To honor Rafail Z. Khasminskii, on his seventy-fifth birthday, for his contributions to stochastic processes and nonparametric estimation theory an IMA participating institution conference entitled "Conference on Asymptotic Analysis in Stochastic Processes, Nonparametric Estimation, and Related Problems" was held. This volume commemorates this special event. Dedicated to Professor Khasminskii, it consists of nine papers on various topics in probability and statistics.

About three years ago, an idea was discussed among some colleagues in the Division of Statistics at the University of California, Davis, as to the possibility of holding an international conference, focusing exclusively on nonparametric curve estimation. The fruition of this idea came about with the enthusiastic support of this project by Luc Devroye of McGill University, Canada, and Peter Robinson of the London School of Economics, UK. The response of colleagues, contacted to ascertain interest in participation in such a conference, was gratifying and made the effort involved worthwhile. Devroye and Robinson, together with this editor and George Metakides of the University of Patras, Greece and of the European Economic Communities, Brussels, formed the International Organizing Committee for a two week long Advanced Study Institute (ASI) sponsored by the Scientific Affairs Division of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The ASI was held on the Greek Island of Spetses between July 29 and August 10, 1990. Nonparametric functional estimation is a central topic in statistics, with applications in numerous substantive fields in mathematics, natural and social sciences, engineering and medicine. While there has been interest in nonparametric functional estimation for many years, this has grown of late, owing to increasing availability of large data sets and the ability to process them by means of improved computing facilities, along with the ability to display the results by means of sophisticated graphical procedures.

This book provides a mathematically rigorous treatment of the theory of nonparametric estimation and prediction for stochastic processes. It discusses discrete time and continuous time, and the emphasis is on the kernel methods. Several new results are presented concerning optimal and superoptimal convergence rates. How to implement the method is discussed in detail and several numerical results are presented. This book will be of interest to specialists in mathematical statistics and to those who wish to apply these methods to practical problems involving time series analysis.

This volume contains papers presented at the Seminar on Mathematical Statistics held at the Institute for Problems of Information Transmission of the Academy of Sciences in the former Soviet Union. Founded in the mid-1960s, this seminar is still active and attracts most of the researchers in Moscow who are interested in mathematical statistics.

This book covers a highly relevant and timely topic that is of wide interest, especially in finance, engineering and computational biology. The introductory material on simulation and stochastic differential equation is very accessible and will prove popular with many readers. While there are several recent texts available that cover stochastic differential equations, the concentration here on inference makes this book stand out. No other direct competitors are known to date. With an emphasis on the practical implementation of the simulation and estimation methods presented, the text will be useful to practitioners and students with minimal mathematical background. What’s more, because of the many R programs, the information here is appropriate for many mathematically well educated practitioners, too.

One of the most challenging subjects of stochastic analysis in relation to physics is the analysis of heat kernels on infinite dimensional manifolds. The simplest nontrivial case is that of thepath and loop space on a Lie group. In this volume an up-to-date survey of the topic is given by Leonard Gross, a prominent developer of the theory. Another concise but complete survey of Hausdorff measures on Wiener space and its applications to Malliavin Calculus is given by D. Feyel, one of the most active specialists in this area. Other survey articles deal with short-time asymptotics of diffusion pro cesses with values in infinite dimensional manifolds and large deviations of diffusions with discontinuous drifts. A thorough survey is given of stochas tic integration with respect to the fractional Brownian motion, as well as Stokes' formula for the Brownian sheet, and a new version of the log Sobolev inequality on the Wiener space. Professional mathematicians looking for an overview of the state-of-the art in the above subjects will find this book helpful. In addition, graduate students as well as researchers whose domain requires stochastic analysis will find the original results of interest for their own research. The organizers acknowledge gratefully the financial help ofthe University of Oslo, and the invaluable aid of Professor Bernt 0ksendal and l'Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications.

This volume is a collection of research works to honor the late Professor Mark H.A. Davis, whose pioneering work in the areas of Stochastic Processes, Filtering, and Stochastic Optimization spans more than five decades. Invited authors include his dissertation advisor, past collaborators, colleagues, mentees, and graduate students of Professor Davis, as well as scholars who have worked in the above areas. Their contributions may expand upon topics in piecewise deterministic processes, pathwise stochastic calculus, martingale methods in stochastic optimization, filtering, mean-field games, time-inconsistency, as well as impulse, singular, risk-sensitive and robust stochastic control.

This volume, edited by Jeffrey Racine, Liangjun Su, and Aman Ullah, contains the latest research on nonparametric and semiparametric econometrics and statistics. These data-driven models seek to replace the classical parametric models of the past, which were rigid and often linear. Chapters by leading international econometricians and statisticians highlight the interface between econometrics and statistical methods for nonparametric and semiparametric procedures. They provide a balanced view of new developments in the modeling of cross-section, time series, panel, and spatial data. Topics of the volume include: the methodology of semiparametric models and special regressor methods; inverse, ill-posed, and well-posed problems; methodologies related to additive models; sieve regression, nonparametric and semiparametric regression, and the true error of competing approximate models; support vector machines and their modeling of default probability; series estimation of stochastic processes and their application in Econometrics; identification, estimation, and specification problems in semilinear time series models; nonparametric and semiparametric techniques applied to nonstationary or near nonstationary variables; the estimation of a set of regression equations; and a new approach to the analysis of nonparametric models with exogenous treatment assignment.

Nonparametric statistics has probably become the leading methodology for researchers performing data analysis. It is nevertheless true that, whereas these methods have already proved highly effective in other applied areas of knowledge such as biostatistics or social sciences, nonparametric analyses in reliability currently form an interesting area of study that has not yet been fully explored. Applied Nonparametric Statistics in Reliability is focused on the use of modern statistical methods for the estimation of dependability measures of reliability systems that operate under different conditions. The scope of the book includes: smooth estimation of the reliability function and hazard rate of non-repairable systems; study of stochastic processes for modelling the time evolution of systems when imperfect repairs are performed; nonparametric analysis of discrete and continuous time semi-Markov processes; isotonic regression analysis of the structure function of a reliability system, and lifetime regression analysis. Besides the explanation of the mathematical background, several numerical computations or simulations are presented as illustrative examples. The corresponding computer-based methods have been implemented using R and MATLAB®. A concrete modelling scheme is chosen for each practical situation and, in consequence, a nonparametric inference procedure is conducted. Applied Nonparametric Statistics in Reliability will serve the practical needs of scientists (statisticians and engineers) working on applied reliability subjects.