This book is an introduction to the theory of spatial quasiregular mappings intended for the uninitiated reader. At the same time the book also addresses specialists in classical analysis and, in particular, geometric function theory. The text leads the reader to the frontier of current research and covers some most recent developments in the subject, previously scatterd through the literature. A major role in this monograph is played by certain conformal invariants which are solutions of extremal problems related to extremal lengths of curve families. These invariants are then applied to prove sharp distortion theorems for quasiregular mappings. One of these extremal problems of conformal geometry generalizes a classical two-dimensional problem of O. TeichmA1/4ller. The novel feature of the exposition is the way in which conformal invariants are applied and the sharp results obtained should be of considerable interest even in the two-dimensional particular case. This book combines the features of a textbook and of a research monograph: it is the first introduction to the subject available in English, contains nearly a hundred exercises, a survey of the subject as well as an extensive bibliography and, finally, a list of open problems.

This book summarizes the developments in stochastic analysis and estimation. It presents novel applications to practical problems in mechanical systems. The main aspects of the course are random vibrations of discrete and continuous systems, analysis of nonlinear and parametric systems, stochastic modelling of fatigue damage, parameter estimation and identification with applications to vehicle road systems and process simulations by means of autoregressive models. The contributions will be of interest to engineers and research workers in industries and universities who want first hand information on present trends and problems in this topical field of engineering dynamics.

The second edition has not deviated significantly from the first. The printing of this edition, however, has allowed us to make a number of corrections which escaped our scrutiny at the time of the first printing, and to generally improve and tighten our presentation of the material. Many of these changes were suggested to us by colleagues and readers and their kindness in doing so is greatly appreciated. Delft, The Netherlands and P. A. Ruymgaart Buffalo, New York, December, 1987 T. T. Soong Preface to the First Edition Since their introduction in the mid 1950s, the filtering techniques developed by Kalman, and by Kalman and Bucy have been widely known and widely used in all areas of applied sciences. Starting with applications in aerospace engineering, their impact has been felt not only in all areas of engineering but as all also in the social sciences, biological sciences, medical sciences, as well other physical sciences. Despite all the good that has come out of this devel opment, however, there have been misuses because the theory has been used mainly as a tool or a procedure by many applied workers without fully understanding its underlying mathematical workings. This book addresses a mathematical approach to Kalman-Bucy filtering and is an outgrowth of lectures given at our institutions since 1971 in a sequence of courses devoted to Kalman-Bucy filters."

This book is an introduction to financial mathematics. It is intended for graduate students in mathematics and for researchers working in academia and industry. The focus on stochastic models in discrete time has two immediate benefits. First, the probabilistic machinery is simpler, and one can discuss right away some of the key problems in the theory of pricing and hedging of financial derivatives. Second, the paradigm of a complete financial market, where all derivatives admit a perfect hedge, becomes the exception rather than the rule. Thus, the need to confront the intrinsic risks arising from market incomleteness appears at a very early stage. The first part of the book contains a study of a simple one-period model, which also serves as a building block for later developments. Topics include the characterization of arbitrage-free markets, preferences on asset profiles, an introduction to equilibrium analysis, and monetary measures of financial risk. In the second part, the idea of dynamic hedging of contingent claims is developed in a multiperiod framework. Topics include martingale measures, pricing formulas for derivatives, American options, superhedging, and hedging strategies with minimal shortfall risk. This third revised and extended edition now contains more than one hundred exercises. It also includes new material on risk measures and the related issue of model uncertainty, in particular a new chapter on dynamic risk measures and new sections on robust utility maximization and on efficient hedging with convex risk measures.

The Fifth IFIP Working Conference on Stochastic Differential Systems continues the traditional line of previous conferences in Kyoto (1976), Vilnjus (1978), Visegrad (1980), and Marseille-Luminy (1984) and focuses on topics of present research in the field of stochastic differential systems. Particular emphasis is laid on infinite-dimensional stochastic problems and random fields, especially on stochastic partial differential equations. The volume includes contributions to the study of stochastic equations and diffusion and their approximation, large deviations and stability of perturbed systems, stochastic control theory and filtering. There are also contributions to the study of some special problems in martingale theory and stochastic calculus. This volume is of special interest to researchers in stochastic processes, random fields, and control theory.

