MOMENTS OF CONTINUOUS-STATE BRANCHING PROCESSES IN LéVY RANDOM ENVIRONMENTS

For continuous-state branching processes in Lévy random environments, the recursion of n-moments and the equivalent condition for the existence of general f-moments are established, where f is a positive continuous function satisfying some standard conditions.

Uniqueness Problem for the Backward Differential Equation of a Continuous-State Branching Process

The distributional properties of a multi-dimensional continuous-state branching process are determined by its cumulant semigroup,which is defined by the backward differential equation.We provide a proof of the assertion of Rhyzhov and Skorokhod(Theory Probab.Appl.,1970)on the uniqueness of the solutions to the equation,which is based on a characterization of the process as the pathwise unique solution to a system of stochastic equations.

Stochastic Equations for Two-type Continuous-state Branching Processes with Immigration

A two-dimensional stochastic integral equation system with jumps is studied. We first prove its unique weak solution is a two-type continuous-state branching process with immigration. Then the comparison property of the solution is established. These results imply the existence and uniqueness of the strong solution of the stochastic equation system.

Conditional limit theorems for critical continuous-state branching processes

We study the conditional limit theorems for critical continuous-state branching processes with branching mechanism Ф（λ） = λ 1＋αL（1/λ）, where （α∈ [0, 1] and L is slowly varying at co. We prove that if α ∈ （0, 1], there are norming constants Qt →0 （as t ↑ ＋ ∞） such that for every x 〉 0, Px（QtXt ∈ · ｜Xt 〉 0） converges weakly to a non-degenerate limit. The converse assertion is also true provided the regularity of ψ at 0. We give a conditional limit theorem for the case α = 0. The limit theorems we obtain in this paper allow infinite variance of the branching process.

Moments of Continuous-state Branching Processes with or Without Immigration

For a positive continuous function f satisfying some standard conditions,we study the f-moments of continuous-state branching processes with or without immigration.The main results give criteria for the existence of the f-moments.The characterization of the processes in terms of stochastic equations plays an essential role in the proofs.

Boundary Behaviors for a Continuous-state Nonlinear Neveu’s Branching Process

By generalizing a criterion of Mufa Chen for Markov jump processes,we establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for the extinction,explosion and coming down from infinity of a continuous-state nonlinear Neveu’s branching process.

MOMENTS AND LARGE DEVIATIONS FOR SUPERCRITICAL BRANCHING PROCESSES WITH IMMIGRATION IN RANDOM ENVIRONMENTS

Let(Z_(n))be a branching process with immigration in a random environmentξ,whereξis an independent and identically distributed sequence of random variables.We show asymptotic properties for all the moments of Z_(n) and describe the decay rates of the n-step transition probabilities.As applications,a large deviation principle for the sequence log Z_(n) is established,and related large deviations are also studied.

A note on asymptotic behavior of Galton-Watson branching processes in random environments

In this paper, we investigate Galton-Watson branching processes in random environments. In the case where the environmental process is a Markov chain which is positive recurrent or has a transition matrix Q (θ,α) such that sup_θ Q (θ,α)> 0 for some α, we prove that the model has the asymptotic behavior being similar to that of Galton-Watson branching processes. In other case where the environments are non-stationary independent, the sufficient conditions are obtained for certain extinction and uncertain extinction for the model.

THE ASYMPTOTIC PROPERTIES OF SUPERCRITICAL BISEXUAL GALTON-WATSON BRANCHING PROCESSES WITH IMMIGRATION OF MATING UNITS

In this article the supercritical bisexual Galton-Watson branching processes with the immigration of mating units is considered. A necessary condition for the almost sure convergence, and a sufficient condition for the L^1 convergence are given for the process with the suitably normed condition.

ON THE BASIC REPRODUCTION NUMBER OF GENERAL BRANCHING PROCESSES

Under a very general condition （TNC condition） we show that the spectral radius of the kernel of a general branching process is a threshold parameter and hence plays a role as the basic reproduction number in usual CMJ processes. We discuss also some properties of the extinction probability and the generating operator of general branching processes. As an application in epidemics, in the final section we suggest a generalization of SIR model which can describe infectious diseases transmission in an inhomogeneous population.

CENTRAL LIMIT THEOREM AND CONVERGENCE RATES FOR A SUPERCRITICAL BRANCHING PROCESS WITH IMMIGRATION IN A RANDOM ENVIRONMENT

We are interested in the convergence rates of the submartingale Wn=Z_(n)/Π_(n)to its limit W,where(Π_(n))is the usually used norming sequence and(Z_(n))is a supercritical branching process with immigration(Y_(n))in a stationary and ergodic environmentξ.Under suitable conditions,we establish the following central limit theorems and results about the rates of convergence in probability or in law:(i)W-W_(n) with suitable normalization converges to the normal law N(0,1),and similar results also hold for W_(n+k)-W_(n) for each fixed k∈N^(*);(ii)for a branching process with immigration in a finite state random environment,if W_(1) has a finite exponential moment,then so does W,and the decay rate of P(|W-W_(n)|>ε)is supergeometric;(iii)there are normalizing constants an(ξ)(that we calculate explicitly)such that a_(n)(ξ)(W-W_(n))converges in law to a mixture of the Gaussian law.

