COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS APPLIED TO WILDERNESS PRESERVATION—OPTION VALUE UNCERTAINTY AND DITONICITY

It has been recognized for some time that when cost-benefit analysis is applied to irreversible environmental decisions, such as that of developing or preserving wilderness land, there can be an option value associated with the preservation decision, which arises when there is future uncertainty with respect to the benefits of development or preservation. In this paper the provenance of option value is examined and it is shown that an important cause is a special kind of uncertainty, viz. the possibility of reversals in direction of the relative valuations of wilderness land and developed land, a property we refer to as ditonicity. It is shown that the more ditonic the relative valuation process the greater the deviance between the certainty-equivalence development policy and the stochastically optimal one, and thus by implication the greater the option value. In the two cases with zero ditonicity, when relative wilderness valuations always increase or always decrease (even though in a stochastic fashion), there is zero option value. The model used assumes that service flows from wilderness and developed land are size-dependent, with future relative values known only in terms of a stochastic process, which can take jumps up or down of the same proportional size, at random times. Development can be partial or total and can occur in impulses at any time over an infinite time horizon.     

Indestructibility and level by level equivalence and inequivalence

If κ < λ are such that κ is indestructibly supercompact and λ is 2^λ supercompact, it is known from [4] that

• {δ < κ | δ is a measurable cardinal which is not a limit of measurable cardinals and δ violates level by level equivalence between strong compactness and supercompactness}

must be unbounded in κ. On the other hand, using a variant of the argument used to establish this fact, it is possible to prove that if κ < λ are such that κ is indestructibly supercompact and λ is measurable, then

• {δ < κ | δ is a measurable cardinal which is not a limit of measurable cardinals and δ satisfies level by level equivalence between strong compactness and supercompactness}

must be unbounded in κ. The two aforementioned phenomena, however, need not occur in a universe with an indestructibly supercompact cardinal and sufficiently few large cardinals. In particular, we show how to construct a model with an indestructibly supercompact cardinal κ in which if δ < κ is a measurable cardinal which is not a limit of measurable cardinals, then δ must satisfy level by level equivalence between strong compactness and supercompactness. We also, however, show how to construct a model with an indestructibly supercompact cardinal κ in which if δ < κ is a measurable cardinal which is not a limit of measurable cardinals, then δ must violate level by level equivalence between strong compactness and supercompactness. (© 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Constructing unextendible product bases from multiqubit ones

The construction of multipartite unextendible product bases(UPBs) is a basic problem in quantum information.We respectively construct two families of 2 × 2× 4 and 2 × 2 × 2 × 4 UPBs of size eight by using the existing four-qubit and five-qubit UPBs.As an application,we construct novel families of multipartite positive-partial-transpose entangled states,as well as their entanglement properties in terms of the geometric measure of entanglement.     

Characterization of canonical classes for systems of linear ODEs

The equivalence group is determined for systems of linear ordinary differential equations in both the standard form and the normal form. It is then shown that the normal form of linear systems reducible by an invertible point transformation to the canonical form y ⁽ⁿ⁾=0 consists of copies of the same iterative scalar equation. It is also shown that contrary to the scalar case, an iterative vector equation need not be reducible to the canonical form by an invertible point transformation. Other properties of iterative linear systems are also derived, as well as a simple algebraic formula for their general solution. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A thermodynamic approach with internal variables using Lagrange formalism. Part II. Continuous symmetries in the case of the time–temperature equivalence

In the first part of this contribution, the Lie-symmetries of the principle of least action associated to the constitutive equations of the DNLR formalism of relaxation have been presented. We examine in this second part the continuous symmetries corresponding to the simple case of stress relaxation under isothermal conditions. The well-known principle of time/temperature equivalence is discussed in terms of variational symmetry for the Jacobi’s action functional, and connected to the Onsager’s relation near the thermodynamic equilibrium.     

Equations of motion for mechanical systems: A unified approach

This paper presents a unified framework from which emerge the Lagrange equations, the Gibbs-Appell Equations and the Generalized Inverse Equations for describing the motion of constrained mechanical systems. The unified approach extends the applicability of the first two approaches to systems where the constraints are non-linear functions of the generalized velocities and are not necessarily independent. Furthermore, the approach leads to the Explicit Gibbs-Appell Equations.     

Group Classification of Equations of the Form y″ = f(x,y)

The problem of classification of ordinary differential equations of the form y = f(x,y) by admissible local Lie groups of transformations is solved. Standard equations are listed on the basis of the equivalence concept. The classes of equations admitting a oneparameter group and obtained from the standard equations by invariant extension are described.     

Fixed points and graph images for minimal maps on the once punctured torus

A fixed point detection theorem for a family of maps defined on the once punctured torus is proved. As a consequence, we produce an example of a homotopy class [f] of self-maps on the once punctured torus that illustrates the following: (i) there is a map in the homotopy class that has no fixed points, and (ii) if the image of f lies in a 1-complex that embeds as a homotopy equivalence, then f must have a fixed point.     

Congruence triples on regular semigroups and their generalizations

In this paper, we introduce the concept of VT-congruence triples on a regular semigroup S and show how such triples can be constructed by using the equivalences on S/ℒ, S/R and the special congruences on S. Also, such congruence triples are characterized so that an associated congruence can be uniquely determined by a given congruence triple. Moreover, we also consider the VH-congruence pairs on an orthocryptogroup.