At each point of a Poisson point process of intensity λ in the hyperbolic plane, center a ball of bounded random radius. Consider the probability Pr that, from a fixed point, there is some direction in which one can reach distance r without hitting any ball. It is known (see Benjamini, Jonasson, Schramm and Tykesson (2009)) that if λ is strictly smaller than a critical intensity λgv thenPr does not go to 0 as r → ∞. The main result in this note shows that in the case λ=λgv, the probability of reaching a distance larger than r decays essentially polynomially, while if λ>λgv, the decay is exponential. We also extend these results to various related models and we finally obtain asymptotic results in several situations.

In this paper we introduce two new classes of stationary random simplicial tessellations, the so-called $\beta$ - and $\beta^{\prime}$ -Delaunay tessellations. Their construction is based on a space–time paraboloid hull process and generalizes that of the classical Poisson–Delaunay tessellation. We explicitly identify the distribution of volume-power-weighted typical cells, establishing thereby a remarkable connection to the classes of $\beta$ - and $\beta^{\prime}$ -polytopes. These representations are used to determine the principal characteristics of such cells, including volume moments, expected angle sums, and cell intensities.

We are interested in a large queue in a GI/G/k queue with heterogeneous servers. For this, we consider tail asymptotics and weak limit approximations for the stationary distribution of its queue length process in continuous time under a stability condition. Here, two weak limit approximations are considered. One is when the variances of the interarrival and/or service times are bounded, and the other is when they become large. Both require a heavy-traffic condition. Tail asymptotics and heavy-traffic approximations have been separately studied in the literature. We develop a unified approach based on a martingale produced by a good test function for a Markov process to answer both problems.

Particles enter a state space at random times. Each particle travels in the space independent of the other particles until its death. Functionals of the particle system are studied with strong laws and central limit theorems being obtained.

By making use of the geometric properties of simplex shape spaces, this paper investigates the problems relating to the estimation of the Fréchet means of the random shapes of simplices in Euclidean spaces and also, for the random shapes induced by certain normally distributed simplices, the problems relating to the location of these Fréchet means. In particular, we obtain an algorithm for computing sample mean shapes in simplex shape spaces which converges reasonably fast.

In this paper we consider the asymptotics of logarithmic tails of a perpetuity R=D∑j=1∞Qj∏k=1j-1Mk, where (Mn,Qn)n=1∞ are independent and identically distributed copies of (M,Q), for the case when ℙ(M∈[0,1))=1 and Q has all exponential moments. If M and Q are independent, under regular variation assumptions, we find the precise asymptotics of -logℙ(R>x) as x→∞. Moreover, we deal with the case of dependent M and Q, and give asymptotic bounds for -logℙ(R>x). It turns out that the dependence structure between M and Q has a significant impact on the asymptotic rate of logarithmic tails of R. Such a phenomenon is not observed in the case of heavy-tailed perpetuities.

In this paper, we give an alternative derivation of Kendall's representation for symmetric transition functions which relies on the backward and/or forward integral recursions. The proof uses a lemma concerning approximation by finite sections (which is useful in its own right) and is similar to the original proof for birth and death processes by Lederman and Reuter. Finally, we obtain a general result guaranteeing the existence of representations of transition functions such as those obtained by Pruitt and Iglehart.

The continuum random cluster model is a Gibbs modification of the standard Boolean model with intensity z > 0 and law of radii Q. The formal unnormalised density is given by q N cc , where q is a fixed parameter and N cc is the number of connected components in the random structure. We prove for a large class of parameters that percolation occurs for large enough z and does not occur for small enough z. We provide an application to the phase transition of the Widom–Rowlinson model with random radii. Our main tools are stochastic domination properties, a detailed study of the interaction of the model, and a Fortuin–Kasteleyn representation.

We study partial hedging for game options in markets with transaction costs bounded from below. More precisely, we assume that the investor's transaction costs for each trade are the maximum between proportional transaction costs and a fixed transaction cost. We prove that in the continuous-time Black‒Scholes (BS) model, there exists a trading strategy which minimizes the shortfall risk. Furthermore, we use binomial models in order to provide numerical schemes for the calculation of the shortfall risk and the corresponding optimal portfolio in the BS model.

In this paper we consider linear functions constructed on two different weighted branching processes and provide explicit bounds for their Kantorovich–Rubinstein distance in terms of couplings of their corresponding generic branching vectors. Motivated by applications to the analysis of random graphs, we also consider a variation of the weighted branching process where the generic branching vector has a different dependence structure from the usual one. By applying the bounds to sequences of weighted branching processes, we derive sufficient conditions for the convergence in the Kantorovich–Rubinstein distance of linear functions. We focus on the case where the limits are endogenous fixed points of suitable smoothing transformations.

This paper is devoted to probabilistic cellular automata (PCAs) on N,Z or Z / nZ, depending on two neighbors with a general alphabet E (finite or infinite, discrete or not). We study the following question: under which conditions does a PCA possess a Markov chain as an invariant distribution? Previous results in the literature give some conditions on the transition matrix (for positive rate PCAs) when the alphabet E is finite. Here we obtain conditions on the transition kernel of a PCA with a general alphabet E. In particular, we show that the existence of an invariant Markov chain is equivalent to the existence of a solution to a cubic integral equation. One of the difficulties in passing from a finite alphabet to a general alphabet comes from the problem of measurability, and a large part of this work is devoted to clarifying these issues.

