STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 1

March 5, 2009
Chapter 3: Probability
Suppose that for a particular type of cancer, 50% of the people with the cancer go into remission. In other
words, there is a 50-50 chance that a person with this cancer will go into remission with no treatment.
A new drug is developed in the hope of improving the remission rate. 100 patients with the cancer take
the experimental drug. If the drug does not work, then we would expect about only 50 of the patients to
get better. Suppose that we observe 58 of the 100 patients get better after taking the drug can we then
claim that the drug works?
An analogous experiment is to take a fair coin and flip it 100 times. We would expect to get about 50-50
heads and tails. This does not mean that we expect to see exactly 50 tails and 50 heads. It is pretty clear
that if we observe 95 tails out of 100 flips that there is something wrong with the coin. What if we observe
58 tails out of 100 flips. Is this unusual? In the cancer example, if we see 58 patients out of 100 getting
better, would this be unusual if the drug did not work, i.e. just due to chance? Or is it unusual to observe
58 successes out of 100 trials if the drug did not work?
In order to answer these questions we need a way to quantify the likelihood of observing particular outcomes
in an experiment. The branch of mathematics called probability allows us to answer the questions posed
above. Probability is needed to make statistical inferences, such as whether or not there is strong evidence
the new drug is effective.
The results of many scientific studies are presented using p-values (see chapter 6) which are probabilities
associated with the likelihood of particular outcomes. In order to understand scientific literature, one must
understand p-values and hence, some knowledge of probability is needed.
The notes for this chapter provide a very brief introduction to probability.

Definition. Suppose an experiment is conducted and several different outcomes are possible. Let S denote
the set of all possible outcomes. Then S is called the sample space.
Definition. A subset of the sample space is called an event.

Notice that the word set is used in both of these definitions. Probability theory is closely related to set
theory.
Let us consider some very simple examples to illustrate the terminology.
Example. Suppose a couple has a child and the sex of the child is noted (M =boy, F = girl). Then the
sample space is S = {M, F }.

Example. Suppose a couple has three children and the sex of each of the children is noted. Then one
way to express the sample space is

S = {F F F, F F M, F M F, M F F, F M M, M F M, M M F, M M M },

where the outcome F F M means the two older children are girls and the youngest is a boy. Define an event
A as the event that the couple has two boys. Then A is a subset of S:

A = {F M M, M F M, M M F }.
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 2

For a given sample space, we can define many different events. For the couple that has three children, we
can define A as the event that the couple has two boys and the event B as the event the couple has at
least one girl. Then B = {F M M, M F M, M M F, F F M, F M F, M F F, F F F }.
Given any two sets (or events), we can form new sets (events) using unions and intersections.

Definition. The union of two events A and B is the event that either A occurs or B occurs, or they both
occur. The union is denoted
A B.
The key word for union is or.
Definition. The intersection of two events A and B is the event that both A and B occurs. The
intersection is denoted by
A B.
The keyword indicating an intersection is and.

Using the previous example,

A B = {F M M, M F M, M M F, F F M, F M F, M F F, F F F },

and
A B = {F M M, M F M, M M F }.
Note that in this example, the event A is a subset of the event B. In other words, if the event A occurs
(i.e. the couple has two boys), then the event B must have occurred (they had at least one girl).

Definition. Two events are mutually exclusive if they cannot both simultaneously occur. In terms of set
theory, mutually exclusive means the two events are disjoint, i.e. their intersection is the empty set.

In the example of the couple having three children, let C be the event that the couple has at least two
girls: C = {F F F, F F M, F M F, M F F }. Note that events A and C are mutually exclusive. The couple
cannot have two girls and two boys if they only have three children.

Definition. The complement of an event A, denoted A is the event that A does not occur.

In the previous example, if we consider the event that the couple has at least one girl, then the complement
of this event is that the couple did not have any girls (i.e. they had all boys).
The goal of probability is to assign a number to events indicating how likely it is that the events will occur.
The probability of an event A is denoted
P (A).
Here are some properties of probabilities.

