Advancing The Frontiers Of Simulation

Advancing the Frontiers of Simulation

This Festschrift honors George Samuel Fishman, one of the founders of the eld of computer simulation and a leader of the disciplines of operations research and the management sciences for the past ve decades, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. The papers in this volume span the theory, methodology, and application of computer simulation. The lead article is appropriately titled “George Fishman’s Professional Career.” In this article we discuss George’s contributions to operations research and the m- agement sciences, with special emphasis on his role in the advancement of the eld of simulation since the 1960s. We also include a brief personal biography together with comments by several individuals about the extraordinary effect that George has had on all his students, colleagues, and friends. Thesecondarticle,titled“AConversationwithGeorgeFishman,”isthetranscript of an extended interview with George that we conducted in October 2007. In the article titled “Computer Intensive Statistical Model Building,” Russell Cheng studies resampling methods for building parsimonious multiple linear regr- sion models so as to represent accurately the behavior of the dependent variable in terms of the smallest possible subset of explanatory (independent) variables. The author shows how bootstrap resampling can be used not only for rapid identi cation of good models but also for ef cient comparison of competing models.

The Department of Energy Fiscal Year 2009 Research and Development Budget Proposal

Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Sampling

Quasi–Monte Carlo methods have become an increasingly popular alternative to Monte Carlo methods over the last two decades. Their successful implementation on practical problems, especially in finance, has motivated the development of several new research areas within this field to which practitioners and researchers from various disciplines currently contribute. This book presents essential tools for using quasi–Monte Carlo sampling in practice. The first part of the book focuses on issues related to Monte Carlo methods—uniform and non-uniform random number generation, variance reduction techniques—but the material is presented to prepare the readers for the next step, which is to replace the random sampling inherent to Monte Carlo by quasi–random sampling. The second part of the book deals with this next step. Several aspects of quasi-Monte Carlo methods are covered, including constructions, randomizations, the use of ANOVA decompositions, and the concept of effective dimension. The third part of the book is devoted to applications in finance and more advanced statistical tools like Markov chain Monte Carlo and sequential Monte Carlo, with a discussion of their quasi–Monte Carlo counterpart. The prerequisites for reading this book are a basic knowledge of statistics and enough mathematical maturity to follow through the various techniques used throughout the book. This text is aimed at graduate students in statistics, management science, operations research, engineering, and applied mathematics. It should also be useful to practitioners who want to learn more about Monte Carlo and quasi–Monte Carlo methods and researchers interested in an up-to-date guide to these methods.