Elementary treatments of Markov chains, especially those devoted to discrete-time and finite state-space theory, leave the impression that everything is smooth and easy to understand. This exposition of the works of Kolmogorov, Feller, Chung, Kato, and other mathematical luminaries, which focuses on time-continuous chains but is not so far from being elementary itself, reminds us again that the impression is false: an infinite, but denumerable, state-space is where the fun begins. If you have not heard of Blackwell's example (in which all states are instantaneous), do not understand what the minimal process is, or do not know what happens after explosion, dive right in. But beware lest you are enchanted: 'There are more spells than your commonplace magicians ever dreamed of.'

Stochastic phenomena play a central role in various scientific disciplines and underpin applications in popular industrial sectors. The purpose of the book is to introduce the reader to advanced concepts in the analysis of stochastic models starting from a detailed, intuitive and yet rigorous presentation of basic concepts. A special emphasis will be placed on problem solving and numerical implementations, with detailed solutions to all of the results and source code in the C programming language provided. The book will also cover recent specialised techniques for popular problems, providing a valuable reference for advanced readers with an active interest in the field.

The relatively young theory of structured dependence between stochastic processes has many real-life applications in areas including finance, insurance, seismology, neuroscience, and genetics. With this monograph, the first to be devoted to the modeling of structured dependence between random processes, the authors not only meet the demand for a solid theoretical account but also develop a stochastic processes counterpart of the classical copula theory that exists for finite-dimensional random variables. Presenting both the technical aspects and the applications of the theory, this is a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners in the field, as well as for graduate students in pure and applied mathematics programs. Numerous theoretical examples are included, alongside examples of both current and potential applications, aimed at helping those who need to model structured dependence between dynamic random phenomena.

Stochastic processes occur everywhere in the sciences, economics and engineering, and they need to be understood by (applied) mathematicians, engineers and scientists alike. This book gives a gentle introduction to Brownian motion and stochastic processes, in general. Brownian motion plays a special role, since it shaped the whole subject, displays most random phenomena while being still easy to treat, and is used in many real-life models. Im this new edition, much material is added, and there are new chapters on ''Wiener Chaos and Iterated Ito Integrals'' and ''Brownian Local Times''.

In this text, modern applied mathematics and physical insight are used to construct the simplest and first nonlinear dynamical model for the Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO), i.e. the stochastic skeleton model. This model captures the fundamental features of the MJO and offers a theoretical prediction of its structure, leading to new detailed methods to identify it in observational data. The text contributes to understanding and predicting intraseasonal variability, which remains a challenging task in contemporary climate, atmospheric, and oceanic science. In the tropics, the Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) is the dominant component of intraseasonal variability. One of the strengths of this text is demonstrating how a blend of modern applied mathematical tools, including linear and nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs), simple stochastic modeling, and numerical algorithms, have been used in conjunction with physical insight to create the model. These tools are also applied in developing several extensions of the model in order to capture additional features of the MJO, including its refined vertical structure and its interactions with the extratropics. This book is of interest to graduate students, postdocs, and senior researchers in pure and applied mathematics, physics, engineering, and climate, atmospheric, and oceanic science interested in turbulent dynamical systems as well as other complex systems.

This graduate-level textbook covers modelling, programming and analysis of stochastic computer simulation experiments, including the mathematical and statistical foundations of simulation and why it works. The book is rigorous and complete, but concise and accessible, providing all necessary background material. Object-oriented programming of simulations is illustrated in Python, while the majority of the book is programming language independent. In addition to covering the foundations of simulation and simulation programming for applications, the text prepares readers to use simulation in their research. A solutions manual for end-of-chapter exercises is available for instructors.

The theory of semigroups of operators is one of the most important themes in modern analysis. Not only does it have great intellectual beauty, but also wide-ranging applications. In this book the author first presents the essential elements of the theory, introducing the notions of semigroup, generator and resolvent, and establishes the key theorems of Hille-Yosida and Lumer-Phillips that give conditions for a linear operator to generate a semigroup. He then presents a mixture of applications and further developments of the theory. This includes a description of how semigroups are used to solve parabolic partial differential equations, applications to Levy and Feller-Markov processes, Koopmanism in relation to dynamical systems, quantum dynamical semigroups, and applications to generalisations of the Riemann-Liouville fractional integral. Along the way the reader encounters several important ideas in modern analysis including Sobolev spaces, pseudo-differential operators and the Nash inequality.

