Stochastic hybrid dynamic systems that incorporate both continuous and discrete dynamics have been an area of great interest over the recent years. In view of applications, stochastic hybrid dynamic systems have been employed to diverse fields of studies, such as communication networks, air traffic management, and insurance risk models. The aim of the present study is to investigate properties of some classes of stochastic hybrid dynamic systems. The class of stochastic hybrid dynamic systems investigated has random jumps driven by a non-homogeneous Poisson process and deterministic jumps triggered by hitting the boundary. Its real-valued continuous dynamic between jumps is described by stochastic differential equations of the It\^o-Doob type. Existing results of piecewise deterministic models are extended to obtain the infinitesimal generator of the stochastic hybrid dynamic systems through a martingale approach. Based on results of the infinitesimal generator, some stochastic stability results are derived. The infinitesimal generator and stochastic stability results can be used to compute the higher moments of the solution process and find a bound of the solution. Next, the study focuses on a class of multidimensional stochastic hybrid dynamic systems. The continuous dynamic of the systems under investigation is described by a linear non-homogeneous systems of It\^o-Doob type of stochastic differential equations with switching coefficients. The switching takes place at random jump times which are governed by a non-homogeneous Poisson process. Closed form solutions of the stochastic hybrid dynamic systems are obtained. Two important special cases for the above systems are the geometric Brownian motion process with jumps and the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with jumps. Based on the closed form solutions, the probability distributions of the solution processes for these two special cases are derived. The derivation employs the use of the modal matrix and transformations. In addition, the parameter estimation problem for the one-dimensional cases of the geometric Brownian motion and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes with jumps are investigated. Through some existing and modified methods, the estimation procedure is presented by first estimating the parameters of the discrete dynamic and subsequently examining the continuous dynamic piecewisely. Finally, some simulated stochastic hybrid dynamic processes are presented to illustrate the aforementioned parameter-estimation methods. One simulated insurance example is given to demonstrate the use of the estimation and simulation techniques to obtain some desired quantities.

Droplet growth processes in a cumulus cloud, beginning from its inception at sub-micron scale up to drizzle drop size of few hundred microns, in an average duration of about half hour, has been a topic of intense research. In particular role of turbulence in aiding droplet growth in clouds has been of immense interest. Motivated by this question, we have performed experiments in which turbulent natural convection coupled with phase change is set up inside a tall vertical insulated tube, by heating water located at tube bottom and circulating cold air at tube top. The resulting moist turbulent natural convection flow in the tube is expected to be axially homogeneous. Mixing of air masses of differing temperature and moisture content leads to condensation of water vapor into droplets, on aerosols available inside the tube. We there-fore have droplets in a turbulent flow, in which phase change is coupled to turbulence dynamics, just as in clouds. We obtain a linear mean-temperature pro le in the tube away from its ends. Because there is net flux of water vapor through the tube, there is a weak mean axial flow, but which is small compared to turbulent velocity fluctuations. We have experimented with two setups, the major difference between them being that in one setup, called AC setup, tube is open to atmosphere at its top and hence has higher aerosol concentration inside the tube, while the other setup, called RINAC setup, is closed to atmosphere and due to presence of aerosol filters has lower aerosol concentration inside the tube. Also in the latter setup, cold air temperature at tube top can be reduced to sub-zero levels. In both setups, turbulence attains a stationary state and is characterized by Rayleigh number based on temperature gradient inside the tube away from its ends, which is 107. A significant result from our experiments is that in RINAC setup, we obtain a broadened droplet size distribution at mid-height of tube which includes a few droplets of size 36 m, which in real clouds marks the beginning of rapid growth of droplets due to collisions among them by virtue of their interaction with turbulence. This shows that for broadening of droplet size distribution, high turbulence levels prevalent in clouds is not strictly necessary. Second part of our study comprises two pieces of theoretical work. First, we deal with the problem of a large collector drop settling amidst a population of smaller droplets whose spatial distribution is homogeneous in the direction of fall. This problem is relevant to the last stage of droplet growth in clouds, when the droplets have grown large enough that they interact weakly with turbulence and begin to settle under gravity. We propose a new method to solve this problem in which collision process is treated as a discrete stochastic process, and reproduce Telford's solution in which collision is treated as a homogeneous Poisson process. We then show how our method may be easily generalized to non-Poisson collision process. Second, we propose a new method to detect droplet clusters in images. This method is based on nearest neighbor relationship between droplets and does not employ arbitrary numerical criteria. Also this method has desirable invariance properties, in particular under the operation of uniform scaling of all distances and addition/deletion of empty space in an image, which therefore renders the proposed method robust. This method has advantage in dealing with highly clustered distributions, where cluster properties vary over the image and therefore average of properties computed over the entire image could be misleading.