1. For any event A,

0 P (A) 1.
That is, probabilities are always numbers between zero and one. The closer the probability of an
event is to zero, the more unlikely it is that the event will occur. If an event has probability zero,
then the event cannot happen. On the other hand, if an event has probability one, then the event
must happen. If an event has probability 0.95 say, then it is very likely to occur.
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 3

2. P (S) = 1. That is, the probability of the sample space is always one. Since the sample space contains
all possible outcomes, it is certain (probability equal to one) that one of these outcomes will occur.
3. If two events A and B cannot both occur simultaneously (i.e. mutually exclusive), then
P (A B) = P (A) + P (B).
This last property extends to any countable number of disjoint events: the probability of their union
is the sum of their probabilities.

From these properties of probability, one can deduce the following results:

1. (Additive rule) for any two events A and B:

P (A B) = P (A) + P (B) P (A B).

2. (Law of Complements) For any event A,

P (A) = 1 P (A).

The law of complements can be very useful for computing probabilities of complicated events. For example,
there is a famous problem known as the birthday problem. What is the probability that at least two
people in a classroom (of unrelated students) share the same birthday? Intuition seems to tell us that
the probability would be low if the class was not too large since there are 365 days in a year. The event
that at least two people share a birthday is very complicated because there are lots of ways it can happen.
However, the complement is easier to deal with. The complement is the event that no two people share a
common birthday. The reason this problem is popular is that the answer is not intuitive. The probability
that at least two people share a common birthday exceeds 50% when there are at least 23 people in the
room.
There are two distinct types of sample spaces encountered in practice: discrete and continuous. A discrete
sample space corresponds to experiments where there are only a finite number of possible outcomes or the
number of outcomes is countably infinite which means that the outcomes can be listed: x1 , x2 , x3 , . . . . The
example of the couple having three children is a discrete example because there are only eight possible
outcomes. Another discrete type example with a countably infinite number of possible outcomes is counting
the number of days until the next major earthquake in the Ohio Valley. The sample space in this example
can be expressed as S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . .}. In order to compute probabilities for discrete sample spaces, all
one has to do is add up the probabilities of all the sample points in the event of interest.
Continuous sample spaces are sets consisting of a continuum of sample points. For example, suppose the
experiment of interest is to record the weight of a newborn child. Weight is a continuous variable that can
take values on the positive real line. It is impossible to enumerate every possible weight in a list. Other
examples with continuous sample spaces involve examples of measuring lengths, volumes, amount of time,
etc. In order to compute probabilities for continuous sample spaces, we need to add up probabilities, but
over a continuum. This is done using integral calculus. Calculus is not a prerequisite for these notes and
details of integration for finding probabilities will not be carried out.
So far we have not addressed the problem of actually assigning probabilities to outcomes of an experiment.
For discrete probability spaces, we need to assign a probability to each outcome in the sample space and
these probabilities must add up to be one since the total probability must be one. There are various ways
probabilities are assigned.
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 4

1. Relative Frequency of an event: Suppose we want to assign a probability to an event A. One way to
do this is to perform the experiment many times and let
number of times A occurs
P (A) = limit[ ].
number of times experiment is repeated

2. Knowledge of the experiment: Randomly select a ball from an urn that contians three red balls and
two blue balls. Then it makes sense to assign a probability of 2/5 to the event of picking a blue ball
from the urn. If we flip a fair coin, it makes sense to assign a probability of 0.5 to tails and 0.5 to
heads.

Equally Likely Outcomes. A common type of experiment in discrete examples is one where the outcomes
are equally likely. For example, flip a fair coin 10 times. There are 210 = 1024 possible outcomes of head-
tails sequences and they are all equally likely. Thus, the probability of any one sequence, say all heads,
would be 1/1024. If you play poker with a typical deck of 52 cards, then there is a well-known hierarchy
of hands. For instance, a full-house beats a flush. Why is this? If a deck is randomly shuffled, then all
possible five card hands are equally likely. The probability of an event of getting a full-house or a flush
is computed by counting the number of ways a full-house or flush can occur and dividing these by total
number of poker hands possible (which is 2,598,960). For instance, the probability of getting a poker hand
of four aces is 48/(2, 598, 960) since there are only 47 possible five card poker hands with four aces.

Conditional Probability.
In many experimental situations we often want to know the probability of particular events given that
some other event has occurred. For instance, what is the probability an adult over the age 50 will develop
high blood pressure? We can estimate this probability by counting the number of people over the age of 50
with high blood pressure and dividing this by the total number of people over the age of 50. Let A denote
the event that a person over the age of 50 has high blood pressure. For the sake of argument, suppose
P (A) = 0.6. Suppose now that we want to know that given the person is male, what is the probability he
will develop high blood pressure? This is an example of a conditional probability.

