Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 29 3 a i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Treat each release as an independent Bernoulli observation with a two-week event probability, giving two independent binomial distributions. Under the specified effect, the probabilities are and with in each period. The expected event counts are therefore 24 and 12. For a conventional two-sided 5% comparison of proportions, let , and . UseThe approximate null rejection region is , and under the alternative is approximately . Thus the power of a two-sample rare-event comparison isHere is the standard normal distribution function. Hence the normal approximation gives : detecting the proposed halving is far from assured.
For the small counts, a discrete calculation is also appropriate. Approximate the two counts by independent Poisson distributions with means 24 and 12. Conditional on their total , the pre-intervention count is under equal rates and under the halving alternative; under that alternative. If is the rejection set of the symmetric exact two-sided 5% binomial test, its power isThis conservative discrete test has about 45% power, lower than the normal approximation because its achieved level can be below 5%. If a decrease-only one-sided 5% test had been specified in advance, replace 1.96 by 1.645; the normal-approximation power is about 64%. The tail convention and the chosen test must accompany any quoted statistical power.