Introduction To Stochastic Integration

The theory of stochastic integration, also called the Ito calculus, has a large spectrum of applications in virtually every scientific area involving random functions, but it can be a very difficult subject for people without much mathematical background. The Ito calculus was originally motivated by the construction of Markov diffusion processes from infinitesimal generators. Previously, the construction of such processes required several steps, whereas Ito constructed these diffusion processes directly in a single step as the solutions of stochastic integral equations associated with the infinitesimal generators. Moreover, the properties of these diffusion processes can be derived from the stochastic integral equations and the Ito formula.