The processes of the title have frequently been used to represent situations involving numbers of individuals in different categories or colonies. In such processes the state at any time is represented by the vector n = (n1, n2, …, nk), where nt is the number of individuals in the ith colony, and the random evolution of n is supposed to be that of a continuous-time Markov chain. The jumps of the chain may be of three types, corresponding to the arrival of a new individual, the departure of an existing one, or the transfer of an individual from one colony to another.

Kimura (1953) proposed a “stepping stone” model for the study of the genetic structure of a subdivided population. In this model, it was assumed that a population consists of infinitely many colonies located at grid points of an n-dimensional lattice and that each colony exchanges individuals with neighboring colonies in each generation, and also receives immigrants as random samples from the whole population. The former type of migration has been called “short range migration” and the latter type “long range migration”. Later, Kimura and Weiss (1964), and Weiss and Kimura (1965) have obtained formulas for the genetic correlation and variance between colonies for general cases of the model, assuming that the short range migration is symmetrical in each fixed direction. The purpose of the present report is to extend the results of Kimura and Weiss to cover situations where the restriction of symmetry of short range migration is removed, so that migration rates in opposite directions need not be equal. I believe that in nature there are cases which require the model presented in this report. For example, consider a plant population distributed along a river, or on a plain where the wind at the time when the seeds are scattered is stronger in one direction than in others. For animals and plants it is often true that the centre of habitat is more densely populated than the marginal regions where the environment is less suitable for the species. In such a case the migration rate toward the outside from the centre is larger than that in the opposite direction. As in other theories of population genetics, we will assume that the size of each colony is determined by the carrying capacity of the environment and is not affected by the migration rate. Thus we assume that in each generation each colony produces many more gametes than those which contribute to the next generation, and, among those many gametes, a certain number, say 2N, are chosen from various colonies to form the individuals of a particular colony.

A model is constructed to describe the evolution of a monoecious haploid population in which the population of adults remains of constant size, but for which generations may be overlapping, family size distributions are to a considerable degree arbitrary, and differential survival rates may apply with respect to adult and young individuals. The eigenvalues of the transition probability matrix are obtained, and those which determine the rate of evolution are found as simple functions of mutation rates, the mean lifetime of an individual, and the variance of his viable offspring number. The model builds on, and includes as special cases, certain non-overlapping generation models of Wright (1931), Karlin and McGregor (1965), and an overlapping generation model of Moran (1958).

One of the secondary conclusions of the study is that for some models, when evolutionary rates are measured on a mean-lifetime scale, the more offspring that are produced at a mating season may slow down evolution when mutation is absent, but may speed it up if mutation is present.

A problem of interest to many population geneticists is the process of change in a gene frequency. A popular model used to describe the change in a gene frequency involves the assumption that the gene frequency is Markovian. The probabilities in a Markov process can be approximated by the solution of a partial differential equation known as the Fokker-Planck equation or the forward Kolmogorov equation. Mathematically this equation is where subscripts indicate partial differentiation. In this equation, f(p, x; t) is the probability density that the frequency of a gene is x at time t, given that the frequency was p at time t = o. The expressions MΔX and VΔx are, respectively, the first and second moments of the change in the gene frequency during one generation. A rigorous derivation of this equation was given by Kolmogorov (1931).

Consider a discrete time Markov chain {Zn} whose state space is the non-negative integers and whose transition probability matrix ║Pij║ possesses the representation where {Pr}, r = 1,2,…, is a finite or denumerably infinite sequence of non-negative real numbers satisfying , and , is a corresponding sequence of probability generating functions. It is assumed that Z0 = k, a finite positive integer.

Consider an age-dependent branching process with two types of individuals. Suppose that individuals of one type beget children of both types, whereas those of the other type can only give birth to individuals of their own kind. This paper is a study of the relation between two random functions occurring in such processes starting from an ancestor of the first type, the two functions being the numbers of individuals of the two kinds. Under weak assumptions it is shown that the random proportion of individuals of one type converges as time passes, in mean square as well as almost surely to a non-random limit, easily determined in terms of the reproduction laws and life-length distributions of the process.

