Search results for "Random variable"
showing 10 items of 151 documents
Determinants of individual tourist expenditure as a network: Empirical findings from Uruguay
2014
Abstract This paper introduces the use of graphical models for assessing the determinants of individual tourist spending. These models have the advantage of synthesizing and visualizing the relationships occurring within large sets of random variables, through an easy to interpret output. To this end, individual data from a large official survey of international tourists in Uruguay are used. Symmetric conditional independence structures are first investigated. Then subgraphs of each expenditure item's neighbourhood are extracted in order to assess the impact of main effects and interactions through proportional ordinal logistic regression. Results highlight the marginal role of socio-demogr…
On the calculation of derived variables in the analysis of multivariate responses
1992
AbstractThe multivariate regression of a p × 1 vector Y of random variables on a q × 1 vector X of explanatory variables is considered. It is assumed that linear transformations of the components of Y can be the basis for useful interpretation whereas the components of X have strong individual identity. When p ≥ q a transformation is found to a new q × 1 vector of responses Y∗ such that in the multiple regression of, say, Y1∗ on X, only the coefficient of X1 is nonzero, i.e. such that Y1∗ is conditionally independent of X2, …, Xq, given X1. Some associated inferential procedures are sketched. An illustrative example is described in which the resulting transformation has aided interpretation.
The elasticity of a random variable as a tool for measuring and assessing risks
2022
Elasticity is a very popular concept in economics and physics, recently exported and reinterpreted in the statistical field, where it has given form to the so-called elasticity function. This function has proved to be a very useful tool for quantifying and evaluating risks, with applications in disciplines as varied as public health and financial risk management. In this study, we consider the elasticity function in random terms, defining its probability distribution, which allows us to measure for each stochastic process the probability of finding elastic or inelastic situations (i.e., with elasticities greater or less than 1). This new tool, together with new results on the most notable p…
An analysis of the bias of variation operators of estimation of distribution programming
2018
Estimation of distribution programming (EDP) replaces standard GP variation operators with sampling from a learned probability model. To ensure a minimum amount of variation in a population, EDP adds random noise to the probabilities of random variables. This paper studies the bias of EDP's variation operator by performing random walks. The results indicate that the complexity of the EDP model is high since the model is overfitting the parent solutions when no additional noise is being used. Adding only a low amount of noise leads to a strong bias towards small trees. The bias gets stronger with an increased amount of noise. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that sampling drift is …
Optimization of Linearized Belief Propagation for Distributed Detection
2020
In this paper, we investigate distributed inference schemes, over binary-valued Markov random fields, which are realized by the belief propagation (BP) algorithm. We first show that a decision variable obtained by the BP algorithm in a network of distributed agents can be approximated by a linear fusion of all the local log-likelihood ratios. The proposed approach clarifies how the BP algorithm works, simplifies the statistical analysis of its behavior, and enables us to develop a performance optimization framework for the BP-based distributed inference systems. Next, we propose a blind learning-adaptation scheme to optimize the system performance when there is no information available a pr…
Modeling and Mitigating Errors in Belief Propagation for Distributed Detection
2021
We study the behavior of the belief-propagation (BP) algorithm affected by erroneous data exchange in a wireless sensor network (WSN). The WSN conducts a distributed multidimensional hypothesis test over binary random variables. The joint statistical behavior of the sensor observations is modeled by a Markov random field whose parameters are used to build the BP messages exchanged between the sensing nodes. Through linearization of the BP message-update rule, we analyze the behavior of the resulting erroneous decision variables and derive closed-form relationships that describe the impact of stochastic errors on the performance of the BP algorithm. We then develop a decentralized distribute…
All-Possible-Couplings Approach to Measuring Probabilistic Context.
2013
From behavioral sciences to biology to quantum mechanics, one encounters situations where (i) a system outputs several random variables in response to several inputs, (ii) for each of these responses only some of the inputs may "directly" influence them, but (iii) other inputs provide a "context" for this response by influencing its probabilistic relations to other responses. These contextual influences are very different, say, in classical kinetic theory and in the entanglement paradigm of quantum mechanics, which are traditionally interpreted as representing different forms of physical determinism. One can mathematically construct systems with other types of contextuality, whether or not …
On probabilistic interpretations of predicates
2016
In classical logic, any m-ary predicate is interpreted as an m-argument two-valued relation defined on a non-empty universe. In probability theory, m-ary predicates are interpreted as probability measures on the mth power of a probability space. m-ary probabilistic predicates are equivalently semantically characterized as m-dimensional cumulative distribution functions defined on Rm. The paper is mainly concerned with probabilistic interpretations of unary predicates in the algebra of cumulative distribution functions defined on R. This algebra, enriched with two constants, forms a bounded De Morgan algebra. Two logical systems based on the algebra of cumulative distributions are defined an…
The Joint Distribution Criterion and the Distance Tests for Selective Probabilistic Causality
2010
A general definition and a criterion (a necessary and sufficient condition) are formulated for an arbitrary set of external factors to selectively influence a corresponding set of random entities (generalized random variables, with values in arbitrary observation spaces), jointly distributed at every treatment (a set of factor values containing precisely one value of each factor). The random entities are selectively influenced by the corresponding factors if and only if the following condition, called the joint distribution criterion, is satisfied : there is a jointly distributed set of random entities, one entity for every value of every factor, such that every subset of this set that corr…
Convergence of Measures
2020
One focus of probability theory is distributions that are the result of an interplay of a large number of random impacts. Often a useful approximation can be obtained by taking a limit of such distributions, for example, a limit where the number of impacts goes to infinity. With the Poisson distribution, we have encountered such a limit distribution that occurs as the number of very rare events when the number of possibilities goes to infinity (see Theorem 3.7). In many cases, it is necessary to rescale the original distributions in order to capture the behavior of the essential fluctuations, e.g., in the central limit theorem. While these theorems work with real random variables, we will a…