Berry-Esseen-type bounds to the normal, based on zero- and size-bias couplings, are derived using Stein's method. The zero biasing bounds are illustrated in an application to combinatorial central limit theorems in which the random permutation has either the uniform distribution or one that is constant over permutations with the same cycle type, with no fixed points. The size biasing bounds are applied to the occurrences of fixed, relatively ordered subsequences (such as rising sequences) in a random permutation, and to the occurrences of patterns, extreme values, and subgraphs in finite graphs.

We provide a scaling for compound Poisson distributions that leads (under certain conditions on the Fourier transform) to a weak convergence result as the parameter of the distribution tends to infinity. We show that the limiting probability measure belongs to the class of stable Cauchy laws with Fourier transform t ↦ exp(−c|t|− iat log|t|). We apply this convergence result to the standard discrete Luria–Delbrück distribution and derive an integral representation for the corresponding limiting density, as an alternative to that found in a closely related paper of Kepler and Oprea. Moreover, we verify local convergence and we derive an integral representation for the distribution function of the limiting continuous Luria–Delbrück distribution.

We consider a multi-type branching random walk on d-dimensional Euclidian space. The~uniform convergence, as n goes to infinity, of a scaled version of the Laplace transform of the point process given by the nth generation particles of each type is obtained. Similar results in the one-type case, where the transform gives a martingale, were obtained in Biggins (1992) and Barral (2001). This uniform convergence of transforms is then used to obtain limit results for numbers in the underlying point processes. Supporting results, which are of interest in their own right, are obtained on (i) ‘Perron-Frobenius theory’ for matrices that are smooth functions of a variable λ∈L and are nonnegative when λ∈L −⊂L, where L is an open set in ℂd , and (ii) saddlepoint approximations of multivariate distributions. The saddlepoint approximations developed are strong enough to give a refined large deviation theorem of Chaganty and Sethuraman (1993) as a by-product.

Let {νε, ε>0} be a family of probabilities for which the decay is governed by a large deviation principle, and consider the simulation of νε0 (A) for some fixed measurable set A and some ε0>0. We investigate the circumstances under which an exponentially twisted importance sampling distribution yields an asymptotically efficient estimator. Varadhan's lemma yields necessary and sufficient conditions, and these are shown to improve on certain conditions of Sadowsky. This is illustrated by an example to which Sadowsky's conditions do not apply, yet for which an efficient twist exists.

A random variable Y is branching stable (B-stable) for a nonnegative integer-valued random variable J with E(J)>1 if Y *J ∿cY for some scalar c, where Y *J is the sum of J independent copies of Y. We explore some aspects of this notion of stability and show that, for any Y 0 with finite nonzero mean, if we define Y n+1=Y n *J /E(J) then the sequence Y n converges in law to a random variable Y ∞ that is B-stable for J. Also Y ∞ is the unique B-stable law with mean E(Y 0). We also present results relating to random variables Y 0 with zero means and infinite means. The notion of B-stability arose in a scheme for cataloguing a large network of computers.

We consider epidemics in populations that are partitioned into small groups known as households. Whilst infectious, a typical infective makes global and local contact with individuals chosen independently and uniformly from the whole population or their own household, as appropriate. Previously, the classical Poisson approximation for the number of survivors of a severe epidemic has been extended to the household model. However, in the current work we exploit a Sellke-type construction of the epidemic process, which enables the derivation of sufficient conditions for the existence of a compound Poisson limit theorem for the survivors of the epidemic. The results are specialised to the Reed-Frost and general stochastic epidemic models.

We generalize a theorem due to Keilson on the approximate exponentiality of waiting times for rare events in regenerative processes. We use the result to investigate the limit distribution for a family of first entrance times in a sequence of Ehrenfest urn models. As a second application, we consider approximate pattern matching, a problem arising in molecular biology and other areas.

We use a sample-path technique to derive asymptotics of generalized Jackson queueing networks in the fluid scale; that is, when space and time are scaled by the same factor n. The analysis only presupposes the existence of long-run averages and is based on some monotonicity and concavity arguments for the fluid processes. The results provide a functional strong law of large numbers for stochastic Jackson queueing networks, since they apply to their sample paths with probability 1. The fluid processes are shown to be piecewise linear and an explicit formulation of the different drifts is computed. A few applications of this fluid limit are given. In particular, a new computation of the constant that appears in the stability condition for such networks is given. In a certain context of a rare event, the fluid limit of the network is also derived explicitly.

