English

On monotonicity of Ramanujan function for binomial random variables

Combinatorics 2021-04-09 v7

Abstract

For a binomial random variable ξ\xi with parameters nn and b/nb/n, it is well known that the median equals bb when bb is an integer. In 1968, Jogdeo and Samuels studied the behaviour of the relative difference between P(ξ=b){\sf P}(\xi=b) and 1/2P(ξ<b)1/2-{\sf P}(\xi<b). They proved its monotonicity in nn and posed a question about its monotonicity in bb. This question is motivated by the solved problem proposed by Ramanujan in 1911 on the monotonicity of the same quantity but for a Poisson random variable with an integer parameter bb. In the paper, we answer this question and introduce a simple way to analyse the monotonicity of similar functions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1807.06527,
  title  = {On monotonicity of Ramanujan function for binomial random variables},
  author = {Daniil Dmitriev and Maksim Zhukovskii},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.06527},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T03:04:36.576Z