Importance sampling method for efficient estimation of the probability of rare events in biochemical reaction systems

The weighted stochastic simulation algorithm (wSSA) recently developed by Kuwahara and Mura and the refined wSSA proposed by Gillespie et al. based on the importance sampling technique open the door for efficient estimation of the probability of rare events in biochemical reaction systems. However, both the wSSA and the refined wSSA do not provide a systematic method for selecting the values of importance sampling parameters but require some initial guessing for those values. In this paper, we develop a systematic method for selecting the values of importance sampling parameters for the wSSA. Numerical results demonstrate that our parameter selection method can substantially improve the performance of the wSSA in terms of simulation efficiency and accuracy.