Probability Theory: A Primer / Edition 1

by Tamas Rudas

Overview

Aimed at demystifying probability theory, this text provides a brief and non-technical introduction to the subject. Employing few formulas, author Tamas Rudas uses intuitive but precise descriptions and examples to explain procedures in probability as a springboard for understanding the concepts of expectation, variance, continuous distributions, normal distribution, chi-squared distribution, and the applications of probability theory in research practice. This book gives researchers and students a solid foundation for understanding probability, and can serve as a supplement in general statistics courses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761925064
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	06/10/2004
Series:	Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences , #142
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Tamas Rudas is the Head of the Department of Statistics and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE) in Budapest. He is also the Academic Director of the TARKI Social Research Centre. His main research area is statistics and its applications in the social sciences, especially the analysis of categorical data. He has published his work in many theoretical, applied, and methodological journals, including Annals of Statistics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Sociological Methodology, Communication in Statistics, Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, and Quality and Quantity. Dr. Rudas is also the author of Odds Ratios in the Analysis of Contingency Tables (Sage, 1998).

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
WHERE DO PROBABILITIES COME FROM?
DETERMINISTIC AND STOCHASTIC MODELS
FREQUENTIST AND OTHER APPROACHES
RELATIVE FREQUENCIES
EXPERIMENTS WITH INFINITELY MANY OUTCOMES
PROPERTIES OF PROBABILITY
BASIC PROPERTIES
ADDITIVITY
DENSITY FUNCTIONS
COUNTABLE ADDITIVITY
PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS AND RANDOM VARIABLES
THE DISCRETE CASE
THE BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION
THE CONTINUOUS CASE
THE NORMAL DISTRIBUTION
THE CHI-SQUARED DISTRIBUTION
CONCLUSIONS
NOTES
REFERENCES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR