CHAPTER 7 RESERVE PROBLEMS

The following problems have been reserved for your use in assignments and testing and do not
appear in student versions of the text.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 1 Problem 1

A random sample of 140 in size is taken from a population with a mean of 1540 and unknown
variance. The sample variance was found out to be 130.

(a) Find the point estimate of the population variance.

(b) Find the mean of the sampling distribution of the sample mean.

SOLUTION

(a)

(b)

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 1 Problem 2

Service time for a customer coming through a checkout counter in a retail store is a random
variable with the mean of 4.0 minutes and standard deviation of 1.5 minutes. Suppose that the
distribution of service time is fairly close to a normal distribution. Suppose there are two
counters in a store, customers in the first line and customers in the second line.
Find the probability that the difference between the mean service time for the shorter line and
the mean service time for the longer one is more than 0.4 minutes. Assume that the service
times for each customer can be regarded as independent random variables.

SOLUTION

The distribution of is normal with mean minutes and standard deviation .

The distribution of is normal with mean minutes and standard deviation .

Now the distribution of is normal with mean and variance

.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 1 Problem 3

Suppose that the random variable X has the discrete uniform distribution

A random sample of is selected from this distribution. Find the probability that the
sample mean is greater than 4.8.

SOLUTION

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 1 Problem 4

In order to find out the defect rate of the manufactured components a random sample of
was selected. Four specimens were found to be defective. Estimate the proportion of defective
components in the population.

SOLUTION

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 2 Problem 1

Consider a normal population with the mean of 40 and standard deviation of 10. A random
sample of was selected:

39.2, 45.7, 27.4, 25.9, 25.1, 46.3, 42.9, 49.0, 40.6, 47.0.
Find the probability that the point estimate of the population mean based on the second sample
of would be more accurate.
SOLUTION

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 2 Problem 2

A normal population has the mean of 20 and the variance of 100. A random sample of size
is selected.

(a) Find the standard deviation of the sample mean.

(b) How large must the sample be if you want to halve the standard deviation of the sample
mean?

SOLUTION

(a)

(b)

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 2 Problem 3

The lamps of type A have the average lifetime of 2000 hours with the variance of 3500. The
lamps of type B have the average lifetime of 2100 hours with the same variance. A random
sample of lamps of each type is selected. Let and be the two sample means.
Find the probability that .

SOLUTION
 is approximately normal with mean hours and variance
hours.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 2 Problem 4

Patients arriving at a hospital emergency department present a variety of symptoms and

complaints. The following data were collected during one weekend night shift (11:00 P.M. to
7:00 A.M.):

Chest pain 7
Difficulty breathing 7
Numbness in extremities 3
Broken bones 11
Abrasions 16
Cuts 21
Stab wounds 9
Gunshot wounds 4
Blunt force trauma 10
Fainting, loss of consciousness 5
Other 9

Estimate the proportion of patients who arrive at this emergency department experiencing chest
pain.

SOLUTION

The proportion of arrivals for chest pain is 8 among 103 total arrivals. The proportion
.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 2 Problem 5

A consumer electronics company is comparing the brightness of two different types of picture
tubes for use in its television sets. Tube type A has mean brightness of 100 and standard
deviation of 16, and tube type B has unknown mean brightness, but the standard deviation is
assumed to be identical to that for type A. A random sample of tubes of each type is
selected, and is computed. If equals or exceeds , the manufacturer would like to
adopt type B for use. The observed difference is .
What is the probability that exceeds by 3.0 or more if and are equal?

Is there strong evidence that is greater than ?

SOLUTION

If , then is approximately normal with mean 0 and variance .

Then, .
The probability that exceeds by 3.0 or more is not that unusual when and equal.
Therefore, there is not strong evidence that is greater than .

