On generalized Gini means and scales of means (Q2639189)

\textit{Zs. Páles} and the reviewer [Am. Math. Mon. 95, 856-880 (1988; Zbl 0671.26008)] have proved among others that, for any linearly homogeneous symmetric mean M: \({\mathbb{R}}^ n_+\to {\mathbb{R}}_+\), differentiable at (1,...,1), \[ \lim_{t\to \infty}(M(x_ 1+t,...,x_ n+t)-t)=(x_ 1+...+x_ n)/n. \] The authors use this result to prove the generalization \[ \lim_{t\to \infty}([M((x_ 1^{\alpha}+t)^{1/\alpha},...,(x_ n^{\alpha}+t)^{1/\alpha})^{\alpha}-t]^{1/\alpha})=((x_ 1^{\alpha}+...+x_ n^{\alpha})/n)^{1/\alpha}. \] They also introduce the notion of ``scale of means'' between two means M and N, which is simply a one-parameter set of means which for one parameter value equal M, for another N. Moreover, the authors define the generalized Gini means belonging to a linearly homogeneous differentiable mean M, increasing in each variable, by \[ G_ M(\alpha,\beta;x_ 1,...,x_ n):=(M(x_ 1^{\alpha},...,x_ n^{\alpha})/M(x_ 1^{\beta},...,x_ n^{\beta}))^{1/(\alpha -\beta)}\quad if\quad \beta \neq \alpha \] and \[ G_ M(\alpha,\alpha;x_ 1,...,x_ n):=\exp (\sum^{n}_{k=1}[x_ k^{\alpha} \ln x_ k\frac{\partial}{\partial x_ k}M(x_ 1^{\alpha},...,x_ n^{\alpha})]/M(x_ 1^{\alpha},...,x_ n^{\alpha}))^{1/\alpha}. \] If M is the arithmetic mean then this reduces to the Gini means \(G(\alpha,\beta;x_ 1,...,x_ n)\). They offer partial results on the monotonicity of \(t\mapsto G(\alpha,\beta;x_ 1+t,...,x_ n+t)-t,\) which generalize a part of another result in the paper mentioned at the beginning of this review.