Definition. The conditional probability of an event A given B is defined as

P (A B)
P (A|B) = .
P (B)
That is, if the event B has occurred and we want to know the probability of the event A, then we can
restrict our sample space to B only.

Returning to the blood pressure example, let B be the event the person is male and suppose P (B) = 0.5.
Suppose that the probability that a randomly selected person over the age 50 is male and has high blood
pressure is 0.4. Note that we have used the word and which implies intersection. That is, P (AB) = 0.4.
Then the probability that a randomly selected person over the age of 50 has high blood pressure given
that the person is a man is
P (A|B) = P (A B)/P (B) = 0.4/0.5 = 4/5 = 0.8.
Thus, given the person is male, there is an 80% chance of having high blood pressure. What is the
probability of high blood pressure given the person is female?
P (A|B) = P (A B)/P (B) = 0.2/(1 P (B)) = 0.2/0.5 = 0.4.
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 5

Question. Why does P (A B) equal 0.2?

Now the probability of developing high blood pressure over the age of 50 depends on numerous factors.
For instance, the probability of developing high blood pressure may depend on a persons body mass index
(BMI) defined as a persons weight(in kg) divided by their squared height (in m): BMI= kg/m2 . BMI is
a continuous measurement. Logistic regression is a statistical technique used to compute the probabilities
of certain events given the value of a covariate (like BMI).
Independence Suppose that the probability of having high blood pressure does not depend on whether or
not you are male or female. Then we would say that the event of having high blood pressure is independent
of sex. This was not the case in our hypothetical example above. In that example, the probability of having
high blood pressure was higher if you were male. In this example, high blood pressure is dependent on sex.
Definition 1. Events A and B are independent if P (A|B) = P (A). That is, if the probability of the event
A occurring given that B has occurred is the same as if we did not know that B occurred. Otherwise, the
events are dependent. It can easily be shown that if events A and B are independent, then P (B|A) = P (B).
Let A and B be two independent events. Then using the definition of conditional probability and inde-
pendence, we can write
P (A B)
P (A|B) = P (A) = .
P (B)
Multiplying both sides of this equation by P (B) shows that P (A B) = P (A)P (B) when events A and B
are independent. This provides us a more convenient definition of independence:

Definition 2. Events A and B are independent if and only if

P (A B) = P (A)P (B).

Otherwise, the two events are dependent.

The definition of independence can be extended to any number of events:

Definition 3. The events A1 , A2 , . . . , Ak are mutually independent if and only if the probability of the
intersection of any sub-collection of the events is equal to the product of the probabilities of the events in
the sub-collection. In particular, P (Ai Aj ) = P (Ai )P (Aj ) for any pairs Ai and Aj (pairwise independence)
and
P (A1 A2 . . . Ak ) = P (A1 )P (A2 ) P (Ak ).

We shall now illustrate this example by introducing the binomial probability distribution. The binomial
probability distribution is probably the most well-known discrete probability distributions.

Example: Binomial Distribution.

A tank of water contains n = 10 fish and the water has been contaminated with a toxin. The probability
that a fish will die due to the amount of toxin in the water is p = 0.8. What is the probability that all the
fish die? What is the probability that exactly 2 of the 10 fish die? Let Ai denote the event that the ith
fish dies for i = 1, 2, . . . , 10. Assuming the events A1 , A2 , . . . , A10 are mutually independent, then

P (All the fish die) = P (A1 A2 . . . A10 )

 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 6

= P (A1 )P (A2 ) P (A10 ) (by independence)

= 0.8 0.8 0.8
= 0.810
= 0.10737418

To find the probability that exactly 2 of the 10 fish die is a bit harder. For example, the event

A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10

is the event that the first two fish die and the rest survive. By independence, the probability of this event
is
(0.8)(0.8)(1 0.8)8 = p2 (1 p)8 .
However, this event is just one of many ways that exactly 2 of the 10 fish die (another example is that the
first and third fish die and the rest survive). The probability for each of the distinct events where 2 of the
10 fish die is p2 (1 p)8 . Thus,

P (Exactly 2 of the 10 fish die) = (Number of ways exactly 2 of 10 fish can die)p2 (1 p)8 .

