A navigation on a set of points S is a rule for choosing which point to move to from the present point in order to progress toward a specified target. We study some navigations in the plane where S is a nonuniform Poisson point process (in a finite domain) with intensity going to +∞. We show the convergence of the traveller's path lengths, and give the number of stages and the geometry of the traveller's trajectories, uniformly for all starting points and targets, for several navigations of geometric nature. Other costs are also considered. This leads to asymptotic results on the stretch factors of random Yao graphs and random θ-graphs.

We consider the problem of estimating a latent point process, given the realization of another point process. We establish an expression for the conditional distribution of a latent Poisson point process given the observation process when the transformation from the latent process to the observed process includes displacement, thinning, and augmentation with extra points. Our original analysis is based on an elementary and self-contained random measure theoretic approach. This simplifies and complements previous derivations given in Mahler (2003), and Singh, Vo, Baddeley and Zuyev (2009).

Start with a compact set K ⊂ Rd. This has a random number of daughter sets, each of which is a (rotated and scaled) copy of K and all of which are inside K. The random mechanism for producing daughter sets is used independently on each of the daughter sets to produce the second generation of sets, and so on, repeatedly. The random fractal set F is the limit, as n goes to ∞, of the union of the nth generation sets. In addition, K has a (suitable, random) mass which is divided randomly between the daughter sets, and this random division of mass is also repeated independently, indefinitely. This division of mass will correspond to a random self-similar measure on F. The multifractal spectrum of this measure is studied here. Our main contributions are dealing with the geometry of realisations in Rd and drawing systematically on known results for general branching processes. In this way we generalise considerably the results of Arbeiter and Patzschke (1996) and Patzschke (1997).

We consider the model of Deijfen, Häggström and Bagley (2004) for competing growth of two infection types in Rd, based on the Richardson model on Zd. Stochastic ball-shaped infection outbursts transmit the infection type of the center to all points of the ball that are not yet infected. Relevant parameters of the model are the initial infection configuration, the (type-dependent) growth rates, and the radius distribution of the infection outbursts. The main question is that of coexistence: Which values of the parameters allow the unbounded growth of both types with positive probability? Deijfen, Häggström and Bagley (2004) conjectured that the initial configuration is basically irrelevant for this question, and gave a proof for this under strong assumptions on the radius distribution, which, e.g. do not include the case of a deterministic radius. Here we give a proof that does not rely on these assumptions. One of the tools to be used is a slight generalization of the model with immune regions and delayed initial infection configurations.

For stationary Poisson hyperplane tessellations in d-dimensional Euclidean space and a dimension k ∈ {1, …, d}, we investigate the typical k-face and the weighted typical k-face (weighted by k-dimensional volume), without isotropy assumptions on the tessellation. The case k = d concerns the previously studied typical cell and zero cell, respectively. For k < d, we first find the conditional distribution of the typical k-face or weighted typical k-face, given its direction. Then we investigate how the shapes of the faces are influenced by assumptions of different types: either via containment of convex bodies of given volume (including a new result for k = d), or, for weighted typical k-faces, in the spirit of D. G. Kendall's asymptotic problem, suitably generalized. In all these results on typical or weighted typical k-faces with given direction space L, the Blaschke body of the section process of the underlying hyperplane process with L plays a crucial role.

Consider the region L = {(x, y): 0 ≤ y ≤ Clog(1 + x), x > 0} for a constant C > 0. We study the percolation and coverage properties of this region. For the coverage properties, we place a Poisson point process of intensity λ on the entire half space R+ x R and associated with each Poisson point we place a box of a random side length ρ. Depending on the tail behaviour of the random variable ρ we exhibit a phase transition in the intensity for the eventual coverage of the region L. For the percolation properties, we place a Poisson point process of intensity λ on the region R2. At each point of the process we centre a box of a random side length ρ. In the case ρ ≤ R for some fixed R > 0 we study the critical intensity λc of the percolation on L.

The so-called STIT tessellations form a class of homogeneous (spatially stationary) tessellations in Rd which are stable under the nesting/iteration operation. In this paper we establish the mixing property for these tessellations and give the decay rate of P(A ∩ M = ∅, ThB ∩ M = ∅) / P(A ∩ Y = ∅)P(B ∩ Y = ∅) − 1, where A and B are both compact connected sets, h is a vector of Rd, Th is the corresponding translation operator, and M is a STIT tessellation.