Although his work on the application of invariance concepts to the sequential testing of composite hypotheses is better known, Cox (1963) has also outlined a large sample approach to the same problem. His method is based on Bartlett's (1946) recognition that the sequence of maximum likelihood estimates (MLE) of the parameter of interest, calculated from an increasing number of observations, resembles asymptotically a random walk of normally distributed variables. However, the large sample theory needed to justify this approach rigorously is left largely implicit. At the end of his paper, Cox suggests that these methods may be extended to yield a sequential comparison of survival curves (Armitage (1959)), a suggestion which has been reiterated as a research problem in the monograph of Wetherill (1966).

One area of science in which probabilistic models are beginning to play a role is in neuron firing. The firing process may be thought of in terms of electrical potentials: there is a potential difference across the membrane surrounding a neuron; this potential difference is determined by the concentrations of sodium, potassium, and chlorine ions on the two sides of the membrane. When electrical impulses arrive along the many input fibers, the potential difference changes; when it crosses a certain threshold, the neuron “fires”, that is, an impulse is discharged along the axon. Arriving impulses are of two types, those which raise and those which lower the potential inside the neuron; these are called stimuli and inhibitors, respectively. The mechanism by which stimuli and inhibitors interact in changing the neuron potential is not well understood; however, it appears that some of the stimuli cause the neuron to respond, or fire, and the inhibitors play a role in preventing the other stimuli from causing a response. The ability of stimuli to cause responses is further weakened by the decay, in the absence of arriving impulses, of the transmembrane potential toward a “resting level”, the level to which the potential is reset after a firing. While several models for the firing process have been proposed ([3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [11]), the present paper is devoted to introducing some modifications into a model proposed by Ten Hoopen and Reuver ([9], [10]). In particular, we place a time limit on the ability of inhibitors to prevent a stimulus from producing a response. Hopefully, these modifications bring their model closer to physiological reality.

In the theory of phage reproduction, the mathematical models considered thus far (see Gani [5]) assume that the bacterial burst occurs a fixed time after infection, after a fixed number of generations of phage multiplication, or when the number of mature bacteriophages has reached a fixed threshold. In the present paper, a more realistic assumption is considered: given that until time t the bacterial burst has not taken place, its occurence between tand t + Δt is a random event with probability f(· | t)Δt + o(Δt), where f is a non-negative and non-decreasing function of the number X(t) of vegetative phages and of Z(t), the number of mature bacteriophages at time t. More specifically it is assumed that f = b(t)X(t) + c(t)Z(t) with b(t), c(t) ≦ 0. Here X(t) denotes the survivors in a linear birth and death process and Z(t) the number of deaths until time t. The joint distribution of XT and ZT, the respective numbers of vegetative and mature bacteriophages at the burst time is considered. The distribution of ZT is then fitted to some observed data of Delbrück [2].

In many chemical and biochemical situations it is of interest to know the distribution that results from the breaking up of long molecules into shorter segments under certain hypotheses. For example, Montroll and Simha (1940) assumed that polymers consist of discrete units—monomers—connected by bonds all of which have an equal chance of breaking in the depolymerization process. Charlesby (1954) used a different approach to essentially the same model and in effect obtained differential equations for the moments of the ensuing distributions. More recently, Daniels (1967) has given a more thorough mathematical exposition, especially with regard to the effect of the initial length distribution, while Blatt (1967) has considered a model in which not all links are susceptible to breakage.

Viral DNA is studied by the technique of radioactive labelling and subsequent ultra centrifugation which separates it from reference DNA according to length or density. One hypothesis that frequently is of service is that the strands of DNA being studied are randomly cut along their lengths. Often the average number of cuts, λ, per unit length is either known by the nature of the experiment or is desired as a statistic. If radioactive phosphorous, P32, is used to label the DNA, e.g., 6 P32 atoms per unit length of 200,000 nucleotides (each of which is connected to its neighbor by two phosphorous-containing links) then within two weeks about 3 P32 atoms will have decayed and the DNA obtained, once separated into single stranded form (denatured), will form a predictable distribution of sizes. Of course 3 decays may be obtained more quickly by starting with more than 6 P32 atoms per unit length.

