Performing Parallel Monte Carlo and Moment Equations Methods for Itô and Stratonovich Stochastic Differential Systems: R Package Sim.DiffProc

Abstract

We introduce Sim.DiffProc, an R package for symbolic and numerical computations on scalar and multivariate systems of stochastic differential equations (SDEs). It provides users with a wide range of tools to simulate, estimate, analyze, and visualize the dynamics of these systems in both forms, Itô and Stratonovich. One of Sim.DiffProc key features is to implement the Monte Carlo method for the iterative evaluation and approximation of an interesting quantity at a fixed time on SDEs with parallel computing, on multiple processors on a single machine or a cluster of computers, which is an important tool to improve capacity and speed-up calculations. We also provide an easy-to-use interface for symbolic calculation and numerical approximation of the first and central second-order moments of SDEs (i.e., mean, variance and covariance), by solving a system of ordinary differential equations, which yields insights into the dynamics of stochastic systems. The final result object of Monte Carlo and moment equations can be derived and presented in terms of LATEX math expressions and visualized in terms of LATEX tables. Furthermore, we illustrate various features of the package by proposing a general bivariate nonlinear dynamic system of Haken-Zwanzig, driven by additive, linear and nonlinear multiplicative noises. In addition, we consider the particular case of a scalar SDE driven by three independent Wiener processes. The Monte Carlo simulation thereof is obtained through a transformation to a system of three equations. We also study some important applications of SDEs in different fields.