Computing the probability then becomes a counting problem, i.e. count the number of distinct ways that
exactly 2 of the 10 fish die.
This fish example is an example of a binomial experiment:

1. n trials where the outcome of each trial is either a success (S) or a failure (F).

2. The outcomes of the trials are independent of each other.

3. The probability of success on each trial is the same and is denoted by p. The probability of failure
then must be 1 p, which we will denote by q: q = 1 p.

In the fish example, we have n = 10 trials with success probability p = 0.8. In order to efficiently count
the number of ways of obtaining 2 successes out of 10 trials, do the following: label the two success S1
and S2 . We have n = 10 slots and we need to choose two of them to place the successes into. One such
possibility is:
S2 S1 .
We have n = 10 choices of slots to place S1 into leaving n 1 = 9 slots to place S2 into. Thus the total
number of possible ways of placing S1 and S2 into the 10 slots is 10 9 = 90. In order to derive a general
formula, we will adopt the factorial notation:

n! = n(n 1)(n 2) 2 1 (n factorial).

(By convention, 0! = 1.) Thus the total number of ways of placing S1 and S2 into the n slots is given by
10! n!
90 = 10 9 = = ,
(10 2)! (n k)!
where k = 2. Note that we have artificially labeled the two successes as S1 and S2 . The 90 possibilities we
just counted distinguishes the order in which we placed the two successes. However, we are not interested
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 7

in the order; the labeling was artificial. To get the correct number of possibilities we need to divide the 90
by 2 because there are two ways to rearrange S1 and S2 by simply having them change places. Thus, the
total number of ways of choosing k = 2 slots out of the n = 10 possible slots to place successes in is
10 9 n!
90/2 = 45 = = .
2 (n k)!k!

The same logic can be applied when k = 3 successes. We can label the three successes S1 , S2 and S3 .
There are 720 = 10 9 8 = 10!/(10 3)! ways of arranging these three successes into the 10 slots. Once
again, we are not interested in distinguishing the three successes. Thus, the 720 possibilities is too large
by a factor of 3 2 1 = 6 ways of rearranging the three successes. The total number of possibilities is then
n!/((n k)!k!) which is the same formula we derived when k = 2. This formula is the general formula for
all values of k = 0, 1, . . . , n. This expression for counting the number
of combinations of n objects taken k
n
at a time is given by the binomial coefficient which is denoted by :
k

n n!
= (1)
k k!(n k)!

n
The binomial coefficient counts the number of ways of choosing k items from a collection of n items.
k
Returning to our original probability computation, we have

P (Exactly 2 of the 10 fish die) = (Number of ways exactly 2 of 10 fish can die)p2 (1 p)8

n k
= p (1 p)(nk)
k

10
= 0.82 (1 0.8)(102)
2
10!
= (0.82 )(0.28 )
(10 2)!2!
= 0.000073728.

Question. Given a typical deck of 52 playing cards. How many distinct poker hands (5 cards) are possible?

To finish up our discussion of the binomial distribution, we give the following definition:

Definition. A random variable (typically denoted by X or Y ) is a function that associates a number to

each outcome in a sample space.

In the binomial example, we can define X to be the number of successes out of n trials. In this case, X is
known as a binomial random variable.
Definition. A probability mass function gives the probability associated with each value that a random
variable can assume.
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 8

If we let X denote the number of fish that die (out of 10), then, as we have seen,

P (X = 10) = pn = 0.10737418,

and
10
P (X = 2) = 0.82 (1 0.8)(102) = 0.000073728.
2
The preceeding derivation generalizes for any binomial random variable and the formula for the probability
mass function is
n k
P (X = k) = p (1 p)(nk) , (2)
k
for k = 0, 1, . . . , n.

Expected Value and Variance of a Discrete Random Variable

Suppose X is a discrete random variable. That is, X assigns to each element in a discrete (finite or
countably infinite) sample space a unique number. Let x1 , . . . , xk , denote the values that X can assume.
What is the average or expected value of X? The answer is given by the following definition:

Definition: Expected Value of a discrete random variable X is

k
X
E[X] = = xi P (X = xi ). (3)
i=1

That is, the expected value is a weighted average of X, weighted by the probabilities associated with each
of it is possible values. We denote the expected value by either or E[X]. The expected value is the
center of gravity for the distribution.

