Instruct: Identify the main and secondary category of Arxiv papers based on the titles and abstracts
Query: The ODE method for stability of skip-free Markov chains with
  applications to MCMC   Fluid limit techniques have become a central tool to analyze queueing
networks over the last decade, with applications to performance analysis,
simulation and optimization. In this paper, some of these techniques are
extended to a general class of skip-free Markov chains. As in the case of
queueing models, a fluid approximation is obtained by scaling time, space and
the initial condition by a large constant. The resulting fluid limit is the
solution of an ordinary differential equation (ODE) in ``most'' of the state
space. Stability and finer ergodic properties for the stochastic model then
follow from stability of the set of fluid limits. Moreover, similarly to the
queueing context where fluid models are routinely used to design control
policies, the structure of the limiting ODE in this general setting provides an
understanding of the dynamics of the Markov chain. These results are
illustrated through application to Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.

26
The categories of this paper are: bayes-an
16
The categories of this paper are: stat
21
The categories of this paper are: adap-org
9
The categories of this paper are: nlin
27
The categories of this paper are: comp-gas
36
The categories of this paper are: cmp-lg
23
The categories of this paper are: solv-int
37
The categories of this paper are: supr-con
11
The categories of this paper are: hep-lat
35
The categories of this paper are: mtrl-th
19
The categories of this paper are: eess
30
The categories of this paper are: q-alg
7
The categories of this paper are: hep-th
12
The categories of this paper are: nucl-th
22
The categories of this paper are: chao-dyn
25
The categories of this paper are: patt-sol