This monograph on fast stochastic simulation deals with methods of adaptive importance sampling (IS). The concept of IS is introduced and described in detail with several numerical examples in the context of rare event simulation. Adaptive simulation and system parameter optimization to achieve specified performance criteria are described. The techniques are applied to the analysis and design of radar CFAR (constant false alarm rate) detectors. Development of robust detection algorithms using ensemble - or E-CFAR processing is described. A second application treats the performance evaluation and parameter optimization of digital communication systems that cannot be handled analytically or even by using standard numerical techniques.

Features Quickly and concisely builds from basic probability theory to advanced topics Suitable as a primary text for an advanced course in diffusion processes and stochastic differential equations Useful as supplementary reading across a range of topics.

This monograph introduces methods for handling filtering and control problems in nonlinear stochastic systems arising from network-induced phenomena consequent on limited communication capacity. Such phenomena include communication delay, packet dropout, signal quantization or saturation, randomly occurring nonlinearities and randomly occurring uncertainties. The text is self-contained, beginning with an introduction to nonlinear stochastic systems, network-induced phenomena and filtering and control, moving through a collection of the latest research results which focuses on the three aspects of: * the state-of-the-art of nonlinear filtering and control; * recent advances in recursive filtering and sliding mode control; and * their potential for application in networked control systems, and concluding with some ideas for future research work. New concepts such as the randomly occurring uncertainty and the probability-constrained performance index are proposed to make the network models as realistic as possible. The power of combinations of such recent tools as the completing-the-square and sums-of-squares techniques, Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs matrix inequalities, difference linear matrix inequalities and parameter-dependent matrix inequalities is exploited in treating the mathematical and computational challenges arising from nonlinearity and stochasticity. Nonlinear Stochastic Systems with Network-Induced Phenomena establishes a unified framework of control and filtering which will be of value to academic researchers in bringing structure to problems associated with an important class of networked system and offering new means of solving them. The significance of the new concepts, models and methods presented for practical control engineering and signal processing will also make it a valuable reference for engineers dealing with nonlinear control and filtering problems.

The articles in this volume present the state of the art in a variety of areas of discrete probability, including random walks on finite and infinite graphs, random trees, renewal sequences, Stein's method for normal approximation and Kohonen-type self-organizing maps. This volume also focuses on discrete probability and its connections with the theory of algorithms. Classical topics in discrete mathematics are represented as are expositions that condense and make readable some recent work on Markov chains, potential theory and the second moment method. This volume is suitable for mathematicians and students.

This book presents in thirteen refereed survey articles an overview of modern activity in stochastic analysis, written by leading international experts. The topics addressed include stochastic fluid dynamics and regularization by noise of deterministic dynamical systems; stochastic partial differential equations driven by Gaussian or Levy noise, including the relationship between parabolic equations and particle systems, and wave equations in a geometric framework; Malliavin calculus and applications to stochastic numerics; stochastic integration in Banach spaces; porous media-type equations; stochastic deformations of classical mechanics and Feynman integrals and stochastic differential equations with reflection. The articles are based on short courses given at the Centre Interfacultaire Bernoulli of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland, from January to June 2012. They offer a valuable resource not only for specialists, but also for other researchers and Ph.D. students in the fields of stochastic analysis and mathematical physics. Contributors: S. Albeverio M. Arnaudon V. Bally V. Barbu H. Bessaih Z. Brzezniak K. Burdzy A.B. Cruzeiro F. Flandoli A. Kohatsu-Higa S. Mazzucchi C. Mueller J. van Neerven M. Ondrejat S. Peszat M. Veraar L. Weis J.-C. Zambrini

In the last five years or so there has been an important renaissance in the area of (mathematical) modeling, identification and (stochastic) control. It was the purpose of the Advanced Study Institute of which the present volume constitutes the proceedings to review recent developments in this area with par ticular emphasis on identification and filtering and to do so in such a manner that the material is accessible to a wide variety of both embryo scientists and the various breeds of established researchers to whom identification, filtering, etc. are important (such as control engineers, time series analysts, econometricians, probabilists, mathematical geologists, and various kinds of pure and applied mathematicians; all of these were represented at the ASI). For these proceedings we have taken particular care to see to it that the material presented will be understandable for a quite diverse audience. To that end we have added a fifth tutorial section (besides the four presented at the meeting) and have also included an extensive introduction which explains in detail the main problem areas and themes of these proceedings and which outlines how the various contributions fit together to form a coherent, integrated whole. The prerequisites needed to understand the material in this volume are modest and most graduate students in e. g. mathematical systems theory, applied mathematics, econo metrics or control engineering will qualify."