Just as we saw for descriptive statistics, it is useful to have a measure of spread for random variables.

Definition: The Variance of a discrete random variable X is defined to be

k
X
2 2
= E[(X ) ] = (xi )2 P (X = xi ). (4)
i=1

If X is a random variable, then we can define a new random variable (X )2 . The variance is simply
the expected value of this new random variable. Another way to put it is that the variance is the average
squared deviation of X about its mean .

For a binomial random variable X, the expected value is

n
X
n k
E[X] = k p (1 p)nk .
k=0
k

This is a bit complicated to compute, however some algebraic simplification shows that

E[X] = np Binomial Random Variables only.

In addition,
2 = np(1 p) Binomial Random Variables only.
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 9

In the fish example where n = 10 and p = 0.8, if X equals the number of fish that die (out of 10), then

E[X] = np = 10(0.8) = 8.

We would expect 8 fish to die. However if this experiment is carried out, the exact number of fish that
actually die may vary from 8. If the experiment were carried out numerous times, the average number of
fish that die over all experiments would variance is 2 = np(1 p) = 10(0.8)(1 0.8) = 1.6 and
q be 8. The
the standard deviation of X is = np(1 p) = 1.6 1.25.
Example. 50% of the bass fish in a large lake suffer from tumors due to a toxin in the water. There is
concern that because the amount of toxin in the lake has increased due to a spill that the proportion of
bass fish with tumors has increased. A random sample of n = 100 fish are captured and examined to see if
they have the tumors or not. Suppose 66 of the 100 captured fish have the tumors, what can we conclude?
For the sake of argument, suppose the proportion of fish with tumors has remained the same after the
spill. Let X denote the number of fish out of the 100 captured that have tumors. Then X has a binomial
distribution with n = 100 and p = 0.50. The mean (or expected value) of X is = np = 100(0.5) = 50.
That is, if the percentage of fish with tumors remains at 50%, then we would expect to see 50 fish out of
100 with tumors on average. However, the exact number of fish with tumors would likely vary from 50.
This is analogous to flipping a fair coin 100 times. The expected number of heads would be 50 but the
actual number of heads is likely to vary from 50. How far from 50 can we expect the number of heads to
vary before we conclude the coin is not fair? We can compute the probability of observing 66 or more fish
with tumors using (2):

P (X 66) = P (X = 66) + P (X = 67) + + P (X = 100)

100 100 100
= 0.566 0.510066 + 0.567 0.510067 + + 0.5100 0.5100100 .
66 67 100

This is an awfully tedious computation to carry out.

The SAS function probbnml computes cumulative binomial probabilities which can be used to solve this
problem. In SAS, the function probbnml(p, n, k) = P (X k) where X is a binomial random variable.
The probability P (X k) is known as a cumulative probability because it represents the cumulative
probability of all X values less than or equal to k. To compute P (X 66) using SASs probbnml, note
that from the law of complements that

P (X 66) = 1 P (X < 66) = 1 P (X 65).

The following SAS code will do this computation for us automatically:

data;
x=1-probbnml(0.5,100,65);
proc print;
run;

The results from SAS give the probability of 66 or more successes out of 100 trials when p = 0.5 as
0.000895. In other words, if the toxin spill did not increase the rate of tumors among the fish, there is only
a probability of about 0.000895 of observing 66 or more fish with tumors. We did observe 66 fish with
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 10

tumors but if the tumor rate stayed at 50%, it would be very unlikely to observe such an outcome. Thus
the assumption that the toxin spill did not increase the tumor rate appears to be false. The probability
value of 0.000895 is an example of a p-value from hypothesis testing.
Another way to get an idea of whether or not 66 successes is plausible if the tumor rate stayed the same
is to use the empirical rule. The binomial distribution with p = 0.5 and n = 100 will have a bell-shape
(due to the central limit theoremqwhich we will q introduce later). If p = 0.5 after the toxin spill, then the
standard deviation of X is = np(1 p) = 100(0.5)(0.5) = 5. If the mean is = 50, then we see
that a value of 66 is more than three standard deviations above the mean. According to the empirical
rule, it is highly unusual to see 66 or more fish with tumors if the tumor rate remained at 0.5. In fact,
the empirical rule says that the probability of observing values more than 3 standard deviations above the
mean is roughly (1 .997)/2 = 0.0015 which again is a very small probability.

