Military Tasks Research Articles

ВПЛИВ АМБІВАЛЕНТНОСТІ НА ПРОЦЕС ПРИЙНЯТТЯ РІШЕННЯ КОМАНДИРОМ: ФІЛОСОФСЬКО-ПСИХОЛОГІЧНИЙ АСПЕКТ

Modern approaches to the philosophical and psychological perception of ambivalence were defined and its influence on the process of commander’s decision-making in the uncertain environment was analysed in the article.The relevance of the study. Nowadays, the Ukrainian Army more than ever before needs commanders capable of non-standard, quick thinking, right decision-making in the uncertain environment, and sharp actions in the course of complex military tasks. The sense of ambivalence significantly influences commander’s decision. The aim of the research. To actualise the problem of the commander’s decision-making in the uncertain environment, to outline the philosophical and psychological aspects of ambivalence and its influence on the decision-making process in the uncertain environment. The methods of the research. Analytical and review studies of literature.The sense of ambivalence significantly influences the commander’s decision. Ambivalence can be viewed as inconsistency and contradiction of several simultaneously opposite feelings, thoughts, desires concerning one and the same phenomenon or object. It can both activate the cognitive sphere of the commander’s personality and have an inhibitory effect on the decision-making process. Ambivalence of the individual in the uncertain environment is formed in response to the change of various conditions, when there is a decrease in the intensity of adjustments, that have already been systematised. The effect of local adaptive adjustments, which have not been acknowledged or formed by the personality, is actualised. Mutually exclusive oppositions of the personality’s value orientations, that are characterised by equal strength and volume, are formed. The choice in favor of one or another or their synthesis depends on the formation of the commander’s personality. This makes it possible to resist negative influences and find a solution to the internal contradictions in the process of decision-making in the uncertain environment.

ВПЛИВ АМБІВАЛЕНТНОСТІ НА ПРОЦЕС ПРИЙНЯТТЯ РІШЕННЯ КОМАНДИРОМ: ФІЛОСОФСЬКО-ПСИХОЛОГІЧНИЙ АСПЕКТ

Modern approaches to the philosophical and psychological perception of ambivalence were defined and its influence on the process of commander’s decision-making in the uncertain environment was analysed in the article.The relevance of the study. Nowadays, the Ukrainian Army more than ever before needs commanders capable of non-standard, quick thinking, right decision-making in the uncertain environment, and sharp actions in the course of complex military tasks. The sense of ambivalence significantly influences commander’s decision. The aim of the research. To actualise the problem of the commander’s decision-making in the uncertain environment, to outline the philosophical and psychological aspects of ambivalence and its influence on the decision-making process in the uncertain environment. The methods of the research. Analytical and review studies of literature.The sense of ambivalence significantly influences the commander’s decision. Ambivalence can be viewed as inconsistency and contradiction of several simultaneously opposite feelings, thoughts, desires concerning one and the same phenomenon or object. It can both activate the cognitive sphere of the commander’s personality and have an inhibitory effect on the decision-making process. Ambivalence of the individual in the uncertain environment is formed in response to the change of various conditions, when there is a decrease in the intensity of adjustments, that have already been systematised. The effect of local adaptive adjustments, which have not been acknowledged or formed by the personality, is actualised. Mutually exclusive oppositions of the personality’s value orientations, that are characterised by equal strength and volume, are formed. The choice in favor of one or another or their synthesis depends on the formation of the commander’s personality. This makes it possible to resist negative influences and find a solution to the internal contradictions in the process of decision-making in the uncertain environment.

