Distributed ledgers, including blockchain and other decentralized databases, are designed to store information online where all trusted network members can update the data with transparency. The dynamics of a ledger’s development can be mathematically represented by a directed acyclic graph (DAG). In this paper, we study a DAG model that considers batch arrivals and random delay of attachment. We analyze the asymptotic behavior of this model by letting the arrival rate go to infinity and the inter-arrival time go to zero. We establish that the number of leaves in the DAG, as well as various random variables characterizing the vertices in the DAG, can be approximated by its fluid limit, represented as the solution to a set of delayed partial differential equations. Furthermore, we establish the stable state of this fluid limit and validate our findings through simulations.

We consider shock models governed by the bivariate geometric counting process. By assuming the competing risks framework, failures are due to one of two mutually exclusive causes (shocks). We obtain and study some relevant functions, such as failure densities, survival functions, probability of the cause of failure, and moments of the failure time conditioned on a specific cause. Such functions are specified by assuming that systems or living organisms fail at the first instant in which a random threshold is reached by the sum of received shocks. Under this failure scheme, various cases arising for suitable choices of the random threshold are provided too.

Balister, the second author, Groenland, Johnston, and Scott recently showed that there are asymptotically $C4^n/n^{3/4}$ many unordered sequences that occur as degree sequences of graphs with $n$ vertices. Combining limit theory for infinitely divisible distributions with a new connection between a class of random walk trajectories and a subset counting formula from additive number theory, we describe $C$ in terms of Walkup’s number of rooted plane trees. The bijection is related to an instance of the Lévy–Khintchine formula. Our main result complements a result of Stanley, that ordered graphical sequences are related to quasi-forests.

We investigate the EM approximation for $\mathbb{R}^d$-valued ergodic stochastic differential equations (SDEs) driven by rotationally invariant $\alpha$-stable processes ($\alpha\in(1,2)$) with Markovian switching. The coefficient g violates the dissipative condition for certain states of the switching process. Using the Lindeberg principle, we establish quantitative error bounds between the original process $(X_t,R_t)_{t\geqslant 0}$ and its Euler–Maruyama (EM) scheme under a specially designed metric. Furthermore, we derive both a central limit theorem and a moderate derivation principle for the empirical measures of both the SDE and its EM scheme. The theoretical results are subsequently validated through a concrete example.

We consider a generalization of the forest fire model on $\mathbb{Z}_+$ with ignition at zero only, studied by Volkov (2009 ALEA 6, 399–414). Unlike that model, we allow delays in the spread of the fires and the non-zero burning time of individual ‘trees’. We obtain some general properties for this model, which cover, among others, the phenomenon of an ‘infinite fire’, not present in the original model.

The marked Hawkes risk process is a compound point process where the occurrence and amplitude of past events impact the future. Since data in real life are acquired over a discrete time grid, we propose a strong discrete-time approximation of the continuous-time risk process obtained by embedding from the same Poisson measure. We then prove trajectorial convergence results in both fractional Sobolev spaces and the Skorokhod space, hence extending the theorems proven in Huang and Khabou ((2023). Stoch. Process. Appl. 161, 201–241) and Kirchner ((2016). Stoch. Process. Appl. 126(8), 2494–2525). We also provide upper bounds on the convergence speed with explicit dependence on the size of the discretization step, the time horizon, and the regularity of the kernel.

In this paper, we solve an exit probability game between two players, each of whom controls a linear diffusion process. One player controls its process to minimize the probability that the difference of the processes reaches a low level before it reaches a high level, while the other player aims to maximize the probability. By solving the Bellman–Isaacs equations, we find the sub-value and sup-value functions of the game in explicit forms, which are twice continuously differentiable. The optimal plays associated with the sub-value and sup-value are also found explicitly.

Following the pivotal work of Sevastyanov (1957), who considered branching processes with homogeneous Poisson immigration, much has been done to understand the behaviour of such processes under different types of branching and immigration mechanisms. Recently, the case where the times of immigration are generated by a non-homogeneous Poisson process has been considered in depth. In this work, we demonstrate how we can use the framework of point processes in order to go beyond the Poisson process. As an illustration, we show how to transfer techniques from the case of Poisson immigration to the case where it is spanned by a determinantal point process.

Hybrid stochastic differential equations (SDEs) are a useful tool for modeling continuously varying stochastic systems modulated by a random environment, which may depend on the system state itself. In this paper we establish the pathwise convergence of solutions to hybrid SDEs using space-grid discretizations. Though time-grid discretizations are a classical approach for simulation purposes, our space-grid discretization provides a link with multi-regime Markov-modulated Brownian motions. This connection allows us to explore aspects that have been largely unexplored in the hybrid SDE literature. Specifically, we exploit our convergence result to obtain efficient and computationally tractable approximations for first-passage probabilities and expected occupation times of the solutions to hybrid SDEs. Lastly, we illustrate the effectiveness of the resulting approximations through numerical examples.