Hypergeometric Distribution. Consider the following problem: Suppose we want to estimate the
proportion of children in a large school of N = 500 students that have elevated lead levels in their blood.
Unbeknownst to school health officials, the number of students with elevated lead levels is M = 100 and
therefore p = 100/500 or 20% of the students have elevated blood lead levels. Suppose n = 25 students
are random chosen to have their blood tested. For each student, we can record a 0 or 1 response for not-
elevated or elevated lead levels respectively. If we let X equal the number of students (out of 25 sampled)
with elevated lead levels in their blood, then X does NOT have a binomial distribution. This is because
the sampling is done without replacement. That is, once a student has been tested, we will not pick this
student again to be tested. The 25 students are all distinct students. Therefore, the 25 trials are not
independent and the success probability does not stay the same. If the first student tested tests negative,
then the proportion of the remaining students in the population with elevated lead levels is 100/499.
If N and M are large numbers, then the binomial distribution will closely approximate the distribution
for X. The exact distribution for X is known as the hypergeometric distribution. One can show that the
probability of observing k successes out of a sample of n is

M N M
k nk
P (X = k) = ,
N
n

where k = 1, 2, . . . , min(n, M ).

Multinomial Distribution. Recall that the binomial distribution is used to compute the probability of
the number of successes out of n independent and identical trials (e.g. a coin flip). For the binomial
distribution, there are only two possible outcomes for each trial: success and failure. However, there are
many examples of experiments consisting of independent and identical trials where there are more than
two possible outcomes. For instance, in a random survey of people from a large population, recording
the sex of the individuals will result in a binomial distribution (approximately). However, recording the
marital status (single, married, divorced say) will result in a multinomial distribution. The binomial
distribution is a special case of the multinomial distribution. Suppose there are k potential outcomes for
a given multinomial trial where p1 , p2 , . . . , pk are the probabilities associated with the k outcomes (note:
p1 + + pk = 1). Out of n trials, the probability of observing y1 occurrences of the first outcome (say
single), y2 occurrences of the second outcome (say married), on up to yk occurrences of the kth outcome
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 11

is given by:
n!
py11 pykk .
y1 ! yk !

1 Problems
1. The probability that no complications arise from a laser eye surgery on an eye is 0.8. A patient
has the eye surgery on one eye one week and on the other eye the following week. Let A1 and A2
denote the events that no complications arise from the first eye surgery and the second eye surgery
respectively. What is a possible explanation for the fact that P (A1 A2 ) = 0.64? (circle one):
(a) Events A1 and A2 are mutually exclusive.
(b) Events A1 and A2 are disjoint.
(c) Events A1 and A2 are independent.
(d) Events A1 and A2 are complements of each other.
(e) Events A1 and A2 are conditional.

2. Suppose 5% of the population has a genetic disposition to get Alzheimers disease. A genetic test
is developed to test if someone is pre-disposed to get the disease. If a person is selected at random,
let A denote the event the person has a genetic disposition to get Alzheimers disease. If the person
is given the test, let B denote the event the test comes back positive. Suppose P (B|A) = 0.95 and
P (B|A) = 0.03. Find the following:

a) What is the probability the person has the genetic disposition to get Alzheimers disease and
the test is positive?
b) What is the probability that this persons test comes back positive? That is, compute P (B).
c) If the persons test comes back positive, what is the probability the person has the genetic
disposition to get Alzheimers disease?

3. Suppose that 42% of adults received a flu shot. Given that an adult received a flu shot, the probability
of getting the flu is 0.10. However, if an adult did not get a flu shot, then the probability of getting
the flu is 0.7. Use this information to answer the following:

a) What is the probability that a randomly selected adult received a flu shot and got the flu?
b) What proportion of adults will get the flu?

4. Suppose 20% of children get asthma. There is concern that high pollution levels in a town are causing
a higher rate of asthma. A survey of 50 randomly selected children from the town found that 19 of
them had asthma. Let p denote the proportion of children in the town with asthma. Do the following
parts:

a) If p = 0.20, what is the probability that exactly 19 out of 50 of the sampled children will have
asthma?
b) If p = 0.20, how many standard deviations is 19 above the mean?
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 12

c) The empirical rule can be applied here. Using the empirical rule, what is the approximate
probability that 19 or more of the sampled children would have asthma if the rate of asthma in
the city was p = 0.20?
d) Based on the results of parts (b) and (c), write a sentence or two arguing why the asthma rate
for children in the city is probably higher than p = 0.20.