VISCERAL FAT, PHYSICAL FITNESS AND BIOCHEMICAL MARKERS OF BRAZILIAN MILITARY PERSONNEL

ABSTRACT Introduction: Adipocyte volume (fat accumulation) in different parts of the body may play different roles in the metabolism and in the appearance of cardiovascular risk factors. Most studies indicate that the regional distribution of body fat seems to be more important than excess adiposity per se. High levels of physical activity are associated with lower total and visceral body fat levels. Military physical training is of paramount importance for the health and performance of soldiers in the Brazilian Army. In this context, physical evaluation will provide data on the main physical benefits involved in military tasks. Objective: Verify the relationship between visceral fat (VF), physical performance and biochemical markers of soldiers in the Brazilian Army. Methods: The sample consisted of 41 (38.9 ± 2.2 years) Brazilian male military personnel. VF was obtained with a Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry densitometry device. The biochemical analysis included fasting glycemia, triglycerides (TG) and HDL-C levels. Physical performance was evaluated through two tests (12-min run and pull-ups). The Shapiro-Wilk test confirmed the normality of the variables. Pearson's correlation test was then applied, with a p-value of <0.05. Results: Significant negative correlations of VF were found with the results of both physical tests (Pull-ups r = −0.59; 12-min r = −0.61). The only biochemical variable that had a significant positive correlation with VF was TG (r = 0.44). Conclusion: The results of this study showed a significant negative association between VF and physical tests. A significant positive association between VF and TG was also found. Level of Evidence I; Diagnostic studies - Investigation of a diagnostic test.

The Role of Military Education and Task Experience of Warrior Performance

This study aimed to analyze and explain the effect of military education and task experience simultaneously on Soldier Performance, the effect of military education on Soldier Performance, and the effect of task experience on Soldier Performance. The sample of this study was 80 soldiers. The analysis technique uses multiple regression analysis. The analysis results show that military education and task experience simultaneously have a significant effect on the performance of the officers and non-commissioned officers. Military education has a significant effect on the performance of both Officer and soldiers. Task experience has a significant effect on soldiers' performance both for soldiers as a whole, officers and non-commissioned officers / enlisted men.

A review on foreign object debris/damage (FOD) and its effects on aviation industry

The term FOD is regularly used to depict any little thing, molecule, or garbage that doesn't have a place on an air terminal asphalt surface, and has the capacity to make mischief or harm an airplane that cruises by. By and large, FOD is related with military tasks, where it isn't unprecedented to know about 'FOD Walks.' Here, ground faculty search a zone by strolling side by side over the asphalt, halting to get the littlest of rocks or trash that may have discovered out onto the airplane activities territory. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is undertaking a study to evaluate numerous technologies designed to detect the Foreign Object Debris (FOD), which could have dropped on the runway. The exploration directed through this program is extremely forceful, requiring the establishment of various recognition advances at major United States air terminals, alongside a careful assessment process that evaluates execution considering the scope of climate as well as running conditions. With the information gathered from these assessments, the FAA will have the option to create execution gauges in the FOD Detection Systems. It is normal that the usage of these sorts of advancements will enormously upgrade operational wellbeing at numerous huge air terminals in the United States. The objective is focusing on the evacuation of all entities/objects that might collide with an airplane or even be ingested by an airplane's motor; an occasion that no pilot or air terminal administrator needs to occur.

Mobility-assisted adaptive routing for intermittently connected FANETs

Flying Ad Hoc Network (FANET), a self-configuring network consisting of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), can undertake different kinds of civilian and military tasks. As a particular instance of FANETs, intermittently connected FANETs (IC-FANETs) are characterized by a highly dynamic network topology and intermittent connectivity. Existing routing algorithms have been proposed for FANETs given that the underlying network is well connected, which are not suitable for such network environments. In this paper, we present a geographic routing algorithm called mobility-assisted adaptive routing (MAAR) targeting IC-FANETs. Different from conventional geographic routing protocols exploiting other location services to obtain the location information, MAAR combines routing strategy with location service in order to reduce the packet latency and routing overhead. MAAR updates the information of neighbour nodes dynamically according to nodal mobility and introduces a new metric called IDM to update the positions of other nodes in the network adaptively. In addition, we use a store-carry-and-forward paradigm to handle the technical issues of networks suffering from communication interruptions. When the forwarder node does not have any solution to find an appropriate relay node, mobility is exploited. Simulation results demonstrate that the MAAR scheme performs remarkably in terms of packet delivery ratio, throughput and routing overhead.

