Probability Models is designed to aid students studying probability as part of an undergraduate course on mathematics or mathematics and statistics. It describes how to set up and analyse models of real-life phenomena that involve elements of chance. Motivation comes from everyday experiences of probability via dice and cards, the idea of fairness in games of chance, and the random ways in which, say, birthdays are shared or particular events arise. Applications include branching processes, random walks, Markov chains, queues, renewal theory, and Brownian motion. No specific knowledge of the subject is assumed, only a familiarity with the notions of calculus, and the summation of series. Where the full story would call for a deeper mathematical background, the difficulties are noted and appropriate references given. The main topics arise naturally, with definitions and theorems supported by fully worked examples and some 200 set exercises, all with solutions.

Probability Models, Volume 51 in the Handbook of Statistics series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on Stein’s methods, Probabilities and thermodynamics third law, Random Matrix Theory, General tools for understanding fluctuations of random variables, An approximation scheme to compute the Fisher-Rao distance between multivariate normal distributions, Probability Models Applied to Reliability and Availability Engineering, Backward stochastic differential equation– Stochastic optimization theory and viscous solution of HJB equation, and much more.

Additional chapters cover Probability Models in Machine Learning, The recursive stochastic algorithm, randomized urn models and response-adaptive randomization in clinical trials, Random matrix theory: local laws and applications, KOO methods and their high-dimensional consistencies in some multivariate models, Fourteen Lectures on Inference for Stochastic Processes, and A multivariate cumulative damage model and some applications.

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