Stochastic ordering is a fundamental guide for decision making under uncertainty. It is also an essential tool in the study of structural properties of complex stochastic systems. This reference text presents a comprehensive coverage of the various notions of stochastic orderings, their closure properties, and their applications. Some of these orderings are routinely used in many applications in economics, finance, insurance, management science, operations research, statistics, and various other fields of study, and the value of the other notions of stochastic orderings still needs to be explored further. This book is an ideal reference for anyone interested in decision making under uncertainty and interested in the analysis of complex stochastic systems. It is suitable as a text for advanced graduate course on stochastic ordering and applications.

Traditionally, randomness and determinism have been viewed as being diametrically opposed, based on the idea that causality and determinism is complicated by "noise." Although recent research has suggested that noise can have a productive role, it still views noise as a separate entity. This work suggests that this not need to be so. In an informal presentation, instead, the problem is traced to traditional assumptions regarding dynamical equations and their need for unique solutions. If this requirement is relaxed, the equations admit for instability and stochasticity evolving from the dynamics itself. This allows for a decoupling from the "burden" of the past and provides insights into concepts such as predictability, irreversibility, adaptability, creativity and multi-choice behaviour. This reformulation is especially relevant for biological and social sciences whose need for flexibility a propos of environmental demands is important to understand: this suggests that many system models are based on randomness and nondeterminism complicated with a little bit of determinism to ultimately achieve concurrent flexibility and stability. As a result, the statistical perception of reality is seen as being a more productive tool than classical determinism. The book addresses scientists of all disciplines, with special emphasis at making the ideas more accessible to scientists and students not traditionally involved in the formal mathematics of the physical sciences. The implications may be of interest also to specialists in the philosophy of science.
-Presents the ideas in an informal language.
-Provides tools for exploring data for singularities.

This text offers a mathematically rigorous exposition of the basic theory of marked point processes developing randomly over time, and shows how this theory may be used to treat piecewise deterministic stochastic processes in continuous time. The point processes are constructed from scratch with detailed proofs and their distributions characterized using compensating measures and martingale structures. The second part of the book addresses applications of the just developed theory. This analysis of various models in applied statistics and probability includes examples and exercises in survival analysis, branching processes, ruin probabilities, sports (soccer), finance and risk management (arbitrage and portfolio trading strategies), and queueing theory. Graduate students and researchers interested in probabilistic modeling and its applications will find this text an excellent resource, requiring for mastery a solid foundation in probability theory, measure and integration, as well as some knowledge of stochastic processes and martingales. portions that are crucial and those that can be omitted by non-specialists, making the material more accessible to a wider cross-disciplinary audience.

Methods of reasoning lying at the heart of rational scientific inference are explored and applied in some 55 papers by contributors from industry, defense establishments, and academia, brought together under the sponsorship of the US Navy and several European and American chemical corporations. The

The subject of information geometry blends several areas of statistics, computer science, physics, and mathematics. The subject evolved from the groundbreaking article published by legendary statistician C.R. Rao in 1945. His works led to the creation of Cramer-Rao bounds, Rao distance, and Rao-Blackawellization. Fisher-Rao metrics and Rao distances play a very important role in geodesics, econometric analysis to modern-day business analytics. The chapters of the book are written by experts in the field who have been promoting the field of information geometry and its applications.

Harmonic maps are solutions to a natural geometrical variational prob lem. This notion grew out of essential notions in differential geometry, such as geodesics, minimal surfaces and harmonic functions. Harmonic maps are also closely related to holomorphic maps in several complex variables, to the theory of stochastic processes, to nonlinear field theory in theoretical physics, and to the theory of liquid crystals in materials science. During the past thirty years this subject has been developed extensively. The monograph is by no means intended to give a complete description of the theory of harmonic maps. For example, the book excludes a large part of the theory of harmonic maps from 2-dimensional domains, where the methods are quite different from those discussed here. The first chapter consists of introductory material. Several equivalent definitions of harmonic maps are described, and interesting examples are presented. Various important properties and formulas are derived. Among them are Bochner-type formula for the energy density and the second varia tional formula. This chapter serves not only as a basis for the later chapters, but also as a brief introduction to the theory. Chapter 2 is devoted to the conservation law of harmonic maps. Em phasis is placed on applications of conservation law to the mono tonicity formula and Liouville-type theorems."

