Collecting information previously scattered throughout the vast literature, including the author's own research, Stochastic Relations: Foundations for Markov Transition Systems develops the theory of stochastic relations as a basis for Markov transition systems. After an introduction to the basic mathematical tools from topology, measure theory, and categories, the book examines the central topics of congruences and morphisms, applies these to the monoidal structure, and defines bisimilarity and behavioral equivalence within this framework. The author views developments from the general theory of coalgebras in the context of the subprobability functor. These tools show that bisimilarity and behavioral and logical equivalence are the same for general modal logics and for continuous time stochastic logic with and without a fixed point operator. With numerous problems and several case studies, this book is an invaluable study of an important aspect of computer science theory.

In this monograph the narrow topology on random probability measures on Polish spaces is investigated in a thorough and comprehensive way. As a special feature, no additional assumptions on the probability space in the background, such as completeness or a countable generated algebra, are made. One of the main results is a direct proof of the random analog of the Prohorov theorem, which is obtained without invoking an embedding of the Polish space into a compact space. Further, the narrow topology is examined and other natural topologies on random measures are compared. In addition, it is shown that the topology of convergence in law-which relates to the "statistical equilibrium"-and the narrow topology are incompatible. A brief section on random sets on Polish spaces provides the fundamentals of this theory. In a final section, the results are applied to random dynamical systems to obtain existence results for invariant measures on compact random sets, as well as uniformity results in the individual ergodic theorem. This clear and incisive volume is useful for graduate students and researchers in mathematical analysis and its applications.

This book introduces the reader to Six Sigma, a problem-solving technique for reducing defects and variation in processes. The author uses DMAIC phases (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) and a data-centric approach, leveraging applied statistics with Minitab (R). Readers are enabled to solve novel problems where there isn't an apparent root cause or solution identified. The author walks readers through an (imaginary) case study, explaining both the DMAIC approach and how to use Minitab in a practical way. The presentation includes data sets and instructions on how to analyze data in the context of Six Sigma using Minitab.

This book opens a novel dimension in the 50 year history of mathematical theory of "information" since the birth of Shannon theory. First of all, it introduces, in place of the traditional notion of entropy and mutual information, the completely new and highly unconventional approach of "information-spectrum" as a basic but powerful tool for constructing the general theory of information. Reconstructing step-by-step all the essential major topics in information theory from the viewpoint of such an "information-spectrum", this comprehensive work provides an accessible introduction to the new type of mathematical theory of information that focuses mainly on general nonstationary and /or nonergodic sources and channels, in clear contrast with the traditional theories of information. This book is a new non-traditional theoretical reference for communication professionals and statisticians specializing in information theory.

This textbook explores probability and stochastic processes at a level that does not require any prior knowledge except basic calculus. It presents the fundamental concepts in a step-by-step manner, and offers remarks and warnings for deeper insights. The chapters include basic examples, which are revisited as the new concepts are introduced. To aid learning, figures and diagrams are used to help readers grasp the concepts, and the solutions to the exercises and problems. Further, a table format is also used where relevant for better comparison of the ideas and formulae. The first part of the book introduces readers to the essentials of probability, including combinatorial analysis, conditional probability, and discrete and continuous random variable. The second part then covers fundamental stochastic processes, including point, counting, renewal and regenerative processes, the Poisson process, Markov chains, queuing models and reliability theory. Primarily intended for undergraduate engineering students, it is also useful for graduate-level students wanting to refresh their knowledge of the basics of probability and stochastic processes.

This monograph focuses on those stochastic quickest detection tasks in disorder problems that arise in the dynamical analysis of statistical data. These include quickest detection of randomly appearing targets, of spontaneously arising effects, and of arbitrage (in financial mathematics). There is also currently great interest in quickest detection methods for randomly occurring intrusions in information systems and in the design of defense methods against cyber-attacks. The author shows that the majority of quickest detection problems can be reformulated as optimal stopping problems where the stopping time is the moment the occurrence of disorder is signaled. Thus, considerable attention is devoted to the general theory of optimal stopping rules, and to its concrete problem-solving methods. The exposition covers both the discrete time case, which is in principle relatively simple and allows step-by-step considerations, and the continuous-time case, which often requires more technical machinery such as martingales, supermartingales, and stochastic integrals. There is a focus on the well-developed apparatus of Brownian motion, which enables the exact solution of many problems. The last chapter presents applications to financial markets. Researchers and graduate students interested in probability, decision theory and statistical sequential analysis will find this book useful.