Here is a rigorous introduction to the most important and useful solution methods of various types of stochastic control problems for jump diffusions and its applications. Discussion includes the dynamic programming method and the maximum principle method, and their relationship. The text emphasises real-world applications, primarily in finance. Results are illustrated by examples, with end-of-chapter exercises including complete solutions. The 2nd edition adds a chapter on optimal control of stochastic partial differential equations driven by Levy processes, and a new section on optimal stopping with delayed information. Basic knowledge of stochastic analysis, measure theory and partial differential equations is assumed.

These Proceedings offer a selection of peer-reviewed research and survey papers by some of the foremost international researchers in the fields of finance, energy, stochastics and risk, who present their latest findings on topical problems. The papers cover the areas of stochastic modeling in energy and financial markets; risk management with environmental factors from a stochastic control perspective; and valuation and hedging of derivatives in markets dominated by renewables, all of which further develop the theory of stochastic analysis and mathematical finance. The papers were presented at the first conference on "Stochastics of Environmental and Financial Economics (SEFE)", being part of the activity in the SEFE research group of the Centre of Advanced Study (CAS) at the Academy of Sciences in Oslo, Norway during the 2014/2015 academic year.

The book presents, for the first time, a detailed analysis of harmonizable processes and fields (in the weak sense) that contain the corresponding stationary theory as a subclass. It also gives the structural and some key applications in detail. These include Levy's Brownian motion, a probabilistic proof of the longstanding Riemann's hypothesis, random fields indexed by LCA and hypergroups, extensions to bistochastic operators, Cramer-Karhunen classes, as well as bistochastic operators with some statistical applications.The material is accessible to graduate students in probability and statistics as well as to engineers in theoretical applications. There are numerous extensions and applications pointed out in the book that will inspire readers to delve deeper.

The objective of this book is to introduce the elements of stochastic processes in a rather concise manner where we present the two most important parts - Markov chains and stochastic analysis. The readers are led directly to the core of the main topics to be treated in the context. Further details and additional materials are left to a section containing abundant exercises for further reading and studying.In the part on Markov chains, the focus is on the ergodicity. By using the minimal nonnegative solution method, we deal with the recurrence and various types of ergodicity. This is done step by step, from finite state spaces to denumerable state spaces, and from discrete time to continuous time. The methods of proofs adopt modern techniques, such as coupling and duality methods. Some very new results are included, such as the estimate of the spectral gap. The structure and proofs in the first part are rather different from other existing textbooks on Markov chains.In the part on stochastic analysis, we cover the martingale theory and Brownian motions, the stochastic integral and stochastic differential equations with emphasis on one dimension, and the multidimensional stochastic integral and stochastic equation based on semimartingales. We introduce three important topics here: the Feynman-Kac formula, random time transform and Girsanov transform. As an essential application of the probability theory in classical mathematics, we also deal with the famous Brunn-Minkowski inequality in convex geometry.This book also features modern probability theory that is used in different fields, such as MCMC, or even deterministic areas: convex geometry and number theory. It provides a new and direct routine for students going through the classical Markov chains to the modern stochastic analysis.

This textbook offers a compact introductory course on Malliavin calculus, an active and powerful area of research. It covers recent applications, including density formulas, regularity of probability laws, central and non-central limit theorems for Gaussian functionals, convergence of densities and non-central limit theorems for the local time of Brownian motion. The book also includes a self-contained presentation of Brownian motion and stochastic calculus, as well as Levy processes and stochastic calculus for jump processes. Accessible to non-experts, the book can be used by graduate students and researchers to develop their mastery of the core techniques necessary for further study.

This textbook offers a compact introductory course on Malliavin calculus, an active and powerful area of research. It covers recent applications, including density formulas, regularity of probability laws, central and non-central limit theorems for Gaussian functionals, convergence of densities and non-central limit theorems for the local time of Brownian motion. The book also includes a self-contained presentation of Brownian motion and stochastic calculus, as well as Levy processes and stochastic calculus for jump processes. Accessible to non-experts, the book can be used by graduate students and researchers to develop their mastery of the core techniques necessary for further study.