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In recent years the experience of conducting mobilization events has convincingly demonstrated the importance of accumulating importance of military-trained specialists assigned to positions required in a state of war, which is conditioned by objective development process of Armed Forces of Ukraine, active soldier participation at Joint forces operation in the East of Ukraine, and as a result there is a persistent need of optimizing military formations and task forces.The main sources of officers in modern conditions are: hiring Ukrainian citizens for military service under a contract of officer’s staff, reserve officers draft call, appointment to the post of graduates of higher military educational establishments. Officer recruitment depends on quantitative/qualitative characteristics of a military-trained human resource reserve, factors of socio-economic, demographic, political nature. The experience of conducting six phases of partial mobilization indicates a certain imbalance between the resources required and their actual availability. In addition, the quantitative/qualitative characteristics of reserve officers do not fully satisfy the need for trained officers, which, raises the issue of increasing the efficiency of using both available and perspective methods of accumulating military-trained personnel in accordance with army needs.This work presents calculated and analyzed research directions for determining the amount of officers reserve accumulation through training in Higher military educational establishments and military training units’ higher education institutions, requirements for quantitative/qualitative characteristics of the specified category of military personnel, taking into account the experience of the Joint Forces Operation (formerly anti-terrorist operation) and the results of conducting partial mobilization, also the existing methods for determining the amount of officers in the reserve by the training program for the officers of the reserve are analyzed. The directions for improvement of this system with the purpose of providing the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations during the heightened tensions and legal state of martial law are determined.

Uloga služenja vojnog roka u razvoju srpske strateške kulture

The general obligation to do military service in Serbia was introduced in the second half of the 19th century with the national standing army. The authors show that this obligation has played an important role in the development of the Serbian strategic culture in the young modern Serbian state, but also in encouraging the Serbian military and political elite to hear the "whisper" of the Serbian social character and understand those structures of national culture that are important, perhaps determinative, for what is today called strategic culture. The development of the Serbian strategic culture has been considered through the analysis of the actions of two differently directed, but complementary currents, one being marked as elitist, and the other one as structuralist. Regardless of the obvious differences, both currents are important for the establishment of the Serbian military doctrine, at the dawn of the 20th century, before the historical storm of the Balkan wars and the First World War. The obligation to do military service was maintained until the Decision on the suspension of the obligation to do military service, which was passed by the National Assembly in December 2010. Having in mind that the Republic of Serbia has made the decision to be military neutral, the authors suggest that the reconsideration of the decision to suspend the obligation to do military service is a logical consequence of this choice. The decision on military neutrality requires not only that others (the international community) respect such a decision of a state, but also the respect within the state itself. This means that a state that aspires to neutrality does not give up on defending its own values or handing them over to the others at the mercy and/or protection, but establishes (or preserves) the ability to credibly defend its identity and values. The burden of the consequences of this decision is even harder because it does not count on military alliances. The neutral countries in Europe base their ability of credible defense mainly on the concept of total defense, but it also implies a large number of citizens trained for the military tasks and the tasks of civil protection, which calls for the obligation to do military service. At the same time, military service is the best way for citizens to understand the impact of the decision on military neutrality, but also to accept it as their own free choice and a part of a collective identity. Thus, the obligation to do military service remains an important fulcrum point of the state in actively shaping its strategic culture.