Functional Gaussian Approximation for Dependent Structures develops and analyses mathematical models for phenomena that evolve in time and influence each another. It provides a better understanding of the structure and asymptotic behaviour of stochastic processes. Two approaches are taken. Firstly, the authors present tools for dealing with the dependent structures used to obtain normal approximations. Secondly, they apply normal approximations to various examples. The main tools consist of inequalities for dependent sequences of random variables, leading to limit theorems, including the functional central limit theorem and functional moderate deviation principle. The results point out large classes of dependent random variables which satisfy invariance principles, making possible the statistical study of data coming from stochastic processes both with short and long memory. The dependence structures considered throughout the book include the traditional mixing structures, martingale-like structures, and weakly negatively dependent structures, which link the notion of mixing to the notions of association and negative dependence. Several applications are carefully selected to exhibit the importance of the theoretical results. They include random walks in random scenery and determinantal processes. In addition, due to their importance in analysing new data in economics, linear processes with dependent innovations will also be considered and analysed.

Fractional Brownian Motion (FBM) is a very classical continuous self-similar Gaussian field with stationary increments. In 1940, some works of Kolmogorov on turbulence led him to introduce this quite natural extension of Brownian Motion, which, in contrast with the latter, has correlated increments. However, the denomination FBM is due to a very famous article by Mandelbrot and Van Ness, published in 1968. Not only in it, but also in several of his following works, Mandelbrot emphasized the importance of FBM as a model in several applied areas, and thus he made it to be known by a wide community. Therefore, FBM has been studied by many authors, and used in a lot of applications.In spite of the fact that FBM is a very useful model, it does not always fit to real data. This is the reason why, for at least two decades, there has been an increasing interest in the construction of new classes of random models extending it, which offer more flexibility. A paradigmatic example of them is the class of Multifractional Fields. Multifractional means that fractal properties of models, typically, roughness of paths and self-similarity of probability distributions, are locally allowed to change from place to place.In order to sharply determine path behavior of Multifractional Fields, a wavelet strategy, which can be considered to be new in the probabilistic framework, has been developed since the end of the 90's. It is somehow inspired by some rather non-standard methods, related to the fine study of Brownian Motion roughness, through its representation in the Faber-Schauder system. The main goal of the book is to present the motivations behind this wavelet strategy, and to explain how it can be applied to some classical examples of Multifractional Fields. The book also discusses some topics concerning them which are not directly related to the wavelet strategy.

Random processes are one of the most powerful tools in the study and understanding of countless phenomena in natural and social sciences.The book is a complete medium-level introduction to the subject. The book is written in a clear and pedagogical manner but with enough rigor and scope that can appeal to both students and researchers.This book is addressed to advanced students and professional researchers in many branches of science where level crossings and extremes appear but with some particular emphasis on some applications in socio-economic systems.

This book is about discrete-time, time-homogeneous, Markov chains (Mes) and their ergodic behavior. To this end, most of the material is in fact about stable Mes, by which we mean Mes that admit an invariant probability measure. To state this more precisely and give an overview of the questions we shall be dealing with, we will first introduce some notation and terminology. Let (X,B) be a measurable space, and consider a X-valued Markov chain ~. = {~k' k = 0, 1, ... } with transition probability function (t.pJ.) P(x, B), i.e., P(x, B) := Prob (~k+1 E B I ~k = x) for each x E X, B E B, and k = 0,1, .... The Me ~. is said to be stable if there exists a probability measure (p.m.) /.l on B such that (*) VB EB. /.l(B) = Ix /.l(dx) P(x, B) If (*) holds then /.l is called an invariant p.m. for the Me ~. (or the t.p.f. P).

The book is devoted to limit theorems for nonconventional sums and arrays. Asymptotic behavior of such sums were first studied in ergodic theory but recently it turned out that main limit theorems of probability theory, such as central, local and Poisson limit theorems can also be obtained for such expressions. In order to obtain sufficiently general local limit theorem, we develop also thermodynamic formalism type results for random complex operators, which is one of the novelties of the book.

