Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2015 January 14

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January 14[edit]

why does VaR (U2)=VaR2(U) when U is a standard uniformly distributed variable? please explain. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.184.120.210 (talk) 03:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure I understand your question. As you will see from our article on Value at Risk, VaR is calculated for an investment or portfolio of investments, and not for a distribution. Is it possible that VaR here means something other than "Value at Risk"? I suspect this is a homework question; if so, please would you supply some additional context. Thanks. RomanSpa (talk) 18:28, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment requested on a power series solution[edit]

Talk:Trigonometric functions#Check my work. To me it isn't the most elegant way to get that series, particularly since the time computing each term grows with k2.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:13, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Normal distribution question[edit]

I'm trying to work out where . I've obtained , but am convinced it's wrong. The reason I think that it's wrong is that the expectation value I'm trying to find does not depend on the sign of , which has to be nonsense. Where am I going wrong?--Leon (talk) 11:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are considering a variable, X, with probability distribution P(X)=0 for X<x and P(X)=k⋅exp(-X^2/2) for X>x. Choose k such that the total probability is one. Bo Jacoby (talk) 14:01, 14 January 2015 (UTC).[reply]
Also, should be rather than (doesn't matter much since it cancels out in normalization). So what you're looking for is
-- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also the value does depend on the sign of x. If x is less than 0 you're including the center the distribution whereas if it is greater you're just including a tail.
That was the OP's point - the final result should have depended on the sign of x. But because he didn't normalize, he got a result which does not - the integrand is odd, so the integral over a symmetric area around the center is 0. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you have that extra in the integrand?--80.109.80.31 (talk) 19:44, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Because we're calculating the mean. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 21:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]