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F Y | X ( u | X ) = P ( Y u | X ) = E [ I ( - , u ] ( Y ) | X ]

Then, by the law of total probability (CE1b) ,

F Y ( u ) = E [ F Y | X ( u | X ) ] = F Y | X ( u | t ) F X ( d t )

If there is a conditional density f Y | X such that

P ( Y M | X = t ) = M f Y | X ( r | t ) d r

then

F Y | X ( u | t ) = - u f Y | X ( r | t ) d r so that f Y | X ( u | t ) = u F Y | X ( u | t )

A careful, measure-theoretic treatment shows that it may not be true that F Y | X ( · | t ) is a distribution function for all t in the range of X . However, in applications, this is seldom a problem. Modeling assumptions often start with such a family of distribution functions or density functions.

The conditional distribution function

As in [link] , suppose X exponential ( u ) , where the parameter u is the value of a parameter random variable H . If the parameter random variable H uniform ( a , b ) , determine the distribution function F X .

SOLUTON

As in [link] , take the assumption on the conditional distribution to mean

f X | H ( t | u ) = u e - u t t 0

Then

F X | H ( t | u ) = 0 t u e - u s d s = 1 - e - u t 0 t

By the law of total probability

F X ( t ) = F X | H ( t | u ) f H ( u ) d u = 1 b - a a b ( 1 - e - u t ) d u = 1 - 1 b - a a b e - u t d u
= 1 - 1 t ( b - a ) [ e - b t - e - a t ]

Differentiation with respect to t yields the expression for f X ( t )

f X ( t ) = 1 b - a 1 t 2 + b t e - b t - 1 t 2 + a t e - a t t > 0
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The following example uses a discrete conditional distribution and marginal distribution to obtain the joint distribution for the pair.

A random number N Of bernoulli trials

A number N is chosen by a random selection from the integers from 1 through 20 (say by drawing a card from a box). A pair of dice is thrown N times. Let S be the number of “matches” (i.e., both ones, both twos, etc.). Determine the jointdistribution for { N , S } .

SOLUTION

N uniform on the integers 1 through 20. P ( N = i ) = 1 / 20 for 1 i 20 . Since there are 36 pairs of numbers for the two dice and six possible matches, theprobability of a match on any throw is 1/6. Since the i throws of the dice constitute a Bernoulli sequence with probability 1/6 of a success (a match), we have S conditionally binomial ( i , 1 / 6 ) , given N = i . For any pair ( i , j ) , 0 j i ,

P ( N = i , S = j ) = P ( S = j | N = i ) P ( N = i )

Now E [ S | N = i ] = i / 6 . so that

E [ S ] = 1 6 · 1 20 i = 1 20 i = 20 · 21 6 · 20 · 2 = 7 4 = 1 . 75

The following MATLAB procedure calculates the joint probabilities and arranges them “as on the plane.”

% file randbern.m p = input('Enter the probability of success ');N = input('Enter VALUES of N '); PN = input('Enter PROBABILITIES for N ');n = length(N); m = max(N);S = 0:m; P = zeros(n,m+1);for i = 1:n P(i,1:N(i)+1) = PN(i)*ibinom(N(i),p,0:N(i));end PS = sum(P);P = rot90(P); disp('Joint distribution N, S, P, and marginal PS')randbern % Call for the procedure Enter the probability of success 1/6Enter VALUES of N 1:20 Enter PROBABILITIES for N 0.05*ones(1,20)Joint distribution N, S, P, and marginal PS ES = S*PS'ES = 1.7500 % Agrees with the theoretical value
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The regression problem

We introduce the regression problem in the treatment of linear regression. Here we are concerned with more general regression. A pair { X , Y } of real random variables has a joint distribution. A value X ( ω ) is observed. We desire a rule for obtaining the “best” estimate of the corresponding value Y ( ω ) . If Y ( ω ) is the actual value and r ( X ( ω ) ) is the estimate, then Y ( ω ) - r ( X ( ω ) ) is the error of estimate. The best estimation rule (function) r ( · ) is taken to be that for which the average square of the error is a minimum. That is, we seek a function r such that

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Source:  OpenStax, Applied probability. OpenStax CNX. Aug 31, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10708/1.6
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