5. I sealed three Netflix movies into three Netflix envelops to mail back to Netflix. One of the movies
was Shrek II. My older daughter complained that she had not seen Shrek II yet, so we retrieved the
three Netflix envelops from our mailbox. The Problem: Which envelop (out of three) contains the
Shrek II dvd? We did not know which envelop contained the Shrek II dvd and I did not want to open
all three envelops. So we started to open them one at a time until we found the Shrek II dvd. What
is the probability that we find the Shrek II dvd in the first envelop we open? What is the probability
we have to open all three envelops? If millions of people performed this exact same experiment, on
average, how many envelops would be opened?

6. The European corn borer lays eggs on the underside of corn leaves. Let X equal the number of egg
masses on a randomly selected corn plant in mid-August. Suppose X has the following probability
mass function:

r 0 1 2 3 4
P r(X = r) .2 .3 .3 .1 .1

a) On average, how many egg masses are on a corn plant in mid-August?

b) Find the standard deviation of X.

7. Subjects in a clinical trial for testing a new treatment for depression are randomized to either take
the new drug or a placebo with 50% of the subjects in each arm of the study (new drug & placebo). A
subject in this study is selected at random. The probability the subject improves (i.e. less depressed)
given that the subject is taking the new drug is 0.6. The probability the subject improves given that
the subject is taking a placebo is 0.35. Use this information to answer the following questions:

a) What is the probability that the randomly selected subject improves and is taking the new
drug?
b) What is the probability that the randomly selected subject improves?

8. The proportion of chickens with the bird flu in a particular country is p = 0.10.

a) If a random sample of n = 20 chickens is selected and tested for the bird flu, what is the
probability that 5 of them have the bird flu?
b) If we let Y denote the number of chickens out of the n = 20 sampled, what is the expected
value E[Y ] of Y ?
c) What is the standard deviation of Y ?

9. Under normal circumstances, 87% of frog eggs will hatch. 100 eggs have been laid. Suppose the
events of eggs hatching are independent of each other. Answer the following:

a) What is the probability that only 80 of the 100 eggs hatch?

b) What is the expected number of eggs that will hatch?
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 13

c) The creek water where the eggs have been laid has been contaminated and it is feared that
the contamination will lead to fewer eggs hatching. Suppose only 77 out of the 100 eggs hatch.
What is the probability of observing 77 or fewer eggs hatching if the contamination does not
adversely effect the eggs? Use the empirical rule to approximate this probability. Justify your
answer.
d) Interpret the probability you computed in part (c). That is, based on the probability you
computed, what can you conclude about the effect of the contamination on the eggs hatching?

10. A brain surgeon has 20 brain cancer patients and unbeknownst to the surgeon, only 7 will go into
remission using a new experimental radiation treatment. 5 patients are chosen at random to receive
the new experimental radiation treatment.

a) How many ways can 5 patients be chosen for the experimental treatment from the 20 patients?
b) What is the probability that none of the five patient selected for the experimental treatment
will go into remission?

11. Suppose that 40% of the white croaker fish in the San Francisco Bay have mercury (Hg) levels
exceeding 1 mg/g. For this problem we will label a fish as high Hg if the mercury level in the fish
exceeds 1 mg/g. A sample of n = 100 white croaker are caught. Do the following:

a) What is the probability that all 100 of the fish have high Hg?
b) What is the probability that exactly 45 of the fish have mercury levels exceeding 1 mg/g?
c) If X equals the number of fish (out of 100) that have high mercury levels, what is the mean
and standard deviation of X?
d) There is a health concern that mercury levels in the white croaker have actually increased.
Suppose out of these 100 fish that were captured, 55 of them had high Hg. If 40% of all white
croaker in the Bay have high Hg, is it likely that we would see 55 or more fish with high Hg in
the sample of 100? Explain your answer.

12. Suppose the probability that a fish selected at random from a lake has an elevated liver PCB concen-
tration (above 100 ng/g) is 0.20 and that the probability the fish is female is 0.50. The probability
a randomly selected fish is both female and has an elevated liver PCB concentration is 0.15.

a) What is the probability that the fish has an elevated liver PCB concentration, given that the
fish is female.
b) What is the probability the fish is either female or has an elevated liver PCB concentration?
c) What is the probability the fish is male and does not have an elevated liver PCB level?
d) Are the events of having an elevated liver PCB concentration and being female independent or
dependent events? Justify your answer.

