Order Statistic - Dealing With Discrete Variables

Dealing With Discrete Variables

Suppose are i.i.d. random variables from a discrete distribution with cumulative distribution function and probability mass function . To find the probabilities of the order statistics, three values are first needed, namely

The cumulative distribution function of the order statistic can be computed by noting that


\begin{align}
P(X_{(k)}\leq x)& =P(\text{there are at most }n-k\text{ observations greater than }x) ,\\
& =\sum_{j=0}^{n-k}{n\choose j}p_3^j(p_1+p_2)^{n-j} .
\end{align}

Similarly, is given by


\begin{align}
P(X_{(k)}< x)& =P(\text{there are at most }n-k\text{ observations greater than or equal to }x) ,\\
&=\sum_{j=0}^{n-k}{n\choose j}(p_2+p_3)^j(p_1)^{n-j} .
\end{align}

Note that the probability mass function of is just the difference of these values, that is to say


\begin{align}
P(X_{(k)}=x)&=P(X_{(k)}\leq x)-P(X_{(k)}< x) ,\\
&=\sum_{j=0}^{n-k}{n\choose j}\left(p_3^j(p_1+p_2)^{n-j}-(p_2+p_3)^j(p_1)^{n-j}\right) ,\\
&=\sum_{j=0}^{n-k}{n\choose j}\left((1-F(x))^j(F(x))^{n-j}-(1-F(x)+f(x))^j(F(x)-f(x))^{n-j}\right).
\end{align}

Read more about this topic:  Order Statistic

Famous quotes containing the words dealing with, dealing, discrete and/or variables:

    You’ve been trying to keep an honest accounting of city monies. You’ve been dealing with politicians. You’ve been standing up for your own rights, haven’t you? Naturally you landed in jail.
    Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)

    A second-class mind dealing with third-class material is hardly a necessity of life.
    Harold Laski (1893–1950)

    One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.
    Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)

    The variables of quantification, ‘something,’ ‘nothing,’ ‘everything,’ range over our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, the alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities over which our variables range in order to render one of our affirmations true.
    Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)