Description
Part a.:
We have discussed Simpson’s Paradox in this course. Please write a short report in your own words to
summarize your understanding about Simpson’s Paradox. Your summary should describe the paradox,
explain why people perceive it as a paradox and explain how this paradox can cause problems in
decision making in practice. You should provide simple examples to support your arguments.
Higher marks will be given to reports that are logical and clear, concise but adequate, and with new and
inspiring examples. The report should not exceed 1 page (A4 sized).
Part b.:
We have discussed moment generating functions in this course. Please write a short report in your own
words to summarize your understanding about moment generating functions. Your summary should
demonstrate the techniques, usefulness and limitations, if any, of using moment generating functions.
You should provide simple examples to support your arguments.
Higher marks will be given to reports that are logical and clear, concise but adequate, and with new and
inspiring examples. The report should not exceed 2 pages (A4 sized).
Part c.:
Please write a short report after reading the following academic paper:
M. XIE AND T. N. GOH (1993) SPC OF A NEAR ZERO-DEFECT PROCESS SUBJECT TO RANDOM SHOCKS,
QUALITY AND RELIABILITY ENGINEERING INTERNATIONAL, VOL. 9, 89-93.
This paper can be downloaded free of charge for CUHK students from the CUHK library electronic
resources. For your convenience, I have already download it for you. Please see the other attached file
“Paper for part c.pdf”.
This paper is about applying a simple probability model in a quality control problem. The authors used a
simple application with easy-to-understand numerical examples to demonstrate their method. You can
ignore a few technical terms (like “Shewhart chart” and “u-chart”) mentioned and all the mathematical
details of maximum likelihood estimation in section 4 of the paper. This will not hurt your
understanding of the problem, model and applications of this paper.
Your report should include the following:
1. Summarize in your own words about the problem, model and applications in this paper.
2. Indicate the materials you have learned in STAT2001 that helps you to understand this paper.
3. Describe the ideas and/or methods that you find interesting in this paper. Suggest some
applications of these ideas and/or methods in other problems or settings.
4. Comment on the limitations of the model used in this paper.
Higher marks will be given to reports that are logical and clear, concise but adequate, and with new and
inspiring examples. The report should not exceed 3 pages (A4 sized).
