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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Applied Mathematics

Western Kentucky University

Probability

Publication Year

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Runs Of Identical Outcomes In A Sequence Of Bernoulli Trials, Matthew Riggle Apr 2018

Runs Of Identical Outcomes In A Sequence Of Bernoulli Trials, Matthew Riggle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Bernoulli distribution is a basic, well-studied distribution in probability. In this thesis, we will consider repeated Bernoulli trials in order to study runs of identical outcomes. More formally, for t ∈ N, we let Xt ∼ Bernoulli(p), where p is the probability of success, q = 1 − p is the probability of failure, and all Xt are independent. Then Xt gives the outcome of the tth trial, which is 1 for success or 0 for failure. For n, m ∈ N, we define Tn to be the number of trials needed to first observe n …


Boundary Problems For One And Two Dimensional Random Walks, Miky Wright May 2015

Boundary Problems For One And Two Dimensional Random Walks, Miky Wright

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis provides a study of various boundary problems for one and two dimensional random walks. We first consider a one-dimensional random walk that starts at integer-valued height k > 0, with a lower boundary being the x-axis, and on each step moving downward with probability q being greater than or equal to the probability of going upward p. We derive the variance and the standard deviation of the number of steps T needed for the height to reach 0 from k, by first deriving the moment generating function of T. We then study two types of two-dimensional random walks with …


Generalized Probabilistic Bowling Distributions, Jennifer Lynn Hohn May 2009

Generalized Probabilistic Bowling Distributions, Jennifer Lynn Hohn

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Have you ever wondered if you are better than the average bowler? If so, there are a variety of ways to compute the average score of a bowling game, including methods that account for a bowler’s skill level. In this thesis, we discuss several different ways to generate bowling scores randomly. For each distribution, we give results for the expected value and standard deviation of each frame's score, the expected value of the game’s final score, and the correlation coefficient between the score of the first and second roll of a single frame. Furthermore, we shall generalize the results in …