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 2 Problem 6

Consider a Weibull distribution with shape parameter 1.5 and scale parameter 2.0.
2.39 1.14 0.56 3.48 1.57
1.53 2.78 3.01 0.55 1.29
2.22 0.64 0.49 0.56 0.11
2.59 1.01 0.43 1.62 3.43
5.50 1.55 0.59 0.61 0.68
0.54 0.99 1.48 2.23 6.25
1.23 2.52 1.27 1.01 6.26
2.43 0.27 1.33 1.27 2.72
0.26 3.59 1.91 0.02 2.94
2.47 0.85 1.58 2.40 2.06

Select the correct histogram.

A

C
Normal probability plot: Does it look very much like a normal distribution?

The table constructed by drawing 10 samples of size n=5 from this distribution.
Compute the sample average from each sample.

Obs Mean
1 2.72 1.27 1.01 6.26 0.55 2.36 ? 0.01
2 0.99 2.59 5.50 1.27 0.64 2.20 ? 0.01
3 6.25 0.61 2.43 6.26 0.68 3.25 ? 0.01
4 0.26 1.29 1.23 1.14 1.57 1.10 ? 0.01
5 1.57 1.01 2.43 0.26 1.58 1.37 ? 0.01
6 1.62 2.72 2.78 2.39 2.94 2.49 ? 0.01
7 0.56 2.47 1.91 0.99 0.27 1.24 ? 0.01
8 2.06 0.59 2.59 1.14 0.54 1.38 ? 0.01
9 3.48 1.55 1.14 3.43 0.68 2.06 ? 0.01
10 1.23 1.01 2.47 0.56 3.59 1.77 ? 0.01

Select the correct normal probability plot of the sample averages.

A
B

Do the sample averages seem to be normally distributed?

SOLUTION
The histogram of the data:

Normal probability plot.

It does not seems to have a normal distribution.

The following table constructed by drawing 10 samples of size n=5 from this distribution.

Find the sample mean using the formula .

Obs Mean
1 2.72 1.27 1.01 6.26 0.55 2.36
2 0.99 2.59 5.50 1.27 0.64 2.2
3 6.25 0.61 2.43 6.26 0.68 3.25
4 0.26 1.29 1.23 1.14 1.57 1.1
5 1.57 1.01 2.43 0.26 1.58 1.37
6 1.62 2.72 2.78 2.39 2.94 2.49
7 0.56 2.47 1.91 0.99 0.27 1.24
8 2.06 0.59 2.59 1.14 0.54 1.38
9 3.48 1.55 1.14 3.43 0.68 2.06
10 1.23 1.01 2.47 0.56 3.59 1.77

Normal probability plot of the sample averages.

The normal probability plot of sample mean from each sample is much more normally
distributed than the raw data.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 1

We have two unbiased estimators: , and . Suppose that X is a random variable

with mean and variance . There is a random sample of size from a population
represented by . Find a point estimate of and .
Use unbiased estimators.
SOLUTION

The unbiased estimator of is the sample mean:

The unbiased estimator of is the sample variance:

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 2

Suppose that a random variable X has continuous uniform distribution on , where a is an

unknown parameter. We have a random sample of 15 in size from a population represented by X:
4.5, 1.3, 8.6, 6.4, 7.4, 4.3, 7.2, 1.6, 4.4, 2.0, 8.4, 6.5, 7.3, 3.4, 7.4..

Find a point estimate of a. Use an unbiased estimator.

SOLUTION
The expected value of X for continuous uniform distribution:

On the other side, we know that the sample mean is the unbiased estimator of .

Thus,

We can now solve for a, that is

So, the unbiased estimator for a is .

Now we can calculate the point estimate of a:

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 3

At the candle factory, 10 out of 100 produced candles in the sample are defective. Find a point
estimate of the probability that a fault free candle is produced.

SOLUTION

The unbiased estimator of the probability that a candle without defects is produced is ,
where X is the number of fault free candles, n is the total number.

Therefore,

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 4

The number of passengers for a particular bus route was counted, and data for 3 weeks are
shown in the table:

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Week 1 29 33 26 28 30 39 31
Week 2 28 31 29 37 28 37 25
Week 3 33 37 30 28 25 39 28

(a) Calculate a point estimate of the mean number of passengers and its standard error. Consider
the unbiased estimator .

