University of Eswatini
Department of Mathematics
Mat 441: Assignment 1
1. The acidity of soils is measured by a quantity called the pH, which may range from 0 (high
acidity) to 14 (high alkalinity). A soil scientist wants to estimate the average pH for a large
field by randomly selecting n core samples and measuring the pH in each sample. Although the
population standard deviation of pH measurements is not known, past experience indicates
that most soils have a pH value of between 5 and 8. If the scientist selects n = 40 samples,
find the approximate probability that the sample mean of the 40 pH measurements will be
within 0.2 unit of the true average pH for the field.
2. A random sample of n items is to be selected from a large lot, and the number of defectives Y
is to be observed. What value of n guarantees that Y /n will be within 0.1 of the true fraction
of defectives, with probability 0.95?
3. Let X1 , . . . , Xn be a random sample of size n from the exponential distribution whose pdf is
(
θe−θx , x ≥ 0
f (x, θ) =
0, x<0
(a) Use the method of moments to find a point estimator for θ.
(b) The following data represent the time intervals between the emissions of beta particles:
Assuming the data follow an exponential distribution, obtain a moment estimate for the
0.9 0.1 0.1 0.8 0.9 0.1 0.1 0.7 1.0 0.2
0.1 0.1 0.1 2.3 0.8 0.3 0.2 0.1 1.0 0.9
0.1 0.5 0.4 0.6 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.8 0.2
0.5 3.0 1.0 0.5 0.2 2.0 1.7 0.1 0.3 0.1
0.4 0.5 0.8 0.1 0.1 1.7 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.1
parameter θ. Interpret.
4. Let X1 , . . . , Xn be a random sample from a population with pdf
(
1 (1−α)/α
x , for 0 < x < 1; α > 0
f (x) = α
0, otherwise
Pn
(a) Show that the maximum likelihood estimator of α is α̂ = −(1/n) i=1 ln(Xi ).
(b) Is α̂ an unbiased estimator of α?
(c) Is α̂ a consistent estimator of α?
5. Let X1 , . . . , Xn be a random sample from a one-parameter Weibull distribution with pdf
( 2
2αxe−αx , x > 0
f (x) =
0, otherwise
(a) Find a sufficient statistic for α.
(b) Find an UMVUE for α..
