1.70. General birth and death chains. The state space is {0, 1, 2, ...} and the transition probability has p(x, x + 1) = Px p(x, x - 1) = qx for x > 0 p(x, x) = 1x for x 2 0 while the other p(x, y) = 0. Let Vy = min{n 2 0 : X, = y) be the time of the first visit to y and let hy(x) = Px(VN