Drift transforms and Green function estimates for discontinuous processes

In this paper, we consider Girsanov transforms of pure jump type for discontinuous Markov processes. We show that, under some quite natural conditions, the Green functions of the Girsanov transformed process are comparable to those of the original process. As an application of the general results, the drift transform of symmetric stable processes is studied in detail. In particular, we show that the relativistic α-stable process in a bounded C^1,1-smooth open set D can be obtained from symmetric α-stable process in D through a combination of a pure jump Girsanov transform and a Feynman-Kac transform. From this, we deduce that the Green functions for these two processes in D are comparable.     

Thinking and Turing's test

The questions raised by A. M. Turing in his paper on thought and machines are discussed. Human thought is considered in turn as a concept of normal language usage, as a basic concept of psychology, and as the basis of intellectual activity. It is concluded that neither of these notions of thought identifies something specific that a human being can or cannot do. The imitation game proposed by Turing for deciding whether a machine can think is found to result from an arbitrary empoverishment of the channel of communication between the interrogator and the item under investigation. Turing's notions of thinking are shown to lead to logical difficulties. An alternative view of consciousness, that would place it beyond the reach of any finite test, is finally discussed.     

Diffusing particles with electrostatic repulsion

Summary. We study a diffusion model of an interacting particles system with general drift and diffusion coefficients, and electrostatic inter-particles repulsion. More precisely, the finite particle system is shown to be well defined thanks to recent results on multivalued stochastic differential equations (see [2]), and then we consider the behaviour of this system when the number of particles goes to infinity (through the empirical measure process). In the particular case of affine drift and constant diffusion coefficient, we prove that a limiting measure-valued process exists and is the unique solution of a deterministic PDE. Our treatment of the convergence problem (as ) is partly similar to that of T. Chan [3] and L.C.G. Rogers - Z. Shi [5], except we consider here a more general case allowing collisions between particles, which leads to a second-order limiting PDE. Received: 5 August 1996 / In revised form: 17 October 1996     

Strong approximation ofGSBV functions by piecewise smooth functions

Let Ω be an open and bounded subset ofR ⁿ with locally Lipschitz boundary. We prove that the functionsv∈SBV(Ω,R ^m ) whose jump setS _vis essentially closed and polyhedral and which are of classW ^{k, ∞} (S _v,R ^m) for every integerk are strongly dense inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ), in the sense that every functionu inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ) is approximated inL ^p(Ω,R ^m ) by a sequence of functions {v _k{_j∈N with the described regularity such that the approximate gradients ∇v _jconverge inL ^p(Ω,R ^nm ) to the approximate gradient ∇u and the (n−1)-dimensional measure of the jump setsS _{v j} converges to the (n−1)-dimensional measure ofS _u. The structure ofS _v can be further improved in casep≤2.

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Sunto Sia Ω un aperto limitato diR ⁿ con frontiera localmente Lipschitziana. In questo lavoro si dimostra che le funzioniv∈SBV(Ω,R ^m ) con insieme di saltoS _v essenzialmente chiuso e poliedrale che sono di classeW ^{k, ∞} (S _v,R ^m ) per ogni interok sono fortemente dense inGSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ), nel senso che ogni funzioneu∈GSBV ^p(Ω,R ^m ) è approssimata inL ^p(Ω,R ^m ) da una successione di funzioni {v _j}_j∈N con la regolaritá descritta tali che i gradienti approssimati ∇v _jconvergono inL ^p(Ω,R ^nm ) al gradiente approssimato ∇u e la misura (n−1)-dimensionale degli insiemi di saltoS _{v j}converge alla misura (n−1)-dimensionale diS _u. La struttura diS _vpuó essere migliorata nel caso in cuip≤2.

     

Poincaré’s inequalities and Talagrand’s concentration phenomenon for the exponential distribution

Summary. We present a simple proof, based on modified logarithmic Sobolev inequalities, of Talagrand’s concentration inequality for the exponential distribution. We actually observe that every measure satisfying a Poincaré inequality shares the same concentration phenomenon. We also discuss exponential integrability under Poincaré inequalities and its consequence to sharp diameter upper bounds on spectral gaps. Received: 10 June 1996 / In revised form: 9 August 1996     

The Jacobian and the Ginzburg-Landau energy

We study the Ginzburg-Landau functional for , where U is a bounded, open subset of . We show that if a sequence of functions satisfies , then their Jacobians are precompact in the dual of for every . Moreover, any limiting measure is a sum of point masses. We also characterize the -limit of the functionals , in terms of the function space B2V introduced by the authors in [16,17]: we show that I(u) is finite if and only if , and for is equal to the total variation of the Jacobian measure Ju. When the domain U has dimension greater than two, we prove if then the Jacobians are again precompact in for all , and moreover we show that any limiting measure must be integer multiplicity rectifiable. We also show that the total variation of the Jacobian measure is a lower bound for the limit of the Ginzburg-Landau functional. Received: 15 December 2000 / Accepted: 23 January 2001 / Published online: 25 June 2001     

Polyèdre de Newton et distributionf + s . II

Sans résumé

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Stationary Distribution Function Estimation for Ergodic Diffusion Process

The problem of nonparametric stationary distribution function estimation by the observations of an ergodic diffusion process is considered. The local asymptotic minimax lower bound on the risk of all the estimators is found and it is proved that the empirical distribution function is asymptotically efficient in the sense of this bound.