【经管励志】03_PROBANDDISCRETESTATS培训资料.pptVIP

. The calculation for a sample sample variance would divide the sum of squared deviations by the sample size. A variance is a variance: the average squared deviation. The result is a good estimator for the population mean, but is a biased estimator: on average, the estimator will not be the population variance. Dividing by (n-1)first formula is actually the definition of the population variance. We will use the formula for sample variance for calculations in the exercises that follow this section. The formula listed below was devised to make the variance easier to calculate in computer programs or by hand. In fact, Excel uses this formula in its variance and standard deviation calculations. Consider a sample of data with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 10. The following graphs form a progression of orders of magnitude of the number of data points. The bins of the histogram keep getting smaller and smaller as the number of data points gets larger and larger. With enough data, the population distribution approaches a continuous distribution, as shown by the curve in the final slide. Definition: A probability distribution of a discrete random variable (like distance) is an assignment of probabilities to each of the possible values that the random variable might assume. Each probability is a value between zero and one, and the sum of all probabilities must equal 1. Not only do many, many statistical tools exist for normally distributed data, fortunately, many, many natural processes can be described by normal distributions. Back to probability: By the definition of the probability function, we know that the total area under the curve from -￥ to +￥ equals 1. The area under the curve from –1s to +1s is approximately 68% of the total area. For a probability density function this means that 68% of the time, a sample selected from this population will have a value between –1s and +1s. The formal definition of probability is as follows: If a process