Most of the natural and biological phenomena such as solute transport in porous media exhibit variability which can not be modeled by using deterministic approaches. There is evidence in natural phenomena to suggest that some of the observations can not be explained by using the models which give deterministic solutions. Stochastic processes have a rich repository of objects which can be used to express the randomness inherent in the system and the evolution of the system over time. The attractiveness of the stochastic differential equations (SDE) and stochastic partial differential equations (SPDE) come from the fact that we can integrate the variability of the system along with the scientific knowledge pertaining to the system. One of the aims of this book is to explaim some useufl concepts in stochastic dynamics so that the scientists and engineers with a background in undergraduate differential calculus could appreciate the applicability and appropriateness of these developments in mathematics. The ideas are explained in an intuitive manner wherever possible with out compromising rigor.
The solute transport problem in porous media saturated with water had been used as a natural setting to discuss the approaches based on stochastic dynamics. The work is also motivated by the need to have more sophisticated mathematical and computational frameworks to model the variability one encounters in natural and industrial systems. This book presents the ideas, models and computational solutions pertaining to a single problem: stochastic flow of contaminant transport in the saturated porous media such as that we find in underground aquifers. In attempting to solve this problem using stochastic concepts, different ideas and new concepts have been explored, and mathematical and computational frameworks have been developed in the process. Some of these concepts, arguments and mathematical and computational constructs are discussed in an intuititve manner in this book.

This book is devoted to the qualitative study of solutions of superlinear elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations and systems. This class of problems contains, in particular, a number of reaction-diffusion systems which arise in various mathematical models, especially in chemistry, physics and biology. The first two chapters introduce to the field and enable the reader to get acquainted with the main ideas by studying simple model problems, respectively of elliptic and parabolic type. The subsequent three chapters are devoted to problems with more complex structure; namely, elliptic and parabolic systems, equations with gradient depending nonlinearities, and nonlocal equations. They include many developments which reflect several aspects of current research. Although the techniques introduced in the first two chapters provide efficient tools to attack some aspects of these problems, they often display new phenomena and specifically different behaviors, whose study requires new ideas. Many open problems are mentioned and commented. The book is self-contained and up-to-date, it has a high didactic quality. It is devoted to problems that are intensively studied but have not been treated so far in depth in the book literature. The intended audience includes graduate and postgraduate students and researchers working in the field of partial differential equations and applied mathematics. The first edition of this book has become one of the standard references in the field. This second edition provides a revised text and contains a number of updates reflecting significant recent advances that have appeared in this growing field since the first edition.

This unique two-volume set presents the subjects of stochastic processes, information theory, and Lie groups in a unified setting, thereby building bridges between fields that are rarely studied by the same people. Unlike the many excellent formal treatments available for each of these subjects individually, the emphasis in both of these volumes is on the use of stochastic, geometric, and group-theoretic concepts in the modeling of physical phenomena.

Stochastic Models, Information Theory, and Lie Groups will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and practitioners working in applied mathematics, the physical sciences, and engineering. Extensive exercises, motivating examples, and real-world applicationsmake the work suitable as a textbook for use in courses that emphasize applied stochastic processes or differential geometry."

'The book remains a valuable tool both for statisticians who are already familiar with the theory of copulas and just need to develop sampling algorithms, and for practitioners who want to learn copulas and implement the simulation techniques needed to exploit the potential of copulas in applications.'Mathematical ReviewsThe book provides the background on simulating copulas and multivariate distributions in general. It unifies the scattered literature on the simulation of various families of copulas (elliptical, Archimedean, Marshall-Olkin type, etc.) as well as on different construction principles (factor models, pair-copula construction, etc.). The book is self-contained and unified in presentation and can be used as a textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students with a firm background in stochastics. Besides the theoretical foundation, ready-to-implement algorithms and many examples make the book a valuable tool for anyone who is applying the methodology.

