This book covers the history and recent developments of stochastic computing. Stochastic computing (SC) was first introduced in the 1960s for logic circuit design, but its origin can be traced back to von Neumann's work on probabilistic logic. In SC, real numbers are encoded by random binary bit streams, and information is carried on the statistics of the binary streams. SC offers advantages such as hardware simplicity and fault tolerance. Its promise in data processing has been shown in applications including neural computation, decoding of error-correcting codes, image processing, spectral transforms and reliability analysis. There are three main parts to this book. The first part, comprising Chapters 1 and 2, provides a history of the technical developments in stochastic computing and a tutorial overview of the field for both novice and seasoned stochastic computing researchers. In the second part, comprising Chapters 3 to 8, we review both well-established and emerging design approaches for stochastic computing systems, with a focus on accuracy, correlation, sequence generation, and synthesis. The last part, comprising Chapters 9 and 10, provides insights into applications in machine learning and error-control coding.

With the advance of new computing technology, simulation is becoming very popular for designing large, complex and stochastic engineering systems, since closed-form analytical solutions generally do not exist for such problems. However, the added flexibility of simulation often creates models that are computationally intractable. Moreover, to obtain a sound statistical estimate at a specified level of confidence, a large number of simulation runs (or replications) is usually required for each design alternative. If the number of design alternatives is large, the total simulation cost can be very expensive. Stochastic Simulation Optimization addresses the pertinent efficiency issue via smart allocation of computing resource in the simulation experiments for optimization, and aims to provide academic researchers and industrial practitioners with a comprehensive coverage of OCBA approach for stochastic simulation optimization. Starting with an intuitive explanation of computing budget allocation and a discussion of its impact on optimization performance, a series of OCBA approaches developed for various problems are then presented, from the selection of the best design to optimization with multiple objectives. Finally, this book discusses the potential extension of OCBA notion to different applications such as data envelopment analysis, experiments of design and rare-event simulation.

This book addresses stochastic optimization procedures in a broad manner. The first part offers an overview of relevant optimization philosophies; the second deals with benchmark problems in depth, by applying a selection of optimization procedures. Written primarily with scientists and students from the physical and engineering sciences in mind, this book addresses a larger community of all who wish to learn about stochastic optimization techniques and how to use them.

"Constructive Computation in Stochastic Models with Applications: The RG-Factorizations" provides a unified, constructive and algorithmic framework for numerical computation of many practical stochastic systems. It summarizes recent important advances in computational study of stochastic models from several crucial directions, such as stationary computation, transient solution, asymptotic analysis, reward processes, decision processes, sensitivity analysis as well as game theory. Graduate students, researchers and practicing engineers in the field of operations research, management sciences, applied probability, computer networks, manufacturing systems, transportation systems, insurance and finance, risk management and biological sciences will find this book valuable. Dr. Quan-Lin Li is an Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering of Tsinghua University, China.

We introduce the theory of chemical reaction networks and their relation to stochastic Petri nets — important ways of modeling population biology and many other fields. We explain how techniques from quantum mechanics can be used to study these models. This relies on a profound and still mysterious analogy between quantum theory and probability theory, which we explore in detail. We also give a tour of key results concerning chemical reaction networks and Petri nets.

Network calculus is a theory dealing with queuing systems found in computer networks. Its focus is on performance guarantees. Central to the theory is the use of alternate algebras such as the min-plus algebra to transform complex network systems into analytically tractable systems. To simplify the ana- sis, another idea is to characterize tra?c and service processes using various bounds. Since its introduction in the early 1990s, network calculus has dev- oped along two tracks—deterministic and stochastic. This book is devoted to summarizing results for stochastic network calculus that can be employed in the design of computer networks to provide stochastic service guarantees. Overview and Goal Like conventional queuing theory, stochastic network calculus is based on properly de?ned tra?c models and service models. However, while in c- ventional queuing theory an arrival process is typically characterized by the inter-arrival times of customers and a service process by the service times of customers, the arrival process and the service process are modeled in n- work calculus respectively by some arrival curve that (maybe probabilis- cally) upper-bounds the cumulative arrival and by some service curve that (maybe probabilistically) lower-bounds the cumulative service. The idea of usingboundstocharacterizetra?candservicewasinitiallyintroducedfor- terministic network calculus. It has also been extended to stochastic network calculus by exploiting the stochastic nature of arrival and service processes.

Advances in Computers