An Introduction to Stochastic Modeling provides information pertinent to the standard concepts and methods of stochastic modeling. This book presents the rich diversity of applications of stochastic processes in the sciences. Organized into nine chapters, this book begins with an overview of diverse types of stochastic models, which predicts a set of possible outcomes weighed by their likelihoods or probabilities. This text then provides exercises in the applications of simple stochastic analysis to appropriate problems. Other chapters consider the study of general functions of independent, identically distributed, nonnegative random variables representing the successive intervals between renewals. This book discusses as well the numerous examples of Markov branching processes that arise naturally in various scientific disciplines. The final chapter deals with queueing models, which aid the design process by predicting system performance. This book is a valuable resource for students of engineering and management science. Engineers will also find this book useful.

Three coherent parts form the material covered in this text, portions of which have not been widely covered in traditional textbooks. In this coverage the reader is quickly introduced to several different topics enriched with 175 exercises which focus on real-world problems. Exercises range from the classics of probability theory to more exotic research-oriented problems based on numerical simulations. Intended for graduate students in mathematics and applied sciences, the text provides the tools and training needed to write and use programs for research purposes. The first part of the text begins with a brief review of measure theory and revisits the main concepts of probability theory, from random variables to the standard limit theorems. The second part covers traditional material on stochastic processes, including martingales, discrete-time Markov chains, Poisson processes, and continuous-time Markov chains. The theory developed is illustrated by a variety of examples surrounding applications such as the gambler’s ruin chain, branching processes, symmetric random walks, and queueing systems. The third, more research-oriented part of the text, discusses special stochastic processes of interest in physics, biology, and sociology. Additional emphasis is placed on minimal models that have been used historically to develop new mathematical techniques in the field of stochastic processes: the logistic growth process, the Wright –Fisher model, Kingman’s coalescent, percolation models, the contact process, and the voter model. Further treatment of the material explains how these special processes are connected to each other from a modeling perspective as well as their simulation capabilities in C and MatlabTM.

Coherent introduction to techniques also offers a guide to the mathematical, numerical, and simulation tools of systems analysis. Includes formulation of models, analysis, and interpretation of results. 1995 edition.

This book provides a self-contained review of all the relevant topics in probability theory. A software package called MAXIM, which runs on MATLAB, is made available for downloading. Vidyadhar G. Kulkarni is Professor of Operations Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Presents the basic mathematical ideas and algorithms of the matrix analytic theory in a readable, up-to-date, and comprehensive manner.

Our daily lives can be maintained by the high-technology systems. Computer systems are typical examples of such systems. We can enjoy our modern lives by using many computer systems. Much more importantly, we have to maintain such systems without failure, but cannot predict when such systems will fail and how to fix such systems without delay. A stochastic process is a set of outcomes of a random experiment indexed by time, and is one of the key tools needed to analyze the future behavior quantitatively. Reliability and maintainability technologies are of great interest and importance to the maintenance of such systems. Many mathematical models have been and will be proposed to describe reliability and maintainability systems by using the stochastic processes. The theme of this book is "Stochastic Models in Reliability and Main tainability. " This book consists of 12 chapters on the theme above from the different viewpoints of stochastic modeling. Chapter 1 is devoted to "Renewal Processes," under which classical renewal theory is surveyed and computa tional methods are described. Chapter 2 discusses "Stochastic Orders," and in it some definitions and concepts on stochastic orders are described and ag ing properties can be characterized by stochastic orders. Chapter 3 is devoted to "Classical Maintenance Models," under which the so-called age, block and other replacement models are surveyed. Chapter 4 discusses "Modeling Plant Maintenance," describing how maintenance practice can be carried out for plant maintenance.