This volume consists of about half of the papers presented during a three-day seminar on stochastic processes held at Northwestern University in April 1981. The aim of the seminar was to bring together a small group of kindred spirits working on stochastic processes and to provide an informal atmosphere for them to discuss their current work. We plan to hold such a seminar once a year, with slight variations in emphasis to reflect the changing concerns and interests within the field. The invited participants in this year's seminar were J. AZEMA, R.M. BLUMENTHAL, R. CARMONA, K.L. CHUNG, R.K. GETOOR, J. JACOD, F. KNIGHT, S.OREY, A.O. PITTENGER, J. PITMAN, P. PROTTER, M.K. RAO, M. SHARPE, and J. WALSH. We thank them and other participants for the productive liveliness of the seminar. As mentioned above, the present volume is only a fragment of the work discussed at the seminar, the other papers having been already committed to otherpublications. The seminar was made possible through the enlightened support of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Grant No. 80-0252. We are grateful to them as well as the publisher, Birkhauser Boston, for their support and encouragement.

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.

The 1985 Seminar on Stochastic Processes was held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in March. It was the fifth seminar in a continuing series of meetings which provide opportunities for researchers to discuss current work in stochastic processes in an informal atmosphere. Previous seminars were held at Northwestern University, Evanston and the University of Florida, Gainesville. The participants' enthusiasm and interest have resulted in stimulating and successful seminars. We thank them for it, and we also thank those participants who have permitted us to publish their research here. The seminar was made possible through the generous supports of the Division of Sponsored Research and the Department of Mathematics of the university of Florida, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Grant No. 82- 0189. We are grateful for their support. Finally, the comfort and hospitality we enjoyed in Gainesville were due to the splendid efforts of Professor Zoran Pop-Stojanovic. J. G.

This volume consists of about half of the papers presented during a three-day seminar on stochastic processes. The seminar was the third of such yearly seminars aimed at bringing together a small group of researchers to discuss their current work in an informal atmosphere. The previous two seminars were held at Northwesterr. University, Evanston. This one was held at the University of Florida, Gainesville. The invited participants in the seminar were B. ATKINSON, K.L. CHUNG, C. DELLACHERIE, J.L. DOOB, E.B. DYNKIN, N. FALKNER, R.K. GETOOR, J. GLOVER, T. JEULIN, H. KASPI, T. McCONNELL, J. MITRO, E. PERKINS, Z. POP-STOJANOVIC, M. RAO, L.C.G. ROGERS, P. SALMINEN, M.J. SHARPE, S.R.S. VARADHAN, and J. WALSH. We thank them and the other participants for the lively atmosphere they have created. The seminar was made possible through the generous supports of the University of Florida, Department of Mathematics, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Grant No. 82-0189, to Northwestern University. We are grateful for their support. Finally, we thank Professors Zoran POP-STOJANOVIC and Murali RAO for their time, effort, and kind hospitality in the organization of the seminar and during our stay in Gainesville.

This volume consists of about half of the papers presented during a three-day seminar on stochastic processes held at Northwestern U- versity, Evanston. The seminar was the fourth of such yearly seminars aimed at bringing together a small group of researchers to discuss their current work in an informal atmosphere. The invited participants in the seminar were B.W. ATKINSON, R.M. BLUMENTHAL, K. BURDZY, D. BURKHOLDER, M. CRANSTON, C. DOLEANS"'DADE, J.L. DOOB, N. FALKNER, P. FITZSIMMONS, J. GLOVER, F. KNIGHT, T. McCONNELL, J.B. MITRO, S. OREY, J. PITMAN, A.O. PITTENGER, Z. POP- STOJANOVIC, P. PROTTER, T. SALISBURY, M. SHARPE, C.T. SHIH, A. SZNITMAN, S.J. TAYLOR, J. WALSH, and R. WILLIAMS. We thank them and the other partiCipants for the lively seminar they created. The seminar was made possible through the partial support of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research via their Grant No. 82-0109 to Northwestern University. E.

The 1986 Seminar on Stochastic Processes was held at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in March. It was the sixth seminar in a continuing series of meetings which provide opportunities for researchers to discuss current work in stochastic processes in an informal atmosphere. Previous seminars were held at Northwestern University, Evanston and the University of Florida, Gainesville. The participants' enthusiasm and interest have resulted in stimulating and successful seminars. We thank them for it, and we also thank those participants who have permitted us to publish their research here. The seminar was made possible through the generous support of the Office of Naval Research (Contract # A86-4633-P) and the University of Virginia. We are grateful for their support. The participants were welcomed to Virginia by S. J. Taylor, whose store of energy and organizing talent resulted in a wonderful reunion of researchers. We extend to him our warmest appreciation for his efforts; his hospitality makes us hope that we can someday return to Virginia for another conference. J. ~. ~aineauille, ISBn TABLE OF CONTENTS K. L. CHUNG Green's Function for a Ball 1 P. J. FITZSIMMONS On the Identification of Markov Processes by the Distribution of Hitting Times 15 P. FITZSIMMONS On Two Results in the Potential Theory of J.

The study of the cone of excessive measures associated with a Markov process goes back to Hunt's fundamental mem- oir [H57]. However until quite recently it received much less attention than the cone of excessive functions. The fact that an excessive function can be composed with the underlying Markov process to give a supermartingale, subject to secondary finiteness hypotheses, is crucial in the study of excessive func- tions. The lack of an analogous construct for excessive mea- sures seemed to make them much less tractable to a proba- bilistic analysis. This point of view changed radically with the appearance of the pioneering paper by Fitzsimmons and Maisonneuve [FM86] who showed that a certain stationary process associated with an excessive measure could be used to study excessive measures probabilistically. These station- ary processes or measures had been constructed by Kuznetsov [Ku74] extending earlier work of Dynkin. It is now common to call them Kuznetsov measures. Following the Fitzsimmons- Maisonneuve paper there was renewed interest and remarkable progress in the study of excessive measures. The purpose of this monograph is to organize under one cover and prove under standard hypotheses many of these recent results in the theory of excessive measures. The two basic tools in this recent development are Kuznet- sov measures mentioned above and the energy functional.

