Use the slotted ALOHA model with one outstanding packet per active station and a collision channel: a slot with exactly one attempt succeeds, whereas an idle slot or a slot with two or more attempts delivers nothing. Let be independent Poisson random variables of mean , independent also of the transmission choices. Arrivals join after the current slot's attempts. Given , the attempt count has a binomial distribution with parameters and . Consequently, for ,
For , set and . The equation adds arrivals and removes precisely one packet following a successful slot. The estimate controls the common transmission probability and updates using the idle, success, or collision feedback. The conditional distribution of the next state depends only on , so this pair is a Markov chain.
Away from the reflecting floor in , its one-step conditional expectations are
When and are large with , the Poisson limit theorem gives and . Treating these approximate drifts as derivatives motivates the fluid approximation of slotted ALOHA:
The floor at is negligible in this interior scaling. This calculation motivates the ordinary differential equations; it is not a proof of a stochastic fluid limit.
For , put
Then and . On the domain , introduce time by . Differentiating gives
where .
The function is strictly increasing from zero to infinity, and . To check the monotonicity explicitly,
Indeed, with ,
because its discriminant is ; and . Thus the scalar ordinary differential equation for points toward the unique value satisfying . Every trajectory with , has bounded and . Positivity of follows from .
If , then and . Thus decays exponentially for large , and
This is finite-time draining of a fluid model. The unmodified equations have undefined at the origin, so the statement that trajectories converge to the origin needs this endpoint interpretation; continuing with an absorbing zero trajectory is an additional fluid-model convention, not a solution of the displayed equations at the origin.
If , then and . Now grows exponentially, physical time tends to infinity, and
In particular the trajectory escapes to infinity. Even without the ratio analysis, , since .
For the actual Markov chain, it is essential not to replace the finite- success probability by : a single backlogged packet can succeed with probability one. Instead, for , maximizing over gives the ALOHA throughput bound
If , choose and so that for all , uniformly in . For sufficiently small ,
because its derivative at zero is . Independence of arrivals and attempts gives
whenever . For any integer , stop at the stopping time . The stopped process is a nonnegative supermartingale. The optional stopping theorem, first at bounded times and then by a limit, yields the exponential-supermartingale escape bound
From every state with , a Poisson distribution arrival burst has a uniformly positive probability of sending the next backlog to at least , for any fixed . From there the probability of never revisiting is at least . By the Markov property at successive visits, the probability of infinitely many visits to this strip is zero: each visit has a uniform positive chance of being the last. This holds for every integer , so
Therefore the Markov chain is transient for every finite choice of . The proof is uniform in and does not infer stochastic transience merely from the approximate ordinary differential equations.
Given the parameters and , the coordinates are conditionally independent. Write , , and let denote the observed count. Their full conditional distributions have scalar densities
Each is proper: the binomial distribution likelihood factor is bounded, and the remaining factor is a proper normal distribution density.
One completely specified exact algorithm is rejection sampling from . Define
For ,
for or , take , and for take . Propose and accept with probability , repeating until acceptance. The accepted density is proportional to the proposal times , exactly . Its acceptance probability is positive, so it terminates almost surely, although it can be inefficient.
An efficient exact alternative is adaptive rejection sampling. The log density has
Thus it is a log-concave probability density. Choose one tangent point with positive derivative in the left tail and one with negative derivative in the right tail; these exist because the Gaussian term dominates there. Their tangent upper hull gives an integrable piecewise exponential rejection envelope. Sample that envelope, accept using the target-to-envelope ratio, and add evaluated points to improve it. Concavity guarantees the upper bound, so accepted samples remain exact. Sample each coordinate independently by either method; a finite number of Metropolis steps would not provide the requested exact draws.
Let be the probability density function of the unknown and that of the noise, both relative to Lebesgue measure. By independence of random variables, the conditional distribution of the measurement given has density . Thus its likelihood function and the joint density are
The Bayesian model evidence is the marginal data density
Bayes' theorem gives the posterior density solving this Bayesian inverse problem:
This formula applies when . Since by Tonelli theorem, these conditions hold almost everywhere under the marginal data law. Values of a conditional distribution at exceptional data are not determined by the joint law. The posterior mean or a maximum a posteriori estimate can then give a point estimate, while the full posterior density describes the remaining uncertainty.