For many practical problems, observations are not independent. In this book, limit behaviour of an important kind of dependent random variables, the so-called mixing random variables, is studied. Many profound results are given, which cover recent developments in this subject, such as basic properties of mixing variables, powerful probability and moment inequalities, weak convergence and strong convergence (approximation), limit behaviour of some statistics with a mixing sample, and many useful tools are provided. Audience: This volume will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in the field of probability and statistics, whose work involves dependent data (variables).

This volume contains the contributions of the participants of the Sixth Oslo-Silivri Workshop on Stochastic Analysis, held in Geilo from July 29 to August 6, 1996. There are two main lectures * Stochastic Differential Equations with Memory, by S.E. A. Mohammed, * Backward SDE's and Viscosity Solutions of Second Order Semilinear PDE's, by E. Pardoux. The main lectures are presented at the beginning of the volume. There is also a review paper at the third place about the stochastic calculus of variations on Lie groups. The contributing papers vary from SPDEs to Non-Kolmogorov type probabilistic models. We would like to thank * VISTA, a research cooperation between Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters and Den Norske Stats Oljeselskap (Statoil), * CNRS, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, * The Department of Mathematics of the University of Oslo, * The Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications, for their financial support. L. Decreusefond J. Gjerde B. 0ksendal A.S. Ustunel PARTICIPANTS TO THE 6TH WORKSHOP ON STOCHASTIC ANALYSIS Vestlia H yfjellshotell, Geilo, Norway, July 28 -August 4, 1996. E-mail: [email protected] Aureli ALABERT Departament de Matematiques Laurent DECREUSEFOND Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecom- 08193-Bellaterra munications CATALONIA (Spain) Departement Reseaux E-mail: alabert@mat. uab.es 46, rue Barrault Halvard ARNTZEN 75634 Paris Cedex 13 Dept. of Mathematics FRANCE University of Oslo E-mail: [email protected] Box 1053 Blindern Laurent DENIS N-0316 Oslo C.M.I.

Markov processes represent a universal model for a large variety of real life random evolutions. The wide flow of new ideas, tools, methods and applications constantly pours into the ever-growing stream of research on Markov processes that rapidly spreads over new fields of natural and social sciences, creating new streamlined logical paths to its turbulent boundary. Even if a given process is not Markov, it can be often inserted into a larger Markov one (Markovianization procedure) by including the key historic parameters into the state space. This monograph gives a concise, but systematic and self-contained, exposition of the essentials of Markov processes, together with recent achievements, working from the "physical picture" - a formal pre-generator, and stressing the interplay between probabilistic (stochastic differential equations) and analytic (semigroups) tools. The book will be useful to students and researchers. Part I can be used for a one-semester course on Brownian motion, Levy and Markov processes, or on probabilistic methods for PDE. Part II mainly contains the author's research on Markov processes. From the contents: Tools from Probability and Analysis Brownian motion Markov processes and martingales SDE, DE and martingale problems Processes in Euclidean spaces Processes in domains with a boundary Heat kernels for stable-like processes Continuous-time random walks and fractional dynamics Complex chains and Feynman integral

Probability is an area of mathematics of tremendous contemporary importance across all aspects of human endeavour. This book is a compact account of the basic features of probability and random processes at the level of first and second year mathematics undergraduates and Masters' students in cognate fields. It is suitable for a first course in probability, plus a follow-up course in random processes including Markov chains. A special feature is the authors' attention to rigorous mathematics: not everything is rigorous, but the need for rigour is explained at difficult junctures. The text is enriched by simple exercises, together with problems (with very brief hints) many of which are taken from final examinations at Cambridge and Oxford. The first eight chapters form a course in basic probability, being an account of events, random variables, and distributions - discrete and continuous random variables are treated separately - together with simple versions of the law of large numbers and the central limit theorem. There is an account of moment generating functions and their applications. The following three chapters are about branching processes, random walks, and continuous-time random processes such as the Poisson process. The final chapter is a fairly extensive account of Markov chains in discrete time. This second edition develops the success of the first edition through an updated presentation, the extensive new chapter on Markov chains, and a number of new sections to ensure comprehensive coverage of the syllabi at major universities.

