Factorization identities for reflected processes, with applications

We derive factorization identities for a class of preemptive-resume queueing systems, with batch arrivals and catastrophes that, whenever they occur, eliminate multiple customers present in the system. These processes are quite general, as they can be used to approximate Levy processes, diffusion processes, and certain types of growth-collapse processes; thus, all of the processes mentioned above also satisfy similar factorization identities. In the Levy case, our identities simplify to both the well-known Wiener-Hopf factorization, and another interesting factorization of reflected Levy processes starting at an arbitrary initial state. We also show how the ideas can be used to derive transforms for some well-known state-dependent/inhomogeneous birth-death processes and diffusion processes

A Tandem Fluid Network with L\'evy Input in Heavy Traffic

In this paper we study the stationary workload distribution of a fluid tandem queue in heavy traffic. We consider different types of L\'evy input, covering compound Poisson, $\alpha$-stable L\'evy motion (with $1<\alpha<2$), and Brownian motion. In our analysis we separately deal with L\'evy input processes with increments that have finite and infinite variance. A distinguishing feature of this paper is that we do not only consider the usual heavy-traffic regime, in which the load at one of the nodes goes to unity, but also a regime in which we simultaneously let the load of both servers tend to one, which, as it turns out, leads to entirely different heavy-traffic asymptotics. Numerical experiments indicate that under specific conditions the resulting simultaneous heavy-traffic approximation significantly outperforms the usual heavy-traffic approximation

On simple ruin expressions in dependent Sparre Andersen risk models

In this note we provide a simple alternative derivation of an explicit formula of Kwan and Yang [14] for the probability of ruin in a risk model with a certain dependence between general claim inter-occurrence times and subsequent claim sizes of conditionally exponential type. The approach puts the type of formula in a general context, illustrating the potential for similar simple ruin probability expressions in more general risk models with dependence

On simple ruin expressions in dependent Sparre Andersen risk models

In this note we provide a simple alternative probabilistic derivation of an explicit formula of Kwan and Yang (2007) for the probability of ruin in a risk model with a certain dependence between general claim interoccurrence times and subsequent claim sizes of conditionally exponential type. The approach puts the type of formula in a general context, illustrating the potential for similar simple ruin probability expressions in more general risk models with dependence

Queues with random back-offs

We consider a broad class of queueing models with random state-dependent vacation periods, which arise in the analysis of queue-based back-off algorithms in wireless random-access networks. In contrast to conventional models, the vacation periods may be initiated after each service completion, and can be randomly terminated with certain probabilities that depend on the queue length. We examine the scaled queue length and delay in a heavy-traffic regime, and demonstrate a sharp trichotomy, depending on how the activation rate and vacation probability behave as function of the queue length. In particular, the effect of the vacation periods may either (i) completely vanish in heavy-traffic conditions, (ii) contribute an additional term to the queue lengths and delays of similar magnitude, or even (iii) give rise to an order-of-magnitude increase. The heavy-traffic asymptotics are obtained by combining stochastic lower and upper bounds with exact results for some specific cases. The heavy-traffic trichotomy provides valuable insight in the impact of the back-off algorithms on the delay performance in wireless random-access networks

Ruin excursions, the G/G/Infinity queue and tax payments in renewal risk models

In this paper we investigate the number and maximum severity of the ruin excursion of the insurance portfolio reserve process in the Cramer-Lundberg model with and without tax payments. We also provide a relation of the Cramer-Lundberg risk model with the G/G/infinity queue and use it to derive some explicit ruin probability formulae. Finally, the renewal risk model with tax is considered, and an asymptotic identity is derived that in some sense extends the tax identity of the Cramer-Lundberg risk model