Hitler Reconsidered: A New Construct by Peter Longerich and His Contemporaries

Hitler Reconsidered: A New Construct by Peter Longerich and His Contemporaries Paul Bookbinder Hitler: A Biography. By Peter Longerich. Trans. Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 1344. Cloth $39.95. ISBN 978-0190056735. It is surprising that seventy-five years after his death there is still so much interest in Adolf Hitler. Historians are writing intensively researched books about him and political commentators are making comparisons with current Western leaders who are endorsing what is being labeled as “illiberal democracy.” In Germany, a new heavily annotated version of Mein Kampf is now available to the general public for the first time. Peter Longerich’s new biography of Hitler is a most significant addition to our understanding of Hitler both because of its comprehensive discussion of how Hitler achieved power, how he ruled, and his successes and failures and because Longerich, more than any other historian, sees Hitler as a brilliant practitioner of politics even more than as a charismatic leader. Longerich argues that Hitler understood how politics worked in an age of mass participation in national political life and could manipulate the forces that made for success in achieving and holding power. Longerich provides an armature of detail to build an understanding of Hitler’s path to power, his time as dictator, and his responsibility for World War II and the Holocaust. And he establishes a framework that students of the Nazi period can use to incorporate the work of such historians as Thomas Weber, who concentrates on the early part of Hitler’s rise to power; Johann Chapoutot, who describes his racial ideology and policies; and Stephen Fritz and Rolf-Dieter Müller, who study Hitler as a military leader. Longerich incorporates here many of the rich details amassed in his earlier exhaustive studies of the other major leaders of the Nazi movement to create a balanced and complete picture of Hitler and his unique role within the Nazi movement. While other impressive major biographies of Hitler have been around for some time, particularly Ian Kershaw’s two-volume biography Hitler, Longerich’s work represents an updated attempt at a comprehensive reconsideration of the subject. In this essay, I concentrate on the major points that Longerich advances and compare his significant interpretations of almost all aspects of Hitler’s career, and particularly his role as a political leader, with the work of other historians who have recently written about similar issues. Taken together, Longerich’s book and these other recent works yield new ways of looking at this cataclysmic figure. [End Page 593] In the conclusion of his book, Longerich sums up the centrality of Hitler’s role in every aspect of the Nazi regime. He writes: It is beyond question that no single individual was responsible for the catastrophic outcome of the twelve years of dictatorship. Millions of committed Nazis had worked tirelessly for this regime; a huge army of willing helpers and opportunistic fellow travelers had given it unquestionable support; the elites had been only too glad to put their specialized knowledge and experience at its disposal; officers and soldiers had carried out their military tasks obediently and with great commitment; the majority of the population had followed their Führer devotedly and without protest. And yet these facts on their own are not adequate to explain what happened. There had to be a political figure who knew how to exploit the preconditions and forces designed to realize his aims and ambitions. At the heart of the Third Reich there was a determined dictator who shaped this process, focused all these energies on himself as an individual, and managed to acquire such extensive powers that he enjoyed unprecedented freedom of action. (949) Longerich claims, then, that “Hitler was actively involved in the most disparate areas of politics to a much greater extent than hitherto has been assumed” (949). It is particularly valuable to note that, in this argument, Longerich returns to Karl Bracher’s emphasis on Hitler’s political skills that the large numbers of historians who have focused on his charisma have often underestimated. “In this analysis,” Longerich explains, “we are following a ‘seizure of power’ in stages set out by...

Viability of tDCS in Military Environments for Performance Enhancement: A Systematic Review.

Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) as a method of cognitive enhancement in both diseased and healthy individuals has gained popularity. Its potential for enhancing cognition in healthy individuals has gained the interest of the military. However, before it being implemented into military training or operational settings, further work is needed to determine its efficacy and safety. Although a considerable amount of literature exists, few studies have specifically evaluated its use in enhancing cognition relative to operational, military tasks. Therefore, in a first step to evaluate its efficacy, we completed a systematic literature review of studies using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a type of tES, to enhance cognitive processes in healthy individuals. A systematic literature review was conducted to identify literature published between 2008 and 2018 that used a method of tES for cognitive enhancement. As part of a larger literature review effort, 282 articles were initially retrieved. These were then screened to identify articles meeting predetermined criteria, to include those using various methods of tES, resulting in 44 articles. Next, the articles were screened for those using tDCS or high-definition tDCS, resulting in 34 articles for review and information extraction. Of the 34 articles reviewed, 28 reported some degree of enhancement (eg, improved accuracy on tasks and reduced reaction times). Areas of cognitive enhancements included executive functioning, creativity/cognitive flexibility, attention/perception, decision-making, memory, and working memory. However, the precise outcomes of enhancement varied given the range in tasks that were used to assess the constructs. Additionally, the stimulation parameters in terms of intensity applied, duration of stimulation, and brain region targeted for stimulation varied. The conclusions to be drawn from this systematic literature review include the identification of a brain region for targeting with stimulation to enhance a broad range of cognitive constructs applicable to military tasks, as well as stimulation parameters for duration and intensity. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was most frequently targeted in the studies that found enhanced performance across several cognitive constructs. Stimulation intensities of 2 mA and durations of 20minutes or longer appeared frequently as well. Although several parameters were identified, further work is required before this type of technology can be recommended for operational use.

Popular Movement and Democratic Transition in Algeria: Opportunities and Challenges

Since its inception on February 22nd, 2019, the popular movement in Algeria has formed a new horizon for democratic change, by peacefully demanding a radical change of regime and the establishment of a new system in which only the people are the source of all power. Despite the peaceful nature of the movement and its national character, it transcended all tribal, regional and ethnic affiliations and united on the need to move towards a democratic system of government.However, this has faced a set of challenges, perhaps the most important: the difficulty of controlling the relationship between civil and military in Algeria. It is difficult to confine the military's tasks to implementing the nation's defence policy. The military has become synonymous with the political system, and any successful democratic transformation must be negotiated. Keywords: popular movement, democratization, military establishment DOI : 10.7176/JAAS/58-11 Publication date :November 30 th 2019

THE RESEARCH OF UNMANNED AIRCRAFT EVASIVE MANEUVERS FROM ATTACK BY ENEMY AIRCRAFT ON THE BASIS OF THE GAME APPROACH

Actual level of unmanned aerial vehicles development allows us to consider them as an effective tool for solving a variety of civil and military tasks (primarily reconnaissance and strike). At the same time, one of the most important problems associated with the combat use of unmanned aerial vehicles remains to ensure their high survivability in organized counteraction conditions, the source of which can be both ground-based air defense and fighter aircraft (manned or unmanned). For this reason, the study and optimization of unmanned aerial vehicle evasion maneuvers from an enemy air attack remains relevant. In the article on the basis of game approach the algorithm of the unmanned aerial vehicle trajectory guaranteeing management providing its evasion from attack of the air opponent is offered. The study of unmanned aerial vehicle maneuverability tactically significant indicators influence on the effectiveness of the evasion maneuver. The results of simulation, demonstrated the influence of unmanned aerial vehicle maneuvering capabilities on achievement a positional advantage in order to solve the problem of evasion from enemy air attack, are presented. A series of computational experiments, whose results allow to assert that the use of the developed algorithm to guarantee control regardless of the relative initial state target UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and UAV-interceptor with the comparability of their maneuvering capabilities in 73 % of cases provides the positional advantage of the target UAV, the UAV position relative to the interceptor makes inefficient use of the latest posted guided missiles, are performed. Note that the increase in the values of tactical indicators that reflect the maneuverability of the attacked UAV compared to the enemy, leads to the fact that in all cases, regardless of the initial position of the attacked UAV relative to the UAV-interceptor, it is ensured that it is brought beyond the zone of possible launches of guided missiles.

