If you place a large number of points randomly in the unit square, what is the distribution of the radius of the largest circle containing no points? Of the smallest circle containing 4 points? Why do Brownian sample paths have local maxima but not points of increase, and how nearly do they have points of increase? Given two long strings of letters drawn i. i. d. from a finite alphabet, how long is the longest consecutive (resp. non-consecutive) substring appearing in both strings? If an imaginary particle performs a simple random walk on the vertices of a high-dimensional cube, how long does it take to visit every vertex? If a particle moves under the influence of a potential field and random perturbations of velocity, how long does it take to escape from a deep potential well? If cars on a freeway move with constant speed (random from car to car), what is the longest stretch of empty road you will see during a long journey? If you take a large i. i. d. sample from a 2-dimensional rotationally-invariant distribution, what is the maximum over all half-spaces of the deviation between the empirical and true distributions? These questions cover a wide cross-section of theoretical and applied probability. The common theme is that they all deal with maxima or min ima, in some sense.

If you place a large number of points randomly in the unit square, what is the distribution of the radius of the largest circle containing no points? Of the smallest circle containing 4 points? Why do Brownian sample paths have local maxima but not points of increase, and how nearly do they have points of increase? Given two long strings of letters drawn i. i. d. from a finite alphabet, how long is the longest consecutive (resp. non-consecutive) substring appearing in both strings? If an imaginary particle performs a simple random walk on the vertices of a high-dimensional cube, how long does it take to visit every vertex? If a particle moves under the influence of a potential field and random perturbations of velocity, how long does it take to escape from a deep potential well? If cars on a freeway move with constant speed (random from car to car), what is the longest stretch of empty road you will see during a long journey? If you take a large i. i. d. sample from a 2-dimensional rotationally-invariant distribution, what is the maximum over all half-spaces of the deviation between the empirical and true distributions? These questions cover a wide cross-section of theoretical and applied probability. The common theme is that they all deal with maxima or min ima, in some sense.

If you place a large number of points randomly in the unit square, what is the distribution of the radius of the largest circle containing no points? Of the smallest circle containing 4 points? Why do Brownian sample paths have local maxima but not points of increase, and how nearly do they have points of increase? Given two long strings of letters drawn i. i. d. from a finite alphabet, how long is the longest consecutive (resp. non-consecutive) substring appearing in both strings? If an imaginary particle performs a simple random walk on the vertices of a high-dimensional cube, how long does it take to visit every vertex? If a particle moves under the influence of a potential field and random perturbations of velocity, how long does it take to escape from a deep potential well? If cars on a freeway move with constant speed (random from car to car), what is the longest stretch of empty road you will see during a long journey? If you take a large i. i. d. sample from a 2-dimensional rotationally-invariant distribution, what is the maximum over all half-spaces of the deviation between the empirical and true distributions? These questions cover a wide cross-section of theoretical and applied probability. The common theme is that they all deal with maxima or min ima, in some sense.

In June 2010, a conference, Probability Approximations and Beyond, was held at the National University of Singapore (NUS), in honor of pioneering mathematician Louis Chen. Chen made the first of several seminal contributions to the theory and application of Stein’s method. One of his most important contributions has been to turn Stein’s concentration inequality idea into an effective tool for providing error bounds for the normal approximation in many settings, and in particular for sums of random variables exhibiting only local dependence. This conference attracted a large audience that came to pay homage to Chen and to hear presentations by colleagues who have worked with him in special ways over the past 40+ years. The papers in this volume attest to how Louis Chen’s cutting-edge ideas influenced and continue to influence such areas as molecular biology and computer science. He has developed applications of his work on Poisson approximation to problems of signal detection in computational biology. The original papers contained in this book provide historical context for Chen’s work alongside commentary on some of his major contributions by noteworthy statisticians and mathematicians working today.

Since its introduction in 1972, Stein’s method has offered a completely novel way of evaluating the quality of normal approximations. Through its characterizing equation approach, it is able to provide approximation error bounds in a wide variety of situations, even in the presence of complicated dependence. Use of the method thus opens the door to the analysis of random phenomena arising in areas including statistics, physics, and molecular biology. Though Stein's method for normal approximation is now mature, the literature has so far lacked a complete self contained treatment. This volume contains thorough coverage of the method’s fundamentals, includes a large number of recent developments in both theory and applications, and will help accelerate the appreciation, understanding, and use of Stein's method by providing the reader with the tools needed to apply it in new situations. It addresses researchers as well as graduate students in Probability, Statistics and Combinatorics.

"Et moi, ..., si j'avait su comment en revenir, je One service mathematics bas rendered the human race. It bas put common sense back n'y serais point all .' where it belongs, on the topmost shelf next to lu1esVeme the dusty canister labelled 'discarded nonsense' Eric T. Bell 1be series is divergent; therefore we may be able to do something with it O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and nonlineari- ties abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sci- ences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One ser- vice topology has rendered mathematical physics ... '; 'One service logic has rendered computer science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d 'etre of this series.