A general method for constructing local Lie groups which are not contained in any global Lie group is described. These examples fail to satisfy the global associativity axiom which, by a theorem of Mal’cev, is necessary and sufficient for globalizability. Furthermore, we prove that every local Lie group can be characterized by such a covering construction, thereby generalizing Cartan’s global v...

This paper contributes a technique that expands the set of object invariants that one can reason about in modular verification. The technique uses history invariants, two-state invariants that describe the evolution of data values. The technique enables a flexible new way to specify and verify variations of the observer pattern, including iterators. The paper details history invariants and the ...

For many industries (e.g., apparel retailing) managing demand through price adjustments is often the only tool left to companies once the replenishment decisions are made. A significant amount of demand uncertainty can be resolved using the early sales information. In this study, a Bayesian approach is used to summarize sales information and pricing history in an efficient way which then feeds ...

Information Technology (IT) has made it easier for firms to communicate globally. Improved IT capabilities and the increased global collaboration have been drivers of the growth of IT ‘outsourcing’. This growth has resulted in a variety of IT ‘outsourcing’ terms used to denote both global and domestic client–IT-supplier relationships. An introductory literature review showed that there exist no...

The limiting behavior of global attractors Aε for singularly perturbed beam equations ε ∂u ∂t2 + εδ ∂u ∂t + A ∂u ∂t + αAu+ g(‖u‖ 1/4)A u = 0 is investigated. It is shown that for any neighborhood U of A0 the set Aε is included in U for ε small.

Recent years have seen a resurgent interest in large scale input subsidies, and particularly fertilizer subsidies, in agricultural development and food security policies in Africa. Very high global grain prices in the first part of 2008 appeared to make such subsidies even more attractive, but this was complicated by even more dramatic rises in fertilizer prices. Global grain and fertiliser pri...

The notion of a mobile society needs to be rooted in the newly emerging forms of business and organisation of the global economy. In this paper we explore the five stages of business focus evolution over the past 50 years, with a special attention paid to the current, the fifth stage. From the given and fixed processes, through their re-engineering and extension to networks, we have moved up to...