Related papers: The rencontre problem

We consider the Bernoulli first-passage percolation on $\mathbb Z^d (d\ge 2)$. That is, the edge passage time is taken independently to be 1 with probability $1-p$ and 0 otherwise. Let ${\mu(p)}$ be the time constant. We prove in this paper…

Let $\prec$ be the product order on $\mathbb{R}^k$ and assume that $X_1,X_2,\ldots,X_n$ ($n\geq3$) are i.i.d. random vectors distributed uniformly in the unit hypercube $[0,1]^k$. Let $S$ be the (random) set of vectors in $\mathbb{R}^k$…

We treat success runs of independent identically distributed Bernoulli trials (with success parameter $p$) distributed according to the Type II binomial distribution of order $k$. However, the success runs are separated by a gap $g\ge1$ (a…

The asymptotic shape theorem for the contact process in random environment gives the existence of a norm $\mu$ on $\Rd$ such that the hitting time $t(x)$ is asymptotically equivalent to $\mu(x)$ when the contact process survives. We provide…

Let $\mathbf{a}_{ij}$, $1\leq i\leq j\leq n$, be independent random variables and $\mathbf{a}_{ji}=\mathbf{a}_{ij}$, for all $i,j$. Suppose that every $\mathbf{a}_{ij}$ is bounded, has zero mean, and its variance is given by…

Place an obstacle with probability $1-p$ independently at each vertex of $\mathbb Z^d$ and consider a simple symmetric random walk that is killed upon hitting one of the obstacles. For $d \geq 2$ and $p$ strictly above the critical…

The forecasting problem for a stationary and ergodic binary time series $\{X_n\}_{n=0}^{\infty}$ is to estimate the probability that $X_{n+1}=1$ based on the observations $X_i$, $0\le i\le n$ without prior knowledge of the distribution of…

Georgiou, Katkov and Tsodyks considered the following random process. Let $x_1,x_2,\ldots $ be an infinite sequence of independent, identically distributed, uniform random points in $[0,1]$. Starting with $S=\{0\}$, the elements $x_k$ join…

The forward prediction problem for a binary time series $\{X_n\}_{n=0}^{\infty}$ is to estimate the probability that $X_{n+1}=1$ based on the observations $X_i$, $0\le i\le n$ without prior knowledge of the distribution of the process…

Let {X_n,n\geq0} be a Markov chain on a general state space X with transition probability P and stationary probability \pi. Suppose an additive component S_n takes values in the real line R and is adjoined to the chain such that…

For n>=1 let X_n be a vector of n independent Bernoulli random variables. We assume that X_n consists of M "blocks" such that the Bernoulli random variables in block i have success probability p_i. Here M does not depend on n and the size…

Let $x_1,\dots,x_{n}$ be a fixed sequence of real numbers. At each stage, pick $k$ integers $\{I_{i}\}_{1\leq i \leq k}$ uniformly at random without replacement and then for each $i \in \{1,2,\dots,k\}$ replace $x_{I_i}$ by…

In this paper, we discuss a stochastic decision problem of optimally selecting the order in which to try $n$ opportunities that may yield an uncertain reward in the future. The motivation came out from pure curiosity, after an informal…

We prove a solvability theorem for the Stieltjes moment problem on $R^d$ which is based on the multivariate Stieltjes condition $\sum_{n=1}^\infty L(x_j^n)^{-1/(2n)}=+\infty$, $j=1,\dots,d.$ This result is applied to derive a new…

We consider the following definition of connectivity in $k$-uniform hypergraphs: Two $j$-sets are $j$-connected if there is a walk of edges between them such that two consecutive edges intersect in at least $j$ vertices. We determine the…

For a sequence of identically distributed negatively associated random variables $\{X_n; n\geq 1\}$ with partial sums $S_n=\sum_{i=1}^nX_i, n\geq 1$, refinements are presented of the classical Baum-Katz and Lai complete convergence…

For a random sample of points in $\mathbb{R}$, we consider the number of pairs whose members are nearest neighbors (NN) to each other and the number of pairs sharing a common NN. The first type of pairs are called reflexive NNs whereas…

Let $\xi_1,\xi_2,\ldots$ be independent, identically distributed random variables with infinite mean $\mathbf E[|\xi_1|]=\infty.$ Consider a random walk $S_n=\xi_1+\cdots+\xi_n$, a stopping time $\tau=\min\{n\ge 1: S_n\le 0\}$ and let…

The statistics of first-passage times of random walks to target sites has proved to play a key role in determining the kinetics of space exploration in various contexts. In parallel, the number of distinct sites visited by a random walker…

Concentration inequalities, a major tool in probability theory, quantify how much a random variable deviates from a certain quantity. This paper proposes a systematic convex optimization approach to studying and generating concentration…