Conditions are derived for the asymptotic normality of a general class of vector-valued functionals of stationary Boolean models in the d-dimensional Euclidean space, where a Lindeberg-type central limit theorem for m-dependent random fields, m ∈ N, is applied. These functionals can be used to construct joint estimators for the vector of specific intrinsic volumes of the underlying Boolean model. Extensions to functionals of more general germ–grain models satisfying some mixing and integrability conditions are also discussed.

A result relating the probability that kth customer finds the system empty to the distribution of the number of customers served in a busy period, for an M/M/1 queue, has been obtained. This relationship is similar to the relationship between the probability that the queue is empty at time t and the distribution of the length of the busy period.

In this paper we study the fighter problem with discrete ammunition. An aircraft (fighter) equipped with n anti-aircraft missiles is intercepted by enemy airplanes, the appearance of which follows a homogeneous Poisson process with known intensity. If j of the n missiles are spent at an encounter, they destroy an enemy plane with probability a(j), where a(0) = 0 and {a(j)} is a known, strictly increasing concave sequence, e.g. a(j) = 1 - qj, 0 < q < 1. If the enemy is not destroyed, the enemy shoots the fighter down with known probability 1 - u, where 0 ≤ u ≤ 1. The goal of the fighter is to shoot down as many enemy airplanes as possible during a given time period [0, T]. Let K(n, t) be the smallest optimal number of missiles to be used at a present encounter, when the fighter has flying time t remaining and n missiles remaining. Three seemingly obvious properties of K(n, t) have been conjectured: (A) the closer to the destination, the more of the n missiles one should use; (B) the more missiles one has; the more one should use; and (C) the more missiles one has, the more one should save for possible future encounters. We show that (C) holds for all 0 ≤ u ≤ 1, that (A) and (B) hold for the ‘invincible fighter’ (u = 1), and that (A) holds but (B) fails for the ‘frail fighter’ (u = 0); the latter is shown through a surprising counterexample, which is also valid for small u > 0 values.

Copulas provide a powerful and flexible tool for modeling the dependence structure of random vectors, and they have many applications in finance, insurance, engineering, hydrology, and other fields. One well-known class of copulas in two dimensions is the Farlie–Gumbel–Morgenstern (FGM) copula, since its simple analytic shape enables closed-form solutions to many problems in applied probability. However, the classical definition of the high-dimensional FGM copula does not enable a straightforward understanding of the effect of the copula parameters on the dependence, nor a geometric understanding of their admissible range. We circumvent this issue by analyzing the FGM copula from a probabilistic approach based on multivariate Bernoulli distributions. This paper examines high-dimensional exchangeable FGM copulas, a subclass of FGM copulas. We show that the dependence parameters of exchangeable FGM copulas can be expressed as a convex hull of a finite number of extreme points. We also leverage the probabilistic interpretation to develop efficient sampling and estimating procedures and provide a simulation study. Throughout, we discover geometric interpretations of the copula parameters that assist one in decoding the dependence of high-dimensional exchangeable FGM copulas.

We study the long-term behaviour of a random walker embedded in a growing sequence of graphs. We define a (generally non-Markovian) real-valued stochastic process, called the knowledge process, that represents the ratio between the number of vertices already visited by the walker and the current size of the graph. We mainly focus on the case where the underlying graph sequence is the growing sequence of complete graphs.

The practically important classes of equal-input and of monotone Markov matrices are revisited, with special focus on embeddability, infinite divisibility, and mutual relations. Several uniqueness results for the classic Markov embedding problem are obtained in the process. To achieve our results, we need to employ various algebraic and geometric tools, including commutativity, permutation invariance, and convexity. Of particular relevance in several demarcation results are Markov matrices that are idempotents.

Analytic approximations are derived for the distribution of the first crossing time of a straight-line boundary by a d-dimensional Bessel process and its discrete time analogue. The main ingredient for the approximations is the conditional probability that the process crossed the boundary before time m, given its location beneath the boundary at time m. The boundary crossing probability is of interest as the significance level and power of a sequential test comparing d+1 treatments using an O'Brien-Fleming (1979) stopping boundary (see Betensky 1996). Also, it is shown by DeLong (1980) to be the limiting distribution of a nonparametric test statistic for multiple regression. The approximations are compared with exact values from the literature and with values from a Monte Carlo simulation.

Discounted dynamic programming problems whose transition mechanism depends only on the action taken and does not depend on the current state are considered. A value determination operation and method of obtaining optimal policies for the case of finite action space (and arbitrary state space) are presented.

The solution of other problems is reduced to this special case by a suitable transformation. Results are illustrated by examples.

The theory of geometric probabilities is concerned with randomly generated geometric objects. The aim is to compute probabilities of certain geometric events or distributions of random variables defined in a geometric way. Very often the computation even of simple expectations is too difficult, and one has to be satisfied with establishing estimates and, if possible, sharp inequalities. In geometric probabilities, convex sets play a prominent role, since often the convexity assumptions simplify the situation considerably. Extremal problems for geometric probabilities involving convex bodies can sometimes be attacked successfully by using suitable integral-geometric transformations and then applying classical inequalities from the geometry of convex bodies, or known methods for obtaining such inequalities. Examples of such results are the topic of this paper.