Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 218 1 d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The variance approaches the Poisson distribution variance when . Equivalently, with , the Poisson model is the boundary value . The usual Wilks theorem for a likelihood-ratio test assumes that the null parameter is an interior point of a smooth parameter space, so comparing the statistic with an ordinary law is invalid here.
A valid parametric bootstrap proceeds as follows. First fit the null Poisson model and retain its fitted means . For each bootstrap repetition , independently simulateusing the original doses, refit both the Poisson and negative-binomial models to that simulated data, and calculateFor the observations calculate the analogous . The bootstrap -valueuses the null distribution with its boundary and finite-sample fitting behaviour automatically reproduced. A large controls the Monte Carlo error of this estimate.