scholarly journals Composition Markov chains of multinomial type

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (01) ◽  
pp. 270-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Zhou ◽  
Kenneth Lange

Suppose that n identical particles evolve according to the same marginal Markov chain. In this setting we study chains such as the Ehrenfest chain that move a prescribed number of randomly chosen particles at each epoch. The product chain constructed by this device inherits its eigenstructure from the marginal chain. There is a further chain derived from the product chain called the composition chain that ignores particle labels and tracks the numbers of particles in the various states. The composition chain in turn inherits its eigenstructure and various properties such as reversibility from the product chain. The equilibrium distribution of the composition chain is multinomial. The current paper proves these facts in the well-known framework of state lumping and identifies the column eigenvectors of the composition chain with the multivariate Krawtchouk polynomials of Griffiths. The advantages of knowing the full spectral decomposition of the composition chain include (a) detailed estimates of the rate of convergence to equilibrium, (b) construction of martingales that allow calculation of the moments of the particle counts, and (c) explicit expressions for mean coalescence times in multi-person random walks. These possibilities are illustrated by applications to Ehrenfest chains, the Hoare and Rahman chain, Kimura's continuous-time chain for DNA evolution, a light bulb chain, and random walks on some specific graphs.

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 270-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Zhou ◽  
Kenneth Lange

Suppose that n identical particles evolve according to the same marginal Markov chain. In this setting we study chains such as the Ehrenfest chain that move a prescribed number of randomly chosen particles at each epoch. The product chain constructed by this device inherits its eigenstructure from the marginal chain. There is a further chain derived from the product chain called the composition chain that ignores particle labels and tracks the numbers of particles in the various states. The composition chain in turn inherits its eigenstructure and various properties such as reversibility from the product chain. The equilibrium distribution of the composition chain is multinomial. The current paper proves these facts in the well-known framework of state lumping and identifies the column eigenvectors of the composition chain with the multivariate Krawtchouk polynomials of Griffiths. The advantages of knowing the full spectral decomposition of the composition chain include (a) detailed estimates of the rate of convergence to equilibrium, (b) construction of martingales that allow calculation of the moments of the particle counts, and (c) explicit expressions for mean coalescence times in multi-person random walks. These possibilities are illustrated by applications to Ehrenfest chains, the Hoare and Rahman chain, Kimura's continuous-time chain for DNA evolution, a light bulb chain, and random walks on some specific graphs.


2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 782-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Jara ◽  
T. Komorowski

In this paper we consider the scaled limit of a continuous-time random walk (CTRW) based on a Markov chain {Xn,n≥ 0} and two observables, τ(∙) andV(∙), corresponding to the renewal times and jump sizes. Assuming that these observables belong to the domains of attraction of some stable laws, we give sufficient conditions on the chain that guarantee the existence of the scaled limits for CTRWs. An application of the results to a process that arises in quantum transport theory is provided. The results obtained in this paper generalize earlier results contained in Becker-Kern, Meerschaert and Scheffler (2004) and Meerschaert and Scheffler (2008), and the recent results of Henry and Straka (2011) and Jurlewicz, Kern, Meerschaert and Scheffler (2010), where {Xn,n≥ 0} is a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables.


1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Voit

The distributions of nearest neighbour random walks on hypercubes in continuous time t 0 can be expressed in terms of binomial distributions; their limit behaviour for t, N → ∞ is well-known. We study here these random walks in discrete time and derive explicit bounds for the deviation of their distribution from their counterparts in continuous time with respect to the total variation norm. Our results lead to a recent asymptotic result of Diaconis, Graham and Morrison for the deviation from uniformity for N →∞. Our proofs use Krawtchouk polynomials and a version of the Diaconis–Shahshahani upper bound lemma. We also apply our methods to certain birth-and-death random walks associated with Krawtchouk polynomials.


1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (02) ◽  
pp. 340-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Voit

The distributions of nearest neighbour random walks on hypercubesin continuous timet0 can be expressed in terms of binomial distributions; their limit behaviour fort, N →∞ is well-known. We study here these random walks in discrete time and derive explicit bounds for the deviation of their distribution from their counterparts in continuous time with respect to the total variation norm. Our results lead to a recent asymptotic result of Diaconis, Graham and Morrison for the deviation from uniformity forN →∞.Our proofs use Krawtchouk polynomials and a version of the Diaconis–Shahshahani upper bound lemma. We also apply our methods to certain birth-and-death random walks associated with Krawtchouk polynomials.


2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (03) ◽  
pp. 782-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Jara ◽  
T. Komorowski

In this paper we consider the scaled limit of a continuous-time random walk (CTRW) based on a Markov chain {X n , n ≥ 0} and two observables, τ(∙) and V(∙), corresponding to the renewal times and jump sizes. Assuming that these observables belong to the domains of attraction of some stable laws, we give sufficient conditions on the chain that guarantee the existence of the scaled limits for CTRWs. An application of the results to a process that arises in quantum transport theory is provided. The results obtained in this paper generalize earlier results contained in Becker-Kern, Meerschaert and Scheffler (2004) and Meerschaert and Scheffler (2008), and the recent results of Henry and Straka (2011) and Jurlewicz, Kern, Meerschaert and Scheffler (2010), where {X n , n ≥ 0} is a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-491
Author(s):  
Gilles Lebeau ◽  
Laurent Michel

We study the spectral theory of a reversible Markov chain This random walk depends on a parameter $h\in ]0,h_{0}]$ which is roughly the size of each step of the walk. We prove uniform bounds with respect to $h$ on the rate of convergence to equilibrium, and the convergence when $h\rightarrow 0$ to the associated hypoelliptic diffusion.


Author(s):  
Zhizhong Li ◽  
Dahua Lin

Specialized classifiers, namely those dedicated to a subset of classes, are often adopted in real-world recognition systems. However, integrating such classifiers is nontrivial. Existing methods, e.g. weighted average, usually implicitly assume that all constituents of an ensemble cover the same set of classes. Such methods can produce misleading predictions when used to combine specialized classifiers. This work explores a novel approach. Instead of combining predictions from individual classifiers directly, it first decomposes the predictions into sets of pairwise preferences, treating them as transition channels between classes, and thereon constructs a continuous-time Markov chain, and use the equilibrium distribution of this chain as the final prediction. This way allows us to form a coherent picture over all specialized predictions. On large public datasets, the proposed method obtains considerable improvement compared to mainstream ensemble methods, especially when the classifier coverage is highly unbalanced.


Risks ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Manuel L. Esquível ◽  
Gracinda R. Guerreiro ◽  
Matilde C. Oliveira ◽  
Pedro Corte Real

We consider a non-homogeneous continuous time Markov chain model for Long-Term Care with five states: the autonomous state, three dependent states of light, moderate and severe dependence levels and the death state. For a general approach, we allow for non null intensities for all the returns from higher dependence levels to all lesser dependencies in the multi-state model. Using data from the 2015 Portuguese National Network of Continuous Care database, as the main research contribution of this paper, we propose a method to calibrate transition intensities with the one step transition probabilities estimated from data. This allows us to use non-homogeneous continuous time Markov chains for modeling Long-Term Care. We solve numerically the Kolmogorov forward differential equations in order to obtain continuous time transition probabilities. We assess the quality of the calibration using the Portuguese life expectancies. Based on reasonable monthly costs for each dependence state we compute, by Monte Carlo simulation, trajectories of the Markov chain process and derive relevant information for model validation and premium calculation.


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