In probability theory and statistics, the binomial distribution with parameters n and p is the discrete probability distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of n independent experiments, each asking a yes–no question, and each with its own boolean-valued outcome: a random variable containing a single bit of information: success/yes/true/one or failure/no/false/zero. 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., n = 1, the binomial distribution is a Bernoulli distribution. The binomial distribution is the basis for the popular binomial test of statistical significance.
In probability theory, the central limit theorem (CLT) establishes that, in some situations, when independent random variables are added, their properly normalized sum tends toward a normal distribution even if the original variables themselves are not normally distributed. The theorem is a key concept in probability theory because it implies that probabilistic and statistical methods that work for normal distributions can be applicable to many problems involving other types of distributions.
In probability theory and statistics, the negative binomial distribution is a discrete probability distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of independent and identically distributed Bernoulli trials before a specified (non-random) number of failures occurs. For example, if we define a 1 as failure, all non-1s as successes, and we throw a dice repeatedly until 1 appears the third time, then the probability distribution of the number of non-1s that appeared will be a negative binomial distribution.
In probability theory, there exist several different notions of convergence of random variables. The convergence of sequences of random variables to some limit random variable is an important concept in probability theory, and its applications to statistics and stochastic processes. The same concepts are known in more general mathematics as stochastic convergence and they formalize the idea that a sequence of essentially random or unpredictable events can sometimes be expected to settle down into a behaviour that is essentially unchanging when items far enough into the sequence are studied. The different possible notions of convergence relate to how such a behaviour can be characterised: two readily understood behaviours are that the sequence eventually takes a constant value, and that values in the sequence continue to change but can be described by an unchanging probability distribution.
Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is a statistical Markov model in which the system being modeled is assumed to be a Markov process with unobserved states.
In probability theory and statistics, two real-valued random variables, , , are said to be uncorrelated if their covariance, , is zero. If two variables are uncorrelated, there is no linear relationship between them.
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 and the value 0 with probability that is, the probability distribution of any single experiment that asks a yes–no question; the question results in a boolean-valued outcome, a single bit of information whose value is success/yes/true/one with probability p and failure/no/false/zero with probability q. It can be used to represent a 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 tails, respectively. In particular, unfair coins would have
In probability theory, the probability generating function of a discrete random variable is a power series representation of the probability mass function of the random variable. Probability generating functions are often employed for their succinct description of the sequence of probabilities Pr(X = i) in the probability mass function for a random variable X, and to make available the well-developed theory of power series with non-negative coefficients.
In information theory, the asymptotic equipartition property (AEP) is a general property of the output samples of a stochastic source. It is fundamental to the concept of typical set used in theories of compression.
In probability theory, a martingale is a sequence of random variables for which, at a particular time, the conditional expectation of the next value in the sequence, given all prior values, is equal to the present value.
In probability theory and statistics, a Gaussian process is a stochastic process, such that every finite collection of those random variables has a multivariate normal distribution, i.e. every finite linear combination of them is normally distributed. The distribution of a Gaussian process is the joint distribution of all those random variables, and as such, it is a distribution over functions with a continuous domain, e.g. time or space.
In mathematics and statistics, a stationary process is a stochastic process whose unconditional joint probability distribution does not change when shifted in time. Consequently, parameters such as mean and variance also do not change over time.
Given random variables , that are defined on a probability space, the joint probability distribution for is a probability distribution that gives the probability that each of falls in any particular range or discrete set of values specified for that variable. In the case of only two random variables, this is called a bivariate distribution, but the concept generalizes to any number of random variables, giving a multivariate distribution.
In probability theory, a compound Poisson distribution is the probability distribution of the sum of a number of independent identically-distributed random variables, where the number of terms to be added is itself a Poisson-distributed variable. In the simplest cases, the result can be either a continuous or a discrete distribution.
In statistics, an exchangeable sequence of random variables is a sequence X1, X2, X3, ... whose joint probability distribution does not change when the positions in the sequence in which finitely many of them appear are altered. Thus, for example the sequences
In probability theory, heavy-tailed distributions are probability distributions whose tails are not exponentially bounded: that is, they have heavier tails than the exponential distribution. In many applications it is the right tail of the distribution that is of interest, but a distribution may have a heavy left tail, or both tails may be heavy.
In probability theory and statistics, the Poisson distribution, named after French mathematician Siméon Denis Poisson, is a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time or space if these events occur with a known constant rate and independently of the time since the last event. The Poisson distribution can also be used for the number of events in other specified intervals such as distance, area or volume.
In probability theory and statistics, a sequence or collection of random variables is independent and identically distributed if each random variable has the same probability distribution as the others and all are mutually independent. Identically distributed, on its own, is often abbreviated ID. For uniformity, as both are discussed—and in widespread use—this article uses the visually cleaner IID in preference to the more prevalent convention i.i.d.
