Incremental Calculus and its Applications

Incremental calculus is a powerful and flexible tool for theanalysis of system behaviour, dependent on variables which aresubject to discrete changes. This is of particular interestwhen attention is focused on the relative changes that takeplace, namely on the ratio of an increment of a variable (ora function) to its original value prior to the change. Suchcircumstances are common in the business world, and this iswhy incremental calculus can be widely applied for managerialpurposes, both for diagnosing past events and for planning anddecision making. The basic operational rules of incrementalcalculus are introduced, and their use is demonstrated by severalexamples. Although the examples concentrate on problems of concernto managers and business analysts, the methodology describedin this paper can be easily applied in many fields of scienceand technology.