Random Sampling Scattered Data with Multivariate Bernstein Polynomials

In this paper, the multivariate Bernstein polynomials defined on a simplex are viewed as sampling operators, and a generalization by allowing the sampling operators to take place at scattered sites is studied. Both stochastic and deterministic aspects are applied in the study. On the stochastic aspect, a Chebyshev type estimate for the sampling operators is established. On the deterministic aspect, combining the theory of uniform distribution and the discrepancy method, the rate of approximating continuous function and L ^p convergence for these operators are studied, respectively.     

Asymptotic distributions of M-estimators in a spatial regression model under some fixed and stochastic spatial sampling designs

In this paper, we consider M-estimators of the regression parameter in a spatial multiple linear regression model. We establish consistency and asymptotic normality of the M-estimators when the data-sites are generated by a class of deterministic as well as a class of stochastic spatial sampling schemes. Under the deterministic sampling schemes, the data-sites are located on a regular grid but may have aninfill component. On the other hand, under the stochastic sampling schemes, locations of the data-sites are given by the realizations of a collection of independent random vectors and thus, are irregularly spaced. It is shown that scaling constants of different orders are needed for asymptotic normality under different spatial sampling schemes considered here. Further, in the stochastic case, the asymptotic covariance matrix is shown to depend on the spatial sampling density associated with the stochastic design. Results are established for M-estimators corresponding to certain non-smooth score functions including Huber’s ψ-function and the sign functions (corresponding to the sample quantiles). Research of Lahiri is partially supported by NSF grant no. DMS-0072571. Research of Mukherjee is partially supported by the Academic Research Grant R-155-000-003-112 from the National University of Singapore.     

Full‐discrete finite element method for the stochastic elastic equation driven by additive noise

We study the full‐discrete finite element method for the stochastic elastic equation driven by additive noise. To analyze the error estimates, we write the stochastic elastic equation as an abstract stochastic equation. Strong convergence estimates in the root mean square L₂ ‐norm are obtained by using the error estimates for the deterministic problem and the semigroup theory. Numerical experiments are carried out to verify the theoretical results. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2013     

Equations with Random Gaussian Operators with Unbounded Mean Value

We consider an equation in a Hilbert space with a random operator represented as a sum of a deterministic, closed, densely defined operator and a Gaussian strong random operator. We represent a solution of an equation with random right-hand side in terms of stochastic derivatives of solutions of an equation with deterministic right-hand side. We consider applications of this representation to the anticipating Cauchy problem for a stochastic partial differential equation.     

Estimated stochastic programs with chance constraints

We will consider a non-parametric estimation procedure for chance-constrained stochastic programs where the random parameters appear on the right-hand side of linear constraints for the decision variable. The assumed independence of the components of the random right-hand side data results in stochastic programs with a separability structure in the constraints. We estimate the unknown probability distribution of the random right-hand side data via isotonic regression estimates of increasing hazard rates. Our choice of the estimates was motivated by the relationship between logarithmic concave measures and increasing hazard rate distributions. We establish large deviation results for optimal values and optimal solution sets of the estimated programs. Finally, we discuss the numerical treatment of the estimated chance-constrained programs and report on a test run.     

Estimating Orthant Probabilities of High-Dimensional Gaussian Vectors with An Application to Set Estimation

The computation of Gaussian orthant probabilities has been extensively studied for low-dimensional vectors. Here, we focus on the high-dimensional case and we present a two-step procedure relying on both deterministic and stochastic techniques. The proposed estimator relies indeed on splitting the probability into a low-dimensional term and a remainder. While the low-dimensional probability can be estimated by fast and accurate quadrature, the remainder requires Monte Carlo sampling. We further refine the estimation by using a novel asymmetric nested Monte Carlo (anMC) algorithm for the remainder and we highlight cases where this approximation brings substantial efficiency gains. The proposed methods are compared against state-of-the-art techniques in a numerical study, which also calls attention to the advantages and drawbacks of the procedure. Finally, the proposed method is applied to derive conservative estimates of excursion sets of expensive to evaluate deterministic functions under a Gaussian random field prior, without requiring a Markov assumption. Supplementary material for this article is available online.     

