This paper examines the role of import tariffs and consumption taxes when a product is supplied to a domestic market by a foreign monopoly via a subsidiary. It is assumed that there is no competition in the domestic market from internal suppliers. The home country is able to levy a profits tax on the subsidiary; the objective of our analysis is to determine the levels of tariff or consumption tax which maximise national welfare. Comparisons are made under the two alternative policies from the perspectives of national welfare, total national cost and average national cost. The major policy implication of the analysis is that a consumption tax is the more effective instrument for maximising national welfare provided the profits tax is less than a certain critical value; if the profits tax exceeds this value then a tariff, though in the form of a subsidy, is the most effective instrument. Our results complement, correct and extend an earlier analysis by Katrak (1977) [6].

We use the “Brownian Bridge” of Schrödinger to model a statistical search problem in which the initial and final distributions of a random motion are given. We raise the question of how to use this information to optimally reconstruct a likely past event.

A theory is developed for the computer control of variable-structure systems, using periodic zero-order-hold sampling. A simple two-dimensional system is first analysed, and necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of pseudo-sliding modes are discussed. The method is then applied to a discrete model of a cylindrical robot. The theoretical results are illustrated by computer simulations.

A steady two-dimensional jet of an inviscid incompressible fluid rising and falling under gravity is considered. The jet is aimed vertically upwards and the flow is assumed to be bounded entirely by two free surfaces. The problem is solved numerically by finite differences. Accurate results for the free surface profiles are presented.

An investigation is made of the transition from periodic solutions through nearly-periodic solutions to chaotic solutions of the differential equation governing forced coplanar motion of a weakly damped pendulum. The pendulum is driven by horizontal, periodic forcing of the pivot with maximum acceleration Є g and dimensionless frequency ω As the forcing frequency ω is decreased gradually at a sufficiently large forcing amplitude Є, it has been shown previously that the pendulum progresses from symmetric oscillations of period T (= 2 π/ω) into a symmetry-breaking, period-doubling sequence of stable, periodic oscillations. There are two related forms of asymmetric, stable oscillations in the sequence, dependent on the initial conditions. When the frequency is decreased immediately beyond the sequence, the oscillations become unstable but remain in the neighbourhood in (θ,) phase space of one or other of the two forms of periodic oscillations, where θ(t) is the pendulum angle with the downward vertical. As the frequency is decreased further, the oscillations move intermittently between the neighbourhoods in (θ,) phase space of each of the two forms of periodic oscillations, in paired nearly-periodic oscillations. Further decrease of the forcing frequency leads to time intervals in which the motion is strongly unstable, with the pendulum passing intermittently over the pivot, interspersed with time intervals when the motion is nearly-periodic and only weakly unstable. The strongly-unstable intervals dominate in fully chaotic oscillations. Windows of independent, stable, periodic oscillations occur throughout the frequency range investigated. It is shown in an appendix how the Floquet method may be interpreted to describe the linear stability of the periodic and nearly-periodic solutions, and the windows of periodic oscillations in the investigated frequency range are listed in a second appendix.

Here we discuss the stability and convergence of a quadrature method for Symm's integral equation on an open smooth arc. The method is an adaptation of an approach considered by Sloan and Burn for closed curves. Before applying the quadrature scheme, we use a cosine substitution to remove the endpoint singularity of the solution. The family of methods includes schemes with any order O(hp) of convergence.

The calculation of flows in pipe networks and in networks of mine shafts and the calculations of the currents in electrical circuits can be represented as variational problems. There are two approaches: the nodal method and the loop method. There is a variational representation for each of these. This paper describes the relationship between the two representations and in particular shows that the loop formulation is the Wolfe dual of the nodal formulation after the application of Legendre transformations to the variables and to the objective function.

Sufficent conditions for controllability of nonlinear neutral Volterra integrodifferential systems are established. Controllability of an infinite-delay neutral Volterra system is also considered.

In this paper, we study the asymptotic behavior of an SIRS epidemic model with a time delay in the recovered class and a nonlinear incidence rate. A conjecture of Hethcote et al. [5] on the global stability of the disease-free equilibrium is solved. Moreover, we analyse the model when the contact number takes its threshold value. We show that solutions tend to either the disease-free equilibrium or to a unique positive endemic equilibrium, and there is no periodic solution.

Recently in several papers the boundary element method has been applied to non-linear problems. In this paper we extend the analysis to strongly nonlinear boundary value problems. We shall prove the convergence and the stability of the Galerkin method in Lp spaces. Optimal order error estimates in Lp space then follow. We use the theory of A-proper mappings and monotone operators to prove convergence of the method. We note that the analysis includes the u4 -nonlinearity, which is encountered in heat radiation problems.

The new motion of embedding a centre manifold in some higher-dimensional manifold leads to a practical approach to the rational low-dimensional approximation of a wide class of dynamical systems; it also provides a simple geometric picture for these approximations. In particular, I consider the problem of finding an approximate, but accurate, description of the evolution of a two-dimensional planform of convection. Inspired by a simple example, the straightforward adiabatic iteration is proposed to estimate an embedding manifold and arguments are presented for its effectiveness. Upon applying the procedure to a model convective planform problem I find that the resulting approximations perform remarkably well–much better than the traditional Swift-Hohenberg approximation for planform evolution.

