The metal mining industry in Eastern Europe

The mining industry has been one of the backbones of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, not only in economic, but also in political, terms. Three years after the beginning of economic reforms, the mining industry in all the Eastern European countries is facing dramatic changes. Most mines are mining ores below acceptable cut-off grades, and there is no hope of finding new, richer deposits. Downstream metallurgical industries will need to replace their former suppliers. In addition, the social contract that had been maintained under the socialist governments is about to be undone and a new form of internal organization must be found. The success of the economic reforms in Eastern Europe depends upon the capacity to develop new industrial relations: the large mining combinates will have to be transformed into competitive capitalist enterprises and the role of the state must be redefined. Prospects for this transformation vary greatly, from metal to metal and from country to country. Finally, restructuring in Eastern Europe will also affect European and world markets, both on the supply and demand sides. The integration of the Eastern European mining industries into the international mining community should be the medium-term goal of all the participants .     

Branching processes, Markov chains, and competing risks

This paper re-proves and generalizes results by Hardin and Sweet on the time to absorption in certain Markov chains by using a theorem on the time to extinction in multitype branching processes. Renaming “absorption” as “death” and “state immediately before absorption” as “cause of death” makes possible an interpretation in terms of competing risks. This is of very limited value, however, due to the rather severe mathematical restrictions on the Markov chains at hand.