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This volume contains the proceedings of the XII Symposium of Probability and Stochastic Processes which took place at Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan in Merida, Mexico, on November 16–20, 2015. This meeting was the twelfth meeting in a series of ongoing biannual meetings aimed at showcasing the research of Mexican probabilists as well as promote new collaborations between the participants.The book features articles drawn from different research areas in probability and stochastic processes, such as: risk theory, limit theorems, stochastic partial differential equations, random trees, stochastic differential games, stochastic control, and coalescence. Two of the main manuscripts survey recent developments on stochastic control and scaling limits of Markov-branching trees, written by Kazutoshi Yamasaki and Bénédicte Haas, respectively. The research-oriented manuscripts provide new advances in active research fields in Mexico.The wide selection of topics makes the book accessible to advanced graduate students and researchers in probability and stochastic processes.

This volume describes the current state of knowledge of random spatial processes, particularly those arising in physics. The emphasis is on survey articles which describe areas of current interest to probabilists and physicists working on the probability theory of phase transition. Special attention is given to topics deserving further research. The principal contributions by leading researchers concern the mathematical theory of random walk, interacting particle systems, percolation, Ising and Potts models, spin glasses, cellular automata, quantum spin systems, and metastability. The level of presentation and review is particularly suitable for postgraduate and postdoctoral workers in mathematics and physics, and for advanced specialists in the probability theory of spatial disorder and phase transition.

Probability has been an important part of mathematics for more than three centuries. Moreover, its importance has grown in recent decades, since the computing power now widely available has allowed probabilistic and stochastic techniques to attack problems such as speech and image processing, geophysical exploration, radar, sonar, etc. -- all of which are covered here. The book contains three exceptionally clear expositions on wavelets, frames and their applications. A further extremely active current research area, well covered here, is the relation between probability and partial differential equations, including probabilistic representations of solutions to elliptic and parabolic PDEs. New approaches, such as the PDE method for large deviation problems, and stochastic optimal control and filtering theory, are beginning to yield their secrets. Another topic dealt with is the application of probabilistic techniques to mathematical analysis. Finally, there are clear explanations of normal numbers and dynamic systems, and the influence of probability on our daily lives.

Physicists, when modelling physical systems with a large number of degrees of freedom, and statisticians, when performing data analysis, have developed their own concepts and methods for making the `best'inference. But are these methods equivalent, or not? What is the state of the art in making inferences? The physicists want answers. More: neural computation demands a clearer understanding of how neural systems make inferences; the theory of chaotic nonlinear systems as applied to time series analysis could profit from the experience already booked by the statisticians; and finally, there is a long-standing conjecture that some of the puzzles of quantum mechanics are due to our incomplete understanding of how we make inferences. Matter enough to stimulate the writing of such a book as the present one. But other considerations also arise, such as the maximum entropy method and Bayesian inference, information theory and the minimum description length. Finally, it is pointed out that an understanding of human inference may require input from psychologists. This lively debate, which is of acute current interest, is well summarized in the present work.

This volume consists of a collection of invited articles, written by some of the most distinguished probabilists, most of whom have been personally responsible for advances in the various subfields of probability.

This is yet another indispensable volume for all probabilists and collectors of the Saint-Flour series, and is also of great interest for mathematical physicists. It contains two of the three lecture courses given at the 32nd Probability Summer School in Saint-Flour (July 7-24, 2002). Tsirelson's lectures introduce the notion of nonclassical noise produced by very nonlinear functions of many independent random variables, for instance singular stochastic flows or oriented percolation. Werner's contribution gives a survey of results on conformal invariance, scaling limits and properties of some two-dimensional random curves. It provides a definition and properties of the Schramm-Loewner evolutions, computations (probabilities, critical exponents), the relation with critical exponents of planar Brownian motions, planar self-avoiding walks, critical percolation, loop-erased random walks and uniform spanning trees.

This selection of reviews and papers is intended to stimulate renewed reflection on the fundamental and practical aspects of probability in physics. While putting emphasis on conceptual aspects in the foundations of statistical and quantum mechanics, the book deals with the philosophy of probability in its interrelation with mathematics and physics in general. Addressing graduate students and researchers in physics and mathematics togehter with philosophers of science, the contributions avoid cumbersome technicalities in order to make the book worthwhile reading for nonspecialists and specialists alike.