To generate effective policy to reduce the proliferation of illicit small arms in developing countries, governments must understand how the weapons are distributed and illegal stockpiles formed. This paper describes the structural characteristics of small arms supply chains and models mechanisms...

In the study of variable stars, where the light reaching an observer fluctuates over time, it can be difficult to explain the nature of the variation unless it follows a regular pattern. In this respect, so-called periodic variable stars are particularly amenable to analysis. There, radiation...

Local likelihood methods enjoy advantageous properties, such as good performance in the presence of edge effects, that are rarely found in other approaches to nonparametric density estimation. However, as we argue in this paper, standard kernel methods can have distinct advantages when edge...

In studies of properties of queues, for example in relation to Internet traffic, a subject that is of particular interest is the 'shape' of service time distribution. For example, we might wish to know whether the service time density is unimodal, suggesting that service time distribution is...

Variational methods have been proposed for obtaining deterministic lower bounds for log-likelihoods within missing data problems, but with little formal justification or investigation of the worth of the lower bound surfaces as tools for inference. We provide, within a general Markovian context,...

Local polynomial methods hold considerable promise for boundary estimation, where they offer unmatched flexibility and adaptivity. Most rival techniques provide only a single order of approximation; local polynomial approaches allow any order desired. Their more conventional rivals, for example...