This text is an Elementary Introduction to Stochastic Processes in
discrete and continuous time with an initiation of the statistical
inference. The material is standard and classical for a first course in
Stochastic Processes at the senior/graduate level (lessons 1-12). To
provide students with a view of statistics of stochastic processes,
three lessons (13-15) were added. These lessons can be either optional
or serve as an introduction to statistical inference with dependent
observations. Several points of this text need to be elaborated, (1) The
pedagogy is somewhat obvious. Since this text is designed for a one
semester course, each lesson can be covered in one week or so. Having in
mind a mixed audience of students from different departments (Math-
ematics, Statistics, Economics, Engineering, etc.) we have presented the
material in each lesson in the most simple way, with emphasis on moti-
vation of concepts, aspects of applications and computational
procedures. Basically, we try to explain to beginners questions such as
"What is the topic in this lesson?" "Why this topic?", "How to study
this topic math- ematically?". The exercises at the end of each lesson
will deepen the stu- dents' understanding of the material, and test
their ability to carry out basic computations. Exercises with an
asterisk are optional (difficult) and might not be suitable for
homework, but should provide food for thought.