We study stochastic properties of the empty space for stationary germ-grain models in Rd; in particular, we deal with the inner radius of the empty space with respect to a general structuring element which is allowed to be lower dimensional. We consider Poisson cluster and mixed Poisson germ-grain models, and show in several situations that more variability results in stochastically greater empty space in terms of the empty space hazard function. Furthermore, we study the asymptotic behaviour of the empty space hazard functions at 0 and at ∞.

Suppose that {Xt} is a Markov chain such as the state space model for a threshold GARCH time series. The regularity assumptions for a drift condition approach to establishing the ergodicity of {Xt} typically are ϕ-irreducibility, aperiodicity, and a minorization condition for compact sets. These can be very tedious to verify due to the discontinuous and singular nature of the Markov transition probabilities. We first demonstrate that, for Feller chains, the problem can at least be simplified to focusing on whether the process can reach some neighborhood that satisfies the minorization condition. The results are valid not just for the transition kernels of Markov chains but also for bounded positive kernels, opening the possibility for new ergodic results. More significantly, we show that threshold GARCH time series and related models of interest can often be embedded into Feller chains, allowing us to apply the conclusions above.

Tessellations of R3 that use convex polyhedral cells to fill the space can be extremely complicated. This is especially so for tessellations which are not ‘facet-to-facet’, that is, for those where the facets of a cell do not necessarily coincide with the facets of that cell's neighbours. Adjacency concepts between neighbouring cells (or between neighbouring cell elements) are not easily formulated when facets do not coincide. In this paper we make the first systematic study of these topological relationships when a tessellation of R3 is not facet-to-facet. The results derived can also be applied to the simpler facet-to-facet case. Our study deals with both random tessellations and deterministic ‘tilings’. Some new theory for planar tessellations is also given.

We consider the following stochastic model for a mobile service scenario. Consider a stationary Poisson process in Rd, with its points radially ordered with respect to the origin (the anchor); if d = 2, the points may correspond to locations of, e.g. restaurants. A user, with a location different from the origin, asks for the location of the first Poisson point and keeps asking for the location of the next Poisson point until the first time that he/she can be completely certain that he/she knows which Poisson point is his/her nearest neighbour. This waiting time is the communication cost, while the inferred privacy region is a random set obtained by an adversary who only knows the anchor and the points received from the server, where the adversary ‘does the best’ to infer the possible locations of the user. Probabilistic results related to the communication cost and the inferred privacy region are established for any dimension d ≥ 1. Furthermore, special results when d = 1 and particularly when d = 2 are derived.

We consider statistical inference for a parametric cooperative sequential adsorption model for spatial time series data, based on maximum likelihood. We establish asymptotic normality of the maximum likelihood estimator in the thermodynamic limit. We also perform and discuss some numerical simulations of the model, which illustrate the procedure for creating confidence intervals for large samples.

In many service, production, and traffic systems there are multiple types of customers requiring different types of ‘servers’, i.e. different services, products, or routes. Often, however, a proportion of the customers are flexible, i.e. they are willing to change their type in order to achieve faster service, and even if this proportion is small, it has the potential of achieving large performance gains. We generalize earlier results on the optimality of ‘join the shortest queue’ (JSQ) for flexible arrivals to the following: arbitrary arrivals where only a subset are flexible, multiple-server stations, and abandonments. Surprisingly, with abandonments, the optimality of JSQ for minimizing the number of customers in the system depends on the relative abandonment and service rates. We extend our model to finite buffers and resequencing. We assume exponential service. Our optimality results are very strong; we minimize the queue length process in the weak majorization sense.

We introduce a new 1-dependent percolation model to describe and analyze the spread of an epidemic on a general directed and locally finite graph. We assign a two-dimensional random weight vector to each vertex of the graph in such a way that the weights of different vertices are independent and identically distributed, but the two entries of the vector assigned to a vertex need not be independent. The probability for an edge to be open depends on the weights of its end vertices, but, conditionally on the weights, the states of the edges are independent of each other. In an epidemiological setting, the vertices of a graph represent the individuals in a (social) network and the edges represent the connections in the network. The weights assigned to an individual denote its (random) infectivity and susceptibility, respectively. We show that one can bound the percolation probability and the expected size of the cluster of vertices that can be reached by an open path starting at a given vertex from above by the corresponding quantities for independent bond percolation with a certain density; this generalizes a result of Kuulasmaa (1982). Many models in the literature are special cases of our general model.

