In this paper we consider an inventory system with increasing concave ordering cost and average cost optimization criterion. The demand process is modeled as a Brownian motion. Porteus (1971) studied a discrete-time version of this problem and under the strong condition that the demand distribution belongs to the class of densities that are finite convolutions of uniform and/or exponential densities (note that normal density does not belong to this class), an optimal control policy is a generalized (s, S) policy consisting of a sequence of (si, Si). Using a lower bound approach, we show that an optimal control policy for the Brownian inventory model is determined by a single pair (s, S).

The multi-level Monte Carlo method proposed by Giles (2008) approximates the expectation of some functionals applied to a stochastic process with optimal order of convergence for the mean-square error. In this paper a modified multi-level Monte Carlo estimator is proposed with significantly reduced computational costs. As the main result, it is proved that the modified estimator reduces the computational costs asymptotically by a factor (p / α)2 if weak approximation methods of orders α and p are applied in the case of computational costs growing with the same order as the variances decay.

We consider long-run averages of additive functionals on infinite discrete-state Markov chains, either continuous or discrete in time. Special cases include long-run average costs or rewards, stationary moments of the components of ergodic multi-dimensional Markov chains, queueing network performance measures, and many others. By exploiting Foster-Lyapunov-type criteria involving drift conditions for the finiteness of long-run averages we determine suitable finite subsets of the state space such that the truncation error is bounded. Illustrative examples demonstrate the application of this method.

We study the convergence of centered and normalized sums of independent and identically distributed random elements of the space D of càdlàg functions endowed with Skorokhod's J1 topology, to stable distributions in D. Our results are based on the concept of regular variation on metric spaces and on point process convergence. We provide some applications; in particular, to the empirical process of the renewal-reward process.

As a class of optimal stopping problems with monotone thresholds, we define the candidate-choice problem (CCP) and derive two formulae for calculating its expected payoff. We apply the first formula to a particular CCP, i.e. the best-choice duration problem treated by Ferguson et al. (1992). The recall case is also examined as a comparison. We also derive the distribution of the stopping time of the CCP and find, as a by-product, that the best-choice problem has a remarkable feature in that the optimal probability of choosing the best is just the expected value of the (proportional) stopping time. The similarity between the best-choice duration problem and the best-choice problem with uniform freeze studied by Samuel-Cahn (1996) is recognized.

In this paper we analyse the fractional Poisson process where the state probabilities pkνk(t), t ≥ 0, are governed by time-fractional equations of order 0 < νk ≤ 1 depending on the number k of events that have occurred up to time t. We are able to obtain explicitly the Laplace transform of pkνk(t) and various representations of state probabilities. We show that the Poisson process with intermediate waiting times depending on νk differs from that constructed from the fractional state equations (in the case of νk = ν, for all k, they coincide with the time-fractional Poisson process). We also introduce a different form of fractional state-dependent Poisson process as a weighted sum of homogeneous Poisson processes. Finally, we consider the fractional birth process governed by equations with state-dependent fractionality.

We consider the stochastic Allen-Cahn equation perturbed by smooth additive Gaussian noise in a spatial domain with smooth boundary in dimension d ≤ 3, and study the semidiscretization in time of the equation by an implicit Euler method. We show that the method converges pathwise with a rate O(Δtγ) for any γ < ½. We also prove that the scheme converges uniformly in the strong Lp-sense but with no rate given.

We study k-divisible partition structures, which are families of random set partitions whose block sizes are divisible by an integer k = 1, 2, …. In this setting, exchangeability corresponds to the usual invariance under relabeling by arbitrary permutations; however, for k > 1, the ordinary deletion maps on partitions no longer preserve divisibility, and so a random deletion procedure is needed to obtain a partition structure. We describe explicit Chinese restaurant-type seating rules for generating families of exchangeable k-divisible partitions that are consistent under random deletion. We further introduce the notion of Markovian partition structures, which are ensembles of exchangeable Markov chains on k-divisible partitions that are consistent under a random process of Markovian deletion. The Markov chains we study are reversible and refine the class of Markov chains introduced in Crane (2011).

The standard Hawkes process is constructed from a homogeneous Poisson process and uses the same exciting function for different generations of offspring. We propose an extension of this process by considering different exciting functions. This consideration may be important in a number of fields; e.g. in seismology, where main shocks produce aftershocks with possibly different intensities. The main results are devoted to the asymptotic behavior of this extension of the Hawkes process. Indeed, a law of large numbers and a central limit theorem are stated. These results allow us to analyze the asymptotic behavior of the process when unpredictable marks are considered.

We extend the Kalman-Bucy filter to the case where both the system and observation processes are driven by finite dimensional Lévy processes, but whereas the process driving the system dynamics is square-integrable, that driving the observations is not; however it remains integrable. The main result is that the components of the observation noise that have infinite variance make no contribution to the filtering equations. The key technique used is approximation by processes having bounded jumps.

In this paper we analyze a tollbooth tandem queueing problem with an infinite number of servers. A customer starts service immediately upon arrival but cannot leave the system before all customers who arrived before him/her have left, i.e. customers depart the system in the same order as they arrive. Distributions of the total number of customers in the system, the number of departure-delayed customers in the system, and the number of customers in service at time t are obtained in closed form. Distributions of the sojourn times and departure delays of customers are also obtained explicitly. Both transient and steady state solutions are derived first for Poisson arrivals, and then extended to cases with batch Poisson and nonstationary Poisson arrival processes. Finally, we report several stochastic ordering results on how system performance measures are affected by arrival and service processes.