(b) Calculate a point estimate of the mean number of passengers and its standard error on
weekdays and weekends separately.

SOLUTION

(a)

A point estimate of the mean number:

Estimated standard error:

where
 .

Therefore, a point estimate of the mean number is 31.

Estimated standard error is 0.9710.

(b)

for weekdays.

Therefore, a point estimate of the mean number is 30.133.

Estimated standard error is 0..9148.

for weekends.

Therefore, a point estimate of the mean number is 36.167.

Estimated standard error is 2.46.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 5

The diameter of the cylinder is 52 cm, its height was measured 7 times. Measurements are as
follows:

58.3, 58.1, 57.9, 57.7, 58.2, 57.8, 58.1cm. Calculate a point estimate of the cylinder volume.
Consider the unbiased estimator . Use .

SOLUTION

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 6

A boy threw a ball 25 times. Kinetic energy of the ball is as follows:

25.66, 30.71, 18.32, 16.77, 24.05, 19.49, 14.22, 20.03, 14.21, 28.43, 28.03, 22.07, 29.48, 14.91,
17.12, 15.12, 27.97, 23.02, 23.37, 27.55, 23.48, 19.90, 15.78, 28.88, 29.71 J. Calculate a point
estimate of the proportion of all ball throws whose energy deviation from the mean is larger than
the standard deviation.

SOLUTION

The unbiased estimator of the mean energy is . Standard deviation can

be estimated by the sample standard deviation

Energy deviation from the mean is larger than the standard deviation for ball throws whose

energy lies outside the following interval: or . There are 13

ball throws whose energy is out of this interval. It means that the unknown proportion is

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 7

Suppose that and are estimators of the parameter . We know that ,

, , .

Which estimator is better for unbiasedness?

Under which conditions is more efficient than ?

SOLUTION

For unbiasedness, use because it is the only unbiased estimator.

If the relative efficiency is less than or equal to 1, is the better estimator.

Use , when .

or

If then use .

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 8

Let three random samples of sizes , , and be taken from a population with
mean and variance . Let , , and be the sample variances.

Is biased or unbiased estimator of ?

SOLUTION

Therefore, is an unbiased estimator of .

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 9

Suppose that the random variable X has a lognormal distribution with parameters and
. A sample of size is drawn from this distribution. In order to find the standard
error of the sample median of this distribution with the bootstrap method bootstrap
samples are generated.
Sample
1 7.01 3.58 7.04 3.58 7.86 14.68 3.01 8.56 7.66 10.84
2 4.75 14.66 4.76 7.66 5.29 4.48 4.98 6.07 6.37 1.50
3 23.72 2.80 6.03 5.89 3.58 2.22 6.50 1.52 3.19 9.59
4 1.50 4.75 5.63 1.87 5.27 1.83 7.66 5.63 4.55 4.20
5 6.98 10.21 1.50 6.03 4.97 3.19 10.86 6.37 6.33 4.98

Find the standard error of the sample median of this distribution with the bootstrap method.

SOLUTION
Sample Sample median
1 7.35
2 5.14
3 4.74
4 4.65
5 6.18
Here the sample median is computed for each of the bootstrap samples. The standard error is
estimated as the standard deviation of these sample medians, and in this case we obtain 1.15.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 3 Problem 10

An exponential distribution is known to have a mean of 10. You want to find the standard error
of the median of this distribution if a random sample of size 8 is drawn. In order to use the
bootstrap method bootstrap samples are generated.
Sample
1 29.86 7.71 7.57 5.32 7.40 10.51 11.26 12.85
2 0.50 20.91 10.61 13.02 1.81 14.62 43.43 12.92
3 3.60 36.86 11.26 2.34 10.18 10.51 1.33 0.58
4 0.58 3.97 18.10 8.57 11.63 8.57 5.70 4.47
5 10.99 4.16 0.85 0.50 7.74 18.10 3.95 1.02

Find the standard error of the median with the bootstrap method.

