Applied Probability and Stochastic Processes

This book is a result of teaching stochastic processes to junior and senior undergraduates and beginning graduate students over many years. In teaching such a course, we have realized a need to furnish students with material that gives a mathematical presentation while at the same time providing proper foundations to allow students to build an intuitive feel for probabilistic reasoning. We have tried to maintain a balance in presenting advanced but understandable material that sparks an interest and challenges students, without the discouragement that often comes as a consequence of not understanding the material. Our intent in this text is to develop stochastic processes in an elementary but mathematically precise style and to provide sufficient examples and homework exercises that will permit students to understand the range of application areas for stochastic processes.