The book addresses the system performance with a focus on the network-enhanced complexities and developing the engineering-oriented design framework of controllers and filters with potential applications in system sciences, control engineering and signal processing areas. Therefore, it provides a unified treatment on the analysis and synthesis for discrete-time stochastic systems with guarantee of certain performances against network-enhanced complexities with applications in sensor networks and mobile robotics. Such a result will be of great importance in the development of novel control and filtering theories including industrial impact. Key Features Provides original methodologies and emerging concepts to deal with latest issues in the control and filtering with an emphasis on a variety of network-enhanced complexities Gives results of stochastic control and filtering distributed control and filtering, and security control of complex networked systems Captures the essence of performance analysis and synthesis for stochastic control and filtering Concepts and performance indexes proposed reflect the requirements of engineering practice Methodologies developed in this book include backward recursive Riccati difference equation approach and the discrete-time version of input-to-state stability in probability

This introduction to some of the principal models in the theory of disordered systems leads the reader through the basics, to the very edge of contemporary research, with the minimum of technical fuss. Topics covered include random walk, percolation, self-avoiding walk, interacting particle systems, uniform spanning tree, random graphs, as well as the Ising, Potts, and random-cluster models for ferromagnetism, and the Lorentz model for motion in a random medium. This new edition features accounts of major recent progress, including the exact value of the connective constant of the hexagonal lattice, and the critical point of the random-cluster model on the square lattice. The choice of topics is strongly motivated by modern applications, and focuses on areas that merit further research. Accessible to a wide audience of mathematicians and physicists, this book can be used as a graduate course text. Each chapter ends with a range of exercises.

'... the volume is impressively accessible. The result is a book that is valuable and approachable for biologists at all levels, including those interested in deepening their skills in mathematical modeling and those who seek an overview to aid them in communicating with collaborators in mathematics and statistics. The former group of readers may especially appreciate the first chapter, an introduction to key concepts in probability, and the set of ten assignments provided as an appendix.'CHOICEBiological processes are evolutionary in nature and often evolve in a noisy environment or in the presence of uncertainty. Such evolving phenomena are necessarily modeled mathematically by stochastic differential/difference equations (SDE), which have been recognized as essential for a true understanding of many biological phenomena. Yet, there is a dearth of teaching material in this area for interested students and researchers, notwithstanding the addition of some recent texts on stochastic modelling in the life sciences. The reason may well be the demanding mathematical pre-requisites needed to 'solve' SDE.A principal goal of this volume is to provide a working knowledge of SDE based on the premise that familiarity with the basic elements of a stochastic calculus for random processes is unavoidable. Through some SDE models of familiar biological phenomena, we show how stochastic methods developed for other areas of science and engineering are also useful in the life sciences. In the process, the volume introduces to biologists a collection of analytical and computational methods for research and applications in this emerging area of life science. The additions broaden the available tools for SDE models for biologists that have been limited by and large to stochastic simulations.

This book exploits the classification of a class of linear bounded operators with rank-one self-commutators in terms of their spectral parameter, known as the principal function. The resulting dictionary between two dimensional planar shapes with a degree of shade and Hilbert space operators turns out to be illuminating and beneficial for both sides. An exponential transform, essentially a Riesz potential at critical exponent, is at the heart of this novel framework; its best rational approximants unveil a new class of complex orthogonal polynomials whose asymptotic distribution of zeros is thoroughly studied in the text. Connections with areas of potential theory, approximation theory in the complex domain and fluid mechanics are established. The text is addressed, with specific aims, at experts and beginners in a wide range of areas of current interest: potential theory, numerical linear algebra, operator theory, inverse problems, image and signal processing, approximation theory, mathematical physics.

Emilia Grass develops a solution method which can provide fast and near-optimal solutions to realistic large-scale two-stage stochastic problems in disaster management. The author proposes a specialized interior-point method to accelerate the standard L-shaped algorithm. She shows that the newly developed solution method solves two realistic large-scale case studies for the hurricane prone Gulf and Atlantic coast faster than the standard L-shaped method and a commercial solver. The accelerated solution method enables relief organizations to employ appropriate preparation measures even in the case of short-term disaster warnings.About the Author Emilia Grass holds a PhD from the Hamburg University of Technology, Germany. She is currently working as guest researcher on the project cyber security in healthcare at the Centre for Health Policy, Imperial College London, UK. Her scientific focus is on stochastic programming, solution methods, disaster management and healthcare.

The purpose of this volume is to give an up-to-date introduction to tensor valuations and their applications. Starting with classical results concerning scalar-valued valuations on the families of convex bodies and convex polytopes, it proceeds to the modern theory of tensor valuations. Product and Fourier-type transforms are introduced and various integral formulae are derived. New and well-known results are presented, together with generalizations in several directions, including extensions to the non-Euclidean setting and to non-convex sets. A variety of applications of tensor valuations to models in stochastic geometry, to local stereology and to imaging are also discussed.