Wasserstein convergence of invariant measures for fractional stochastic reaction–diffusion equations on unbounded domains

This paper is concerned with the convergence of invariant measures in the Wasserstein sense for fractional stochastic reaction–diffusion equations defined on unbounded domains as the noise intensity approaches zero. Based on uniform estimates of solutions, we prove the family of invariant measures of the stochastic equations converges to the invariant measure of the corresponding deterministic equations in terms of the Wasserstein metric. We also provide the rate of such convergence.     

Some insights into the solution algorithms for SLP problems

We consider classes of stochastic linear programming problems which can be efficiently solved by deterministic algorithms. For two–stage recourse problems we identify two such classes. The first one consists of problems where the number of stochastically independent random variables is relatively low; the second class is the class of simple recourse problems. The proposed deterministic algorithm is successive discrete approximation. We also illustrate the impact of required accuracy on the efficiency of this algorithm. For jointly chance constrained problems with a random right–hand–side and multivariate normal distribution we demonstrate the increase in efficiency when lower accuracy is required, for a central cutting plane method. We support our argumentation and findings with computational results.     

The interface of buffer design and cyclic scheduling decisions in deterministic flow lines

In this paper, we address some issues on the interface of buffer design and cyclic scheduling decisions in a multi-product deterministic flow line. We demonstrate the importance of the above interface for the throughput performance of the flow line. In particular, we point out that the use of sequence-independent information, such as workload distribution and variability in processing times among stations, is not adequate to decide the optimal buffer configuration of the flow line. We formulate the buffer design problem for a fixed sequence of jobs as a general resource allocation problem, and suggest two effective heuristics for its solution. For the simultaneous buffer design and cyclic scheduling problem, we suggest an iterative scheme that builds on the effectiveness of the above heuristics. One of the side results of our extensive computational studies on this problem is that the general guidelines of buffer design in single-product flow lines with stochastic processing times are not directly transferable to the multiproduct deterministic flow line environment.     

The Multi-Handler Knapsack Problem under Uncertainty

The Multi-Handler Knapsack Problem under Uncertainty is a new stochastic knapsack problem where, given a set of items, characterized by volume and random profit, and a set of potential handlers, we want to find a subset of items which maximizes the expected total profit. The item profit is given by the sum of a deterministic profit plus a stochastic profit due to the random handling costs of the handlers. On the contrary of other stochastic problems in the literature, the probability distribution of the stochastic profit is unknown. By using the asymptotic theory of extreme values, a deterministic approximation for the stochastic problem is derived. The accuracy of such a deterministic approximation is tested against the two-stage with fixed recourse formulation of the problem. Very promising results are obtained on a large set of instances in negligible computing time.     

Full-Discrete Finite Element Method for Stochastic Hyperbolic Equation

This paper is concerned with the finite element method for the stochastic wave equation and the stochastic elastic equation driven by space-time white noise. For simplicity, we rewrite the two types of stochastic hyperbolic equations into a unified form. We convert the stochastic hyperbolic equation into a regularized equation by discretizing the white noise and then consider the full-discrete finite element method for the regularized equation. We derive the modeling error by using "Green's method" and the finite element approximation error by using the error estimates of the deterministic equation. Some numerical examples are presented to verify the theoretical results.     

Upper bounds for Gaussian stochastic programs

We present a construction which gives deterministic upper bounds for stochastic programs in which the randomness appears on the right–hand–side and has a multivariate Gaussian distribution. Computation of these bounds requires the solution of only as many linear programs as the problem has variables. Received December 2, 1997 / Revised version received January 5, 1999? Published online May 12, 1999     

Gradient Estimation Schemes for Noisy Functions

In this paper, we analyze different schemes for obtaining gradient estimates when the underlying functions are noisy. Good gradient estimation is important e.g. for nonlinear programming solvers. As error criterion, we take the norm of the difference between the real and estimated gradients. The total error can be split into a deterministic error and a stochastic error. For three finite-difference schemes and two design of experiments (DoE) schemes, we analyze both the deterministic errors and stochastic errors. We derive also optimal stepsizes for each scheme, such that the total error is minimized. Some of the schemes have the nice property that this stepsize minimizes also the variance of the error. Based on these results, we show that, to obtain good gradient estimates for noisy functions, it is worthwhile to use DoE schemes. We recommend to implement such schemes in NLP solvers.We thank our colleague Jack Kleijnen for useful remarks on an earlier version of this paper and Gül Gürkan for providing us with relevant literature. Moreover, we thank the anonymous referee for valuable remarks.     