Let $\gamma _{n}= O (\log ^{-c}n)$ and let $\nu $ be the infinite product measure whose nth marginal is Bernoulli $(1/2+\gamma _{n})$. We show that $c=1/2$ is the threshold, above which $\nu $-almost every point is simply Poisson generic in the sense of Peres and Weiss, and below which this can fail. This provides a range in which $\nu $ is singular with respect to the uniform product measure, but $\nu $-almost every point is simply Poisson generic.

Due to the widespread availability of effective antiretroviral therapy regimens, average lifespans of persons with HIV (PWH) in the United States have increased significantly in recent decades. In turn, the demographic profile of PWH has shifted. Older persons comprise an ever-increasing percentage of PWH, with this percentage expected to further increase in the coming years. This has profound implications for HIV treatment and care, as significant resources are required not only to manage HIV itself, but also associated age-related comorbidities and health conditions that occur in ageing PWH. Effective management of these challenges in the coming years requires accurate modelling of the PWH age structure. In the present work, we introduce several novel mathematical approaches related to this problem. We present a workflow combining a PDE model for the PWH population age structure, where publicly available HIV surveillance data are assimilated using the Ensemble Kalman Inversion algorithm. This procedure allows us to rigorously reconstruct the age-dependent mortality trends for PWH over the last several decades. To project future trends, we introduce and analyse a novel variant of the dynamic mode decomposition (DMD), nonnegative DMD. We show that nonnegative DMD provides physically consistent projections of mortality and HIV diagnosis while remaining purely data-driven, and not requiring additional assumptions. We then combine these elements to provide forecasts for future trends in PWDH mortality and demographic evolution in the coming years.

We consider the problem of estimating fractional processes based on noisy high-frequency data. Generalizing the idea of pre-averaging to a fractional setting, we exhibit a sequence of consistent estimators for the unknown parameters of interest by proving a law of large numbers for associated variation functionals. In contrast to the semimartingale setting, the optimal window size for pre-averaging depends on the unknown roughness parameter of the underlying process. We evaluate the performance of our estimators in a simulation study and use them to empirically verify Kolmogorov’s $2/3$-law in turbulence data contaminated by instrument noise.

Let $\{X_{i}\}_{i\geq1}$ be a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables and $T\in\{1,2,\ldots\}$ a stopping time associated with this sequence. In this paper, the distribution of the minimum observation, $\min\{X_{1},X_{2},\ldots,X_{T}\}$, until the stopping time T is provided by proposing a methodology based on an appropriate change of the initial probability measure of the probability space to a truncated (shifted) one on the $X_{i}$. As an application of the aforementioned general result, the random variables $X_{1},X_{2},\ldots$ are considered to be the interarrival times (spacings) between successive appearances of events in a renewal counting process $\{Y_{t},t\geq0\}$, while the stopping time T is set to be the number of summands until the sum of the $X_{i}$ exceeds t for the first time, i.e. $T=Y_{t}+1$. Under this setup, the distribution of the minimal spacing, $D_{t}=\min\{X_{1},X_{2},\ldots,X_{Y_{t}+1}\}$, that starts in the interval [0, t] is investigated and a stochastic ordering relation for $D_{t}$ is obtained. In addition, bounds for the tail probability of $D_{t}$ are provided when the interarrival times have the increasing failure rate / decreasing failure rate property. In the special case of a Poisson process, an exact formula, as well as closed-form bounds and an asymptotic result, are derived for the tail probability of $D_{t}$. Furthermore, for renewal processes with Erlang and uniformly distributed interarrival times, exact and approximation formulae for the tail probability of $D_{t}$ are also proposed. Finally, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the aforementioned exact and asymptotic results, and practical applications are briefly discussed.

We investigate the asymptotic behavior of nearly unstable Hawkes processes whose regression kernel has $L^1$ norm strictly greater than 1 and close to 1 as time goes to infinity. We find that the scaling size determines the scaling behavior of the processes as in Jaisson and Rosenbaum (2015). Specifically, after a suitable rescale of $({a_T-1})/{T{\textrm{e}}^{b_TTx}}$, the limit of the sequence of Hawkes processes is deterministic. Also, with another appropriate rescaling of $1/T^2$, the sequence converges in law to an integrated Cox–Ingersoll–Ross-like process. This theoretical result may apply to model the recent COVID-19 outbreak in epidemiology and phenomena in social networks.

