Generalized quantiles of a random variable were defined as the minimizers of a general asymmetric loss function, which include quantiles, expectiles and M-quantiles as their special cases. Expectiles have been suggested as potentially better alternatives to both Value-at-Risk and expected shortfall risk measures. In this paper, we first establish the first-order expansions of generalized quantiles for extreme risks as the confidence level α↑ 1, and then investigate the first-order and/or second-order expansions of expectiles of an extreme risk as α↑ 1 according to the underlying distribution belonging to the max-domain of attraction of the Fréchet, Weibull, and Gumbel distributions, respectively. Examples are also presented to examine whether and how much the first-order expansions have been improved by the second-order expansions.

The concept of stochastic precedence between two real-valued random variables has often emerged in different applied frameworks. In this paper, we analyze several aspects of a more general, and completely natural, concept of stochastic precedence that also had appeared in the literature. In particular, we study the relations with the notions of stochastic ordering. Such a study leads us to introducing some special classes of bivariate copulas. Motivations for our study can arise from different fields. In particular, we consider the frame of Target-Based Approach in decisions under risk. This approach has been mainly developed under the assumption of stochastic independence between “Prospects” and “Targets”. Our analysis concerns the case of stochastic dependence.

One problem of wide interest involves estimating expected crossing-times. Several tools have been developed to solve this problem beginning with the works of Wald and the theory of sequential analysis. Deriving the explicit close form solution for the expected crossing times may be difficult. In this paper, we provide a framework that can be used to estimate expected crossing times of arbitrary stochastic processes. Our key assumption is the knowledge of the average behavior of the supremum of the process. Our results include a universal sharp lower bound on the expected crossing times. Furthermore, for a wide class of time-homogeneous, Markov processes, including Bessel processes, we are able to derive an upper bound E[a(Tr)]≤2r, which implies that sup r>0|((E[a(Tr)]−r)/r)|≤1, where a(t)=E[sup tXt] with {Xt}t≥0 be a non-negative, measurable process. This inequality motivates our claim that a(t) can be viewed as a natural clock for all such processes. The cases of multidimensional processes, non-symmetric and random boundaries are handled as well. We also present applications of these bounds on renewal processes in Example 10 and other stochastic processes.

Much of the work relating to control charts is on monitoring observations for changes in mean. Here, for the first time, we develop a class of cusum-type statistics to monitor any aspect of a process (for example, mean, variance, skewness or kurtosis). This development is based on recently published papers by the authors.

Alternating renewal processes have been widely used to model social and scientific phenomenal where independent “on” and “off” states alternate. In this paper, we study a model where the value of a process cumulates and declines according to two modes of compound Poisson processes with respect to an underlying alternating renewal process. The model discussed in the present paper can be used as a revenue management model applied to inventory or to finance. The exact distribution of the process is derived as well as the double Laplace transform with respect to the level and time of the process.

The purpose of this work is to construct a bridge between two classical topics in applied probability: the finite-time ruin probability in insurance and the final outcome distribution in epidemics. The two risk problems are reformulated in terms of the joint right-tail and left-tail distributions of order statistics for a sample of uniforms. This allows us to show that the hidden algebraic structures are of polynomial type, namely Appell in insurance and Abel–Gontcharoff in epidemics. These polynomials are defined with random parameters, which makes their mathematical study interesting in itself.

A new class of weighted generalized gamma distribution (WGGD) and related distributions are presented. Theoretical properties of the generalized gamma model, WGGD including the hazard function, reverse hazard function, moments, coefficient of variation, coefficient of skewness, coefficient of kurtosis, and entropy measures are derived. The results presented here generalizes the generalized gamma distribution and includes several distributions as special cases. The special cases include generalized gamma, weighted gamma, weighted exponential, weighted Weibull, weighted Rayleigh distributions, and their underlying or parent distributions.

This paper focuses on an infinite-server queue modulated by an independently evolving finite-state Markovian background process, with transition rate matrix Q≡(qij)i,j=1d. Both arrival rates and service rates are depending on the state of the background process. The main contribution concerns the derivation of central limit theorems (CLTs) for the number of customers in the system at time t≥0, in the asymptotic regime in which the arrival rates λi are scaled by a factor N, and the transition rates qij by a factor Nα, with α∈ℝ+. The specific value of α has a crucial impact on the result: (i) for α>1 the system essentially behaves as an M/M/∞ queue, and in the CLT the centered process has to be normalized by √N; (ii) for α<1, the centered process has to be normalized by N1−α/2, with the deviation matrix appearing in the expression for the variance.

We examine how overflow policies in a multi-skill call center should be designed to accommodate performance measures that depend on waiting time percentiles such as service level. This is done using a discrete Markovian approximation of the waiting time of the first customers waiting in line. A Markov decision chain is used to determine the optimal policy. This policy outperforms considerably the ones used most often in practice, which use a fixed threshold. The present method can be used also for other call-center models and other situations where performance is based on actual waiting times and customers are treated in a FCFS order.

In this paper, we main consider spherically symmetric tree T. First, under the condition lim supn→∞ |T(n)|/|Ln|<∞, we investigate the strong law of large numbers (SLLNs) for T-indexed Markov chains on the nth level of T. Then, combining the Stolz theorem, we obtain the SLLNs on T. Finally, we get Shannon–McMillan theorem for T-indexed Markov chains. The obtained theorems are generalizations of some known results on Cayley tree TC, N and Bethe tree TB, N.