Investigation on effects of stochastic loading at the boundary under thermoelasticity with two relaxation parameters

The main objective of the present work is to study the responses of stochastic type mechanical distribution at the boundary of an elastic half space in the context of generalized thermoelasticity. In order to compare the results under the stochastic mechanical distribution, we have also considered the case of deterministic mechanical distribution prescribed at the boundary. The stochastic mechanical distribution is considered in such a way that it reduces to a deterministic type distribution as a special case. Laplace transform technique is used to solve the problem and its inversion is carried out by using asymptotic expansions valid for short times to obtain the solution of all the physical field variables like, stress and temperature distributions in the physical domain. Numerical results are found out to compare the effects of stochastic and deterministic load prescribed at the boundary of the elastic half space.     

Exclusion and persistence in deterministic and stochastic chemostat models

We first introduce and analyze a variant of the deterministic single-substrate chemostat model. In this model, microbe removal and growth rates depend on biomass concentration, with removal terms increasing faster than growth terms. Using a comparison principle we show that persistence of all species is possible in this scenario. Then we turn to modelling the influence of random fluctuations by setting up and analyzing a stochastic differential equation. In particular, we show that random effects may lead to extinction in scenarios where the deterministic model predicts persistence. On the other hand, we also establish some stochastic persistence results.     

Identification of stochastic operators

Based on the here developed functional analytic machinery we extend the theory of operator sampling and identification to apply to operators with stochastic spreading functions. We prove that identification with a delta train signal is possible for a large class of stochastic operators that have the property that the autocorrelation of the spreading function is supported on a set of 4D volume less than one and this support set does not have a defective structure. In fact, unlike in the case of deterministic operator identification, the geometry of the support set has a significant impact on the identifiability of the considered operator class. Also, we prove that, analogous to the deterministic case, the restriction of the 4D volume of a support set to be less or equal to one is necessary for identifiability of a stochastic operator class.     

A filtering problem with a small nonlinear term

In this paper, we consider a filtering problem where the signal X _t satisfies a slightly nonlinear stochastic differential equation and we want to obtain estimates of X _t. To this end, we decompose the nonlinearity with two techniques—a deterministic one and a stochastic one—and this leads us to two sequences of estimates which can be computed by solving finite dimensional equations. We want to compare their performances: we solve this problem in most cases if we restrict ourselves to sufficiently small times t and we give conditions which permit to conclude also for larger times     

Optimization of Nonlinear Systems of Stochastic Difference Equations

We present new results concerning the synthesis of optimal control for systems of difference equations that depend on a semi-Markov or Markov stochastic process. We obtain necessary conditions for the optimality of solutions that generalize known conditions for the optimality of deterministic systems of control. These necessary optimality conditions are obtained in the form convenient for the synthesis of optimal control. On the basis of Lyapunov stochastic functions, we obtain matrix difference equations of the Riccati type, the integration of which enables one to synthesize an optimal control. The results obtained generalize results obtained earlier for deterministic systems of difference equations.     

Dynamics of a hepatitis B model with saturated incidence

In this article, we present a hepatitis B epidemic model with saturated incidence. The dynamic behaviors of the deterministic and stochastic system are studied. To this end, we first establish the local and global stability conditions of the equilibrium of the deterministic model. Second, by constructing suitable stochastic Lyapunov functions, the sufficient conditions for the existence of ergodic stationary distribution as well as extinction of hepatitis B are obtained.     

Bi-objective project portfolio selection and staff assignment under uncertainty

We formulate a project portfolio selection problem under uncertainty with two optimization criteria: a weighted average of economic and strategic gains, and a risk measure expressed as the expected total overtime cost. The optimal assignment of personnel with given skills to the tasks of the selected projects is incorporated as a subproblem. Searching for Pareto-optimal portfolios satisfying the given constraints amounts to a stochastic multi-objective combinatorial optimization problem, a problem type for which only a few general solution approaches are available at present. We apply a recently developed technique called adaptive Pareto sampling, solve a linear subproblem with an LP solver and use the NSGA-II algorithm for deterministic multi-objective optimization as an auxiliary procedure. A convergence result applicable in a more general context is also shown. To obtain objective function estimates, importance sampling is applied. The technique is tested on a benchmark derived from a real-world application case provided by the E-Commerce Competence Center Austria.