Motivated by a problem arising in the mining industry, we estimate the energy ε(η) that is needed to reduce a unit mass to fragments of size at most η in a fragmentation process, when η→0. We assume that the energy used in the instantaneous dislocation of a block of size s into a set of fragments (s 1,s 2,…) is s βφ(s 1/s,s 2/s,…), where φ is some cost function and β a positive parameter. Roughly, our main result shows that if α>0 is the Malthusian parameter of an underlying Crump-Mode-Jagers branching process (with α = 1 when the fragmentation is mass-conservative), then there exists a c∈(0,∞) such that ε(η)∼cηβ-α when β<α. We also obtain a limit theorem for the empirical distribution of fragments of size less than η that result from the process. In the discrete setting, the approach relies on results of Nerman for general branching processes; the continuous approach follows by considering discrete skeletons. In the continuous setting, we also provide a direct approach that circumvents restrictions induced by the discretization.

A linear list is a collection of items that can be accessed sequentially. The cost of a request is the number of items that need to be examined before the desired item is located, i.e. the distance of the requested item from the beginning of the list. The transposition rule is one of the algorithms designed to reduce the search cost by organizing the list. In particular, upon a request for a given item, the item is transposed with the preceding one. We develop a new approach for analyzing the algorithm, based on a coupling to a certain constrained asymmetric exclusion process. This allows us to establish an asymptotic optimality of the rule for two families of request distributions.

We consider stationary and ergodic tessellations X = Ξn n≥1 in R d , where X is observed in a bounded and convex sampling window W p ⊂ R d . It is assumed that the cells Ξn of X possess random inner structures, examples of which include point patterns, fibre systems, and tessellations. These inner cell structures are generated, both independently of each other and independently of the tessellation X, by generic stationary random sets that are related to a stationary random vector measure J 0 acting on R d . In particular, we study the asymptotic behaviour of a multivariate random functional, which is determined both by X and by the individual cell structures contained in W p , as W p ↑ R d . It turns out that this functional provides an unbiased estimator for the intensity vector associated with J 0. Furthermore, under natural restrictions, strong laws of large numbers and a multivariate central limit theorem of the normalized functional are proven. Finally, we discuss in detail some numerical examples and applications, for which the inner structures of the cells of X are induced by iterated Poisson-type tessellations.

The first passage time of a random walk to a barrier (constant or concave) is of great importance in many areas, such as insurance, finance, and sequential analysis. Here, we consider a sum of independent, identically distributed random variables and the convex barrier cb(n/c), where c is a scale parameter and n is time. It is shown, using large-deviation techniques, that the limit distribution of the first passage time decays exponentially in c. Under a tilt of measure, which changes the drift, four properties are proved: the limit distribution of the overshoot is distributed as an overshoot over a linear barrier; the stopping time is asymptotically normally distributed when it is properly normalized; the overshoot and the asymptotic normal part are asymptotically independent; and the overshoot over a linear barrier is bounded by an exponentially distributed random variable. The determination of the function that multiplies the exponential part is guided by consideration of these properties.

Let Y k (ω) (k ≥ 0) be the number of vertices of a Galton-Watson tree ω that have k children, so that Z(ω) := ∑k≥0 Y k (ω) is the total progeny of ω. In this paper, we will prove various statistical properties of Z and Y k . We first show, under a mild condition, an asymptotic expansion of P(Z = n) as n → ∞, improving the theorem of Otter (1949). Next, we show that Y k (ω) := ∑j=0 k Y j (ω) is the total progeny of a new Galton-Watson tree that is hidden in the original tree ω. We then proceed to study the joint probability distribution of Z and Y k k , and show that, as n → ∞, Y k /n k is asymptotically Gaussian under the conditional distribution P(· | Z = n).

