Hi Glen, Thank you for your advice. In fact I new that I should use the uniform distribution to select the random value. But for some reason or other, my brain did not figure out on that day that whether I should use a discrete or a continuous random number function to select the integer values. It looks like I could use either one. Cheers. Siddeek
Glen wrote: > > On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Shareef Siddeek wrote: > > > > > Hi Statisticians, > > > > > > I have a simple question. I have the following set of discrete values, > > > each one of which has the same probability of selection (i.e., > > > probability distribution is uniform). How do I proceed to select a > > > discrete value randomly using the uniform distribution? > > > > > > 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 > > I'm going to start from the assumption that the original poster has > a source of U(0,1) numbers, and is simply unsure of how to use it > to randomly choose from a set of discrete choices. > > Lets say U is a uniform on (0,1). Then if [.] is the "integer part" > function ([3.14] = 3, [3] = 3), [U*k]+1 gives discrete uniform integers > from 1 to k. > > Glen > . > . > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
