Abstract:

Stochastic processes are common in biology, arising, in chemical reactions, fluctuations of macromolecules and population biology to name three examples. The inference of parameters of a stochastic process from measured data (e.g. exit times) is important in many applications.

In this talk, I will discuss the reconstruction of a potential well from its exit time distribution and (if time permits) reconstruction of branching probabilities of a Bellman-Harris process -- a well-known example of a continuous-time branching process -- from its number distribution at a given time.