SOLUTION

Sample Sample median

1 9.11
2 12.97
3 6.89
4 7.14
5 4.06
Here the sample median is computed for each of the bootstrap samples. The standard error is
estimated as the standard deviation of these sample medians, and in this case we obtain 3.30.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 1

Consider the probability density function

Find the maximum likelihood estimator for based on a random sample of size n. Use
variable “i” as sum index in your answer.

SOLUTION

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 2

Consider the Pareto distribution

Find the maximum likelihood estimator for if is known. Use variable “i” as sum
index in your answer.

SOLUTION

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 3

A random sample of size n is selected from an exponential distribution

Parameter can take values of 1, 2, and 3.

Find the maximum likelihood estimator of .

SOLUTION

a) If and , then .

If , then .

b) If and , then .

If , then .

c) Similarly, if , then .

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 4

Consider the Pareto distribution

(a) Find the moment estimator for if is known. Use M as the symbol of sample
mean.

(b) Find the moment estimator for if is known. Use M as the symbol of sample
mean.

SOLUTION

(a)

or using M as the symbol of sample mean,

(b)

or using M as the symbol of sample mean,

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 5

The time in minutes between customer arrivals at a store has an exponential distribution with
parameter . The prior distribution for is exponential with the mean of 2. A random sample
of gives the average time between arrivals minutes. Find the Bayes estimate for .

SOLUTION

and .
Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 6

The length of the manufactured component is a normal random variable with an unknown mean
and the known variance of . The prior distribution for µ is normal with and
. A random sample of 10 components was taken. Their lengths in centimeters are

20.05, 19.93, 20.00, 19.93, 20.06, 20.00, 20.05, 20.04, 20.10, 19.99.

(a) Find the Bayes estimate of .

(b) Find the probability that is greater than 20.

SOLUTION

(a)

If the prior distribution for is normal with mean and variance , then is

recognized as a normal probability density function with posterior mean and

posterior variance .

The Bayes estimate is

(b)

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 7

A random sample is selected from the shifted exponential distribution

Is an unbiased estimator of ?

SOLUTION

Therefore, is an unbiased estimator of .

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 8

Let X be a random variable with the following probability distribution:

Find the maximum likelihood estimator of based on a random sample of size n.

SOLUTION
Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 9

Consider the shifted exponential distribution

.
When , this density reduces to the usual exponential distribution. When , there is
positive probability only to the right of .

Find the maximum likelihood estimator of based on a random sample of size n.

Find the maximum likelihood estimator of based on a random sample of size n.

SOLUTION

The parameter cannot be estimated by setting the derivative of the log likelihood with respect
to to zero because the log likelihood is linear function of . The range of the likelihood is
important.
The joint density function and therefore the likelihood is zero for so that
.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 10

The Rayleigh distribution has probability density function

, , .

(a) It can be shown that . Use this information to construct an unbiased estimator for
.
(b) Find the maximum likelihood estimator of .
(c) Select the right expression for the median of the Rayleigh distribution.

(d) Can we estimate the median a by substituting our estimate for into the equation for a?

SOLUTION

(a)

so

(b)

Setting the last equation to zero, the maximum likelihood estimate is

.
(c)

(d)
According to the invariance property of the maximum likelihood estimator, we can estimate the
median a by substituting our estimate for into the equation for a.

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 11

Suppose that X is a normal random variable with unknown mean and known variance .
The prior distribution for is a normal distribution with mean and variance . Does the
Bayes estimator for become the maximum likelihood estimator when the sample size n is
large?

SOLUTION
The posterior distribution for is normal with mean . The Bayes estimator
for goes to the MLE as n increases. This follows because goes to 0, and the estimator

approaches (the 's cancel). Thus, in the limit .

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 12

Suppose that X is a normal random variable with unknown mean and known variance .
The prior distribution for is a uniform distribution defined over the interval .

(a) Find the posterior distribution for .

(b) Find the Bayes estimator for .

SOLUTION

(a)

Because and for , the

joint distribution is

for and .
Then, ,
where is the standard normal cumulative distribution function. Then

.
(b)
The Bayes estimator is

Let . Then, and

Let . Then, and

Reserve Problems Chapter 7 Section 4 Problem 13

Suppose that X is a Poisson random variable with parameter . Let the prior distribution for
be a gamma distribution with parameters and .

