Tullio Ceccherini-Silberstein is Professor of Mathematical Analysis in the Department of Engineering at the Università del Sannio, Benevento. Fabio Scarabotti is Professor of Mathematical Analysis in the Department of Mathematics at the Università degli Studi di Roma 'La Sapienza'. Filippo Tolli is Assistant Professor of Mathematical Analysis in the Department of Mathematics at the Università Roma Tre.

'Starting from a few concrete problems such as random walks on the discrete circle and the finite ultrametric space, this book develops the necessary tools for the asymptotic analysis of these processes.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

• Part I. Preliminaries, Examples and Motivations: 1. Finite Markov chains; 2. Two basic examples on Abelian groups; Part II. Representation Theory and Gelfand Pairs: 3. Basic representation theory of finite groups; 4. Finite Gelfand pairs; 5. Distance regular graphs and the Hamming scheme; 6. The Johnson Scheme and the Laplace-Bernoulli diffusion model; 7. The ultrametric space; Part III. Advanced theory: 8. Posets and the q−analogs; 9. Complements on representation theory; 10. Basic representation theory of the symmetric group; 11. The Gelfand Pair (S2n, S2 o Sn) and random matchings; Appendix 1. The discrete trigonometric transforms; Appendix 2. Solutions of the exercises; Bibliography; Index.