Implementation Of New Capabilities Research Articles

Revisiting Large Scale Defence Acquisition: Uncertainty and Acquisition Responsiveness

AbstractThis article re‐examines the model for large‐scale defence acquisition, aiming to establish a more adaptable framework that can effectively navigate the uncertainties of a dynamic and evolving operational environment. Drawing upon principles derived from Beer's Viable System Model (VSM), coupled with software engineering concepts from DevOps and innovation frameworks, the article proposes the development of a preliminary acquisition framework. The primary objective of this endeavour is to refine the framework, facilitating the creation of naval platforms that possess enhanced future‐proofing capabilities. Simultaneously, the aim is to minimize the time gap between significant acquisition decisions and achieving initial operating capability, all while upholding the fundamental requisites of the prevailing acquisition frameworks. Considering the extended operational lifespan of valuable assets, which can exceed two decades, there is a discernible risk that naval resources might become obsolete due to technological advancements driven by evolving adversarial threats. To counteract this potential scenario, it becomes imperative to regard naval acquisition as a continuous process, necessitating ongoing evolution and timely updates that align with the swiftly changing environmental conditions. This article asserts the significance of embracing a future‐proofing mindset. Such an approach holds the potential to curtail expenses associated with the swift and cost‐effective implementation of new capabilities as we advance into the future.

Kudi: A free open-source python library for the analysis of properties along reaction paths.

With increasing computational capabilities, an ever growing amount of data is generated in computational chemistry that contains a vast amount of chemically relevant information. It is therefore imperative to create new computational tools in order to process and extract this data in a sensible way. Kudi is an open source library that aids in the extraction of chemical properties from reaction paths. The straightforward structure of Kudi makes it easy to use for users and allows for effortless implementation of new capabilities, and extension to any quantum chemistry package. A use case for Kudi is shown for the tautomerization reaction of formic acid. Kudi is available free of charge at www.github.com/stvogt/kudi.

Web intelligence in practice

Modern service enterprises are challenged by a strong competition and dynamically changing business environments. Consequently, the precision of the business requirements identification and rigorous planning regarding investments to information technologies play a key role in the implementation of new capabilities. As the business today is more and more powered by information that is unstructured, social and distributed via various channels, the multi-channel interaction is a reality. It means each customer generates more and more data. On the other hand, a customer is often flooded with a huge amount, mostly not relevant, advertising information. Companies are challenged to collect the data from the customer interaction, analyze it and prepare an intelligent recommendation for an agent or to feed relevant offers to the customer. Modern understanding of the unstructured information requires a fundamentally new approach using the technology to deliver insights, ideas, and an intuition into the rapidly growing and diverse data that customers deal with every day. A hot topic is to decrease the costs and increase the customer satisfaction. One of the sensitive areas is customers’ interaction via company’s contact web forms. This interaction consists mostly of questions or complaints. Accordingly, we describe in our paper a new approach for generating these contact forms using the textual analytics, processing of frequently asked questions and a rule-based system. We also present particular use-cases to illustrate how this approach works in practice.

Analysis of energy demand in residential buildings for different climates by means of dynamic simulation

The aim of the present paper is to propose an analysis of energy consumption of a standard building in different climates. The analysis is developed by simulating the dynamic behaviour of the building subjected to different climatic conditions according to the considered location. Simulations are performed by means of an in-house developed code, validated by comparison with the outcomes from leading software, particularly TRNSYS and EnergyPlus. The use of a self-developed code guarantees a high flexibility and allows the implementation of new capabilities if necessary. The impact on the energy consumption of various parameters, namely internal and external wall insulation, window surface areas, thermal capacity and orientation, is investigated. Results show that the insulation of external walls has a fundamental role in reducing energy consumption, because it allows to exploit the thermal capacity of the walls. This is particularly useful for buildings which necessitate to keep the internal temperature constant.

Analytical Matlab/Simulink model of pyrotechnical gas generators for airbags

One of the key components of inflatable restraint systems is the gas generator (inflator). This relevance of the generator is mainly due to the fact that it is the only active component on most airbag systems. Each new car model requires a new process of developement and system integration to set up the performance of the restraint system. This process usually demands a performance adjustment of the gas generator to optimise the overall behaviour of the whole system. Often, the number of gas generator configurations available from serial or prototype manufacturing does not cover the whole range of each design parameter. Also, the time needed to manufacture a prototype definition of a gas generator can be delayed from some days to several months, depending on the extent of the required modifications. This process can be significantly shortened by a simulation approach that provides the performance at the output of a particular gas generator. The present work describes a new analytical model of a pyrotechnical gas generator developed in Matlab/Simulink code. The advantage of the selection of this software is that it can be linked with most of the vehicle crash simulation softwares currently available in the market. Also, the utilisation of the block modelling technique of Simulink allows the easy implementation of new capabilities to the model. The model has been built to reproduce the performance of the inflator measured on the widely accepted closed tank test. Finally, to guarantee the predictability of the model it has been validated by means of (1) the comparision, made at three different test temperatures, of the theoretical results with the baseline of the results of the tank pressure tests performed during one year of serial production of a particular gas generator model; (2) comparing gas generator variability limits for tank test performance, calculated with the same serial production gas generators, with the variability limits obtained by means of a Monte Carlo analysis using the analytical model. It is demonstrated by means of this validation of robustness of the presented model.