Is the posterior distribution for parameter of random variable X a gamma distribution?

Find the Bayes estimator for parameter of the random variable X.

SOLUTION

for ,

and for .

Then, .
This last density is recognized to be a gamma density as a function of . Therefore, the posterior

distribution of is a gamma distribution with parameters and .

The mean of the posterior distribution can be obtained from the results for the gamma
distribution to be

Reserve Supplemental Exercises Chapter 7 Problem 1

A norm population has a known mean 50 and known variance . A random sample of
is selected from this population, and the sample mean is .
How unusual is this result?

SOLUTION

. The results are very unusual.

Reserve Supplemental Exercises Chapter 7 Problem 2

Let , , and . Find the maximum likelihood estimator for .

SOLUTION

Making the last equation equal to zero and solving for theta, we obtain the maximum likelihood
estimate

Reserve Supplemental Exercises Chapter 7 Problem 3

You plan to use a rod to lay out a square, each side of which is the length of the rod. The length
of the rod is , which is unknown. You are interested in estimating the area of the square, which
is . Because is unknown, you measure it n times, obtaining observations .
Suppose that each measurement is unbiased for with variance .
(a) Is a biased or an unbiased estimate of the area of the square?
(b) Is a biased or an unbiased estimate of the area of the square?

SOLUTION

(a)

Let . Then . Therefore and

.
Therefore, is a biased estimator of the area of the square.
(b)

. Therefore, is unbiased estimator.

Reserve Supplemental Exercises Chapter 7 Problem 4

When the sample standard deviation is based on a random sample of size n from a normal
population, it can be shown that S is a biased estimator for . Specifically,

.
(a) Use this result to obtain an unbiased estimator for of the form , when the constant
depends on the sample size n.
(b) Find the value of for and .

SOLUTION

(a)

(b)
When , . When , . Therefore, S is a reasonably good
estimator for the standard deviation even when relatively small sample sizes are used.

Reserve Supplemental Exercises Chapter 7 Problem 5

Let be a random sample of size n from X, a random variable having cumulative

distribution function . Rank the elements in order of increasing numerical magnitude,
resulting in , where is the smallest sample element (
) and is the largest sample element ( ).
 is called the ith order statistic. Often the distribution of some of the order statistics is of
interest, particularly the minimum and maximum sample values and , respectively.

(a) Find the cumulative distribution functions of these two order statistics, denoted respectively

by and .

(b) If X is continuous with probability density function , find the probability distributions of
and .

(c) Let be a random sample of a Bernoulli random variable with parameter P. Find
the following probabilities.

(d) Let be a random sample of a normal random variable with mean and
variance . Derive the probability density functions of and .

(e) Let be a random sample of a exponential random variable of parameter .

Derive the cumulative distribution functions and probability density functions for and .

SOLUTION

(a)

for

for

Then, .

(b)

(c)

because .

(d)

. From a previous exercise,

 .

(e)

From a previous exercise,

Reserve Supplemental Exercises Chapter 7 Problem 6

When the population has a normal distribution, the estimator

is sometimes used to estimate the population standard deviation. This estimator is more robust to
outliers than the usual sample standard deviation and usually does not differ much from S when
there are no unusual observations.
(a) Calculate and S for the data 10, 12, 9, 14, 18, 15, and 16.

(b) Replace the first observation in the sample (10) with 50 and recalculate both S and .

SOLUTION

(a)
The traditional estimate of the standard deviation, S, is 3.26. The mean of the sample is 13.43 so

the values of corresponding to the given observations are 3.43, 1.43, 4.43, 0.57, 4.57,
1.57 and 2.57. The median of these new quantities is 2.57 so the new estimate of the standard
deviation is 3.81 and this value is slightly larger than the value obtained from the traditional
estimator.

(b)
Making the first observation in the original sample equal to 50 produces the following results.
The traditional estimator, S, is equal to 13.91. The new estimator is 7.62.