Search

Results are developed for play-the-winner sampling for choosing the better of two binomial populations when the maximum number of tests is specified. It is shown that for a fixed number of tests the probability of correct selection with alternating assignment exceeds that for play- the-winner sampling. However, when the probability of correct selection is fixed, neither sampling method is uniformly better than the other as measured by the expected number of tests on the poorer population, or on the total expected number of tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the problem of finding the expected value of functions of a random variable X of the form f(X) = (X + A)[sup -n] where X + A > 0 a.s. and n is a non-negative integer. The technique is to successively integrate the probability generating function and is suggested by the well-known result that successive differentiation leads to the positive moments. The technique is applied to the problem of finding E[1/(X + A)] for the binomial and Poisson distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]