There are some connections between aging notions, stochastic orders, and expected utilities. It is known that the DRHR (decreasing reversed hazard rate) aging notion can be characterized via the comparative statics result of risk aversion, and that the location-independent riskier order preserves monotonicity between risk premium and the Arrow–Pratt measure of risk aversion, and that the dispersive order preserves this monotonicity for the larger class of increasing utilities. Here, the aging notions ILR (increasing likelihood ratio), IFR (increasing failure rate), IGLR (increasing generalized likelihood ratio), and IGFR (increasing generalized failure rate) are characterized in terms of expected utilities. Based on these observations, we recover the closure properties of ILR, IFR, and DRHR under convolution, and of IGLR and IGFR under product, and investigate the closure properties of the dispersive order, location-independent riskier order, excess wealth order, the total time on test transform order under convolution, and the star order under product. We have some new findings.

Let $V_{(r,n,\tilde {m}_n,k)}^{(p)}$ and $W_{(r,n,\tilde {m}_n,k)}^{(p)}$ be the $p$-spacings of generalized order statistics based on absolutely continuous distribution functions $F$ and $G$, respectively. Imposing some conditions on $F$ and $G$ and assuming that $m_1=\cdots =m_{n-1}$, Hu and Zhuang (2006. Stochastic orderings between p-spacings of generalized order statistics from two samples. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences 20: 475) established $V_{(r,n,\tilde {m}_n,k)}^{(p)} \leq _{{\rm hr}} W_{(r,n,\tilde {m}_n,k)}^{(p)}$ for $p=1$ and left the case $p\geq 2$ as an open problem. In this article, we not only resolve it but also give the result for unequal $m_i$'s. It is worth mentioning that this problem has not been proved even for ordinary order statistics so far.

The new reliability notion describing the remaining lifetime is introduced for items with monotonically increasing degradation. We consider the remaining lifetime of an item (to be called, the predicted remaining lifetime) after its degradation reaches the predetermined level. The prediction is executed at inception of an item into operation. For the nonhomogeneous stochastic processes of degradation, this characteristic depends on the random first passage time of a degradation process. Some properties of the predicted remaining lifetime and the corresponding stochastic comparisons are discussed for items from homogeneous and heterogeneous populations, and a generalization to the case of the n-component coherent system is outlined. The problem of regime switching is described, and the new notion of the corresponding virtual age after the switching is proposed.

Variability orderings indicate that one probability distribution is more spread out or dispersed than another. Here variability orderings are considered that are preserved under conditioning on a common subset. One density f on the real line is said to be less than or equal to another, g, in uniform conditional variability order (UCVO) if the ratio f(x)/g(x) is unimodal with the model yielding a supremum, but f and g are not stochastically ordered. Since the unimodality is preserved under scalar multiplication, the associated conditional densities are ordered either by UCVO or by ordinary stochastic order. If f and g have equal means, then UCVO implies the standard variability ordering determined by the expectation of all convex functions. The UCVO property often can be easily checked by seeing if f(x)/g(x) is log-concave. This is illustrated in a comparison of open and closed queueing network models.

Several partial orderings of counting processes are introduced and applied to compare stochastic processes in queueing models. The conditions for the queueing comparisons involve the counting processes associated with the interarrival and service times. The two queueing processes being compared are constructed on the same probability space so that each sample path of one process lies below the corresponding sample path of the other process. Stochastic comparisons between the processes and monotone functionals of the processes follow immediately from this construction. The stochastic comparisons are useful to obtain bounds for intractable systems. For example, the approach here yields bounds for queues with time-dependent arrival rates.

In 1969 H. and D. Stoyan showed that the stationary waiting-time distribution in a GI/G/1 queue increases in the ordering determined by the expected value of all non-decreasing convex functions when the interarrival-time and service-time distributions become more variable, as expressed in the ordering determined by the expected value of all convex functions. Ross (1978) and Wolff (1977) showed by counterexample that this conclusion does not extend to all GI/G/s queues. Here it is shown that this conclusion does hold for all GI/G/s queues for several other measures of congestion which coincide with the waiting time in single-server systems. One such alternate measure of congestion is the clearing time, the time required after the arrival epoch of the nth customer for the system to serve all customers in the system at that time, excluding the nth customer. The stochastic comparisons also imply an ordering for the expected waiting times in M/G/s queues.

We compare two queueing systems with the same number of servers that differ by having stochastically ordered service times and/or interarrival times as well as different waiting room capacities. We establish comparisons for the sequences of actual-arrival and departure epochs, and demonstrate by counterexample that many stochastic comparisons possible with infinite waiting rooms no longer hold with finite waiting rooms.

We compare two queueing systems with identical general arrival streams, but different numbers of servers, different waiting room capacities, and stochastically ordered service time distributions. Under appropriate conditions, it is possible to construct two new systems on the same probability space so that the new systems are probabilistically equivalent to the original systems and each sample path of the stochastic process representing system size in one system lies entirely below the corresponding sample path in the other system. This construction implies stochastic order for these processes and many associated quantities of interest, such as a busy period, the number of customers lost in any interval, and the virtual waiting time.