The term moderate deviations is often used in the literature to mean a class of large deviation principles that, in some sense, fills the gap between a convergence in probability of some random variables to a constant, and a weak convergence to a centered Gaussian distribution (when such random variables are properly centered and rescaled). We talk about noncentral moderate deviations when the weak convergence is towards a non-Gaussian distribution. In this paper we prove a noncentral moderate deviation result for the bivariate sequence of sums and maxima of independent and identically distributed random variables bounded from above. We also prove a result where the random variables are not bounded from above, and the maxima are suitably normalized. Finally, we prove a moderate deviation result for sums of partial minima of independent and identically distributed exponential random variables.

Gaussian process regression is widely used to model an unknown function on a continuous domain by interpolating a discrete set of observed design points. We develop a theoretical framework for proving new moderate deviations inequalities on different types of error probabilities that arise in GP regression. Two specific examples of broad interest are the probability of falsely ordering pairs of points (incorrectly estimating one point as being better than another) and the tail probability of the estimation error at an arbitrary point. Our inequalities connect these probabilities to the mesh norm, which measures how well the design points fill the space.

In this work the $\ell_q$ -norms of points chosen uniformly at random in a centered regular simplex in high dimensions are studied. Berry–Esseen bounds in the regime $1\leq q < \infty$ are derived and complemented by a non-central limit theorem together with moderate and large deviations in the case where $q=\infty$ . An application to the intersection volume of a regular simplex with an $\ell_p^n$ -ball is also carried out.

We study, under mild conditions, the weak approximation constructed from a standard Poisson process for a class of Gaussian processes, and establish its sample path moderate deviations. The techniques consist of a good asymptotic exponential approximation in moderate deviations, the Besov–Lèvy modulus embedding, and an exponential martingale technique. Moreover, our results are applied to the weak approximations associated with the moving average of Brownian motion, fractional Brownian motion, and an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process.

We extend previous large deviations results for the randomised Heston model to the case of moderate deviations. The proofs involve the Gärtner–Ellis theorem and sharp large deviations tools.

Subsolutions to the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation associated with a moderate deviations approximation are used to design importance sampling changes of measure for stochastic recursive equations. Analogous to what has been done for large deviations subsolution-based importance sampling, these schemes are shown to be asymptotically optimal under the moderate deviations scaling. We present various implementations and numerical results to contrast their performance, and also discuss the circumstances under which a moderate deviation scaling might be appropriate.

In the present paper we prove moderate deviations for a Curie–Weiss model with external magnetic field generated by a dynamical system, as introduced by Dombry and Guillotin-Plantard in [C. Dombry and N. Guillotin-Plantard, Markov Process. Related Fields 15 (2009) 1–30]. The results extend those already obtained for the Curie–Weiss model without external field by Eichelsbacher and Löwe in [P. Eichelsbacher and M. Löwe, Markov Process. Related Fields 10 (2004) 345–366]. The Curie–Weiss model with dynamical external field is related to the so called dynamic ℤ-random walks (see [N. Guillotin-Plantard and R. Schott, Theory and applications, Elsevier B. V., Amsterdam (2006).]). We also prove a moderate deviation result for the dynamic ℤ-random walk, completing the list of limit theorems for this object.

This paper derives an explicit approximation for the tail probability of a sum of samplevalues taken without replacement from an unrestricted finite population. The approximationis shown to hold under no conditions in a wide range with relative error given in terms ofthe standardized absolute third moment of the population, β3N. This approximation is used to obtaina result comparable to the well-known Cramér large deviation result in the independentcase, but with no restrictions on the sampled population and an error term depending onlyon β3N. Application to permutation tests isinvestigated giving a new limit result for the tail conditional probability of thestatistic given order statistics under mild conditions. Some numerical results are givento illustrate the accuracy of the approximation by comparing our results to saddlepointapproximations requiring strong conditions.

We derive a moderate deviation principle for word counts (which is extended to counts of multiple patterns) in biological sequences under different models: independent and identically distributed letters, homogeneous Markov chains of order 1 and m, and, in view of the codon structure of DNA sequences, Markov chains with three different transition matrices. This enables us to approximate P-values for the number of word occurrences in DNA and protein sequences in a new manner.

We study two systems that are based on sums of weakly dependentBernoulli random variables that take values ± 1 with equalprobabilities. We show that already one step of the so-calledsoft decision parallel interference cancellation, used in the thirdgeneration of mobile telecommunication CDMA, is able to considerablyincrease the number of users such a system can host. We alsoconsider a variant of the well-known Hopfield model of neuralnetworks. We show that this variant proposed by Amari and Yanai[CITE] has a larger storage capacity than the original model. Both situations lead to the question of the moderatedeviations behavior of a sum of weakly dependent Bernoulli randomvariables. We prove a moderate deviations principle for such a sumon the appropriate scale.


Functionals of spatial point process often satisfy a weak spatial dependencecondition known as stabilization. In this paper we prove process level moderate deviation principles (MDP) for such functionals, which isa level-3 result for empirical point fields as well as a level-2 resultfor empirical point measures. The level-3 rate function coincides withthe so-called specific information. We show that the general resultcan be applied to prove MDPs for various particular functionals,including random sequential packing, birth-growth models, germ-grainmodels and nearest neighbor graphs. 


We establish a functional large deviation principle and a functional moderate deviation principle for Markov-modulated risk models with reinsurance by constructing an exponential martingale approach. Lundberg's estimate of the ruin time is also presented.

Variance reduction has always been a central issue in Monte Carlo experiments. Population Monte Carlo can be used to this effect, in that a mixture of importance functions, called a D-kernel, can be iterativelyoptimized to achieve the minimum asymptotic variance for a function of interest among all possible mixtures.The implementation of this iterative scheme is illustrated for the computation of the price of a Europeanoption in the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model. A Central Limit theorem as well as moderate deviations are established for the D-kernel Population Monte Carlo methodology.


We consider a constant rate traffic which shares a buffer with a random cross traffic. A first come first served or priority service discipline is applied at the buffer. After service at the first buffer the constant rate traffic moves to a play-out buffer. Both buffers provide service at constant rate and infinite waiting room. We investigate logarithmic large and moderate deviation asymptotics for the tail probabilities of the steady-state queue length distribution at the play-out buffer for long-range dependent cross traffic in critical loading. We characterize the asymptotic behavior of the cross traffic which leads to a large queue length at the play-out buffer and compare it to the one for renewal cross traffic.

We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for a sum of i.i.d.random variables $\sum_{i=1}^n X_i/b_n$ –where $\frac {b_n} n \downarrow 0$ ,but $\frac {b_n} {\sqrt n} \uparrow \infty$ – to satisfy a moderate deviationsprinciple. Moreover we show that this equivalence is a typical moderatedeviations phenomenon. It is not true in a large deviations regime.

We consider the estimation of Markov transition matrices by Bayes’ methods. We obtain large and moderate deviation principles for the sequence of Bayesian posterior distributions.