We consider the time behaviour associated to the sequential Monte Carlo estimate of the backward interpretation of Feynman-Kac formulae. This is particularly of interest in the context of performing smoothing for hidden Markov models. We prove a central limit theorem under weaker assumptions than adopted in the literature. We then show that the associated asymptotic variance expression for additive functionals grows at most linearly in time under hypotheses that are weaker than those currently existing in the literature. The assumptions are verified for some hidden Markov models.

In this paper we characterize the mean and the distribution of the first exit time of a Lévy flight from a bounded region in N-dimensional spaces. We characterize tight upper and lower bounds on the tail distribution of the first exit time, and provide the exact asymptotics of the mean first exit time for a given range of step-length distribution parameters.

A compound Poisson process whose randomized time is an independent Poisson process is called a compound Poisson process with Poisson subordinator. We provide its probability distribution, which is expressed in terms of the Bell polynomials, and investigate in detail both the special cases in which the compound Poisson process has exponential jumps and normal jumps. Then for the iterated Poisson process we discuss some properties and provide convergence results to a Poisson process. The first-crossing time problem for the iterated Poisson process is finally tackled in the cases of (i) a decreasing and constant boundary, where we provide some closed-form results, and (ii) a linearly increasing boundary, where we propose an iterative procedure to compute the first-crossing time density and survival functions.

Let {X(s, t): s, t ≥ 0} be a centred homogeneous Gaussian field with almost surely continuous sample paths and correlation function r(s, t) = cov(X(s, t), X(0, 0)) such that r(s, t) = 1 - |s|α1 - |t|α2 + o(|s|α1 + |t|α2), s, t → 0, with α1, α2 ∈ (0, 2], and r(s, t) < 1 for (s, t) ≠ (0, 0). In this contribution we derive an asymptotic expansion (as u → ∞) of P(sup(sn1(u),tn2(u)) ∈[0,x]∙[0,y]X(s, t) ≤ u), where n1(u)n2(u) = u2/α1+2/α2Ψ(u), which holds uniformly for (x, y) ∈ [A, B]2 with A, B two positive constants and Ψ the survival function of an N(0, 1) random variable. We apply our findings to the analysis of extremes of homogeneous Gaussian fields over more complex parameter sets and a ball of random radius. Additionally, we determine the extremal index of the discretised random field determined by X(s, t).

Predictability of revenue and costs to both operators and users is critical for payment schemes. We study the issue of the design of payment schemes in networks with bandwidth sharing. The model we consider is a processor sharing system that is accessed by various classes of users with different processing requirements or file sizes. The users are charged according to a Vickrey–Clarke–Groves mechanism because of its efficiency and fairness when logarithmic utility functions are involved. Subject to a given mean revenue for the operator, we study whether it is preferable for a user to pay upon arrival, depending on the congestion level, or whether the user should opt to pay at the end. This leads to a study of the volatility of payment schemes and we show that opting for prepayment is preferable from a user point of view. The analysis yields new results on the asymptotic behavior of conditional response times for processor sharing systems and connections to associated orthogonal polynomials.

Let W = {Wn: n ∈ N} be a sequence of random vectors in Rd, d ≥ 1. In this paper we consider the logarithmic asymptotics of the extremes of W, that is, for any vector q > 0 in Rd, we find that logP(there exists n ∈ N: Wnuq) as u → ∞. We follow the approach of the restricted large deviation principle introduced in Duffy (2003). That is, we assume that, for every q ≥ 0, and some scalings {an}, {vn}, (1 / vn)logP(Wn / an ≥ uq) has a, continuous in q, limit JW(q). We allow the scalings {an} and {vn} to be regularly varying with a positive index. This approach is general enough to incorporate sequences W, such that the probability law of Wn / an satisfies the large deviation principle with continuous, not necessarily convex, rate functions. The equations for these asymptotics are in agreement with the literature.

Consider a spectrally negative risk process where, on ruin, the deficit is immediately paid, and the process restarts from 0. When the process reaches a threshold b, all the surplus above b is paid as dividend. Applying the theory of exit times for a spectrally negative Lévy process and its reflection at the maximum and at the minimum, we obtain recursive formulae for the following moments. (i) The moments of the discounted loss until the process reaches b. This is equivalent to the moments of the discounted dividends in the dual model under the barrier strategy. (ii) The moments of the discounted loss for models with and without a dividend barrier for the infinite horizon. (iii) The moments of the discounted dividends for the infinite horizon.

We deal with a random graph model evolving in discrete time steps by duplicating and deleting the edges of randomly chosen vertices. We prove the existence of an almost surely asymptotic degree distribution, with stretched exponential decay; more precisely, the proportion of vertices of degree d tends to some positive number cd > 0 almost surely as the number of steps goes to ∞, and cd ~ (eπ)1/2d1/4e-2√d holds as d → ∞.

In this paper we give an extension of the results of the generalized waiting time problem given by El-Desouky and Hussen (1990). An urn contains m types of balls of unequal numbers, and balls are drawn with replacement until first duplication. In the case of finite memory of order k, let ni be the number of type i, i = 1, 2, …, m. The probability of success pi = ni/N, i = 1, 2, …, m, where ni is a positive integer and Let Ym,k be the number of drawings required until first duplication. We obtain some new expressions of the probability function, in terms of Stirling numbers, symmetric polynomials, and generalized harmonic numbers. Moreover, some special cases are investigated. Finally, some important new combinatorial identities are obtained.