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ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/ib/paper-1/7c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 ib Paper 1 7C Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For the independent normal distribution observations, the log likelihood isIts derivative is and its second derivative is , so the unique maximum-likelihood estimate isFor the prior with , multiplying prior density by likelihood and completing the square givesThus normal-normal conjugacy gives the posterior distributionFor quadratic loss, the conditional expected loss of action is the posterior variance plus . Its unique minimizer is the posterior mean, so the Bayes estimator isThis weights the sample and prior means by their respective precisions.
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