This second BiBoS volume surveys recent developments in the theory of stochastic processes. Particular attention is given to the interaction between mathematics and physics.
Main topics include: statistical mechanics, stochastic mechanics, differential geometry, stochastic proesses, quantummechanics, quantum field theory, probability measures, central limit theorems, stochastic differential equations, Dirichlet forms.

This second BiBoS volume surveys recent developments in the theory of stochastic processes. Particular attention is given to the interaction between mathematics and physics.
Main topics include: statistical mechanics, stochastic mechanics, differential geometry, stochastic proesses, quantummechanics, quantum field theory, probability measures, central limit theorems, stochastic differential equations, Dirichlet forms.

An extensive update to a classic text

Stochastic geometry and spatial statistics play a fundamental role in many modern branches of physics, materials sciences, engineering, biology and environmental sciences. They offer successful models for the description of random two- and three-dimensional micro and macro structures and statistical methods for their analysis.

The previous edition of this book has served as the key reference in its field for over 18 years and is regarded as the best treatment of the subject of stochastic geometry, both as a subject with vital applications to spatial statistics and as a very interesting field of mathematics in its own right.

"This editi""on" Presents a wealth of models for spatial patterns and related statistical methods.Provides a great survey of the modern theory of random tessellations, including many new models that became tractable only in the last few years.Includes new sections on random networks and random graphs to review the recent ever growing interest in these areas.Provides an excellent introduction to theory and modelling of point processes, which covers some very latest developments.Illustrate the forefront theory of random sets, with many applications.Adds new results to the discussion of fibre and surface processes.Offers an updated collection of useful stereological methods.Includes 700 new references.Is written in an accessible style enabling non-mathematicians to benefit from this book.Provides a companion website hosting information on recent developments in the field www.wiley.com/go/cskm

"Stochastic Geometry and its Applications" is ideally suited for researchers in physics, materials science, biology and ecological sciences as well as mathematicians and statisticians. It should also serve as a valuable introduction to the subject for students of mathematics and statistics.

This is the revised and augmented edition of a now classic book which is an introduction to sub-Markovian kernels on general measurable spaces and their associated homogeneous Markov chains. The first part, an expository text on the foundations of the subject, is intended for post-graduate students. A study of potential theory, the basic classification of chains according to their asymptotic behaviour and the celebrated Chacon-Ornstein theorem are examined in detail.
The second part of the book is at a more advanced level and includes a treatment of random walks on general locally compact abelian groups. Further chapters develop renewal theory, an introduction to Martin boundary and the study of chains recurrent in the Harris sense. Finally, the last chapter deals with the construction of chains starting from a kernel satisfying some kind of maximum principle.

These are" notes based on courses in Theoretical Population Genetics given at the University of Texas at Houston during the winter quarter, 1974, and at the University of Wisconsin during the fall semester, 1976. These notes explore problems of population genetics and evolution involving stochastic processes. Biological models and various mathematical techniques are discussed. Special emphasis is given to the diffusion method and an attempt is made to emphasize the underlying unity of various problems based on the Kolmogorov backward equation. A particular effort was made to make the subject accessible to biology students who are not familiar with stochastic processes. The references are not exhaustive but were chosen to provide a starting point for the reader interested in pursuing the subject further. Acknowledgement I would like to use this opportunity to express my thanks to Drs. J. F. Crow, M. Nei and W. J. Schull for their hospitality during my stays at their universities. I am indebted to Dr. M. Kimura for his continuous encouragement. My thanks also go to the small but resolute groups of.students, visitors and colleagues whose enthusiasm was a great source of encouragement. I am especially obliged to Dr. Martin Curie-Cohen and Dr. Crow for reading a large part eX the manuscript and making many valuable comments. Special gratitude is expressed to Miss Sumiko Imamiya for her patience and endurance and for her efficient preparation of the manuscript.

