We introduce a Markov queueing system with Poisson arrivals, exponential services, and jockeying between two parallel and equivalent servers. An arriving customer admits to the shortest line. Every transition, of only the last customer in line, from the longer line to the shorter line may accompanied by a certain fixed cost. Thus, a transition from the longer queue to the shorter queue occurs whenever the difference between the lines reaches a certain discrete threshold (d = 2, 3, …). In this study, we focus on the stochastic analysis of the number of transitions of an arbitrary customer.

In this paper, we are going to study the strong limit theorem for the relative entropy density rates between two finite asymptotically circular Markov chains. Firstly, we prove some lammas on which the main result based. Then, we establish two strong limit theorem for non-homogeneous Markov chains. Finally, we obtain the main result of this paper. As corollaries, we get the strong limit theorem for the relative entropy density rates between two finite non-homogeneous Markov chains. We also prove that the relative entropy density rates between two finite non-homogeneous Markov chains are uniformly integrable under some conditions.

We introduce a level-crossing analysis of the finite time-t probability distributions of the excess life, age, total life, and related quantities of renewal processes. The technique embeds the renewal process as one cycle of a regenerative process with a barrier at level t, whose limiting probability density function leads directly to the time-t quantities. The new method connects the analysis of renewal processes with the analysis of a large class of stochastic models of Operations Research. Examples are given.

This paper discusses a system of difference-differential equations (DDE) that is satisfied by the time-dependent state probabilities of open Markov queueing networks with various features. The number of network states in this case and the number of equations in this system is infinite. Flows of customers arriving at the network are a simple and independent, the time of customer services is exponentially distributed. The intensities of transitions between the network states are deterministic functions depending on its states.

To solve the system of DDE, we propose a modified method of successive approximations, combined with the method of series. The convergence of successive approximations with time to a stationary probability distribution, the form of which is indicated in the paper has been proved. The sequence of approximations converges to a unique solution of the system of equations. Any successive approximation can be represented as a convergent power series with an infinite radius of convergence, the coefficients of which satisfy recurrence relations, which is convenient for calculations on a computer. Examples of the analysis of Markov G-networks with various features have been presented.

We revisit the random m-ary search tree and study a finer profile of its node outdegrees with the purpose of exploring possibilities of data structure compression. The analysis is done via Pólya urns. The analysis shows that the number of nodes of each individual node outdegree has a phase transition: Up to m = 26, the number of nodes of outdegree k, for k = 0, 1, …, m, is asymptotically normal; that behavior changes at m = 27. Based on the analysis, we propose a compact m-ary tree that offers significant space saving.

By using the martingale method, we show that thinning of an arbitrary point process produces independent thinned processes if and only if the original point process is (nonhomogeneous) Poisson. Thinning is a classical problem for point processes. It is well-known that independent homogeneous Poisson processes result from constant Bernoulli thinnings of homogeneous Poisson processes. In fact, the conclusion remains true for nonconstant Bernoulli thinnings of nonhomogeneous Poisson processes. processes. In fact, the conclusion remains true for nonconstant Bernoulli thinnings of nonhomogeneous Poisson processes. It is easy to see that the converse is also true, i.e., if the thinned processes are independent nonhomogeneous Poisson processes, so are the original processes. But if we only suppose the thinned processes are independent, nothing is concerned with their distribution law, the problem of whether or not the original processes are (nonhomogeneous) Poisson becomes interesting and challenging, which is the objective of this paper. It is considerably surprising for us to arrive at the affirmative answer. So far as this problem is concerned, the most work was done under the renewal assumption. For example, Bremaud [1] showed that for arbitrary delayed renewal processes, the existence of a pair of uncorrelated thinned processes is sufficient to guarantee that the original process is Poisson. It is natural that the mathematical tools to solve the problem in this case be typical ones for renewal theory, such as renewal equations and Laplace-Stieltjes transformations. Obviously, they are not available for nonrenewal processes. We find out that the martingale method is the most efficient one to solve this problem in the general case. More precisely, we use mainly the dual predictable projections of point processes. In fact, the distribution law of a point process is determined uniquely by its dual predictable projection (see [5]), and Ma [6] offered us a very useful criterion of independence of jump processes having no common jump time through their dual predictable projections. Based on these results, it is not a long way to arrive at the destination.

