Chapter 6.

Random
variables and Probability
Distributions

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 Goals
After completing this session, you should be
able to:
• Apply the binomial distribution to applied
problems
• Compute probabilities for the Poisson
distribution
• Find probabilities using a normal distribution
table and apply the normal distribution to
some biomedical problems

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 PROBABILITY

I
Meteor showers are rare, but the
probability of them occurring can be
calculated.

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 Terminology
Event is any combination of
Probability is a measure that outcomes
is associated with how certain
we are of outcomes of a Example:
particular experiment or Upper case letters like A and
activity. B represent events.
Experiment is a planned The probability of an event A
operation carried out under is written P(A).
controlled conditions.
Example:
Flipping one fair coin twice is an Probabilities are between
example of an experiment. zero and one, inclusive
P(A) = 0 means the event A can
Outcome is a result of an never happen.
experiment P(A) = 1 means the event A always
happens.
P(A) = 0.5?

Sample Space is an experiment

Equally Likely means that each
is the set of all possible outcomes
outcome of an experiment occurs

List all possible outcome

with equal probability .
How

Tree diagram Example:

Venn Diagram
If you randomly guess the answer
to a true/false question on an
Example: exam, you are equally
If you flip one fair coin, S = {H, T} Not Equally Likely? Unfair? likely to select a correct answer or
where Unbiased? an incorrect answer.
H = heads and T = tails are the
"OR" Event
outcomes.
“AND" Event
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 Not Equally
Likely
"OR" Event: An outcome is in the event A OR B if the outcome is in A or
is in B or is in both A and B.
Example:
Let A = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} and B = {4, 5, 6, 7, 8}. A OR B = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8}. Notice that 4 and 5 are NOT listed twice.

“AND" Event: An outcome is in the event A AND B if the outcome is in

both A and B at the same time.
Example:
Let A and B be {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} and {4, 5, 6, 7, 8}, respectively. Then A
AND B = {4, 5}.

The complement of event A is denoted A′ (read "A prime"). A′ consists

of all outcomes that are NOT in A.
Example:
Let S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} and let A = {1, 2, 3, 4}.
Then, A′ = {5, 6}. P(A) = 4/6, P(A′) = 2/6

The conditional probability of A given B is written P(A|B). P(A|B) is the

probability that event A will occur given that the
event B has already occurred. A conditional reduces the sample space.
Example:
Suppose we toss one fair, six-sided die. The sample space
S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}. Let A = face is 2 or 3 and B = face is even (2, 4, 6)

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 Example

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 Independent and Mutually Exclusive Events
Independent and mutually exclusive do not mean the same thing.

02

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 Mutually Exclusive Events

02

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 Example

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 Example

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 Probability Distributions
Probability
Distributions

Discrete Continuous
Probability Probability
Distributions Distributions

Binomial Normal

Poisson

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 Discrete Probability Distributions
• A discrete random variable is a variable that
can assume only a countable number of values
Many possible outcomes:
– number of complaints per day
– number of TV’s in a household
– number of rings before the phone is answered
Only two possible outcomes:
– gender: male or female
– defective: yes or no
– spreads peanut butter first vs. spreads jelly first

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 Continuous Probability Distributions

• A continuous random variable is a variable that

can assume any value on a continuum (can
assume an uncountable number of values)
– thickness of an item
– time required to complete a task
– temperature of a solution
– height, in inches
• These can potentially take on any value,
depending only on the ability to measure
accurately.
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 Probability distribution
• Probability distribution is a list of all possible values of a random variable along
with their probability
• It characterized by its cumulative distribution function, two primary way: table &
histrogram
• Generally can be divide into discrete probability distribution ( Poisson, Bernoulli,
binomial) and continuous probability distribution(normal, chi-squared)

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 Example:
probability distribution
An experiment data showed that with 1 week period, the probability of students
in Jeli to call parents for 0, 1, 2, 3 times is 0.3, 0.4, 0.2 and 0.1, respectively.