13. A town has a large hospital that has 1000 births per year. It also has a small hospital that has
100 births per year. At each hospital, you record the number of girls born in the year. Assume the
probability that a newborn baby is female is 0.5.

a) What is the mean and standard deviation for the number of girls born at the large hospital?
b) What is the mean and standard deviation for the number of girls born at the small hospital?
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 14

c) A hospital administrator at the large hospital says that the likelihood of 600 or more girls born
in a year at the large hospital is the same as the likelihood of 60 or more girls born in a year at
the small hospital. Do you agree? Why?

14. There is an 80% probability that a child with an ear infection will recover within a week. Suppose 4
(unrelated) children get an ear infection. Answer the following questions:

a) What is the probability that none of the four children recover within a week?
b) What is the probability that exactly two of the children recover within a week?

15. Suppose ten percent of professional baseball players take illegal steroids. Given that a professional
baseball player is taking steroids, the probability the player tests positive for steroid use when given
a test is 0.90. What is the probability that a randomly selected professional baseball player is using
steroids AND tests positive for steroid use?

16. Cancer researchers want to determine if a woman with the BRCA genetic mutation are more likely
to get breast cancer. Suppose that in the general population of women over the age of 50 that 10%
get breast cancer.

a) If we assume that women with the BRCA genetic mutation have the same breast cancer risk
as women in the general population, what is the probability that exactly 2 out of 12 unrelated
women over the age 50 with the BRCA mutation get breast cancer?
b) Suppose n = 100 unrelated women over the age of 50 with the BRCA genetic mutation are
observed. If we assume the breast cancer risk is the same for these women as it is for women
in the general population, what is the expected number of women in this group who will get
breast cancer?
c) What is the standard deviation in part (b) for the number of women in the group of 100 who
will get breast cancer?
d) Suppose that out of the 100 women in part (b) with the BRCA genetic mutation, 19 of them
get breast cancer. How likely is it that 19 or more of these women would get breast cancer if
women with the BRCA genetic mutation are just as likely to get breast cancer as women in the
general population? Use the empirical rule to answer this question.
e) Based on your answer to part (d), does it appear that women with the BRCA genetic mutation
are more likely to get breast cancer than women in the general population? Justify your answer
in one or two sentences.

17. Suppose the probability of a category 4 hurricane hitting New Orleans in any given year is 0.02.

a) What is the probability that New Orleans will not be hit by a category 4 hurricane this year?
b) Assuming occurrences of hurricanes in different years are independent events, what is the prob-
ability that New Orleans will not be hit by a category 4 hurricane in the next 25 years?

18. Suppose 15% of people getting the flu vaccination this winter suffer from a fever side-effect. 20 police
officers at a police station get the flu vaccine. Let X denote the number of police officers that suffer
from the fever side-effect after getting the vaccination.

a) What is the probability that none of the police officers suffer from the fever side-effect?
b) What is the probability that exactly 5 of the officers suffer from the fever side-effect?
 STT 430/630/ES 760 Lecture Notes: Chapter 3: Probability 15

c) How many officers would you expect to suffer from the fever side-effect? That is, find E[X]
d) What is the standard deviation of X?
e) A new vaccine is prepared for next winters flu season in the hope of reducing the proportion
of people who suffer from the fever side-effect. Let p denote the proportion of people who will
suffer from the fever side-effect the new vaccine. The developers of the new vaccine test it on the
20 police officers at the beginning of the flu season. State the appropriate null and alternative
hypothesis for this problem in terms of p.

19. A study was done on nest survival of the Missouri red-winged blackbird. A nest is said to survive if
at least one egg hatches. The probability that any given egg hatches is p = 0.2. Assume the events
of eggs hatching are independent. A survey was conducted on 5 nests containing 4, 4, 3, 5, 2 eggs
respectively.

a) Make a table with the following columns: nest number, number of eggs, probability the nest
survives.
b) What is the probability that all 5 nests survive? The nests are separated enough so that survival
of nests are independent events.
c) What is the probability that 4 of the 5 nests survive?