We show that strictly abnormal geodesics arise in graded nilpotent Lie groups. We construct such a group, for which some Carnot geodesics are strictly abnormal and, in fact, not normal in any subgroup. In the 2-step case we also prove that these geodesics are always smooth. Our main technique is based on the equations for the normal and abnormal curves, that we derive (for any Lie group) explic...

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) provides an outlook of an organization’s general performance; it integrates financial perspective with other performance aspects, like learning and growth, internal processes, and customer perspectives. The momentous issue, in implementation of BSC, is the proper selection of measures. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a novel approach in an attempt t...

Patient choice is becoming the centre of health policy in the UK and other countries. But there is ambiguity about what choice means. As the term is used in everyday life, choice is the foundation of the doctrine of patient consent. The doctor is responsible for choosing appropriate treatment, and the patient is responsible for choosing (for consenting to or refusing) what is offered and accept...

Fuzzy linear regression (FLR) model can be thought of as a fuzzy variation of classical linear regression model. It has been widely studied and applied in diverse fields. When noise exists in data, it is a very meaningful topic to reveal the dependency between the parameter h (i.e. the threshold value used to measure degree of fit) in FLR model and the input noise. In this paper, the FLR model ...

This study provides an approach to predict the springback phenomenon during post-solidification cooling in a functionally graded hybrid composite cylindrical shell with a transverse isotropic structure. Here, the material properties are given with a general parabolic power-law function. During the theoretical analysis, an appropriate transformation is introduced in the equilibrium equation, whi...

Veech groups uniformize Teichmüller geodesics in Riemann moduli space. We gave examples of infinitely generated Veech groups; see Duke Math. J. 123 (2004), 49–69. Here we show that the associated Teichmüller geodesics can even have both infinitely many cusps and infinitely many infinite ends.

In this note we exhibit a condition under which a sequence of elements a19 , an in a commutative noetherian local ring A form an Asequence, and derive a number of corollaries. Recall that if M is an A-module, then a19 , an is an M-sequence if 1) ai+1 is a nonzerodivisor on M/(a19 9a1)M for i = 0, 9n — 1,. and 2) M Φ (al9 . . . , α n ) M . If a19 , an is an A-sequence and / is the ideal generate...