In this thesis, the main objective is to study certain aspects of modeling failure time data of repairable systems under a competing risks framework. We consider two different models and propose more efficient Bayesian methods for estimating the parameters. In the first model, we discuss inferential procedures based on an objective Bayesian approach for analyzing failures from a single repairable system under independent competing risks. We examined the scenario where a minimal repair is performed at each failure, thereby resulting in that each failure mode appropriately follows a power-law intensity. Besides, it is proposed that the power-law intensity is reparametrized in terms of orthogonal parameters. Then, we derived two objective priors known as the Jeffreys prior and reference prior. Moreover, posterior distributions based on these priors will be obtained in order to find properties which may be optimal in the sense that, for some cases, we prove that these posterior distributions are proper and are also matching priors. In addition, in some cases, unbiased Bayesian estimators of simple closed-form expressions are derived. In the second model, we analyze data from multiple repairable systems under the presence of dependent competing risks. In order to model this dependence structure, we adopted the well-known shared frailty model. This model provides a suitable theoretical basis for generating dependence between the components failure times in the dependent competing risks model. It is known that the dependence effect in this scenario influences the estimates of the model parameters. Hence, under the assumption that the cause-specific intensities follow a PLP, we propose a frailty-induced dependence approach to incorporate the dependence among the cause-specific recurrent processes. Moreover, the misspecification of the frailty distribution may lead to errors when estimating the parameters of interest. Because of this, we considered a Bayesian nonparametric approach to model the frailty density in order to offer more flexibility and to provide consistent estimates for the PLP model, as well as insights about heterogeneity among the systems. Both simulation studies and real case studies are provided to illustrate the proposed approaches and demonstrate their validity. / Nesta tese, o objetivo principal é estudar certos aspectos da modelagem de dados de tempo de falha de sistemas reparáveis sob uma estrutura de riscos competitivos. Consideramos dois modelos diferentes e propomos métodos Bayesianos mais eficientes para estimar os parâmetros. No primeiro modelo, discutimos procedimentos inferenciais baseados em uma abordagem Bayesiana objetiva para analisar falhas de um único sistema reparável sob riscos competitivos independentes. Examinamos o cenário em que um reparo mínimo é realizado em cada falha, resultando em que cada modo de falha segue adequadamente uma intensidade de lei de potência. Além disso, propõe-se que a intensidade da lei de potência seja reparametrizada em termos de parâmetros ortogonais. Então, derivamos duas prioris objetivas conhecidas como priori de Jeffreys e priori de referência. Além disso, distribuições posteriores baseadas nessas prioris serão obtidas a fim de encontrar propriedades que podem ser ótimas no sentido de que, em alguns casos, provamos que essas distribuições posteriores são próprias e que também são matching priors. Além disso, em alguns casos, estimadores Bayesianos não-viesados de forma fechada são derivados. No segundo modelo, analisamos dados de múltiplos sistemas reparáveis sob a presença de riscos competitivos dependentes. Para modelar essa estrutura de dependência, adotamos o conhecido modelo de fragilidade compartilhada. Esse modelo fornece uma base teórica adequada para gerar dependência entre os tempos de falha dos componentes no modelo de riscos competitivos dependentes. Sabe-se que o efeito de dependência neste cenário influencia as estimativas dos parâmetros do modelo. Assim, sob o pressuposto de que as intensidades específicas de causa seguem um PLP, propomos uma abordagem de dependência induzida pela fragilidade para incorporar a dependência entre os processos recorrentes específicos da causa. Além disso, a especificação incorreta da distribuição de fragilidade pode levar a erros na estimativa dos parâmetros de interesse. Por isso, consideramos uma abordagem Bayesiana não paramétrica para modelar a densidade da fragilidade, a fim de oferecer mais flexibilidade e fornecer estimativas consistentes para o modelo PLP, bem como insights sobre a heterogeneidade entre os sistemas. São fornecidos estudos de simulação e estudos de casos reais para ilustrar as abordagens propostas e demonstrar sua validade.