This monograph is devoted to a completely new approach to geometric problems arising in the study of random fields. The groundbreaking material in Part III, for which the background is carefully prepared in Parts I and II, is of both theoretical and practical importance, and striking in the way in which problems arising in geometry and probability are beautifully intertwined.

"Random Fields and Geometry" will be useful for probabilists and statisticians, and for theoretical and applied mathematicians who wish to learn about new relationships between geometry and probability. It will be helpful for graduate students in a classroom setting, or for self-study. Finally, this text will serve as a basic reference for all those interested in the companion volume of the applications of the theory.

The 1988 Seminar on Stochastic Processes was held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, March 3 through March 5, 1988. It was the eighth seminar in a continuing series of meetings which provide opportunities for researchers to discuss current work in stochastic processes in an informal and enjoyable atmosphere. Previous seminars were held at Princeton University, Northwestern University, the University of Florida and the University of Virginia. The participants' enthusiasm and interest have created stimulating and successful seminars. We thank those participants who have permitted us to publish their research in this volume. This year's invited participants included B. Atkinson, J. Azema, D. Bakry, P. Baxendale, J. Brooks, G. Brosamler, K. Burdzy, E. Cinlar, R. Darling, N. Dinculeanu, E. Dynkin, S. Evans, N. Falkner, P. Fitzsimmons, R. Getoor, J. Glover, V. Goodman, P. Hsu, J.-F. Le Gall, M. Liao, P. March, P. McGill, J. Mitro, T. Mountford, C. Mueller, A. Mukherjea, V. Papanicolaou, E. Perkins, M. Pinsky, L. Pitt, A. O. Pittenger, Z. Pop-Stojanovic, M. Rao, J. Rosen, T. Salisbury, C. Shih, M. Taksar, J. Taylor, S. J. Taylor, E. Toby, R. Williams, Wu Rong, and Z. Zhao. The seminar was made possible through the generous support of the Department of Mathematics, the Center for Applied Mathematics, the Division of Sponsored Research and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Florida. We extend our thanks for local arrangements to our host, Zoran Pop-Stojanovic. 1. G.

Labor omnia vincit improbus. VIRGIL, Georgica I, 144-145. In the first part of his Theoria combinationis observationum erroribus min- imis obnoxiae, published in 1821, Carl Friedrich Gauss [Gau80, p.10] deduces a Chebyshev-type inequality for a probability density function, when it only has the property that its value always decreases, or at least does l not increase, if the absolute value of x increases . One may therefore conjecture that Gauss is one of the first scientists to use the property of 'single-humpedness' of a probability density function in a meaningful probabilistic context. More than seventy years later, zoologist W.F.R. Weldon was faced with 'double- humpedness'. Indeed, discussing peculiarities of a population of Naples crabs, possi- bly connected to natural selection, he writes to Karl Pearson (E.S. Pearson [Pea78, p.328]): Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hath He perfected praise! In the last few evenings I have wrestled with a double humped curve, and have overthrown it. Enclosed is the diagram...If you scoff at this, I shall never forgive you. Not only did Pearson not scoff at this bimodal probability density function, he examined it and succeeded in decomposing it into two 'single-humped curves' in his first statistical memoir (Pearson [Pea94]).

  It has been thirteen years since the first edition of Stochastic Integration and Differential Equations, A New Approach appeared, and in those years many other texts on the same subject have been published, often with connections to applications, especially mathematical finance. Yet in spite of the apparent simplicity of approach, none of these books has used the functional analytic method of presenting semimartingales and stochastic integration. Thus even after thirteen years and many intervening texts, it seems worthwhile nevertheless to publish a second edition. We will no longer call it "a new approach" however. The second edition has several significant changes. The most obvious is the addition of exercises for solution. These exercises are intended to supplement the text, and in no cases have lemmas needed in a proof been relegated to the exercises. Many of the exercises have been tested by graduate students at Purdue University and Cornell University. Chapter three has been nearly completely redone, with a new, more intuitive and simultaneously elementary proof of the fundamental Doob-Meyer decomposition theorem, the more general version of the Girsanov theorem due to Lenglart, the Kazamaki-Novikov criteria for exponential local martingales to be martingales, and a modern treatment of compensators. Chapter four treats sigma martingales which have become important in finance theory, as well as a more comprehensive treatment of martingale representation, including both the Jacod-Yor theory and Emery’s examples of martingales that actually have martingale representation (thus going beyond the standard cases of Brownian motion and the compensated Poisson process). New topics added include an introduction to the theory of the expansion of filtrations, a treatment of the Fefferman martingale inequality, and that the dual space of the martingale space $\mathcal{H}^1$ can be identified with BMO martingales. Last, there are of course small changes throughout the book.

