We apply Cartan’s method of equivalence to find a Bäcklund autotransformation for the tangent covering of the universal hierarchy equation. The transformation provides a recursion operator for symmetries of this equation.

Let $L:{ℝ}^N\times {ℝ}^N\to ℝ$ be a borelian function and consider the following problems$$inf\left\{F\left(y\right)={\int }_a^{b}L(y\left(t\right),y^{\text{'}}\left(t\right))\mathrm{d}t:y\in AC([a,b],{ℝ}^N),y\left(a\right)=A,y\left(b\right)=B\right\}\left(P\right)$$$$inf\left\{F^{...}\right\}$$

Let $L:{ℝ}^N\times {ℝ}^N\to ℝ$ be a Borelian function and consider the following problems $$inf\left\{F\left(y\right)={\int }_a^{b}L(y\left(t\right),y^{\text{'}}\left(t\right))\mathrm{d}t:y\in AC([a,b],{ℝ}^N),y\left(a\right)=A,y\left(b\right)=B\right\}\left(P\right)$$
 $$inf\left\{F^{**}\left(y\right)={\int }_a^b{L}^{**}(y\left(t\right),y^{\text{'}}\left(t\right))\mathrm{d}t:y\in AC([a,b],{ℝ}^N),y\left(a\right)=A,y\left(b\right)=B\right\}·\left(P^{**}\right)$$ We give a sufficient condition, weaker then superlinearity, under which $infF=inf{F}^{**}$ if L is just continuous in x. We then extend a result of Cellina on the Lipschitz regularity of the minima of (P) when L is not superlinear.

We prove that the standard action of the mapping class group $\mathrm{Map}\left(\Sigma \right)$ of a surface $\Sigma$ of sufficiently large genus on the unit tangent bundle $T^1\Sigma$ is not homotopic to any smooth action.

We study if the combinatorial entropy of a finite cover can be computed using finite partitions finer than the cover. This relates to an unsolved question in [R] for open covers. We explicitly compute the topological entropy of a fixed clopen cover showing that it is smaller than the infimum of the topological entropy of all finer clopen partitions.

In the paper a new proof of Lemma 11 in the above-mentioned paper is given. Its original proof was based on Theorem 3 which has been shown to be incorrect.