In this paper we consider a risk model where claims arrive according to a Markovian arrival process (MAP). When the surplus becomes negative or the insurer is in deficit, the insurer could borrow money at a constant debit interest rate to repay the claims. We derive the integro-differential equations satisfied by the discounted penalty functions and discuss the solutions. A matrix renewal equation is obtained for the discounted penalty function provided that the initial surplus is nonnegative. Based on this matrix renewal equation, we present some asymptotic formulae for the discounted penalty functions when the claim size distributions are heavy tailed.

A forwards induction policy is a type of greedy algorithm for Markov decision processes. It is straightforward to implement and is optimal for a large class of models, especially in stochastic resource allocation. In this paper we consider a model for the optimal allocation of resources in pre-clinical pharmaceutical research. We show that although they are not always strictly optimal, forwards induction policies perform well.

Systems of stochastic chemical kinetics are modeled as infinite level-dependent quasi-birth-and-death (LDQBD) processes. For these systems, in contrast to many other applications, levels have an increasing number of states as the level number increases and the probability mass may reside arbitrarily far away from lower levels. Ideas from Lyapunov theory are combined with existing matrix-analytic formulations to obtain accurate approximations to the stationary probability distribution when the infinite LDQBD process is ergodic. Results of numerical experiments on a set of problems are provided.

Coalescents with multiple collisions (also called Λ-coalescents or simple exchangeable coalescents) are used as models of genealogies. We study a new class of Markovian coalescent processes connected to a population model with immigration. Consider an infinite population with immigration labelled at each generation by N := {1, 2, …}. Some ancestral lineages cannot be followed backwards after some time because their ancestor is outside the population. The individuals with an immigrant ancestor constitute a distinguished family and we define exchangeable distinguished coalescent processes as a model for genealogy with immigration, focusing on simple distinguished coalescents, i.e. such that when a coagulation occurs all the blocks involved merge as a single block. These processes are characterized by two finite measures on [0, 1] denoted by M = (Λ0, Λ1). We call them M-coalescents. We show by martingale arguments that the condition of coming down from infinity for the M-coalescent coincides with that obtained by Schweinsberg for the Λ-coalescent. In the same vein as Bertoin and Le Gall, M-coalescents are associated with some stochastic flows. The superprocess embedded can be viewed as a generalized Fleming-Viot process with immigration. The measures Λ0 and Λ1 respectively specify the reproduction and the immigration. The coming down from infinity of the M-coalescent will be interpreted as the initial types extinction: after a certain time all individuals are immigrant children.

Let η = (η1,…,ηn) be a positive random vector. If its coordinates ηi and ηj are exchangeable, i.e. the distribution of η is invariant with respect to the swap πij of its ith and jth coordinates, then Ef(η) = Ef(πijη) for all integrable functions f. In this paper we study integrable random vectors that satisfy this identity for a particular family of functions f, namely those which can be written as the positive part of the scalar product 〈u, η〉 with varying weights u. In finance such functions represent payoffs from exchange options with η being the random part of price changes, while from the geometric point of view they determine the support function of the so-called zonoid of η. If the expected values of such payoffs are πij-invariant, we say that η is ij-swap-invariant. A full characterisation of the swap-invariance property and its relationship to the symmetries of expected payoffs of basket options are obtained. The first of these results relies on a characterisation theorem for integrable positive random vectors with equal zonoids. Particular attention is devoted to the case of asset prices driven by Lévy processes. Based on this, concrete semi-static hedging techniques for multi-asset barrier options, such as weighted barrier swap options, weighted barrier quanto-swap options, or certain weighted barrier spread options, are suggested.

Within an anticipative stochastic calculus framework, we study a market game with asymmetric information and feedback effects. We derive necessary and sufficient criteria for the existence of Nash equilibria and study how general welfare is affected by the level of information. In particular, we show that, under certain conditions in a competitive environment, an increased level of information may in fact lower the level of general welfare, leading to the so-called Hirshleifer effect (see Hirshleifer (1971)). Finally, we determine equilibrium prices for particular pieces of information, by extending our market game with a pre-stage, in which information is traded.