Why should we use white noise analysis? Well, one reason of course is that it fills that earlier gap in the tool kit. As Hida would put it, white noise provides us with a useful set of independent coordinates, parametrized by 'time'. And there is a feature which makes white noise analysis extremely user-friendly. Typically the physicist - and not only he - sits there with some heuristic ansatz, like e.g. the famous Feynman 'integral', wondering whether and how this might make sense mathematically. In many cases the characterization theorem of white noise analysis provides the user with a sweet and easy answer. Feynman's 'integral' can now be understood, the 'It's all in the vacuum' ansatz of Haag and Coester is now making sense via Dirichlet forms, and so on in many fields of application. There is mathematical finance, there have been applications in biology, and engineering, many more than we could collect in the present volume.Finally, there is one extra benefit: when we internalize the structures of Gaussian white noise analysis we will be ready to meet another close relative. We will enjoy the important similarities and differences which we encounter in the Poisson case, championed in particular by Y Kondratiev and his group. Let us look forward to a companion volume on the uses of Poisson white noise.The present volume is more than a collection of autonomous contributions. The introductory chapter on white noise analysis was made available to the other authors early on for reference and to facilitate conceptual and notational coherence in their work.

One of the most challenging subjects of stochastic analysis in relation to physics is the analysis of heat kernels on infinite dimensional manifolds. The simplest nontrivial case is that of thepath and loop space on a Lie group. In this volume an up-to-date survey of the topic is given by Leonard Gross, a prominent developer of the theory. Another concise but complete survey of Hausdorff measures on Wiener space and its applications to Malliavin Calculus is given by D. Feyel, one of the most active specialists in this area. Other survey articles deal with short-time asymptotics of diffusion pro cesses with values in infinite dimensional manifolds and large deviations of diffusions with discontinuous drifts. A thorough survey is given of stochas tic integration with respect to the fractional Brownian motion, as well as Stokes' formula for the Brownian sheet, and a new version of the log Sobolev inequality on the Wiener space. Professional mathematicians looking for an overview of the state-of-the art in the above subjects will find this book helpful. In addition, graduate students as well as researchers whose domain requires stochastic analysis will find the original results of interest for their own research. The organizers acknowledge gratefully the financial help ofthe University of Oslo, and the invaluable aid of Professor Bernt 0ksendal and l'Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications."

Stochastic dynamics has been a subject of interest since the early 20th Century. Since then, much progress has been made in this field of study, and many modern applications for it have been found in fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, economy, finance, and many branches of engineering including Mechanical, Ocean, Civil, Bio, and Earthquake Engineering.Elements of Stochastic Dynamics aims to meet the growing need to understand and master the subject by introducing fundamentals to researchers who want to explore stochastic dynamics in their fields and serving as a textbook for graduate students in various areas involving stochastic uncertainties. All topics within are presented from an application approach, and may thus be more appealing to users without a background in pure Mathematics. The book describes the basic concepts and theories of random variables and stochastic processes in detail; provides various solution procedures for systems subjected to stochastic excitations; introduces stochastic stability and bifurcation; and explores failures of stochastic systems. The book also incorporates some latest research results in modeling stochastic processes; in reducing the system degrees of freedom; and in solving nonlinear problems. The book also provides numerical simulation procedures of widely-used random variables and stochastic processes.A large number of exercise problems are included in the book to aid the understanding of the concepts and theories, and may be used for as course homework.

Among all aspects of engineering, design is the most important step in developing a new product. A systematic approach to managing design issues can only be accomplished by applying mathematical optimization methods. Furthermore, due to the practical issues in engineering problems, there are limitations in using traditional methods. As such, stochastic optimization methods such as differential evolution, simulated annealing, and genetic algorithms are preferable in finding solutions in design optimization problems. This book reviews mechanical engineering design optimization using stochastic methods. It introduces students and design engineers to practical aspects of complicated mathematical optimization procedures, and outlines steps for wide range of selected engineering design problems. It shows how engineering structures are systematically designed. Many new engineering design applications based on stochastic optimization techniques in automotive, energy, military, naval, manufacturing process and fluids-heat transfer, are described in the book. For each design optimization problem described, background is provided for understanding the solutions. There are very few books on optimization that include engineering applications. They cover limited applications, and that too of well-known design problems of advanced and niche nature. Common problems are hardly addressed. Thus, the subject has remained fairly theoretical. To overcome this, each chapter in this book is contributed by at least one academic and one industrial expert researcher.

