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Moment-generating Function
In probability theory and statistics, the moment-generating function of a real-valued random variable is an alternative specification of its probability distribution. Thus, it provides the basis of an alternative route to analytical results compared with working directly with probability density functions or cumulative distribution functions. There are particularly simple results for the moment-generating functions of distributions defined by the weighted sums of random variables. However, not all random variables have moment-generating functions. As its name implies, the moment-generating function can be used to compute a distribution’s moments: the -th moment about 0 is the -th derivative of the moment-generating function, evaluated at 0. In addition to univariate real-valued distributions, moment-generating functions can also be defined for vector- or matrix-valued random variables, and can even be extended to more general cases. The moment-generating function of a real-valu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Probability Theory
Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set of axioms of probability, axioms. Typically these axioms formalise probability in terms of a probability space, which assigns a measure (mathematics), measure taking values between 0 and 1, termed the probability measure, to a set of outcomes called the sample space. Any specified subset of the sample space is called an event (probability theory), event. Central subjects in probability theory include discrete and continuous random variables, probability distributions, and stochastic processes (which provide mathematical abstractions of determinism, non-deterministic or uncertain processes or measured Quantity, quantities that may either be single occurrences or evolve over time in a random fashion). Although it is no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wick Rotation
In physics, Wick rotation, named after Italian physicist Gian Carlo Wick, is a method of finding a solution to a mathematical problem in Minkowski space from a solution to a related problem in Euclidean space by means of a transformation that substitutes an imaginary-number variable for a real-number variable. Wick rotations are useful because of an analogy between two important but seemingly distinct fields of physics: statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics. In this analogy, inverse temperature plays a role in statistical mechanics formally akin to imaginary time in quantum mechanics: that is, , where is time and is the imaginary unit (). More precisely, in statistical mechanics, the Gibbs measure describes the relative probability of the system to be in any given state at temperature , where is a function describing the energy of each state and is the Boltzmann constant. In quantum mechanics, the transformation describes time evolution, where is an operator descri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chi-squared Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the \chi^2-distribution with k Degrees of freedom (statistics), degrees of freedom is the distribution of a sum of the squares of k Independence (probability theory), independent standard normal random variables. The chi-squared distribution \chi^2_k is a special case of the gamma distribution and the univariate Wishart distribution. Specifically if X \sim \chi^2_k then X \sim \text(\alpha=\frac, \theta=2) (where \alpha is the shape parameter and \theta the scale parameter of the gamma distribution) and X \sim \text_1(1,k) . The scaled chi-squared distribution s^2 \chi^2_k is a reparametrization of the gamma distribution and the univariate Wishart distribution. Specifically if X \sim s^2 \chi^2_k then X \sim \text(\alpha=\frac, \theta=2 s^2) and X \sim \text_1(s^2,k) . The chi-squared distribution is one of the most widely used probability distributions in inferential statistics, notably in hypothesis testing and in constru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normal Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. The general form of its probability density function is f(x) = \frac e^\,. The parameter is the mean or expectation of the distribution (and also its median and mode), while the parameter \sigma^2 is the variance. The standard deviation of the distribution is (sigma). A random variable with a Gaussian distribution is said to be normally distributed, and is called a normal deviate. Normal distributions are important in statistics and are often used in the natural and social sciences to represent real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known. Their importance is partly due to the central limit theorem. It states that, under some conditions, the average of many samples (observations) of a random variable with finite mean and variance is itself a random variable—whose distribution c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laplace Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the Laplace distribution is a continuous probability distribution named after Pierre-Simon Laplace. It is also sometimes called the double exponential distribution, because it can be thought of as two exponential distributions (with an additional location parameter) spliced together along the x-axis, although the term is also sometimes used to refer to the Gumbel distribution. The difference between two Independent identically-distributed random variables, independent identically distributed exponential random variables is governed by a Laplace distribution, as is a Brownian motion evaluated at an exponentially distributed random time. Increments of Laplace motion or a variance gamma process evaluated over the time scale also have a Laplace distribution. Definitions Probability density function A random variable has a \operatorname(\mu, b) distribution if its probability density function is : f(x \mid \mu, b) = \frac \exp\left( -\frac \rig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discrete Uniform Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the discrete uniform distribution is a symmetric probability distribution wherein each of some finite whole number ''n'' of outcome values are equally likely to be observed. Thus every one of the ''n'' outcome values has equal probability 1/''n''. Intuitively, a discrete uniform distribution is "a known, finite number of outcomes all equally likely to happen." A simple example of the discrete uniform distribution comes from throwing a fair six-sided die. The possible values are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and each time the die is thrown the probability of each given value is 1/6. If two dice were thrown and their values added, the possible sums would not have equal probability and so the distribution of sums of two dice rolls is not uniform. Although it is common to consider discrete uniform distributions over a contiguous range of integers, such as in this six-sided die example, one can define discrete uniform distributions over any finite set. Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uniform Distribution (continuous)
