0.CO;2-2 R. Peterson. On the logarithmic law of combat and its application to tank combat. Oper. Res., 15:557–558, 1967. doi:10.1287/opre.15.3.557 A. H. Pincombe, B. M. Pincombe and C. E. M. Pearce, Putting the art before the force. ANZIAM J., 51:C482–C496, 2010. doi:10.0000/anziamj.v51i0.2584. A. H. Pincombe, B. M. Pincombe and C. E. M. Pearce. A simple battle model with explanatory power. ANZIAM J., 51:C497–C511, 2010. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v51i0.2585. B. M. Pincombe and A. H. Pincombe. Mass action models of Falklands War battles. ANZIAM J., 57:C235–C252, 2016. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v57i0.10450 J. G. Taylor. Lanchester models of warfare. Operations Research Society of America, Arlington, 1983

    Putting the art before the force

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    Proceedings of EMAC 2009, held at the Unversity of Adelaide, 6-9th December 2009We use a dataset from the Battle of Kursk to test three estimators of attrition: linear, quadratic and log dependence on the number of soldiers in each force. Data giving force numbers per day show significant collinearity, so we use force and loss ratios for our tests. We demonstrate that the strongest correlate in the dataset for a sides attrition is its own force strength. This supports the log estimator, and we evaluate the proposition that this counterintuitive connection is a product of the pre-battle art of war, where commanders attempt to balance their forces to their expectations of threat. Thus expected losses generate actual force numbers whereas we seek information on the ways that force numbers generate actual losses, and both processes are based on the same correlation information. We argue that the dataset must still contain information on the mechanisms of attrition, so we widen our search criteria and uncover some remarkable facts. © Austral. Mathematical Soc. 2010.A. H. Pincombe, B. M. Pincombe and C. E. M. Pearc

    A study of non-Newtonian behaviour of blood flow through stenosed arteries / Brandon Pincombe.

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    Bibliography: leaves 249-279.xv, 279 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm.Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Adelaide, Dept. of Applied Mathematics, 199

    An assessment of email and spontaneous dialog visualizations

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    Abstract not availableMarcus A. Butavicius, Michael D. Lee, Brandon M. Pincombe, Louise G. Mullen, Daniel J. Navarro, Kathryn M. Parsons and Agata McCorma

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Congratulations you're a mother: a strategy for enhancing postnatal education for first-time mothers investigated through an action research cycle.

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    Copyright © 2001 Published by Elsevier LtdThe transition to motherhood is a time of great change and an experience for which many women do not feel adequately prepared. This study sought to benefit women in the transition to motherhood by enhancing the postnatal teaching offered to first-time mothers in hospital following childbirth. The study followed an action research cycle to design, implement and evaluate an educational resource for first-time mothers during the immediate postnatal period. Methods for collecting data included focus groups and an anonymous self-completed questionnaire. The research was undertaken at a suburban public hospital in Adelaide. The findings showed that both midwives and first-time mothers considered lack of time as a significant factor in giving and receiving postnatal education. It was also found that the provision of relevant information was important. The study identified that specific information relating to baby-care and self-care are primary educational needs for first-time mothers. The resource, “Congratulations You're a Mother” was developed in response to these findings and was found to be beneficial in providing postnatal education. The study provides a platform for further investigation of postnatal education using larger samples in the broader context of Australian society.Lois V McKellar, Jan Pincombe, Ann M Henderso

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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