Developed from the author's course at the Ecole Polytechnique, Monte-Carlo Methods and Stochastic Processes: From Linear to Non-Linear focuses on the simulation of stochastic processes in continuous time and their link with partial differential equations (PDEs). It covers linear and nonlinear problems in biology, finance, geophysics, mechanics, chemistry, and other application areas. The text also thoroughly develops the problem of numerical integration and computation of expectation by the Monte-Carlo method. The book begins with a history of Monte-Carlo methods and an overview of three typical Monte-Carlo problems: numerical integration and computation of expectation, simulation of complex distributions, and stochastic optimization. The remainder of the text is organized in three parts of progressive difficulty. The first part presents basic tools for stochastic simulation and analysis of algorithm convergence. The second part describes Monte-Carlo methods for the simulation of stochastic differential equations. The final part discusses the simulation of non-linear dynamics.

This volume provides a general overview of discrete- and continuous-time Markov control processes and stochastic games, along with a look at the range of applications of stochastic control and some of its recent theoretical developments. These topics include various aspects of dynamic programming, approximation algorithms, and infinite-dimensional linear programming. In all, the work comprises 18 carefully selected papers written by experts in their respective fields. Optimization, Control, and Applications of Stochastic Systems will be a valuable resource for all practitioners, researchers, and professionals in applied mathematics and operations research who work in the areas of stochastic control, mathematical finance, queueing theory, and inventory systems. It may also serve as a supplemental text for graduate courses in optimal control and dynamic games.

This book presents a systematic treatment of Markov chains, diffusion processes and state space models, as well as alternative approaches to Markov chains through stochastic difference equations and stochastic differential equations. It illustrates how these processes and approaches are applied to many problems in genetics, carcinogenesis, AIDS epidemiology and other biomedical systems.One feature of the book is that it describes the basic MCMC (Markov chain and Monte Carlo) procedures and illustrates how to use the Gibbs sampling method and the multilevel Gibbs sampling method to solve many problems in genetics, carcinogenesis, AIDS and other biomedical systems.As another feature, the book develops many state space models for many genetic problems, carcinogenesis, AIDS epidemiology and HIV pathogenesis. It shows in detail how to use the multilevel Gibbs sampling method to estimate (or predict) simultaneously the state variables and the unknown parameters in cancer chemotherapy, carcinogenesis, AIDS epidemiology and HIV pathogenesis. As a matter of fact, this book is the first to develop several state space models for many genetic problems, carcinogenesis and other biomedical problems.To emphasize special applications to medical problems, in this new edition the book has added a new chapter to illustrate how to develop biologically-supported stochastic models and state space models of carcinogenesis in human beings. Specific examples include hidden Markov models and state space models for human colon cancer, human liver cancer and some human pediatric cancers such as retinoblastoma and hepatoblastoma. The book also gives examples to illustrate how to develop procedures to assess cancer risk of environmental agents through initiation-promotion protocols.

Change of Time and Change of Measure provides a comprehensive account of two topics that are of particular significance in both theoretical and applied stochastics: random change of time and change of probability law.Random change of time is key to understanding the nature of various stochastic processes, and gives rise to interesting mathematical results and insights of importance for the modeling and interpretation of empirically observed dynamic processes. Change of probability law is a technique for solving central questions in mathematical finance, and also has a considerable role in insurance mathematics, large deviation theory, and other fields.The book comprehensively collects and integrates results from a number of scattered sources in the literature and discusses the importance of the results relative to the existing literature, particularly with regard to mathematical finance.In this Second Edition a Chapter 13 entitled 'A Wider View' has been added. This outlines some of the developments that have taken place in the area of Change of Time and Change of Measure since the publication of the First Edition. Most of these developments have their root in the study of the Statistical Theory of Turbulence rather than in Financial Mathematics and Econometrics, and they form part of the new research area termed 'Ambit Stochastics'.

This volume provides more evidence against the Random Walk Hypothesis and offers insights into market inefficiency through systematically trading exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The book is organized to answer the following three questions: Do ETF prices follow random walks? If not, what are some of the factors that impact their non-random walk behavior? How can investors take advantage of such price dynamics in trading ETFs?