Dedicated to one of the most outstanding researchers in the field of statistics, this volume in honor of C.R. Rao, on the occasion of his 100th birthday, provides a bird's-eye view of a broad spectrum of research topics, paralleling C.R. Rao's wide-ranging research interests. The book's contributors comprise a representative sample of the countless number of researchers whose careers have been influenced by C.R. Rao, through his work or his personal aid and advice. As such, written by experts from more than 15 countries, the book's original and review contributions address topics including statistical inference, distribution theory, estimation theory, multivariate analysis, hypothesis testing, statistical modeling, design and sampling, shape and circular analysis, and applications. The book will appeal to statistics researchers, theoretical and applied alike, and PhD students. Happy Birthday, C.R. Rao!

This book provides an undergraduate-level introduction to discrete and continuous-time Markov chains and their applications, with a particular focus on the first step analysis technique and its applications to average hitting times and ruin probabilities. It also discusses classical topics such as recurrence and transience, stationary and limiting distributions, as well as branching processes. It first examines in detail two important examples (gambling processes and random walks) before presenting the general theory itself in the subsequent chapters. It also provides an introduction to discrete-time martingales and their relation to ruin probabilities and mean exit times, together with a chapter on spatial Poisson processes. The concepts presented are illustrated by examples, 138 exercises and 9 problems with their solutions.

The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists.

"[A]nyone who works with Markov processes whose state space is uncountably infinite will need this most impressive book as a guide and reference."
--American Scientist

"There is no question but that space should immediately be reserved for [this] book on the library shelf. Those who aspire to mastery of the contents should also reserve a large number of long winter evenings."
--Zentralblatt fur Mathematik und ihre Grenzgebiete/Mathematics Abstracts

"Ethier and Kurtz have produced an excellent treatment of the modern theory of Markov processes that [is] useful both as a reference work and as a graduate textbook."
--Journal of Statistical Physics

Markov Processes presents several different approaches to proving weak approximation theorems for Markov processes, emphasizing the interplay of methods of characterization and approximation. Martingale problems for general Markov processes are systematically developed for the first time in book form. Useful to the professional as a reference and suitable for the graduate student as a text, this volume features a table of the interdependencies among the theorems, an extensive bibliography, and end-of-chapter problems.

This book is specially designed to refresh and elevate the level of understanding of the foundational background in probability and distributional theory required to be successful in a graduate-level statistics program. Advanced undergraduate students and introductory graduate students from a variety of quantitative backgrounds will benefit from the transitional bridge that this volume offers, from a more generalized study of undergraduate mathematics and statistics to the career-focused, applied education at the graduate level. In particular, it focuses on growing fields that will be of potential interest to future M.S. and Ph.D. students, as well as advanced undergraduates heading directly into the workplace: data analytics, statistics and biostatistics, and related areas.

Updated to conform to Mathematica 7.0, Introduction to Probability with Mathematica, Second Edition continues to show students how to easily create simulations from templates and solve problems using Mathematica. It provides a real understanding of probabilistic modeling and the analysis of data and encourages the application of these ideas to practical problems. The accompanying CD-ROM offers instructors the option of creating class notes, demonstrations, and projects.

New to the Second Edition

• Expanded section on Markov chains that includes a study of absorbing chains
• New sections on order statistics, transformations of multivariate normal random variables, and Brownian motion
• More example data of the normal distribution
• More attention on conditional expectation, which has become significant in financial mathematics
• Additional problems from Actuarial Exam P
• New appendix that gives a basic introduction to Mathematica
• New examples, exercises, and data sets, particularly on the bivariate normal distribution
• New visualization and animation features from Mathematica 7.0
• Updated Mathematica notebooks on the CD-ROM

After covering topics in discrete probability, the text presents a fairly standard treatment of common discrete distributions. It then transitions to continuous probability and continuous distributions, including normal, bivariate normal, gamma, and chi-square distributions. The author goes on to examine the history of probability, the laws of large numbers, and the central limit theorem. The final chapter explores stochastic processes and applications, ideal for students in operations research and finance.