Use the shape-rate convention for the Gamma distribution. Define
The zero null space assumption makes a positive-definite matrix, and is the unique ordinary least squares solution. The Gaussian likelihood contributes , which must be retained because is unknown. Multiplying it by the improper prior and the Gamma distribution gives the normal-gamma posterior with a flat prior:
Here the constant density of the improper prior cancels on normalization. Put
The normal equation makes the residual orthogonal to the range of . The orthogonal decomposition by a closed subspace into that range and its orthogonal complement gives
Integration over by the Gaussian integral, followed by integration over using the Gamma distribution, yields
Thus the posterior distribution is proper, despite the improper prior; here follows from the zero null space assumption.
Completing the square in and collecting the powers of give the two conditional distributions:
Explicitly their probability density functions are
For a joint maximum a posteriori estimate relative to , first fix . The unique maximizing is . The remaining log density is plus a constant. Consequently, if ,
The stated assumptions do not always imply . If , the supremum occurs as but is not attained on ; if , the density is unbounded there. In either case there is no joint maximum a posteriori estimate in the stated parameter space. Calling zero a boundary mode does not make it an admissible positive precision.
If “MAP estimators” instead means separate modes of the marginal distributions, integration gives
Thus the marginal maximum a posteriori estimate of is always , and that of is when , with the same nonattainment at zero when . Joint and marginal maximization are different operations; the usual joint interpretation gives the preceding boxed pair.
The notation denotes generalized Gaussian white noise over , not a Gaussian measure supported on : the identity is not a trace-class operator there. For example, realize the observation on a suitable space of tempered distributions. Its Cameron-Martin space of a Gaussian measure is . For deterministic , the stochastic pairing has normal distribution under and is the isonormal Gaussian process indexed by .
Interpret the stated maps between Sobolev spaces as bounded linear operators, as usual. In particular is bounded, so its adjoint operator is bounded on . Hence maps into , which is the property needed here. The stronger smoothing follows by Sobolev duality: boundedness of gives , and therefore . As , the shift belongs to the noise Cameron-Martin space of a Gaussian measure for -almost every .
The white-noise likelihood for a square-integrable shift, obtained from the Cameron-Martin theorem for a Gaussian measure in its white-noise form, is
Here is the law of . In an orthonormal basis of , with white-noise coordinates , the pairing under is
For fixed this has mean-square convergence and converges almost surely, since . The stipulated joint measurability allows the likelihood to be used under . One must not replace this expression by a finite , because white noise is not -valued. On the unbounded domain , membership of white noise in a global unweighted negative Sobolev space must not be assumed either; the stochastic pairing avoids that issue.
Let be the actual joint law. The shift formula gives with Radon-Nikodym derivative . Define
For each fixed admissible , the moment-generating function of a normal distribution gives
By Tonelli theorem, , so for -almost every . The likelihood is finite and strictly positive for -almost every ; Fubini's theorem then gives for -almost every . The marginal observation law is and is an equivalent probability measure to .
The Bayes formula for a dominated observation model therefore defines
To verify that it is the conditional distribution, for measurable sets of unknowns and of data,
Thus the posterior distribution is well defined for almost every observation under the actual data law. This is the appropriate almost-everywhere assertion supplied by Bayes' theorem; the stated assumptions do not prescribe a canonical posterior at every exceptional generalized datum.
Use Shamir's secret sharing over the finite field . The Chair independently chooses from the uniform distribution on a finite set and forms the random polynomial
Choose distinct nonzero , with equal to the number of discs to be issued, and inscribe on disc .
Any discs give distinct values of a polynomial of degree at most . Their Vandermonde determinant is nonzero, so polynomial interpolation recovers uniquely and hence recovers the secret as .
Conversely, fix any observed discs and any candidate secret . Interpolating through those points and gives exactly one polynomial of degree at most . Thus every candidate is compatible with the observed discs in exactly the same number of ways. Because the coefficients were chosen uniformly, the conditional distribution of the secret is unchanged after seeing any discs. This proves the Perfect secrecy of Shamir's threshold scheme.