In this paper a stochastic model is set up for a certain type of reversible chemical reaction and a solution given for the equilibrium distribution; this solution is then extended to deal with any system of chemical reactions.

Three different types of reaction are considered:

(1) Several substances Ai react together and give a set of substances Bj. The reaction is reversible, with the substances Ai appearing only on one side of the reaction equation and the substances Bj only on the other.

(2) Several different reactions involving the substances Ai and Bj take place simultaneously, but in each reaction equation the substances Ai can appear only on one side and the Bj only on the other.

(3) The restriction of the sets Ai and Bj to different sides of the reaction equations is removed: any reaction involving any of the substances Aiand Bj on either side of the equation is permissible.

The paper concludes with some applications of the results to problems of molecular adsorption.

A multiple unit standby redundant system with preventive maintenance is presented. The Laplace transform of the probability density function of the time to the first emptiness for the system and its mean time are derived. As a special case, a two-unit standby redundant system with preventive maintenance is investigated in detail.

Collective risk theory is concerned with the random fluctations of the total assets, the risk reserve, of an insurance company. Consider a company which only writes ordinary insurance policies such as accident, disability, fire, health, and whole life. The policyholders pay premiums regularly and at certain random times make claims to the company. A policyholder's premium, the gross risk premium, is a positive amount composed of two components. The net risk premium is the component calculated to cover the payments of claims on the average, while the security risk premium, or safety loading, is the component which protects the company from large deviations of claims from the average and also allows an accumulation of capital. When a claim occurs the company pays the policyholder a positive amount called the positive risk sum.

In the present paper we consider the r-molecular reversible reaction rA⇌B from several viewpoints. The deterministic theory for integral reaction orders is considered first and is subsequently extended to cover the case of fractional order reactions. Stochastic models are then proposed, the analyses being carried through by spectral methods and, in the case of first order reactions, the first passage time problem is also examined. Finally, we use a diffusion theory approach to the problem to obtain results which are valid for a large number of molecules.

The cars are considered as points on an infinite road with no intersections. They can overtake each other without any delay and they travel at constant speeds. These are independent identically distributed random variables also independent of the initial positions of the cars. The main purpose of the paper is the study of the asymptotic distribution for the number of overtakings (and/or meetings) in increasing rectangles in the time-road plane. Under the assumption of (weighted) Poisson distributed cars along the time-axis we deduce the asymptotic distribution of the standardized number of overtakings (and/or meetings) for large rectangles in the time-road plane. Lastly we shall indicate an application of the results.

Consider an infinite capacity dam in which the input and release occur continuously in time. Write X(t) for the total input up to time t starting from X(0) = 0 at t = 0. Let Z(t) be the content of the dam at time t and R(u) (0 ≦ u < ∞) a release function such that in any interval of time (t, t + dt), the amount of water released is R(Z(t))dt + o(t) for any bounded realisation of the process {Z(t)}. Thus R(u) can be regarded as a “rate of release”.

In [5] Renyi considers the following traffic model: Vehicles enter a highway at times 〈Ti, i = 1, 2, … 〉, forming a homogeneous Poisson process of intensity λ. The vehicle entering at time Ti will choose a velocity Vi and will travel at that constant velocity. The random variables 〈Vi, i = 1, 2, …〉 are independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.) and independent of 〈Ti〉 with c.d.f. F satisfying All vehicles travel in the same direction.

A quantity of particular interest in the study of (road) traffic jams is the total waiting time X of all vehicles involved in a given hold-up (Gaver (1969): see note following (2.3) below and the first paragraph of Section 5). With certain assumptions on the process this random variable X is the same as the sum of waiting times of customers in a busy period of a GI/G/1 queueing system, and it is the object of this paper and its sequel to study the random variable in the queueing theory context.

A stochastic process in which any tree in a forest planted on an integer lattice eliminates its four neighbours when it exceeds their heights, is studied for the case when all heights are independent samples from a continuous distribution. The proportion of the trees of the forest eliminated in this manner is determined for both the one and the two dimensional integer lattices.