ОРГАНІЗАЦІЙНО-ПЕДАГОГІЧНІ УМОВИ ФОРМУВАННЯ ІНФОРМАЦІЙНО-АНАЛІТИЧНОЇ КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТІ ТА ПРОФЕСІЙНОГО САМОВИЗНАЧЕННЯ ЗДОБУВАЧІВ ОСВІТИ – МАЙБУТНІХ ОФІЦЕРІВ ЗАПАСУ

In conditions of warfare by the state, the issue of providing military structures with qualified specialists is actualized, capable of solving military tasks and military reserve service, working in law enforcement agencies, agencies and institutions. These specialists are trained not only by the specialized educational institutions, but also by some of the classic universities – centers for the training of reserve officers in various military specialties.Admission studying under the training programs is based on competitive selection for future reserve officers. As a result, some students get into the training that have not professionally decided on military service and have not received the necessary information support that would help them make a well-reasoned and informed decision. However, there are often situations where individuals who do not have a passing exam score are not eligible for study, however, they have a desire to benefit the state in the future by performing combat missions.Despite the considerable interest of scientists in the phenomenon under study, the research does not consider the need for informational support for the decision to study under the reserve officers training program. In addition, issues related to the professional self-determination and information and analytical activities of future reserve officers remain unaddressed.The goal of the article has been reached – identified and motivated conditions for diagnosing the formation of information-analytical competence and the professional self-determination of the applicants, who decided studying under the reserve officers training program: provision of meetings of candidates for studying under the reserve officers training program with military commissariat officers during which potential incoming students have the opportunity to figure out the specifics and conditions of military service as an officer in both as personnel and reservists, receive answers to questions about the requirements for professional activity in a particular military accounting specialty, the range of responsibilities and level of responsibility for the position, own professional prospects, etc.; an organization of professional excursions to the military units of candidates for studying under the reserve officers training program during which potential incoming students can communicate with platoon commanders and company commander; get acquainted with the daily activities of the platoon, find out what combat training is and what it is for, to find out about the essence of the company, find out the types of responsibilities of the military personnel, etc.; self-testing of potential incoming students for professional self-determination and readiness for management activity.

General trends in military specialists’ training of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: historical aspect

The article is devoted to analysis of general trends in the Armed Forces of Ukraine military specialists’ training are scrutinized in this article from a historical perspective. The factors of reduction in the first officer positions recruitment before the Russian Federation military aggression against Ukraine are analyzed. Those factors are: drawbacks in the state order planning for the training of tactical level specialists, absence of the other sources of officers admission to the first officer positions because of the lack of appropriate legislative framework, and an unsuccessful implementation of the personnel policy and military education tasks that consequently led to a significant officers’ training lag behind the real needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, the measures taken by the Defense Agency to stabilize the situation and eliminate the existing incompleteness of the first officer positions are considered. Since 2015, the Defense Agency has suggested several effective methods, primarily in the form of course training for non-commissioned officer personnel who have higher education with the further assignment to the officer personnel positions and award of a military rank of “second lieutenant”. The Defense Agency also has run an experiment that involves the enrollment for an experimental program “Leadership Courses” of civil citizens who obtained a bachelor’s degree and higher for training (up to 12 months) for the military service under contract in the first officer positions. The suggested forms and means of the servicemen’s training are continuously adapted in order to find an optimal way that has to provide the conditions for mastering a certain military specialty on a professional level. The author has studied the latest forms of junior officers’ training taking into account the standards of NATO member states. The concept of “military specialists’ training” is analyzed in the context of implementation of military education tasks and military personnel policy for the first time. The future research perspective consists in the need to provide the possible ways of the world-leading countries’ positive experience usage in order to create an effective career management system for military specialists.

