We consider a linear operator pencil with complex parameter mapping one Hilbert space onto another. It is known that the resolvent is analytic in an open annular region of the complex plane centred at the origin if and only if the coefficients of the Laurent series satisfy a doubly-infinite set of left and right fundamental equations and are suitably bounded. If the resolvent has an isolated singularity at the origin we propose a recursive orthogonal decomposition of the domain and range spaces that enables us to construct the key nonorthogonal projections that separate the singular and regular components of the resolvent and subsequently allows us to find a formula for the basic solution to the fundamental equations. We show that each Laurent series coefficient in the singular part of the resolvent can be approximated by a weakly convergent sequence of finite-dimensional matrix operators and we show how our analysis can be extended to find a global expression for the resolvent of a linear pencil in the case where the resolvent has only a finite number of isolated singularities.

Dufresnoy and Pisot characterized the smallest Pisot number of degree $n\,\ge \,3$ by giving explicitly its minimal polynomial. In this paper, we translate Dufresnoy and Pisot’s result to the Laurent series case. The aim of this paper is to prove that the minimal polynomial of the smallest Pisot element $\left( \text{SPE} \right)$ of degree $n$ in the field of formal power series over a finite field is given by $P\left( Y \right)\,=\,{{Y}^{n}}\,-\,\alpha X{{Y}^{n-1}}\,-{{\alpha }^{n}}$ where $\alpha $ is the least element of the finite field ${{\mathbb{F}}_{q}}\backslash \left\{ 0 \right\}$ (as a finite total ordered set). We prove that the sequence of SPEs of degree $n$ is decreasing and converges to $\alpha X$. Finally, we show how to obtain explicit continued fraction expansion of the smallest Pisot element over a finite field.

In this paper we study m-discount optimality (m ≥ −1) and Blackwell optimality for a general class of controlled (Markov) diffusion processes. To this end, a key step is to express the expected discounted reward function as a Laurent series, and then search certain control policies that lexicographically maximize the mth coefficient of this series for m = −1,0,1,…. This approach naturally leads to m-discount optimality and it gives Blackwell optimality in the limit as m → ∞.

Universal Taylor series are defined on simply connected domains, but they do not exist on an annulus. Instead we introduce universal Laurent or Laurent–Faber series on finitely connected domains in $\mathbb{C}$. These are generic universalities. Furthermore, we study some properties of universal Laurent series on an annulus.

We consider an M/GI/1 queue with two types of customers, positive and negative, which cancel each other out. The server provides service to either a positive customer or a negative customer. In such a system, the queue length can be either positive or negative and an arrival either joins the queue, if it is of the same sign, or instantaneously removes a customer of the opposite sign at the end of the queue or in service. This study is a generalization of Gelenbe's original concept of a queue with negative customers, where only positive customers need services and negative customers arriving at an empty system are lost or need no service. In this paper, we derive the transient and the stationary probability distributions for the major performance measures in terms of generating functions and Laplace transforms. It has been shown that the previous results for the system with negative arrivals of zero service time are special cases of our model. In addition, we obtain the stationary waiting time distribution of this system in terms of a Laplace transform.