This rigorous introduction to network science presents random graphs as models for real-world networks. Such networks have distinctive empirical properties and a wealth of new models have emerged to capture them. Classroom tested for over ten years, this text places recent advances in a unified framework to enable systematic study. Designed for a master's-level course, where students may only have a basic background in probability, the text covers such important preliminaries as convergence of random variables, probabilistic bounds, coupling, martingales, and branching processes. Building on this base - and motivated by many examples of real-world networks, including the Internet, collaboration networks, and the World Wide Web - it focuses on several important models for complex networks and investigates key properties, such as the connectivity of nodes. Numerous exercises allow students to develop intuition and experience in working with the models.

Stochastic systems provide powerful abstract models for a variety of important real-life applications: for example, power supply, traffic flow, data transmission. They (and the real systems they model) are often subject to phase transitions, behaving in one way when a parameter is below a certain critical value, then switching behaviour as soon as that critical value is reached. In a real system, we do not necessarily have control over all the parameter values, so it is important to know how to find critical points and to understand system behaviour near these points. This book is a modern presentation of the 'semimartingale' or 'Lyapunov function' method applied to near-critical stochastic systems, exemplified by non-homogeneous random walks. Applications treat near-critical stochastic systems and range across modern probability theory from stochastic billiards models to interacting particle systems. Spatially non-homogeneous random walks are explored in depth, as they provide prototypical near-critical systems.

This volume in the SpringerBriefs in Energy series offers a systematic review of unit commitment (UC) problems in electrical power generation. It updates texts written in the late 1990s and early 2000s by including the fundamentals of both UC and state-of-the-art modeling as well as solution algorithms and highlighting stochastic models and mixed-integer programming techniques. The UC problems are mostly formulated as mixed-integer linear programs, although there are many variants. A number of algorithms have been developed for, or applied to, UC problems, including dynamic programming, Lagrangian relaxation, general mixed-integer programming algorithms, and Benders decomposition. In addition the book discusses the recent trends in solving UC problems, especially stochastic programming models, and advanced techniques to handle large numbers of integer- decision variables due to scenario propagation

This book focuses on the major applications of martingales to the geometry of Banach spaces, and a substantial discussion of harmonic analysis in Banach space valued Hardy spaces is also presented. It covers exciting links between super-reflexivity and some metric spaces related to computer science, as well as an outline of the recently developed theory of non-commutative martingales, which has natural connections with quantum physics and quantum information theory. Requiring few prerequisites and providing fully detailed proofs for the main results, this self-contained study is accessible to graduate students with a basic knowledge of real and complex analysis and functional analysis. Chapters can be read independently, with each building from the introductory notes, and the diversity of topics included also means this book can serve as the basis for a variety of graduate courses.

Three coherent parts form the material covered in this text, portions of which have not been widely covered in traditional textbooks. In this coverage the reader is quickly introduced to several different topics enriched with 175 exercises which focus on real-world problems. Exercises range from the classics of probability theory to more exotic research-oriented problems based on numerical simulations. Intended for graduate students in mathematics and applied sciences, the text provides the tools and training needed to write and use programs for research purposes. The first part of the text begins with a brief review of measure theory and revisits the main concepts of probability theory, from random variables to the standard limit theorems. The second part covers traditional material on stochastic processes, including martingales, discrete-time Markov chains, Poisson processes, and continuous-time Markov chains. The theory developed is illustrated by a variety of examples surrounding applications such as the gambler's ruin chain, branching processes, symmetric random walks, and queueing systems. The third, more research-oriented part of the text, discusses special stochastic processes of interest in physics, biology, and sociology. Additional emphasis is placed on minimal models that have been used historically to develop new mathematical techniques in the field of stochastic processes: the logistic growth process, the Wright -Fisher model, Kingman's coalescent, percolation models, the contact process, and the voter model. Further treatment of the material explains how these special processes are connected to each other from a modeling perspective as well as their simulation capabilities in C and Matlab (TM).

Multi-scale systems, involving complex interacting processes that occur over a range of temporal and spatial scales, are present in a broad range of disciplines. Several methodologies exist to retrieve this multi-scale information from a given time series; however, each method has its own limitations. This book presents the mathematical theory behind the stochastic analysis of scaling time series, including a general historical introduction to the problem of intermittency in turbulence, as well as how to implement this analysis for a range of different applications. Covering a variety of statistical methods, such as Fourier analysis and wavelet transforms, it provides readers with a thorough understanding of the techniques and when to apply them. New techniques to analyse stochastic processes, including empirical mode decomposition, are also explored. Case studies, in turbulence and ocean sciences, are used to demonstrate how these statistical methods can be applied in practice, for students and researchers.