The Proposal of Determining the Focal Length of a Non-Metric Digital Camera for UAV

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle - UAV, commonly referred to as drones are vehicles unique in the field of mechanics that can fly in the air without a human operator on board. In recent years, they have become a new interdisciplinary area of science and research. Because they combine photogrammetry, aviation engineering, navigation and automation. Modern UAVs are synchronized with GNSS signals and are remotely piloted or carry out autonomous flights. They can simultaneously perform very complex operations for the implementation of many different civil and military tasks. Currently, drones play an increasingly important role in the modern battlefield and are therefore included in the equipment of all modern world armies. They also find a great potential in civil applications. They are used in many fields of economy, technology and science. Acquiring geoinformation from unmanned aerial vehicles is currently used in the work of many services related to the functioning of the state. In the geomatics, the UAV platforms equipped with specialized sensors, are used to acquire images and photogrammetric and remote sensing data. Photogrammetric projections made by UAV are currently used to generate orthophotomaps, among others for the needs of cadastre. As we know, cadastral measurements, due to their importance, require high accuracy and reliability. They can only be guaranteed by correctly and precisely determined calibration parameters of non-metric cameras. The paper presents a method of determination of the focal length, of a digital non-metric photogrammetric camera. The experimental tests carried out confirmed the usefulness of the proposed calibration method carried out in laboratory conditions.

Estimation of Laser Dazzle Effects on Shooting Performance

The human eye is an indispensable sensor for the execution of many military tasks, and a degraded vision would undoubtedly affect operator task performance. Dazzling the eye with a visible light source is for that reason an obvious countermeasure when trying to affect human vision and possibly degrade human performance. The effects are most often translated into a decrease of the field-of-view of the eye, but the question remains how this translates into human task performance degradation and secondly how accurate this degradation can be predicted. This study will try to quantify the performance degradation of a shooting task in a land environment when being dazzled by a green portable laser system. A measurement campaign has been organized to answer this question; every participant of the test group, composed of 14 persons, was asked to fire 5 shots in the direction of a competition-type target straight ahead, with and without dazzle. The registered time and scoring of the specific tests have been statistically analyzed to determine the significant effects, and the outcome has been compared with a predicted dazzle impact. The results of the shooting test show that the used laser dazzle prediction models quite well the human performance degradation and, at the same time, that there is a need for a specific test protocol to find the correct compromise between environmental validity of a trial and the number of independent variables that can be controlled.

Reducing GPS Error for Smart Collars Based on Animal’s Behavior

Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are successfully used in many fields such as navigation, meteorology, military tasks, mapping, virtual fencing, and more. Smart collars are currently the most convenient device for determining animal location in virtual fencing systems, however; these systems are still suffering from environmental effects and propagation in direct visibility. These types of side effects may reduce the work of GPS receivers. The current article defines a method for improving animal location accuracy using a virtual fence smart collar worn around the animal’s neck by the aid of maximum probability of movement from one point to another. The proposed approach first checks the current position of the animal, and after receiving a GPS signal from satellites it calculates the distance between the two GPS signals. Secondly, the method checks the animal’s behavior for the receiving period of the two points. Finally, the approach calculates a probability of maximum animal movement for the two-point receiving period. If the animal can pass the distance in the time frame of the two signals, then the second signal is taken as the correct position; otherwise, the point is taken which the animal could pass. Real-time animal behavior is classified using Support Vector Machines (SVM). The proposed method was verified within seven days of experiments. Consequently, the proposed approach experiments were sufficiently successful. The recreated locations from our approach appeared very close to the real point. The mean average of passed distance by the marked line decreased to 16.2, 5, 0 m for running, walking, and resting conditions, respectively. On the other hand, the unfiltered geolocations of the GPS receiver, give results significantly further from the animal’s actual position such as 148.8, 182.7, 136.2 m for running, walking, and resting conditions.

