Nigeria is endowed with abundant sunshine year-round; thus, solar PV would solve the environmental problems associated with petrol-powered generators. However, it is unclear whether households are willing to transition. Thus, we analyze households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for solar PV under four scenarios: (i) WTP when a solar PV is complemented with a generator, (ii) WTP when a solar PV completely displaces a generator, (iii) WTP when a solar PV is complemented with a generator, plus a subsidy, and (iv) WTP when a solar PV completely displaces a generator, given a subsidy. We find that WTP for solar PV is higher when it can displace generators completely. Subsidy plus monthly rather than upfront payment would scale up the adoption of solar PV by about 6 per cent. Furthermore, the cost benefit analysis results show that solar PV investment is profitable. Thus, there is a need to implement policies aimed at scaling up the energy transition.

In this paper, we prove some conjectures of K. Stolarsky concerning the first and third moments of the Beatty sequences with the golden section and its square.

We calculate the rank and idempotent rank of the semigroup ${\mathcal{E}}(X,{\mathcal{P}})$ generated by the idempotents of the semigroup ${\mathcal{T}}(X,{\mathcal{P}})$ which consists of all transformations of the finite set $X$ preserving a nonuniform partition ${\mathcal{P}}$. We also classify and enumerate the idempotent generating sets of minimal possible size. This extends results of the first two authors in the uniform case.

In this paper we prove two main results. The first is a necessary and sufficient condition for a semidirect product of a semilattice by a group to be finitely generated. The second result is a necessary and sufficient condition for such a semidirect product to be finitely presented.

The symmetric inverse monoid $\mathcal{I}_{n}$ is the set of all partial permutations of an $n$-element set. The largest possible size of a $2$-generated subsemigroup of $\mathcal{I}_{n}$ is determined. Examples of semigroups with these sizes are given. Consequently, if $M(n)$ denotes this maximum, it is shown that $M(n)/|\mathcal{I}_{n}|\rightarrow1$ as $n\rightarrow\infty$. Furthermore, we deduce the known fact that $\mathcal{I}_{n}$ embeds as a local submonoid of an inverse $2$-generated subsemigroup of $\mathcal{I}_{n+1}$.

Given an integer $n$, we show that $\mathcal{I}_{n}$ embeds in a 2-generated subsemigroup of $\mathcal{I}_{n+2}$, which is an inverse semigroup. An immediate consequence of this result is the following, which is analogous to the case for groups and semigroups: every finite inverse semigroup may be embedded in a finite 2-generated semigroup which is an inverse semigroup.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 20M18. Secondary 20M20

Let $F$ be a divisor on the blow-up $X$ of ${{\mathbf{P}}^{2}}$ at $r$ general points ${{p}_{1}},...,{{p}_{r}}$ and let $L$ be the total transform of a line on ${{\mathbf{P}}^{2}}$. An approach is presented for reducing the computation of the dimension of the cokernel of the natural map ${{\mu }_{F}}:\Gamma ({{\mathcal{O}}_{_{X}}}(F))\otimes \Gamma ({{\mathcal{O}}_{_{X}}}(L))\to \Gamma ({{\mathcal{O}}_{_{X}}}(F)\otimes {{\mathcal{O}}_{_{X}}}(L))$ to the case that $F$ is ample. As an application, a formula for the dimension of the cokernel of ${{\mu }_{_{F}}}$ is obtained when $r\,=\,7$, completely solving the problem of determining the modules in minimal free resolutions of fat point subschemes ${{m}_{1}}\,{{p}_{1}}\,+\,\cdot \cdot \cdot \,+\,{{m}_{7}}\,{{p}_{7}}\,\subset \,{{\mathbf{P}}^{2}}$. All results hold for an arbitrary algebraically closed ground field $k$.

We consider the surface obtained from the projective plane by blowing up the points of intersection of two plane curves meeting transversely. We find minimal generating sets of the defining ideals of these surfaces embedded in projective space by the sections of a very ample divisor class. All of the results are proven over an algebraically closed field of arbitrary characteristic.

The notion of an invariant polytope played a central role in the proof of the characterization of phase-type distributions. The purpose of this paper is to develop invariant polytope techniques further. We derive lower bounds on the number of states needed to represent a phase-type distribution based on poles of its Laplace–Stieltjes transform. We prove that every phase-type distribution whose transform has only real poles has a bidiagonal representation. We close with three short applications of the invariant polytope idea. Taken together, the results of this paper show that invariant polytopes provide a natural approach to many questions about phase-type distributions.