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.

The 1987 Seminar on Stochastic Processes was held at Princeton University, March 26 through March 28, 1987. It was the seventh 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 Northwestern University, Evanston; University of Florida, Gainesville: and University of Virginia, Charlottesville. The success of these seminars has been due to the interest and enthusiasm of probabilists in the United States and abroad. Many of the participants have allowed us to pUblish the results of their re search in this volume. The editors hope that the reader will be able to sense some of the excitement present in the seminar by reading these articles. This year's invited participants included M. Aizenman, B. Atkinson, R. M. Blumenthal, C. Burdzy, D. Burkholder, R. Carmona, K. L. Chung, M. Cranston, C. Dellacherie, J. D. Deuschel, N. Dinculeanu, Gundy, P. Hsu, E. B. Dynkin, P. Fitzsimmons, R. K. Getoor, J. Glover, R. G. Hunt, H. Kaspi, Knight, G. Lawler, P. March, P. A. Meyer, A. F. J. Mitro, J. Neveu, E. Pardoux, M. Pinsky, L. Pitt, A. O. Pittenger, Z. Pop-Stojanovic, P. Protter, M. Rao, T. Salisbury, M. J. Sharpe, S. J. Taylor, E. Toby, S. R. S. Varadhan, R. Williams, M. Weber, and Z. Zhao."

This volume consists of about half of the papers presented during a three-day seminar on stochastic processes held at Northwestern University in March 1982. This was the second of such yearly seminars aimed at bringing together a small group of researchers to discuss their current work in an informal atmosphere. The invited participants in this year's seminar were B. ATKINSON, R. BASS, K. BICHTELER, D. BURKHOLDER, K.L. CHUNG, J.L. DOOB, C. DOLEANS-DADE, H. FOLLMER, R.K. GETOOR, J. GLOVER, J. MITRO, D. MONRAD, E. PERKINS, J. PITMAN, Z. POP-STOJANOVIC, M.J. SHARPE, and J. WALSH. We thank them and the other participants for the lively atmosphere of the seminar. As mentioned above, the present volume is only a fragment of the work discussed at the seminar, the other work having been committed to other publications. The seminar was made possible through the enlightened support of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Grant No. 80-0252A. We are grateful to them as well as the publisher, Birkhauser, Boston, for their support and encouragement. E.C. , Evanston, 1983 Seminar on stochastic Processes, 1982 Birkhauser, Boston, 1983 GERM FIELDS AND A CONVERSE TO THE STRONG MARKOV PROPERTY by BRUCE W. ATKINSON 1. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to give an intrinsic characterization of optional (i.e., stopping) times for the general germ Markov process, which includes the general right process as a special case. We proceed from the general to the specific.

This synthesis lecture provides a survey of work on privacy in online social networks (OSNs). This work encompasses concerns of users as well as service providers and third parties. Our goal is to approach such concerns from a computer-science perspective, and building upon existing work on privacy, security, statistical modeling and databases to provide an overview of the technical and algorithmic issues related to privacy in OSNs. We start our survey by introducing a simple OSN data model and describe common statistical-inference techniques that can be used to infer potentially sensitive information. Next, we describe some privacy definitions and privacy mechanisms for data publishing. Finally, we describe a set of recent techniques for modeling, evaluating, and managing individual users' privacy risk within the context of OSNs. Table of Contents: Introduction / A Model for Online Social Networks / Types of Privacy Disclosure / Statistical Methods for Inferring Information in Networks / Anonymity and Differential Privacy / Attacks and Privacy-preserving Mechanisms / Models of Information Sharing / Users' Privacy Risk / Management of Privacy Settings

This advanced text explores the relationship between Markov processes and potential theory, in addition to aspects of the theory of additive functionals. Geared toward graduate students, "Markov Processes and Potential Theory" assumes a familiarity with general measure theory, while offering a nearly self-contained treatment.
Topics include Markov processes, excessive functions, multiplicative functionals and subprocesses, and additive functionals and their potentials. A concluding chapter examines dual processes and potential theory. Exercises appear throughout the text, and a selection of notes and comments features historical references and credits. Robert M. Blumenthal is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Washington, and Ronald K. Getoor is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of California at San Diego.

Advanced statistical modeling and knowledge representation techniques for a newly emerging area of machine learning and probabilistic reasoning; includes introductory material, tutorials for different proposed approaches, and applications. Handling inherent uncertainty and exploiting compositional structure are fundamental to understanding and designing large-scale systems. Statistical relational learning builds on ideas from probability theory and statistics to address uncertainty while incorporating tools from logic, databases and programming languages to represent structure. In Introduction to Statistical Relational Learning, leading researchers in this emerging area of machine learning describe current formalisms, models, and algorithms that enable effective and robust reasoning about richly structured systems and data. The early chapters provide tutorials for material used in later chapters, offering introductions to representation, inference and learning in graphical models, and logic. The book then describes object-oriented approaches, including probabilistic relational models, relational Markov networks, and probabilistic entity-relationship models as well as logic-based formalisms including Bayesian logic programs, Markov logic, and stochastic logic programs. Later chapters discuss such topics as probabilistic models with unknown objects, relational dependency networks, reinforcement learning in relational domains, and information extraction. By presenting a variety of approaches, the book highlights commonalities and clarifies important differences among proposed approaches and, along the way, identifies important representational and algorithmic issues. Numerous applications are provided throughout.