Bayesian Mapping-Based Autonomous Exploration and Patrol of 3D Structured Indoor Environments with Multiple Flying Robots

Mobile robots are frequently faced with mapping and exploring uncertain environments in surveillance, military, and convenience tasks. Often times, human teleoperation is either inconvenient or infeasible for these kinds missions. Furthermore, these tasks can be improved by cooperative multi-agent systems, where coordinating robotic efforts can be complicated and computationally-expensive. This paper presents a stochastic framework for autonomous exploration and patrol with multiple cooperating robots. The first contribution extends the authors’ prior work in single-robot exact occupancy grid mapping and autonomous exploration in a 2D environment to mapping and exploring in a 3D environment. The proposed 3D occupancy grid map is computed efficiently using an inverse sensor model that accounts for the sensor uncertainty, where we propose how several measurement sources may be fused together by considering depth readings individually. This approach is scalable to larger and more complex scenarios for real-time mapping. Furthermore, this paper shows how important aspects of a 3D map representing a structured environment are projected onto a 2D occupancy grid map, where an autonomous exploration algorithm is designed to select robotic motions that maximize map information gain. The mapping and exploration algorithms are demonstrated with an experiment where a quadrotor autonomously maps and explores an initially-uncertain environment. The second contribution is a novel approach to multi-vehicle cooperative patrol of environments based on map uncertainty. We propose a cooperative autonomous exploration algorithm, which applies a bidding-based framework to coordinate robotic efforts for improving occupancy grid map information gain. Since these exploration approaches are based on probabilistic knowledge about the map, the 3D occupancy grid map is systematically degraded over time to encourage the robots to revisit regions as time passes, thereby patrolling the environment. Furthermore, using a Bayesian framework and receding horizons, the algorithm is robust to dynamic obstacles within the mapping space. The efficacy of the proposed multi-vehicle cooperative patrol is illustrated with a simulation involving three robots patrolling a large floor plan with a non-cooperative person walking around the space.

Training Load and Energy Expenditure during Military Basic Training Period.

To compare training load and energy expenditure during an 8-wk military basic training (BT) period among individuals having different fitness level using objective measurements in an authentic environment. Thirty-four voluntary male conscripts (age, 19.1 ± 0.3 yr) were divided into three training groups (inactive, moderate, active) by their reported physical activity (PA) level evaluated by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) before military service. Maximal oxygen uptake (V˙O2max) and HR were determined by maximal treadmill test in the beginning and after 4 and 7 wk of BT. During BT, HR monitors and accelerometers were used to measure PA and energy expenditure. The HR data were used to calculate the training load (TRIMP, training impulse) for each day, week, and the whole BT period. Training load of BT was comparable to training of competitive athletes at the highest level. The training groups differed (P < 0.001-0.05) in terms of V˙O2max to each other (inactive, 36 ± 6; moderate, 42 ± 6; active, 48 ± 6 mL·kg·min). The conscripts in the inactive group were the most loaded during the study period (TRIMPinactive 12,393 ± 2989 vs TRIMPmoderate 10,252 ± 1337, P < 0.05 and TRIMPactive 8444 ± 2051, P < 0.01). The PA intensity of different military tasks during the BT period were low or moderate (<6 METs). The remarkable training load during BT period is comparable to the training loads of professional athletes participating 3 wk of cycling competition. The training load in BT period was, however, primarily due to duration of low-intensity activities including only some high-intensity military activities. In the future, measuring the training load during the military service is recommended to customize the physical training for conscripts regarding his/her fitness level as much as possible.

Broken Windows: Special Operations and Clausewitz—Theory, Politics, and State Military Violence in the Limited Wars of the Twenty-first Century

American societal enmity following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, drove the narrative of the Global War on Terror and its legal justification in the Authorization to Use Military Force. The commitment of regular and special operations military forces into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq reflected this enmity that Carl von Clausewitz noted was the wellspring of war. As American enmity and these wars wind down after eighteen years, anxiety replaces enmity. Special operations become ever more the force of choice by policymakers in pursuit of objectives within the narrative to reduce societal anxiety over terror attack at home. Outside a theater of the active form of war that conforms to the model of the phenomenon of war in politics that Clausewitz defined, can Special Operations be a military task at all—or solely an actor in a world of broken windows—answering only to itself and to a political directive in response to society’s anxiety toward personal safety, crime in the form of terror, and a legal opinion.