Summing over the last digit yields the marginal probability mass function
Together with the other marginal probability mass function, this gives
The factorization holds on the whole support and with zeros elsewhere, proving that and are independent. The conditional distribution in ii likewise does not depend on the permissible value .
Summing the joint probability mass function over with the geometric series gives the marginal probability mass function
Divide the joint probability mass function by this positive marginal probability mass function to obtain the conditional distribution:
It is the geometric distribution counting failures before the first success, with success probability . For the other nonnegative integers , ; the elementary conditional probability given is undefined and supplies no additional case.
The time already elapsed since the noise is minutes. Conditional on a particular noise time and on still being in progress, memorylessness of the exponential distribution gives
This law does not depend on . Averaging over the conditional distribution of therefore leaves the same remaining-time law. Hence
The elapsed minutes are not subtracted from the original mean; the exponential residual lifetime has the same mean after any elapsed duration.
Independent increments give independent Poisson variables and with means and . Dividing their joint probability by yields
Thus the conditional distribution is binomial distribution with parameters .
The event means that at most events have occurred by . Consequently
For , the conditional event time lies in . Integrate its survival function and substitute :
The index range is implicit in the source's last assertion. For , the th event is after , and independent future increments instead give expectation ; the displayed formula does not apply.
Integrating the conditional distribution against the exponential distribution probability density function gives, for integer ,
Here the gamma function identity evaluates the integral. Hence
on . Put and . The geometric series gives . Its generalized inverse, the quantile function, is
This is the smallest nonnegative integer for which ; dividing by reverses the inequality. Draw from the uniform distribution on and use this formula. The commonly used expression has the same probability distribution, but differs from the exact generalized inverse when is precisely a jump value of the cumulative distribution function. Such values have probability zero for an ideal continuous uniform draw.
The diffusion generator is . By the Feynman-Kac formula, the required conditional characteristic function solves
Use separation of variables in the form . Since and , the temporal factor satisfies the ordinary differential equation
Thus , and
This is bounded in absolute value by one, so it lies in the uniqueness class of the Feynman-Kac formula. As an independent check, integrating the stochastic differential equation gives . The independent Brownian increments have the normal distribution with mean zero and variance , yielding exactly the same characteristic function. For , the conditional distribution is a point mass at , and the same boxed expression still applies.
Conditioning on the observed time. The native PDF defines as the first production time and then conditions on that production occurring at . If the intended information is its numerical value , the answer depends on . We first compute this conditional probability using a conditional probability density; conditioning on an exact value of a continuous random variable means a density ratio, since .
Before , no molecules of the second chemical species are present, so the joint-removal chemical reaction cannot occur. Molecules of the first chemical species arrive as a rate- Poisson process, and each independently starts a clock with a rate- exponential distribution for producing the first molecule of the second chemical species. Define the unnormalized probability mass function
The chemical master equation before the first production, with production treated as killing, is
Multiplying by and summing gives a partial differential equation for the probability generating function:
Its solution, verifiable by direct differentiation, is
Thus , the survival function is , and the conditional distribution of given survival to is a Poisson distribution of mean .
Production in from Markov chain state has joint probability . Therefore the probability density function of is
The first production leaves unchanged. Taking the density ratio gives a size-biased distribution of the surviving count:
In particular, under this reading the requested conditional probability is
The shift by one matters: an observation made exactly when production occurs preferentially selects larger counts, since their production reaction propensity function is larger.
Without observing the numerical time. If the conditioning merely repeats the definition of , the requested probability is instead the unconditional count at that stopping time. Before production, increases by one at rate , while production occurs at rate in Markov chain state . The competing exponential clocks imply
The first factor requires a second arrival before production from count one; the second requires production before a third arrival. The first arrival itself is certain. Production eventually occurs with probability one, as is also clear from . As a consistency check, averaging the time-conditioned answer against gives
These are two distinct, explicitly specified interpretations of the printed conditioning.
Put . By the law of total probability,
For , termwise differentiation of the geometric series, valid inside its radius of convergence, gives
Taking therefore yields
Since , this is the zero-based geometric distribution with parameter
This illustrates Bernoulli thinning of a geometric count. Here , as .