This volume contains the papers presented at the meeting "Distributions with given marginals and statistical modelling", held in Barcelona (Spain), July 17- 20, 2000. This is the fourth meeting on given marginals, showing that this topic has aremarkable interest. BRIEF HISTORY The construction of distributions with given marginals started with the seminal papers by Hoeffding (1940) and Fn!chet (1951). Since then, many others have contributed on this topic: Dall' Aglio, Farlie, Gumbel, Johnson, Kellerer, Kotz, Morgenstern, Marshali, Olkin, Strassen, Vitale, Whitt, etc., as weIl as Arnold, Cambanis, Deheuvels, Genest, Frank, Joe, Kirneldorf, Nelsen, Ruschendorf, Sampson, Scarsini, Tiit, etc. In 1957 Sklar and Schweizer introduced probabilistic metric spaces. In 1975 Kirneldorf and Sampson studied the uniform representation of a bivariate dis- tribution and proposed the desirable conditions that should be satisfied by any bivariate family. In 1991 Darsow, Nguyen and Olsen defined a natural operation between cop- ulas, with applications in stochastic processes. In 1993, AIsina, Nelsen and Schweizer introduced the notion of quasi-copula.

The second conference on Fractal Geometry and Stochastics was held at Greifs wald/Koserow, Germany from August 28 to September 2, 1998. Four years had passed after the first conference with this theme and during this period the interest in the subject had rapidly increased. More than one hundred mathematicians from twenty-two countries attended the second conference and most of them presented their newest results. Since it is impossible to collect all these contributions in a book of moderate size we decided to ask the 13 main speakers to write an account of their subject of interest. The corresponding articles are gathered in this volume. Many of them combine a sketch of the historical development with a thorough discussion of the most recent results of the fields considered. We believe that these surveys are of benefit to the readers who want to be introduced to the subject as well as to the specialists. We also think that this book reflects the main directions of research in this thriving area of mathematics. We express our gratitude to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft whose financial support enabled us to organize the conference. The Editors Introduction Fractal geometry deals with geometric objects that show a high degree of irregu larity on all levels of magnitude and, therefore, cannot be investigated by methods of classical geometry but, nevertheless, are interesting models for phenomena in physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and other sciences."

This book reviews problems associated with rare events arising in a wide range of circumstances, treating such topics as how to evaluate the probability an insurance company will be bankrupted, the lifetime of a redundant system, and the waiting time in a queue. Well-grounded, unique mathematical evaluation methods of basic probability characteristics concerned with rare events are presented, which can be employed in real applications, as the volume also contains relevant numerical and Monte Carlo methods. The various examples, tables, figures and algorithms will also be appreciated. Audience: This work will be useful to graduate students, researchers and specialists interested in applied probability, simulation and operations research.

Collecting together selected pioneering works of the celebrated mathematician Anatolii V. Skorokhod, this volume serves as a guide to the theory of stochastic processes from its beginning to its current state. It offers both an excellent bibliographic resource and a unique opportunity for readers to gain a better understanding of Skorokhod's original and beautiful ideas, which had a deep impact on the development of the subject. The modern theory of stochastic processes is a fast-growing branch of probability theory which is now an independent science in its own right, with its own methods and philosophy. It has many applications in various fields, including financial mathematics, quantum physics and engineering. A clear understanding of this theory is impossible without knowledge of the ideas which form its base, many of which are due to Skorokhod. The book is intended for a broad audience of researchers and students with an interest in probability theory, stochastic processes and their applications.

This book contains an introductory and comprehensive account of the theory of (symmetric) Dirichlet forms. Moreover this analytic theory is unified with the probabilistic potential theory based on symmetric Markov processes and developed further in conjunction with the stochastic analysis based on additive functional. Since the publication of the first edition in 1994, this book has attracted constant interests from readers and is by now regarded as a standard reference for the theory of Dirichlet forms. For the present second edition, the authors not only revised the existing text, but also added sections on capacities and Sobolev type inequalities, irreducible recurrence and ergodicity, recurrence and Poincare type inequalities, the Donsker-Varadhan type large deviation principle, as well as several new exercises with solutions. The book addresses to researchers and graduate students who wish to comprehend the area of Dirichlet forms and symmetric Markov processes.