Joan Robinson Was Almost Right: Output under Third-Degree Price Discrimination

In this paper, we show that in order for third-degree price discrimination to increase total output, the demands of the strong markets should be, as conjectured by Robinson (1933), more concave than the demands of the weak markets. By making the distinction between adjusted concavity of the inverse demand and adjusted concavity of the direct demand, we are able to state necessary conditions and sufficient conditions for third-degree price discrimination to increase total output.

Contributions to unsupervised and supervised learning with applications in digital image processing

311 p. : il.

Fault-tolerant almost exact state transmission

We show that a category of one-dimensional XY-type models may enable high-fidelity quantum state transmissions, regardless of details of coupling configurations. This observation leads to a fault-tolerant design of a state transmission setup. The setup is fault-tolerant, with specified thresholds, against engineering failures of coupling configurations, fabrication imperfections or defects, and even time-dependent noises. We propose an experimental implementation of the fault-tolerant scheme using hard-core bosons in one-dimensional optical lattices.

Oscillatory integral operators related to pointwise convergence of Schrödinger operators

In this thesis we consider smooth analogues of operators studied in connection with the pointwise convergence of the solution, u(x,t), (x,t) ∈ ℝ^n x ℝ, of the free Schrodinger equation to the given initial data. Such operators are interesting examples of oscillatory integral operators with degenerate phase functions, and we develop strategies to capture the oscillations and obtain sharp L^2 → L^2 bounds. We then consider, for fixed smooth t(x), the restriction of u to the surface (x,t(x)). We find that u(x,t(x)) ∈ L^2(D^n) when the initial data is in a suitable L^2-Sobolev space H^8 (ℝ^n), where s depends on conditions on t.

Low Climate Stabilisation under Diverse Growth and Convergence Scenarios

4 p.

Low Climate Stabilisation under Diverse Growth and Convergence Scenarios

9 p.

Properties of convergence of a class of iterative processes generated by sequences of self-mappings with applications to switched dynamic systems

This article investigates the convergence properties of iterative processes involving sequences of self-mappings of metric or Banach spaces. Such sequences are built from a set of primary self-mappings which are either expansive or non-expansive self-mappings and some of the non-expansive ones can be contractive including the case of strict contractions. The sequences are built subject to switching laws which select each active self-mapping on a certain activation interval in such a way that essential properties of boundedness and convergence of distances and iterated sequences are guaranteed. Applications to the important problem of stability of dynamic switched systems are also given.

Living on the hyphen: diaspora, identity and memory in Jamaica Kincaids Annie John / Lucy and Esmeralda Santiagos When I was Puerto Rican / Almost a woman

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo investigar o desenvolvimento de identidades de sujeitos diaspóricos em formas de narrativas nas quais a memória tem um papel crucial. As autobiografias e os memoirs têm despertado a curiosidade de muitas pessoas interessadas nos processos de construção de identidade de indivíduos que vivem em realidades singulares e nos relatos que dão sobre suas próprias vidas. Assim, o crescente interesse em diásporas e nos decorrentes deslocamentos fragmentários, provocados pelo distanciamento de raízes individuais e pelo contato com diferentes códigos culturais, poderiam legitimar as narrativas autobiográficas como maneiras estratégicas de sintetizar os nichos de identificação de autores e autoras que experimentaram uma ruptura diaspórica. Desta forma, ao analisar estes tipos de narrativas, deve-se estar atento às especificidades de algumas escritoras que passaram por processos diaspóricos e a como elas recorreram as suas memórias pessoais para, em termos literários, expressar suas subjetividades. Considerando todas essas idéias, tenciono usar Annie John e Lucy, de Jamaica Kincaid e When I Was Puero Rican e Almost a Woman, de Esmeralda Santiago como fontes de análise e amostras do desenvolvimento de identidades diaspóricas em narrativas autobiográficas