For the reverse conditional distribution, Bayes' theorem gives, for ,
Thus
For the conditional probability is zero. The conditional distribution of is the failure-count form of a negative binomial distribution, with successes and success parameter : the geometric-binomial posterior is shifted negative binomial.
Pedigree graphical model 2026-10-14
Assign one genotype random variable to each person in a pedigree. Independent founders in a pedigree carry population genotype laws, and each other genotype has its conditional distribution given its two parents from Mendelian segregation. The ancestry Directed acyclic graph is a Bayesian network for the joint genotype law. Its moral graph contains each parent-child edge and each coparent edge. Each founder factor and each child-with-parents factor belongs to a clique, giving an undirected graphical representation. The graph is an independence representation; equality with the minimal conditional independence graph needs additional faithfulness assumptions, particularly because inheritance can produce zero probabilities.
For a distribution in an extreme-value domain of attraction, the conditional distribution of the excess above a high threshold is asymptotically approximated by a generalized Pareto distribution with a threshold-dependent scale and a limiting shape parameter. This theorem justifies the peaks-over-threshold method. Threshold selection must balance approximation error against the reduced number of excess observations.
Probabilistic programming Created 2026-10-24 Updated 2026-10-31
Probabilistic programming expresses a probability model as an executable program with random choices and observations. Executing the generative part induces a probability distribution; observations then restrict or weight executions, and inference computes the resulting conditional distribution. Program syntax and inference algorithm are separate choices: the same model can be evaluated by rejection sampling, importance sampling or Markov chain Monte Carlo.
Random affine recursion 2026-10-31
A random affine recursion updates a real random variable by . Assume the coefficient pairs are independent and identically distributed random variables, independent of the initial value. The two coordinates within a pair may be dependent. Fresh coefficients make the recursion a time-homogeneous Markov process: its next conditional distribution depends on the current value alone.
The competition between the random multiplier and the fresh input determines whether initial conditions are forgotten. A synchronous coupling makes this particularly visible by using the same coefficient sequence for two initial values.
Rate-distortion function Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Fix a finite source alphabet , a probability mass function , a finite reconstruction alphabet , and a nonnegative distortion measure . The information rate-distortion function is
The source probability distribution stays fixed; the conditional distribution of the reconstruction is what we optimize. Each feasible test channel must keep expected distortion at most . The objective is mutual information, measured in bits when the logarithms have base two. If no test channel satisfies the constraint, the infimum is .[ref]
Consider independent and identically distributed fair bits and Hamming distortion, which charges one for an incorrect bit. At zero expected distortion, every bit must be reconstructed correctly, and . If an average fraction of incorrect bits is allowed, the binary rate-distortion function gives
Here is binary entropy. This is an asymptotic limit for long block codes, rather than a claim that a single bit can be stored in physical bits. The three-bit lossy Hamming code gives a small, fully explicit version of the same tradeoff, with rate and expected distortion .
Figure 1.
Allowing more incorrect fair bits lowers the asymptotic information rate
. The curve is the exact binary rate-distortion function. The marked three-symbol code has rate at expected distortion ; its gap above the curve shows that a small explicit block code need not attain the asymptotic bound. Rates count bits per original source symbol. Details.
Rate-distortion theory separates the question of what is possible from the design of a practical encoder and decoder. It also forces the fidelity criterion to be explicit. Hamming distortion treats all symbol mismatches alike; mean squared error instead penalizes larger numerical errors more strongly. Those objectives can favor different reconstructions of the same data. An average error criterion does not by itself control the error on every individual input.
Claude Shannon's Coding Theorems for a Discrete Source With a Fidelity Criterion by Claude Shannon was published in 1959. Its formulation fixes a cost for replacing one source letter by another and studies the communication rate compatible with the allowed average cost. The important shift is to quantify which distinctions may be discarded, rather than requiring exact recovery of every letter.[ref]
Regression model Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
A regression model specifies features of the conditional distribution of a response given predictor covariates, often a conditional mean or a full parametric density. Linear regression specifies a linear conditional mean; logistic regression specifies a logit-linear conditional probability for a binary response. The conditional comparison represented by a coefficient depends on which covariates are included.