In probability theory and statistics, the continuous uniform distributions or rectangular distributions are a family of symmetric probability distributions. Such a distribution describes an experiment where there is an arbitrary outcome that lies between certain bounds. The bounds are defined by the parameters, a and b, which are the minimum and maximum values. The interval can either be closed (i.e. ,b/math>) or open (i.e. (a,b)). Therefore, the distribution is often abbreviated U(a,b), where U stands for uniform distribution. The difference between the bounds defines the interval length; all intervals of the same length on the distribution's support are equally probable. It is the maximum entropy probability distribution for a random variable X under no constraint other than that it is contained in the distribution's support. Definitions Probability density function The probability density function of the continuous uniform distribution is f(x) = \begin \dfrac & ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poisson Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the Poisson distribution () is a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time if these events occur with a known constant mean rate and independently of the time since the last event. It can also be used for the number of events in other types of intervals than time, and in dimension greater than 1 (e.g., number of events in a given area or volume). The Poisson distribution is named after French mathematician Siméon Denis Poisson. It plays an important role for discrete-stable distributions. Under a Poisson distribution with the expectation of ''λ'' events in a given interval, the probability of ''k'' events in the same interval is: :\frac . For instance, consider a call center which receives an average of ''λ ='' 3 calls per minute at all times of day. If the calls are independent, receiving one does not change the probability of when the next on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Binomial Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the negative binomial distribution, also called a Pascal distribution, is a discrete probability distribution that models the number of failures in a sequence of independent and identically distributed Bernoulli trials before a specified/constant/fixed number of successes r occur. For example, we can define rolling a 6 on some dice as a success, and rolling any other number as a failure, and ask how many failure rolls will occur before we see the third success (r=3). In such a case, the probability distribution of the number of failures that appear will be a negative binomial distribution. An alternative formulation is to model the number of total trials (instead of the number of failures). In fact, for a specified (non-random) number of successes , the number of failures is random because the number of total trials is random. For example, we could use the negative binomial distribution to model the number of days (random) a certain machin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geometric Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the geometric distribution is either one of two discrete probability distributions: * The probability distribution of the number X of Bernoulli trials needed to get one success, supported on \mathbb = \; * The probability distribution of the number Y=X-1 of failures before the first success, supported on \mathbb_0 = \ . These two different geometric distributions should not be confused with each other. Often, the name ''shifted'' geometric distribution is adopted for the former one (distribution of X); however, to avoid ambiguity, it is considered wise to indicate which is intended, by mentioning the support explicitly. The geometric distribution gives the probability that the first occurrence of success requires k independent trials, each with success probability p. If the probability of success on each trial is p, then the probability that the k-th trial is the first success is :\Pr(X = k) = (1-p)^p for k=1,2,3,4,\dots The above form of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Binomial Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the binomial distribution with parameters and is the discrete probability distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of statistical independence, independent experiment (probability theory), experiments, each asking a yes–no question, and each with its own Boolean-valued function, Boolean-valued outcome (probability), outcome: ''success'' (with probability ) or ''failure'' (with probability ). A single success/failure experiment is also called a Bernoulli trial or Bernoulli experiment, and a sequence of outcomes is called a Bernoulli process; for a single trial, i.e., , the binomial distribution is a Bernoulli distribution. The binomial distribution is the basis for the binomial test of statistical significance. The binomial distribution is frequently used to model the number of successes in a sample of size drawn with replacement from a population of size . If the sampling is carried out without replacement, the draws ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernoulli Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the Bernoulli distribution, named after Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, is the discrete probability distribution of a random variable which takes the value 1 with probability p and the value 0 with probability q = 1-p. Less formally, it can be thought of as a model for the set of possible outcomes of any single experiment that asks a yes–no question. Such questions lead to outcome (probability), outcomes that are Boolean-valued function, Boolean-valued: a single bit whose value is success/yes and no, yes/Truth value, true/Binary code, one with probability ''p'' and failure/no/false (logic), false/Binary code, zero with probability ''q''. It can be used to represent a (possibly biased) coin toss where 1 and 0 would represent "heads" and "tails", respectively, and ''p'' would be the probability of the coin landing on heads (or vice versa where 1 would represent tails and ''p'' would be the probability of tails). In particular, unfair co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