This is
example of
probability
distribution
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 Binomial experiment
• Binomial – it means two names.
• It is associated with situation of two outcomes: success or failure
• Binomial distribution is a discrete probability distribution

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 Binomial experiment
• Flash back-counting principle

Combination Permutation
Order does not matter Order is important

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 Binomial experiment
• There are few condition of binomial experiment
1. Exclusively for yes/no experiment
2. There are fixed number of trials
3. Probability of success is the same for each trial
4. The trials are independent

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 Binomial experiment
• Formula to find the probability of binomial random variable

In addition,
Min,
Var,

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 Binomial experiment

• Example:
Egg are packed in the boxes of 12. the probability of each egg broken is 0.35.
find a probability of 2 eggs are broken in a random box.

Egg are packed in the boxes of 12. the probability of each egg broken is 0.35.
find a probability of less than 2 eggs are broken in a random box.

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 Binomial experiment

Continue
Or use binomial table
From the previous example

exercise
use the table, show that
3

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 Binomial distribution

Example:
The probability of customer will spend over $50 in J mart is 1/3. suppose there are 4 customers at the cashier counter.
What is the probability distribution for the number of these customers spending over $50?

Answer:
P(X=0)
P(X=1)
P(X=2)
P(X=3)
P(X=4)

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 Poisson distribution

• Poisson distribution is also a discrete probability distribution

• It can be used to approximate the binomial distribution if:
1. Suitable for experiment with infinite/large number of trials
2. The probability of success occur in an extremely small region
3. Mean or average value is provided

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 Poisson distribution
• Formula to find probability of probability of Poisson random variable

• In addition, for poisson distribution

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 Poisson distribution
• Example
The mortality rate per hour of small prawn in a pond are follow Poisson
distribution with µ=5.
a.) What is the probability of exactly 5 small prawns died in one hour?

b.) what is the probability of at least 3 small prawns died in one hour?

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 Poisson distribution
Continue
Or use Poisson table
From the previous example

exercise
use the table, show that

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 Normal distribution

• Well known with its bell curve

• Theoretical model of the experimental population
• Perfectly symmetrical, mean is zero
• Mean=median=mode
• ,

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 Normal distribution
Standard deviation is a good example of normal distribution
The X Axis is divided into deviations from mean.
Standard deviation is a measure of how spread out the number are.

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 Normal distribution
Example: 95% of the trees planted at UMK nursery are between 1.1m to 1.7m tall.
Assuming this data is normal distributed, calculate the mean and standard deviation.
Mean: =1.4m
standard deviation: m

95% = 4 S.D, see the

bell curve
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 Normal distribution
Continue
The number of standard deviation is also called as Z-score
Example: there are one of the trees in the nursery with Z-score of 3.0,
What is the height of that tree?
1 Z-score = 1 S.D, in this case, 1 S.D = 0.15m,
3 Z-score = 3 S.D = 3 X 0.15m = 0.45m
mean that we found out: 1.4m
The height of the tree with 3 Z-score = mean + 3 Z-score = 1.4m + 0.45m =1.85m

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 Standardizing normal distribution
• To convert a normal distribution into standard normal distribution, the process we
called it, standardizing
• Procedure: ,
• 1. substrate the mean
• 2. divide by S.D

standardizing

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 Standard normal distribution
Normal probability distribution
• It is an area bound under the bell curve
• Total area bound under curve = 1
• To check the area, refer to normal distribution table
• Some table gives the area bound under the curve
to the left of Z, some table gives the area bound
under the curve to the right of Z. Be caution.

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 Standard normal distribution
• How to read normal distribution table?
Example

Refer to the table, this table entry is the area bound

under curve to the left of Z.
When the Z = 0.5, the area to the left is 0.6915
Therefore, the area to the right @ = 1- 0.6915
= 0.3085

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 Standard normal distribution

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 Standard normal distribution
• In research, data is presented in X value, we have to convert it into Z value in order
to get the probability from table
Example:
find the

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 Probability density function

• Density of the continuous probability function,

for continuous random variable
• For uncountable infinite number of possible value
• to find

• Where: culmulative distribution function of x

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