Nondestructive chemical processing of porous samples such as fixed biological tissues typically relies on molecular diffusion. Diffusion into a porous structure is a slow process that significantly delays completion of chemical processing. Here, we present a novel electrokinetic method termed stochastic electrotransport for rapid nondestructive processing of porous samples. This method uses a r...

We consider the problem of minimizing the total weighted completion time on identical parallel machines when jobs have stochastic processing times and may arrive over time. We give randomized as well as deterministic online and off-line algorithms that have the best known performance guarantees in either setting, deterministic and offline or randomized and online. Our analysis is based on a nov...

We analyze a sample of optical light curves for 100 quasars, 70 of which have black hole mass estimates. Our sample is the largest and broadest used yet for modeling quasar variability. The sources in our sample have z < 2.8, 10 . λLλ(5100Å) . 10 , and 10 . MBH/M⊙ . 10 . We model the light curves as a continuous time stochastic process, providing a natural means of estimating the characteristic...

In stochastic scheduling, we want to allocate a limited amount of resources to a set of jobs that need to be serviced. Unlike in deterministic scheduling, however, the parameters of the system may be stochastic. For example, the time it takes to process a job may be subject to random fluctuations. Stochastic scheduling problems occur in a variety of practical situations, such as manufacturing, ...