Conditional Viability for Impulse Differential Games

We introduce in this paper the concept of “impulse evolutionary game”. Examples of evolutionary games are usual differential games, differentiable games with history (path-dependent differential games), mutational differential games, etc. Impulse evolutionary systems and games cover in particular “hybrid systems” as well as “qualitative systems”. The conditional viability kernel of a constrained set (with a target) is the set of initial states such that for all strategies (regarded as continuous feedbacks) played by the second player, there exists a strategy of the first player such that the associated run starting from this initial state satisfies the constraints until it hits the target. This paper characterizes the concept of conditional viability kernel for “qualitative games” and of conditional valuation function for “qualitative games” maximinimizing an intertemporal criterion. The theorems obtained so far about viability/capturability issues for evolutionary systems, conditional viability for differential games and about impulse and hybrid systems are used to provide characterizations of conditional viability under impulse evolutionary games.     

Conditional laplace transforms for bayesian nonparametric inference in reliabity theory

In order to apply nonparametric meyhods to reliability problems, it is desibrable to have available priors over a broad class of survival distributions.In the paper, this is achieved by taking the failure rate function to be the sum oof a nonnegative stochastic process with increasing sample patjhs and a process with decreasing sample paths. This approach produces a prior which chooses an absolutely survival distribution that can have an IFR, DFR, or U-shapped failure rate. Posterior Laplace transforms of the failure rate are obtained based on survival data allows censoring. Bayes estimates of the failure rate as well as the lifetime distribution are then calculated from these posterior Laplace transforms. This approach is also applied to a competing risks model and the proportional hazards model of Cox.     

Empirical Euclidean likelihood for general estimating equations under association dependence

Empirical Euclidean likelihood for general estimating equations for association dependent processes is investigated. The strong consistency and asymptotic normality of the blockwise maximum empirical Euclidean likelihood estimator are presented. We show that it is more efficient than estimator without blocking. The blockwise empirical Euclidean log-likelihood ratio asymptotically follows a chi-square distribution.     

Dynamical transition for S‐K‐T biological competing model with cross‐diffusion

The main objective of this paper is to study the dynamical transition for the S‐K‐T biological competition system with cross‐diffusion. Based on the spectral analysis, the principle of exchange of stabilities conditions for eigenvalues are obtained. By using the dynamical transition theory, 2 different types of dynamical transition for the S‐K‐T model are also derived. In addition, an example is given to illustrate our main results.     

Monte Carlo exact goodness‐of‐fit tests for nonhomogeneous Poisson processes

Nonhomogeneous Poisson processes (NHPPs) are often used to model failure data from repairable systems, and there is thus a need to check model fit for such models. We study the problem of obtaining exact goodness‐of‐fit tests for parametric NHPPs. The idea is to use conditional tests given a sufficient statistic under the null hypothesis model. The tests are performed by simulating conditional samples given the sufficient statistic. Algorithms are presented for testing goodness‐of‐fit for the power law and the log‐linear law NHPP models. It is noted that while exact algorithms for the power law case are well known in the literature, the availability of such algorithms for the log‐linear case seems to be less known. A data example, as well as simulations, are considered. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some properties of the bivariate lognormal distribution for reliability applications

In this paper, we study the bivariate lognormal distribution from a reliability point of view. The conditional distribution of X given Y > y is found to be log‐skew normal. The monotonicity of the hazard rates of the univariate as well as the conditional distributions is discussed. Clayton's association measure is obtained in terms of the hazard gradient, and its value in the case of our model is derived. The probability distributions, in the case of series and parallel systems, are derived, and the monotonicity of their failure rates is discussed. Three real applications of the bivariate lognormal distribution are provided, two from financial economics and one from reliability. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An iterative solver for the finite‐difference frequency‐domain (FDFD) method for the simulation of materials with negative permittivity

A stable iterative solver for the simulation of optical waves in metals using finite difference frequency domain (FDFD) method is presented. The corresponding discretization of Maxwell's equations enables simulating electromagnetic waves in structures when materials with negative permittivity are involved. Convergence of the iterative solver is proved for positive and negative permittivities. Numerical results are presented for a thin‐film silicon solar cell structure containing silver back contact. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Padé family of iterations for the matrix sign function and related problems

In this paper we consider the Pad'e family of iterations for computing the matrix sign function and the Padé family of iterations for computing the matrix p‐sector function. We prove that all the iterations of the Padé family for the matrix sign function have a common convergence region. It completes a similar result of Kenney and Laub for half of the Padé family. We show that the iterations of the Padé family for the matrix p‐sector function are well defined in an analogous common region, depending on p. For this purpose we proved that the Padé approximants to the function (1?z)^?σ, 0<σ<1, are a quotient of hypergeometric functions whose poles we have localized. Furthermore we proved that the coefficients of the power expansion of a certain analytic function form a positive sequence and in a special case this sequence has the log‐concavity property. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.