We consider the epidemic model with subpopulations introduced in Hethcote [5]. It is shown that if the endemic equilibrium exists, then the system is uniformly persistent. Moreover, the endemic equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable under the assumption of small effective contact rates between different subpopulations.

A collocation method for Symm's integral equation on an interval (a first-kind integral equation with logarithmic kernel), in which the basis functions are Chebyshev polynomials multiplied by an appropriate singular function and the collocation points are Chebyshev points, is analysed. The novel feature lies in the analysis, which introduces Sobolev norms that respect the singularity structure of the exact solution at the ends of the interval. The rate of convergence is shown to be faster than any negative power of n, the degree of the polynomial space, if the driving term is smooth.

Increase in dimensionality of the signal space for a fixed bandwidth leads to exponential growth in the number of different signals which must be encoded. In this paper we determine the best subspace of orthogonal functions which can be used to minimise the worst ratio of peak power to RMS power. A mathematical formulation of this problem has been made and it has been found that the Fourier basis satisfies the required constraints of optimality in terms of form factor (peak/RMS ratio).

Following work in an earlier paper, the theory of finite deformation of elastic membranes is applied to the problem of two initially-circular semi-infinite cylindrical membranes of the same radius but of different material, joined longitudinally at a cross-section. The body is inflated by constant interior pressure and is also extended longitudinally. The exact solution found for an arbitrary material is now specialised to the orthotropic case, and the results are interpreted for forms of the strain-energy function introduced by Vaishnav and by How and Clarke in connection with the study of arteries. Also considered in this context is the similar problem where two semi-infinite cylindrical membranes of the same material are separated by a cuff of different material. Numerical solutions are obtained for various pressures and longitudinal extensions. It is shown that discontinuities in the circumferential stress at the joint can be reduced by suitable choice of certain coefficients in the expression defining the strain-energy function. The results obtained here thus solve the problem of static internal pressure loading in extended dissimilar thin orthotropic tubes, and may also be useful in the preliminary study of surgical implants in arteries.

The well-known Wilkinson expressions for the first derivatives of (ordinary) eigen-values and eigenvectors of simple matrices, in terms of the set of eigenvalues and eigenvectors, are redifferentiated and combined to obtain partial differential equations for the eigenvalues. Analogous expressions are obtained for the first derivatives of generalised eigenvalues and eigenvectors of simple pairs of matrices (A, B), defined by . Again, redifferentiation and combination yields slightly more complicated partial differential equations for the generalised eigenvalues. When the matrices depend on a few parameters θ1, θ2, …, the resulting differential equations for the eigenvalues, with those parameters as independent variables, can easily be derived. These parametric equations are explicit representations of analytic perturbation results of Kato, expressed by him as rather abstract complex matrix integrals. Connections with bounds for eigenvalues derived by Stewart and Sun can also be made. Two applications are exhibited, the first being to a broken symmetry problem, the second being to working out the second-order perturbations for a classical problem in the theory of waves in cold plasmas.

The sufficient optimality conditions and duality results have recently been given for the following generalised convex programming problem:

where the funtion f and g satisfy

for some η: X0 × X0 → ℝn

It is shown here that a relaxation defining the above generalised convexity leads to a new class of multi-objective problems which preserves the sufficient optimality and duality results in the scalar case, and avoids the major difficulty of verifying that the inequality holds for the same function η(. , .). Further, this relaxation allows one to treat certain nonlinear multi-objective fractional programming problems and some other classes of nonlinear (composite) problems as special cases.

By a systematic search for Lie-Bäetcklund symmetries, a class of linearisable reaction-diffusion equations is obtained that has, as a canonical form, ut = u2uxx + 2u2. One such nonlinear equation is θt = ∂x[a(b - θ)-2 θx] - ma(b -θ)-2 θx - q exp(-mx). This represents an extension of Fokas-Yortsos-Rosen equation (q = 0) to incorporate a reaction term. It is relevant to the modelling of unsaturated flow in a soil with a volumetric extraction mechanism, such as a web of plant roots. Here, a reciprocal transformation is used to solve a nonlinear boundary-value problem for transient flow into a finite layer of a soil subject to a constant flux boundary condition to compensate for such water extraction.

This paper deals with the convergence aspect of diffusive delay Lotka-Volterra systems with infinite delays. It is well known that such a system has a globally asymptotically stable steady state if the negative feedbacks of the intraspecific competitions are dominant and instantaneous. It is shown here that such a globally asymptotically stable steady state continues to exist even if the instantaneous assumption is removed, provided that solutions of the system are eventually uniformly bounded and the delays involved in the intraspecific competitions are small. This work generalises several recent related ones.

Optimal control problems with switching costs arise in a number of applications, and are particularly important when standard control theory gives “chattering controls”. A numerical method is given for finding optimal controls for linear problems (linear dynamics, linear plus switching cost). This is used to develop an algorithm for finding sub-optimal control functions for nonlinear problems with switching costs. Numerical results are presented for an implementation of this method.