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[The articles of this volume will not be indexed individually.] Publisher's description: The general theory of stochastic processes and the more specialized theory of Markov processes evolved enormously in the second half of the last century. In parallel, the theory of controlled Markov chains (or Markov decision processes) was being pioneered by control engineers and operations researchers. Researchers in Markov processes and controlled Markov chains have been, for a long time, aware of the synergies between these two subject areas. However, this may be the first volume dedicated to highlighting these synergies and, almost certainly, it is the first volume that emphasizes the contributions of the vibrant and growing Chinese school of probability. The chapters that appear in this book reflect both the maturity and the vitality of modern day Markov processes and controlled Markov chains. They also will provide an opportunity to trace the connections that have emerged between the work done by members of the Chinese school of probability and the work done by the European, US, Central and South American and Asian scholars. Contents: E. B. Dynkin, Branching exit Markov system and their applications to partial differential equations (3--13); Anyue Chen, Hanjun Zhang and Zhenting Hou, Feller transition functions, resolvent decomposition theorems, and their application in unstable denumerable Markov processes (15--39); P. K. Pollett, Identifying \(Q\)-processes with a given finite \(\mu\)-invariant measure (41--55); Hanjun Zhang, Qixiang Mei, Xiang Lin and Zhenting Hou, Convergence property of standard transition functions (57--67); Hou Zhenting , Liu Zaiming, Zou Jiezhong and Chen Xuerong, Markov skeleton processes (69--92); Guoxin Liu, Piecewise deterministic Markov processes and semi-dynamic systems (93--107); J. Adolfo Minjárez-Sosa, Average optimality for adaptive Markov control processes with unbounded costs and unknown disturbance distribution (111--134); Seiichi Iwamoto, Takayuki Ueno and Toshiharu Fujita, Controlled Markov chains with utility functions (135--149); L. C. M. Kallenberg, Classification problems in MDPs (151--165) ; Xianping Guo and Weiping Zhu, Optimality conditions for CTMDP with average cost criterion (167--188). Rolando Cavazos-Cadena and Raúl Montes-de-Oca, Optimal and nearly optimal policies in Markov decision chains with nonnegative rewards and risk-sensitive expected total-reward criterion (189--221); Masami Kurano, Masami Yasuda and Jun-ichi Nakagami, Interval methods for uncertain Markov decision processes (223--232) ; Eugene A. Feinberg, Constrained discounted semi-Markov decision processes (233--244); Jerzy A. Filar and Xianping Guo, Linear program for communicating MDPs with multiple constraints (245--254); A. A. Yushkevich, Optimal switching problem for Markov chains (255--286); Sara Pasquali and Wolfgang J. Runggaldier, Approximations of a controlled diffusion model for renewable resource exploitation (287--302); S. N. Ethier and Tokuzo Shiga, A Fleming-Viot process with unbounded selection. II (305--322); S. E. Kuznetsov, Boundary theory for superdiffusions (323--330); Situ Rong, On solutions of backward stochastic differential equations with jumps and stochastic control (331--340); Zhichan Li, Doob's inequality and lower estimation of the maximum of martingales (341--349). Chenggui Yuan and Xuerong Chen, The Hausdorff measure of the level sets of Brownian motion on the Sierpinski carpet (351--361); Xikui Wang, Monotonic approximation of the Gittins index (363--367); Suresh P. Sethi, Optimal consumption-investment decisions allowing for bankruptcy: a brief survey (371--387); Zhaojun Yang and Jiezhong Zou, The hedging strategy of an Asian option (389--395); Chao Chen, Jiezhong Zou and Zhenting Hou, The pricing of options to exchange one asset for another (397--404); Yuanlie Lin, Jerzy A. Filar and Ke Liu, Finite horizon portfolio risk models with probability criterion (405--424); Marta S. Mendiondo and Richard H. Stockbridge, Long term average control of a local time process (425--441)); A. Haurie, F. Moresino and J.-P. Vial, Singularly perturbed hybrid control systems approximated by structured linear programs (443--463); Junping Li, Zhenting Hou, Weiguo Zhang and Zaiming Liu, The effect of stochastic disturbance on the solitary waves (465--474); Peide Chen, Independent candidate for Tierney model of H-M algorithms (475--487); Yuzhi Cai, How rates of convergence for Gibbs fields depend on the interaction and the kind of scanning used (489--498); Yubo Ge, Expected loss and availability of multistate repairable system (499--511).