Preliminaries

Abstract

This is a collection of expository articles about various topics at the interface between enumerative combinatorics and stochastic processes. These articles expand on a course of lectures given at the Ecole d’Eté de Probabilités de St. Flour in July 2002. The articles are also called ‘chapters’. Each chapter is fairly self-contained, so readers with adequate background can start reading any chapter, with occasional consultation of earlier chapters as necessary. Following this Chapter 0, there are 10 chapters, each divided into sections. Most sections conclude with some Exercises. Those for which I don’t know solutions are called Problems.