This paper considers a two-person zero-sum stochastic differential game. The dynamics of the game are given by a one-dimensional stochastic differential equation whose diffusion coefficient may be controlled by the players. The drift coefficient is held constant and cannot be controlled. Player l's objective is to maximize the probability that the state at final time, T, is positive, while Player 2's objective is to maximize the probability that the state is negative.

We consider multiclass closed queueing networks. For these networks, a lot of work has been devoted to characterizing and weakening the conditions under which a product-form solution is obtained for the steady-state distribution. From this work, it is known that, under certain conditions, all networks in which each of the stations has either the first-come first-served or the random service discipline lead to the same (product-form expressions for the) steady-state probabilities of the (aggregated) states that for each station and each job class denote the number of jobs in service and the number of jobs in the queue. As a consequence, all these situations also lead to the same throughputs for the different job classes. One of the conditions under which these equivalence results hold states that at each station all job classes must have the same exponential service time distribution. In this paper, it is shown that these equivalence results can be extended to the case with different exponential service times for jobs of different classes, if the network consists of only one single-server or multiserver station. This extension can be made despite of the fact that the network is not a product-form network anymore in that case. The proof is based on the reversibility of the Markov process that is obtained under the random service discipline. By means of a counterexample, it is shown that the extension cannot be made for closed network with two or more stations.

Various large-scale suppliers frequently use web-based spot markets, along with discount stores and foreign distributors, for inventory liquidation. Recognizing the potential benefits of such practices, we consider a multi-period, integrated replenishment, and liquidation problem for a capacitated supplier facing stochastic demand from a spot market along with its primary market (with higher priority contractual customers). In each period, the supplier must decide: (i) how much to produce, and (ii) if there are excess units left after sales to the primary market, how many of these to liquidate. We show that the optimal policy is characterized by two quantities: the critical produce-up-to level and the critical retain-up-to level. We establish bounds for these two quantities. We identify two practical benchmark policies and establish thresholds on the unit revenue earned from the spot market such that one of the two benchmark policies is optimal. We provide closed form expressions to determine these thresholds for the infinite horizon problem under specific conditions on the available production capacity. In general, it is difficult, if not impossible, to theoretically determine these thresholds in closed form for the finite horizon problem. Hence, we report results of a computational study to gain insights regarding the behavior of the optimal policy with respect to the spot market revenue. Our computational results also quantify the benefits of the optimal policy relative to the benchmark policies and examine the effects of demand correlation.

The Normal and Gamma distributions are the most popular models for analyzing symmetric and skewed data, respectively. In this article, a new multimodal distribution is introduced that contains the Normal and Gamma distributions as particular cases and thus could be a better model for both symmetric and skewed data. Various structural properties of this distribution are derived, including its moment-generating function, characteristic function, moments, entropy, asymptotic distribution of the extreme order statistics, method of moment estimates, maximum likelihood estimates, Fisher information matrix, and simulation issues. The superiority of the new distribution is illustrated by means of two real datasets.

We consider a two-player game in which the first player (the Guesser) tries to guess, edge-by-edge, the path that second player (the Chooser) takes through a directed graph. At each step, the Guesser makes a wager as to the correctness of her guess and receives a payoff proportional to her wager if she is correct. We derive optimal strategies for both players for various classes of graphs, and we describe the Markov-chain dynamics of the game under optimal play. These results are applied to the infinite-duration Lying Oracle Game, in which the Guesser must use information provided by an unreliable Oracle to predict the outcome of a coin toss.

Motivated by stochastic allocation problems, we study sufficient conditions that imply a general class of stochastic arrangement inequalities. This class includes many known and useful arrangement inequalities in the literature. Some illustrative examples in reliability theory are also given.

