Seminars

Taboo Stationarity

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Date: 04-20-2006
Start Time: 1:00pm
End Time: 7:30pm
Speaker: Hermann Thorisson, Science Institute, University of Iceland
Location: Mudd 303

Abstract

In this talk we consider the taboo counterpart of stationarity. Stationarity is the characterizing property of any two-sided limit process obtained by shifting the time-origin of a one-sided process to the far future. Similarly, taboo stationarity is the characterizing property of any two-sided limit process obtained by shifting the origin of a one-sided process to the far future "under taboo", that is, conditionally on the process not having entered a taboo region of its state space up to the new time-origin. This is, for instance, an appropriate model for a fish population that has lived a long time in an isolated lake, will eventually become extinct, but is still non-extinct at the time of observation. We present a basic but amazingly simple structural characterization of taboo stationary processes and then take a closer look at the structure in the regenerative case.

Reference

Thorisson, H.  Coupling, Stationarity, and Regeneration. New York: Springer, 2000.

Bio

Dr. Hermann Thorisson is a professor at the Department of Mathematics at the Science Institute, University of Iceland. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics from the University of Göteborg in 1981. He then worked at the University of Göteborg, at Chalmers University of Technology, and at Stanford University, before returning home to become a research professor at the Science Institute, University of Iceland. His research interests are in the areas of coupling, stationarity, regeneration, Markov chains, palm theory, ergodicity, and progressive rock. He is the author of a book entitled Coupling, Stationarity, and Regeneration.

For more information, please visit his Web site.