JDCS, vol. 2, #3 (1996), pp. 299-448

1. V. N. Kolokoltsov, Stochastic Hamiltonian--Jacobi--Bellman equation and Stochastic Hamiltonian systems, JDCS vol. 2, No. 3, p. 299--320.
The paper is devoted to the study of the Cauchy problem for a stochastic version of the Hamilton--Jacobi--Bellman equation, to the stochastic generalization of the Hamiltonian systems, to the corresponding stochastic Schrödinger equation, and to the perspectives of this theory, as well as to possible applications to geometry and optimization.

2. A. A. Agrachev, Exponential Mappings for Contact Sub-Riemannian Structures, JDCS vol. 2, No. 3, p. 321--358
On sub-Riemannian manifolds any neighborhood of any point contains geodesics which are not length minimizers; the closures of the cut and the conjugate loci of any point $q$ contain $q.$ We study this phenomenon in the case of a contact distribution, essentially in the lowest possible dimension 3, where we extract differential invariants related to the singularities of the cut and the conjugate loci near $q$ and give a generic classification of these singularities.

3. El-H. Ch. El-Alaoui, J.-P. Gauthier, I. Kupka, Small sub-Riemannian balls on R3, JDCS vol. 2, No. 3, p. 359--422
This paper deals with sub-Riemannian metrics on $R^3$ in the contact case. We study the singularities of the exponential mapping in the neighborhood of its pole. This is in stark contrast with the Riemannian case where this situation never occurs.

4. A. E. Rapaport, R. B. Vinter, Invariance Properties of Time Measurable Differential Inclusions and Dynamic Programming, JDCS vol. 2, No. 3, p. 423--448
Take a multifunction $F: [0,T]\times\R^{n}\leadsto \R^{n}$ and $P: [0,T] \rightarrow \R^{n}$. $P$ is said to be weakly invariant (or ``viable'') for $F$ if for any $x_{0} \in P(0)$ there exists a solution $x$ to $\dot{x} \in F(t,x)$ satisfying the constraint $x(t) \in P(t)$ for all $t$. If all solutions with initial value in $P(0)$ satisfy the constraint then $P$ is strongly invariant for $F$. Weak and strong invariance are important concepts connected with existence of optimal controls and stabilizing controls, and dynamic programming. Weak and strong invariance have previously been proved for multifunctions $F$, which are assumed merely to be measurable with respect to the time variable, under a regularity hypothesis on $P$ (``local absolute continuity from the left''). We show how the regularity hypothesis can be reduced when {\sl a priori\/} knowledge is available of a closed subset $I \subset [0,T]$ such that $F$ is upper semicontinuous at all points in $I\times\R^{n}$. The invariance theorems are applied to characterize the value function for optimal control problems with endpoint constraints as the unique generalized solution of the Hamilton--Jacobi equation, under hypotheses which are in certain cases less restrictive than those imposed hitherto.

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