We consider an inhomogeneous Erdős–Rényi random graph ensemble with exponentially decaying random disconnection probabilities determined by an independent and identically distributed field of variables with heavy tails and infinite mean associated with the vertices of the graph. This model was recently investigated in the physics literature (Garuccio, Lalli, and Garlaschelli 2023) as a scale-invariant random graph within the context of network renormalization. From a mathematical perspective, the model fits in the class of scale-free inhomogeneous random graphs whose asymptotic geometrical features have recently attracted interest. While for this type of graph several results are known when the underlying vertex variables have finite mean and variance, here instead we consider the case of one-sided stable variables with necessarily infinite mean. To simplify our analysis, we assume that the variables are sampled from a Pareto distribution with parameter $\alpha\in(0,1)$. We start by characterizing the asymptotic distributions of the typical degrees and some related observables. In particular, we show that the degree of a vertex converges in distribution, after proper scaling, to a mixed Poisson law. We then show that correlations among degrees of different vertices are asymptotically non-vanishing, but at the same time a form of asymptotic tail independence is found when looking at the behavior of the joint Laplace transform around zero. Moreover, we present some findings concerning the asymptotic density of wedges and triangles, and show a cross-over for the existence of dust (i.e. disconnected vertices).

In this paper we investigate large-scale linear systems driven by a fractional Brownian motion (fBm) with Hurst parameter $H\in [1/2, 1)$. We interpret these equations either in the sense of Young ($H>1/2$) or Stratonovich ($H=1/2$). In particular, fractional Young differential equations are well suited to modeling real-world phenomena as they capture memory effects, unlike other frameworks. Although it is very complex to solve them in high dimensions, model reduction schemes for Young or Stratonovich settings have not yet been much studied. To address this gap, we analyze important features of fundamental solutions associated with the underlying systems. We prove a weak type of semigroup property which is the foundation of studying system Gramians. From the Gramians introduced, a dominant subspace can be identified, which is shown in this paper as well. The difficulty for fractional drivers with $H>1/2$ is that there is no link between the corresponding Gramians and algebraic equations, making the computation very difficult. Therefore we further propose empirical Gramians that can be learned from simulation data. Subsequently, we introduce projection-based reduced-order models using the dominant subspace information. We point out that such projections are not always optimal for Stratonovich equations, as stability might not be preserved and since the error might be larger than expected. Therefore an improved reduced-order model is proposed for $H=1/2$. We validate our techniques conducting numerical experiments on some large-scale stochastic differential equations driven by fBm resulting from spatial discretizations of fractional stochastic PDEs. Overall, our study provides useful insights into the applicability and effectiveness of reduced-order methods for stochastic systems with fractional noise, which can potentially aid in the development of more efficient computational strategies for practical applications.

We study backward stochastic difference equations (BS$\Delta$Es) driven by a d-dimensional stochastic process on a lattice, whose increments take only $d+1$ possible values that generate the lattice. Interpreting the driving process as a d-dimensional asset price process, we provide applications to an optimal investment problem and to a market equilibrium analysis, where utility functionals are defined via BS$\Delta$Es.

We study sequential optimal stopping with partial reversibility. The optimal stopping problem is subject to implementation delay, which is random and exponentially distributed. Once the stopping decision is made, the decision maker can, by incurring a cost, call the decision off and restart the stopping problem. The optimization criterion is to maximize the expected present value of the total payoff. We characterize the value function in terms of a Bellman principle for a wide class of payoff functions and potentially multidimensional strong Markov dynamics. We also analyse the case of linear diffusion dynamics and characterize the value function and the optimal decision rule for a wide class of payoff functions.

The generalised random graph contains n vertices with positive i.i.d. weights. The probability of adding an edge between two vertices is increasing in their weights. We require the weight distribution to have finite second moments, and study the point process $\mathcal{C}_n$ on $\{3,4,\ldots\}$, which counts how many cycles of the respective length are present in the graph. We establish convergence of $\mathcal{C}_n$ to a Poisson point process. Under the stronger assumption of the weights having finite fourth moments we provide the following results. When $\mathcal{C}_n$ is evaluated on a bounded set A, we provide a rate of convergence. If the graph is additionally subcritical, we extend this to unbounded sets A at the cost of a slower rate of convergence. From this we deduce the limiting distribution of the length of the shortest and longest cycles when the graph is subcritical, including rates of convergence. All mentioned results also apply to the Chung–Lu model and the Norros–Reittu model.