Assignment due in class on Thursday, 11/1/07, at 9:00 a.m.

1. A company that services air conditioner units in residences and office

blocks is interested in how to schedule its technicians in the most efficient
manner. Specifically, the company is interested in how long a technician
takes on a visit to a particular location, and the company recognizes that
this mainly depends on the number of air conditioner units at the location
that need to be serviced. The table below gives the joint probability mass
function for X (service time in hours) and Y (number of air conditioner
units):
X
Y 1 2 3 4
1 0.12 0.08 0.07 0.05
2 0.08 0.15 0.21 0.13
3 0.01 0.01 0.02 0.07
(a) Find the conditional probability mass function of X given Y = 2.
Using this find E(X | Y = 2). Interpret your result.
(b) Find the correlation coefficient between X and Y .
2. In order to determine the economic viability of mining in a certain area,
a mining company obtains samples of ore from the location and measures
their zinc content and their iron content. The random variable X is the
zinc content of the ore, taking values between 0.5 and 1.5, and the random
variable Y is the iron content of the ore, taking values between 20.0 and 35.0
with the joint probability density function
 17(x−1)2 2
 39
 400 − 50
− (y−25)
10000
, 0.5 ≤ x ≤ 1.5, 20.0 ≤ y ≤ 35.0
f (x, y) = 

0 otherwise

(a) Find the mean and standard deviation of X. Interpret your results.
(b) Find the mean and standard deviation of Y . Interpret your findings.
(c) Find the conditional probability density function for the iron content
given X = 0.55. Find also E(Y | X = 0.55).
(d) Find the correlation coefficient between X and Y .

1
 3. The weight of a certain type of brick in a manufacturing process has
a mean of 1.12 kg with a standard deviation of 0.03 kg.
(a) Find the mean and standard deviation of the average weight of 25
bricks randomly selected from this manufacturing process.
(b) How many bricks need to be selected so that their average weight has
a standard deviation of no more than 0.005 kg?
4. The joint probability density function for two continuous random vari-
ables X and Y is given by

 (x+2y)

 12
, 0 ≤ x ≤ 2, 0≤y≤2
f (x, y) = 

0 otherwise

Find the covariance between X and Y . Interpret your answer.