The driving risk of novice teenagers is the highest during the initial period after licensure but decreases rapidly. This dissertation develops recurrent-event change-point models to detect the time when driving risk decreases significantly for novice teenager drivers. The dissertation consists of three major parts: the first part applies recurrent-event change-point models with identical change-points for all subjects; the second part proposes models to allow change-points to vary among drivers by a hierarchical Bayesian finite mixture model; the third part develops a non-parametric Bayesian model with a Dirichlet process prior. In the first part, two recurrent-event change-point models to detect the time of change in driving risks are developed. The models are based on a non-homogeneous Poisson process with piecewise constant intensity functions. It is shown that the change-points only occur at the event times and the maximum likelihood estimators are consistent. The proposed models are applied to the Naturalistic Teenage Driving Study, which continuously recorded textit{in situ} driving behaviour of 42 novice teenage drivers for the first 18 months after licensure using sophisticated in-vehicle instrumentation. The results indicate that crash and near-crash rate decreases significantly after 73 hours of independent driving after licensure. The models in part one assume identical change-points for all drivers. However, several studies showed that different patterns of risk change over time might exist among the teenagers, which implies that the change-points might not be identical among drivers. In the second part, change-points are allowed to vary among drivers by a hierarchical Bayesian finite mixture model, considering that clusters exist among the teenagers. The prior for mixture proportions is a Dirichlet distribution and a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is developed to sample from the posterior distributions. DIC is used to determine the best number of clusters. Based on the simulation study, the model gives fine results under different scenarios. For the Naturalist Teenage Driving Study data, three clusters exist among the teenagers: the change-points are 52.30, 108.99 and 150.20 hours of driving after first licensure correspondingly for the three clusters; the intensity rates increase for the first cluster while decrease for other two clusters; the change-point of the first cluster is the earliest and the average intensity rate is the highest. In the second part, model selection is conducted to determine the number of clusters. An alternative is the Bayesian non-parametric approach. In the third part, a Dirichlet process Mixture Model is proposed, where the change-points are assigned a Dirichlet process prior. A Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is developed to sample from the posterior distributions. Automatic clustering is expected based on change-points without specifying the number of latent clusters. Based on the Dirichlet process mixture model, three clusters exist among the teenage drivers for the Naturalistic Teenage Driving Study. The change-points of the three clusters are 96.31, 163.83, and 279.19 hours. The results provide critical information for safety education, safety countermeasure development, and Graduated Driver Licensing policy making. / Ph. D.

Pinhole corrosion leak in home plumbing has emerged as a significant issue. In the major water distribution system managed by municipalities and water utilities the costs are distributed among all subscribers. The home plumbing repair/replacement cost and possible water damage cost must be addressed by the home owner. There are also issues of the value of home, insurance rates, health consequences, and taste and odor problems. These issues have become major concerns to home owners. Cradle to grave life cycle assessment is becoming an integral part of industrial manufacturing. In this thesis comprehensive details pertaining to life cycle assessment are presented. Copper tubing for plumbing installations is mainly obtained from recycled copper. Various stages of copper plumbing pipe manufacturing are explained. A comprehensive synthesis of various corrosion mechanisms is presented. Particular reference is given to copper plumbing pipe corrosion. A decision support tool for replacing copper plumbing pipes is presented. The deterioration process is grouped into early, normal and late stages. Because available data reflects late stage process, an optimization, neural network and curve fitting models are developed to infer early and normal stage behavior of the plumbing system. Utilizing the inferred leak rates a non-homogeneous poisson process model is developed to generate leak arrival times. An economically sustainable replacement criterion is adopted to determine optimal replacement time. / Master of Science

In this work we address to the problems of the loan origination decision-making systems. In accordance with the basic principles of the loan origination process we considered the main rules of a clients parameters estimation, a change-point problem for the given data and a disorder moment detection problem for the real-time observations. In the first part of the work the main principles of the parameters estimation are given. Also the change-point problem is considered for the given sample in the discrete and continuous time with using the Maximum likelihood method. In the second part of the work the disorder moment detection problem for the real-time observations is considered as a disorder problem for a non-homogeneous Poisson process. The corresponding optimal stopping problem is reduced to the free-boundary problem with a complete analytical solution for the case when the intensity of defaults increases. Thereafter a scheme of the real time detection of a disorder moment is given.