Modern Stochastics: Theory and Applications

Probabilistic properties of vantage point trees are studied. A vp-tree built from a sequence of independent identically distributed points in ${[-1,\hspace{0.1667em}1]^{d}}$ with the ${\ell _{\infty }}$-distance function is considered. The length of the leftmost path in the tree, as well as partitions over the space it produces are analyzed. The results include several convergence theorems regarding these characteristics, as the number of nodes in the tree tends to infinity.

The main subject of the study in this paper is the simultaneous renewal time for two time-inhomogeneous Markov chains which start with arbitrary initial distributions. By a simultaneous renewal we mean the first time of joint hitting the specific set C by both processes. Under the condition of existence a dominating sequence for both renewal sequences generated by the chains and non-lattice condition for renewal probabilities an upper bound for the expectation of the simultaneous renewal time is obtained.

The insurance model when the amount of claims depends on the state of the insured person (healthy, ill, or dead) and claims are connected in a Markov chain is investigated. The signed compound Poisson approximation is applied to the aggregate claims distribution after $n\in \mathbb{N}$ periods. The accuracy of order $O({n^{-1}})$ and $O({n^{-1/2}})$ is obtained for the local and uniform norms, respectively. In a particular case, the accuracy of estimates in total variation and non-uniform estimates are shown to be at least of order $O({n^{-1}})$. The characteristic function method is used. The results can be applied to estimate the probable loss of an insurer to optimize an insurance premium.

In this paper, we consider two time-inhomogeneous Markov chains ${X_{t}^{(l)}}$, $l\in \{1,2\}$, with discrete time on a general state space. We assume the existence of some renewal set C and investigate the time of simultaneous renewal, that is, the first positive time when the chains hit the set C simultaneously. The initial distributions for both chains may be arbitrary. Under the condition of stochastic domination and nonlattice condition for both renewal processes, we derive an upper bound for the expectation of the simultaneous renewal time. Such a bound was calculated for two time-inhomogeneous birth–death Markov chains.