We study the asymptotic behaviour of the expectation of the maxima and minima of a random assignment process generated by a large matrix with multinomial entries. A variety of results is obtained for different sparsity regimes.

This article derives quantitative limit theorems for multivariate Poisson and Poisson process approximations. Employing the solution of the Stein equation for Poisson random variables, we obtain an explicit bound for the multivariate Poisson approximation of random vectors in the Wasserstein distance. The bound is then utilized in the context of point processes to provide a Poisson process approximation result in terms of a new metric called $d_\pi$ , stronger than the total variation distance, defined as the supremum over all Wasserstein distances between random vectors obtained by evaluating the point processes on arbitrary collections of disjoint sets. As applications, the multivariate Poisson approximation of the sum of m-dependent Bernoulli random vectors, the Poisson process approximation of point processes of U-statistic structure, and the Poisson process approximation of point processes with Papangelou intensity are considered. Our bounds in $d_\pi$ are as good as those already available in the literature.

Network centrality has been addressed for more than 30 years; however, few studies provided statistical tests for verifying this network characteristic. By applying the idea of focus test in spatial analysis, we propose a statistical method to test the centrality of a network. We consider not only the degree of node, but also give weights on other nodes with different lengths of the shortest paths, which are called “distances” in networks. According to the density of distance based on the hidden variable model and the property of the multinomial distribution, a test statistic called “focus centrality” is provided to evaluate a network centrality. Besides the theoretical construction, we verify that the proposed method is feasible and effective in the simulation studies. Further, two empirical network data are studied as demonstrations.

In this paper we study different types of planar random motions (performed with constant velocity) with three directions, defined by the vectors dj = (cos(2πj/3), sin(2πj/3)) for j = 0, 1, 2, changing at Poisson-paced times. We examine the cyclic motion (where the change of direction is deterministic), the completely uniform motion (where at each Poisson event each direction can be taken with probability ) and the symmetrically deviating case (where the particle can choose all directions except that taken before the Poisson event). For each of the above random motions we derive the explicit distribution of the position of the particle, by using an approach based on order statistics. We prove that the densities obtained are solutions of the partial differential equations governing the processes. We are also able to give the explicit distributions on the boundary and, for the case of the symmetrically deviating motion, we can write it as the distribution of a telegraph process. For the symmetrically deviating motion we use a generalization of the Bose-Einstein statistics in order to determine the distribution of the triple (N0, N1, N2) (conditional on N(t) = k, with N0 + N1 + N2 = N(t) + 1, where N(t) is the number of Poisson events in [0, t]), where Nj denotes the number of times the direction dj (j = 0, 1, 2) is taken. Possible extensions to four directions or more are briefly considered.

In a given set, the elements are compared pairwise. The number W of similar pairs is studied, that is, the number of pairs with a certain property in common. Under certain conditions, W has, approximately, a Poisson distribution. Examples are considered connected with the birthday problem and with a circle problem involving DNA breakages.

It has been recently proved that if N, X1, X2, … are non-constant mutually independent random variables with X1,X2, … identically distributed and N non-negative and integer-valued, then the independence of and implies that X1 is Bernoulli and N is Poisson. A well-known theorem in point process theory due to Fichtner characterizes a Poisson process in terms of a sum of independent thinnings. In the present article, simultaneous generalizations of both of these results are provided, including a joint characterization of the multinomial distribution and the Poisson process.

An urn contains A balls of each of N colours. At random n balls are drawn in succession without replacement, with replacement or with replacement together with S new balls of the same colour. Let Xk be the number of drawn balls having colour k, k = 1, …, N. For a given function f the characteristic function of the random variable ZM = f(X1)+ … + f(XM), M ≦ N, is derived. A limit theorem for ZM when M, N, n → ∞is proved by a general method. The theorem covers many special cases discussed separately in the literature. As applications of the theorem limit distributions are obtained for some occupancy problems and for dispersion statistics for the binomial, Poisson and negative-binomial distribution.

A stochastic distance measure is defined for a general diffusion process on a parameter space X. This distance is defined by where (gij) is the inverse of the covariance matrix of the diffusion equation. This permits the study of the geometry associated with a diffusion equation, since the matrix (gij) is the fundamental tensor of the Riemannian space (X, gij), and of a diffusion process in terms of Brownian motion. For the diffusion equation approximation to random drift with n alleles the covariance matrix is that of a multinomial distribution. The resulting stochastic distance is equal to twice the genetic distance as defined by Cavalli-Sforza and Edwards and is a generalization of the angular transformation of Fisher to n alleles. The geometry associated with the diffusion equation for random drift with n alleles is that of a part of an (n − 1)-sphere of radius two. We also show that the diffusion equation for random drift is not spherical Brownian motion, although it is approximated by it near the centroid of frequency space.