We consider preemptive scheduling on parallel machines where processing times of jobs are i.i.d. but jobs may already have received distinct amounts of service. We show that when processing times are increasing in likelihood ratio, SEPT (shortest expected [remaining] processing time first) stochastically minimizes any increasing and Schur-concave function of the job completion times. The same result holds when processing times are exponential with possibly different means.

We analyze service systems where Nservers (N > 2) move one at a time along an array of stations to satisfy a known number of requests for service. Processing a request consists of determining the server to satisfy the request. The cost of processing a request is determined by the distance the server that performs the request has to move. We determine qualitative properties of sequencing strategies that minimize the expected cost incurred by the service of all requests when the array of stations is on a circle or an interval.

Let X be a random variable with characteristic function ϕ. In the case where X is integer-valued and n is a positive integer, a formula (in terms of ϕ) for the probability that n divides X is presented. The derivation of this formula is quite simple and uses only the basic properties of expectation and complex numbers. The formula easily generalizes to one for the distribution of X mod n. Computational simplifications and the relation to the inversion formula are also discussed; the latter topic includes a new inversion formula when the range of X is finite.

When X may take on a more general distribution, limiting considerations of the previous formulas suggest others for the distribution, density, and moments of the fractional part X — [X]. These are easily derived using basic properties of Fourier series. These formulas also yield an alternative inversion formula for ϕ when the range of X is bounded.

Applications to renewal theory and random walks are suggested. A by-product of the approach is a probabilistic method for the evaluation of infinite series.

We introduce the generalized join the shortest queue model with retrials and two infinite capacity orbit queues. Three independent Poisson streams of jobs, namely a smart, and two dedicated streams, flow into a single-server system, which can hold at most one job. Arriving jobs that find the server occupied are routed to the orbits as follows: Blocked jobs from the smart stream are routed to the shortest orbit queue, and in case of a tie, they choose an orbit randomly. Blocked jobs from the dedicated streams are routed directly to their orbits. Orbiting jobs retry to connect with the server at different retrial rates, i.e., heterogeneous orbit queues. Applications of such a system are found in the modeling of wireless cooperative networks. We are interested in the asymptotic behavior of the stationary distribution of this model, provided that the system is stable. More precisely, we investigate the conditions under which the tail asymptotic of the minimum orbit queue length is exactly geometric. Moreover, we apply a heuristic asymptotic approach to obtain approximations of the steady-state joint orbit queue-length distribution. Useful numerical examples are presented and shown that the results obtained through the asymptotic analysis and the heuristic approach are agreed.

Recently, Pellerey, Shaked, and Zinn [6] introduced a discrete-time analogue of the nonhomogeneous Poisson process. The purpose of this article is to provide some results for stochastic comparisons of the epoch times and the interepoch times of those processes. Also, we show the relationships between these processes and discrete record values and we provide several results for discrete weak record values.

An external uniformization technique was developed by Ross [4] to obtain approximations of transition probabilities of finite Markov chains in continuous time. Yoon and Shanthikumar [7] then reported through extensive numerical experiments that this technique performs quite well compared to other existing methods. In this paper, we show that external uniformization results from the strong law of large numbers whose underlying distributions are exponential. Based on this observation, some remarks regarding properties of the approximation are given.

This paper studies a Pareto-optimal reinsurance problem when the contract is subject to default of the reinsurer. We assume that the reinsurer can invest a share of its wealth in a risky asset and default occurs when the reinsurer's end-of-period wealth is insufficient to cover the indemnity. We show that without the solvency regulation, the optimal indemnity function is of excess-of-loss form, regardless of the investment decision. Under the solvency regulation constraint, by assuming the investment decision remains unchanged, the optimal indemnity function is characterized element-wisely. Partial results are derived when both the indemnity function and investment decision are impacted by the solvency regulation. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the implications of our results and the sensitivity of solution to the model parameters.

This paper concentrates on the fundamental concepts of entropy, information and divergence to the case where the distribution function and the respective survival function play the central role in their definition. The main aim is to provide an overview of these three categories of measures of information and their cumulative and survival counterparts. It also aims to introduce and discuss Csiszár's type cumulative and survival divergences and the analogous Fisher's type information on the basis of cumulative and survival functions.