Related papers: On the probability that a binomial variable is at …

There seems to be an upper limit to predicting the outcome of matches in (semi-)professional sports. Recent work has proposed that this is due to chance and attempts have been made to simulate the distribution of win percentages to identify…

The Dirichlet distribution, also known as multivariate beta, is the most used to analyse frequencies or proportions data. Maximum likelihood is widespread for estimation of Dirichlet's parameters. However, for small sample sizes, the…

Given two {0,1}-sequences X and Y of lengths m and n, respectively, we write L(X,Y) to denote the length of the longest common subsequence (LCS) of X and Y, and write L(m,n) to denote the expected value of L(X,Y) when X and Y are random…

We study the probability distribution of the number of common zeros of a system of $m$ random $n$-variate polynomials over a finite commutative ring $R$. We compute the expected number of common zeros of a system of polynomials over $R$.…

In this paper, we use a new approach to prove that the largest eigenvalue of the sample covariance matrix of a normally distributed vector is bigger than the true largest eigenvalue with probability 1 when the dimension is infinite. We…

Let $X_1, \ldots, X_n$ be independent random points drawn from an absolutely continuous probability measure with density $f$ in $\mathbb{R}^d$. Under mild conditions on $f$, we derive a Poisson limit theorem for the number of large…

We investigate a fifty-year-old conjecture of Erd\H{o}s and Graham concerning whether the binomial coefficient ${n \choose k}$ with $1 \leq k \leq \frac{n}{2}$ must always have a divisor $\leq n$ that is ``close'' to $n$: that is, bigger…

Let $M$ be an ordered matching of size $n$, that is, a partition of the set $[2n]$ into 2-element subsets. The sock number of $M$ is the maximum size of a sub-matching of $M$ in which all left-ends of the edges precede all the right-ends…

The polygon $P$ is small if its diameter equals one. When $n=2^s$, it is still an open problem to find the maximum perimeter or the maximum width of a small $n$-gon. Motivated by Bingane's series of works, we improve the lower bounds for…

We show that for a sequence of random graphs Brouwer's conjecture holds true with probability tending to one as the number of vertices tends to infinity. Surprisingly, it was found that a similar statement holds true for weighted graphs…

Let $a,b$ and $n$ be positive integers with $a>b$. In this note, we prove that $$(2bn+1)(2bn+3){2bn \choose bn}\bigg|3(a-b)(3a-b){2an \choose an}{an\choose bn}.$$ This confirms a recent conjecture of Amdeberhan and Moll.

An urn contains a known number of balls of two different colors. We describe the random variable counting the smallest number of draws needed in order to observe at least $\,c\,$ of both colors when sampling without replacement for a…

We consider the following game. A deck with $m$ copies of each of $n$ distinct cards is shuffled in a perfectly random way. The Guesser sequentially guesses the card from top to bottom. After each guess, the Guesser is informed whether the…

We derive the probability that all eigenvalues of a random matrix $\bf M$ lie within an arbitrary interval $[a,b]$, $\psi(a,b)\triangleq\Pr\{a\leq\lambda_{\min}({\bf M}), \lambda_{\max}({\bf M})\leq b\}$, when $\bf M$ is a real or complex…

We formulate the problem of finding the probability that the determinant of a matrix undergoes the least change upon perturbation of one of its elements, provided that most or all of the elements of the matrix are chosen at random and that…

We design efficient approximation algorithms for maximizing the expectation of the supremum of families of Gaussian random variables. In particular, let $\mathrm{OPT}:=\max_{\sigma_1,\cdots,\sigma_n}\mathbb{E}\left[\sum_{j=1}^{m}\max_{i\in…

Two old conjectures from problem sections, one of which from SIAM Review, concern the question of finding distributions that maximize P(Sn <= t), where Sn is the sum of i.i.d. random variables X1, ..., Xn on the interval [0,1], satisfying…

Let $d\ge 3$ be a fixed integer, $p\in (0,1)$, and let $n\geq 1$ be a positive integer such that $dn$ is even. Let $\mathbb{G}(n, d, p)$ be a (random) graph on $n$ vertices obtained by drawing uniformly at random a $d$-regular (simple)…

Triangular distributions are a well-known class of distributions that are often used as an elementary example of a probability model. Maximum likelihood estimation of the mode parameter of the triangular distribution over the unit interval…

We derive a lower and an upper bound for the number of binary cyclotomic polynomials $\Phi_m$ with at most $m^{1/2+\epsilon}$ nonzero terms.