I had to vacate my old flat and move to a new apartment recently and hence had to shift all my books. This entailed categorizing all of them to suit the new shelf space. It was quite an effort and I had to take a day off from work to get the task done. In the process, I stumbled on to this book that was lying in my inventory for many years.

The principles of Renewal theory are seen in various stochastic processes such as Countable State Markov chains, Continuous Markov processes, Semi-Markov processes, Regenerative processes etc. In one sense, spotting a Renewal process in a complicated stochastic process makes life easy as one can use the concepts from renewal theory to talk about the ensemble average and limiting time averages of the process. This book belongs to the “classics” genre of Renewal theory.

Via Ghost Exchange Trailer Ghost Exchange probes the current state of US capital markets, the impact of high frequency and algorithmic trading, the lack of, or ineffective regulatory oversight and the risks that are now inherent in our markets by going right to the source –Wall Street’s leading insiders – who shine a light on startling signs that the US stock market has built so much speed and complexity into the current system that it is impossible to regulate.

The authors are math professors at Princeton. This book is a result of a 7 year effort. It distills all their math teaching experiences in to 150 pages. The book is targeted towards general audience even though most of anecdotes are from a classroom environment. The authors use the 5 classic Greek elements that were thought to be the foundation of everything – Earth, Fire, Air, Water and Quintessential – to lay out the principles of effective thinking.