In practical situations, we observe the number of claims to an insurance portfolio but not the claim intensity. It is therefore of interest to try to solve the ‘filtering problem’; that is, to obtain the best estimate of the claim intensity on the basis of reported claims. In order to use the Kalman-Bucy filter, based on the Cox process incorporating a shot noise process as claim intensity, we need to approximate it by a Gaussian process. We demonstrate that, if the primary-event arrival rate of the shot noise process is reasonably large, we can then approximate the intensity, claim arrival, and aggregate loss processes by a three-dimensional Gaussian process. We establish weak-convergence results. We then use the Kalman-Bucy filter and we obtain the price of reinsurance contracts involving high-frequency events.

We consider a two-node Jackson network in which the buffer of node 1 is truncated. Our interest is in the limit of the tail decay rate of the queue-length distribution of node 2 when the buffer size of node 1 goes to infinity, provided that the stability condition of the unlimited network is satisfied. We show that there can be three different cases for the limit. This generalizes some recent results obtained for the tandem Jackson network. Special cases and some numerical examples are also presented.

Given a sequence of bounded random variables that satisfies a well-known mixing condition, it is shown that empirical estimates of the rate function for the partial sums process satisfy the large deviation principle in the space of convex functions equipped with the Attouch-Wets topology. As an application, a large deviation principle for estimating the exponent in the tail of the queue length distribution at a single-server queue with infinite waiting space is proved.

In this paper, we analyze the diffusion limit of a discrete-time queueing system with constant service rate and connections that randomly enter and depart from the system. Each connection generates periodic traffic while it is active, and a connection's lifetime has finite mean. This can model a time division multiple access system with constant bit-rate connections. The diffusion scaling retains semiperiodic behavior in the limit, allowing for both short-time analysis (within one frame) and long-time analysis (over multiple frames). Weak convergence of the cumulative arrival process and the stationary buffer-length distribution is proved. It is shown that the limit of the cumulative arrival process can be viewed as a discrete-time stationary-increment Gaussian process interpolated by Brownian bridges. We present bounds on the overflow probability of the limit queueing process as functions of the arrival rate and the connection lifetime distribution. Also, numerical and simulation results are presented for geometrically distributed connection lifetimes.

We consider two versions of a simple evolutionary algorithm (EA) model for protein folding at zero temperature, namely the (1 + 1)-EA on the LeadingOnes problem. In this schematic model, the structure of the protein, which is encoded as a bit-string of length n, is evolved to its native conformation through a stochastic pathway of sequential contact bindings. We study the asymptotic behavior of the hitting time, in the mean case scenario, under two different mutations: the one-flip, which flips a unique bit chosen uniformly at random in the bit-string, and the Bernoulli-flip, which flips each bit in the bit-string independently with probability c/n, for some c ∈ ℝ + (0 ≤ c ≤ n). For each algorithm, we prove a law of large numbers, a central limit theorem, and compare the performance of the two models.

The third-generation (3G) mobile communication system uses a technique called code division multiple access (CDMA), in which multiple users use the same frequency and time domain. The data signals of the users are distinguished using codes. When there are many users, interference deteriorates the quality of the system. For more efficient use of resources, we wish to allow more users to transmit simultaneously, by using algorithms that utilize the structure of the CDMA system more effectively than the simple matched filter (MF) system used in the proposed 3G systems. In this paper, we investigate an advanced algorithm called hard-decision parallel interference cancellation (HD-PIC), in which estimates of the interfering signals are used to improve the quality of the signal of the desired user. We compare HD-PIC with MF in a simple case, where the only two parameters are the number of users and the length of the coding sequences. We focus on the exponential rate for the probability of a bit-error, explain the relevance of this parameter, and investigate how it scales when the number of users grows large. We also review extensions of our results, proved elsewhere, showing that in HD-PIC, more users can transmit without errors than in the MF system.

In this article we investigate a class of superprocess with cut-off branching, studying the long-time behavior of the occupation time process. Persistence of the process holds in all dimensions. Central-limit-type theorems are obtained, and the scales are dimension dependent. The Gaussian limit holds only when d ≤ 4. In dimension one, a full large deviation principle is established and the rate function is identified explicitly. Our result shows that the super-Brownian motion with cut-off branching in dimension one has many features that are similar to super-Brownian motion in dimension three.