CONTINUOUS TIME MIXED STATE BRANCHING PROCESSES AND STOCHASTIC EQUATIONS

A continuous time and mixed state branching process is constructed by a scaling limit theorem of two-type Galton-Watson processes.The process can also be obtained by the pathwise unique solution to a stochastic equation system.From the stochastic equation system we derive the distribution of local jumps and give the exponential ergodicity in Wasserstein-type distances of the transition semigroup.Meanwhile,we study immigration structures associated with the process and prove the existence of the stationary distribution of the process with immigration.

SOME PROPERTIES OF GALTON-WATSON BRANCHING PROCESSES IN VARYING ENVIRONMENTS

This article deals with some properties of Galton-Watson branching processes in varying environments. A necessary and suffcient condition for relative recurrent state is presented, and a series of ratio limit properties of the transition probabilities are showed.

A LIMIT THEOREM FOR INTERACTING MEASURE-VALUED BRANCHING PROCESSES

It is well known that Fleming-Viot superprocesses can be obtained from the Dawson-Watanabe superprocesses by conditioning the latter to have constant total mass. The same question is investigated for measure-valued branching processes with interacting intensity independent of the geographical position. It is showed that a sequence of conditioned probability laws of this kind of interacting measure-valued branching processes also approximates to the probability law of Fleming-Viot superprocesses.

Decomposition of Supercritical Linear-Fractional Branching Processes

It is well known that a supercritical single-type Bienayme-Galton-Watson process can be viewed as a decomposable branching process formed by two subtypes of particles: those having infinite line of descent and those who have finite number of descendants. In this paper we analyze such a decomposition for the linear-fractional Bienayme-Galton-Watson processes with countably many types. We find explicit expressions for the main characteristics of the reproduction laws for so-called skeleton and doomed particles.

SPECTRAL RADIUSES OF THE GALTON-WATSON BRANCHING PROCESSES

The spectral radiuses of Galton-Watson branching processes which describes the speed of the process escaping from any state are calculated. Under the condition of irreducibility,it is show that this is equal to the spectral radius of Jacobi matrix of its generating function.

Branching Process based Cascading Failure Probability Analysis for a Regional Power Grid in China with Utility Outage Data

Studying the propagation of cascading failures through the transmission network is key to asses and mitigate the risk faced the energy system. As complex systems the power grid failure is often studied using some probability distributions. We apply 4 well-known probabilistic models, Poisson model, Power Law model, Generalized Poisson Branching process model and Borel-Tanner Branching process model, to a 14-year utility historical outage data from a regional power grid in China, computing probabilities of cascading line outages. For this data, the empirical distribution of the total number of line outages is well approximated by the initial line outages propagating according to a Borel-Tanner branching process. Also for this data, Power law model overestimates, while Generalized Possion branching process and Possion model underestimate, the probability of larger outages. Especially, the probability distribution generated by the Poisson model deviates heavily from the observed data, underestimating the probability of large events (total no. of outages over 5) by roughly a factor of 10-2 to 10-5. The observation is confirmed by a statistical test of model fitness. The results of this work indicate that further testing of Borel-Tanner branching process models of cascading failure is appropriate, and should be further discussed as it outperforms other more traditional models.

Precise Asymptotics in Limit Theorems for a Supercritical Branching Process with Immigration in a Random Environment

Let(Zn)be a supercritical branching process with immigration in an independent and identically distributed random environment.Under necessary moment conditions,we show the exact convergence rate in the central limit theorem on log Zn and establish the corresponding local limit theorem by using the moments of the natural submartingale and the convergence rates of its logarithm.By similar approach and with the help of a change of measure,we also present the so-called integrolocal theorem and integral large deviation theorem to characterize the precise asymptotics of the upper large deviations.

CONSTRUCTION OF IMPROVED BRANCHING LATIN HYPERCUBE DESIGNS

In this paper,we propose a new method,called the level-collapsing method,to construct branching Latin hypercube designs(BLHDs).The obtained design has a sliced structure in the third part,that is,the part for the shared factors,which is desirable for the qualitative branching factors.The construction method is easy to implement,and(near)orthogonality can be achieved in the obtained BLHDs.A simulation example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the new designs.

A First Order Stationary Branching Negative Binomial Autoregressive Model with Application

In the area of time series modelling, several applications are encountered in real-life that involve analysis of count time series data. The distribution characteristics and dependence structure are the major issues that arise while specifying a modelling strategy to handle the analysis of those kinds of data. Owing to the numerous applications there is a need to develop models that can capture these features. However, accounting for both aspects simultaneously presents complexities while specifying a modeling strategy. In this paper, an alternative statistical model able to deal with issues of discreteness, overdispersion, serial correlation over time is proposed. In particular, we adopt a branching mechanism to develop a first-order stationary negative binomial autoregressive model. Inference is based on maximum likelihood estimation and a simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. As an illustration, the model is applied to a real-life dataset in crime analysis.