Creating valid and reliable classroom tests are very important to an instructor for assessing student performance, achievement and success in the class. The same principle applies to the State Exit and Classroom Exams conducted by the instructors, state and other agencies. One powerful technique available to the instructors for the guidance and improvement of instruction is the test item analys...

In this paper, characterizations of the binomial, negative binomial, geometric, Poisson binomial, Hermite and Poisson distributions are done through their factorial cumulants.

In this paper, we are concerned with sums involving inverses of binomial coefficients. We study certain sums involving reciprocals of binomial coefficients by using some integrals. Some recurrence relations related to inverses of binomial coefficients are obtained. In addition, we give the approximate values of certain sums involving the inverses of binomial coefficients.

The spectral efficiency (channel capacity) of the optical direct-detection channel is studied. The modeling of the optical direct-detection channel as a discrete-time Poisson channel is reviewed. Closed-form integral representations for the entropy of random variables with Poisson and negative binomial distributions are derived. The spectral efficiency achievable with an arbitrary input gamma d...

Cystic echinococcosis, caused by Echinococcus granulosus, is an emerging disease in many parts of the world and, in particular, in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This paper examines the abundance and prevalence of infection of E. granulosus in cattle and sheep in Kazakhstan. Observed data are fitted to a mathematical model in order to determine if the parasite population is partly ...

The simplest model for pricing d erivative securities is the binomial model. It generalizes the o n e period \up-down" model of Chapte r 1 t o a m ulti-period setting, assuming t hat t he price of the u nderlying asset follows a random walk. In the binomial model, there are N trading periods and N+1 trading d ates, t 0 t 1 ::: t N when it is possible to i n vest in a risky security with p r i c...

Frequency distributions from 49 published wildlife host-macroparasite systems were analysed by maximum likelihood for goodness of fit to the negative binomial distribution. In 45 of the 49 (90%) data-sets, the negative binomial distribution provided a statistically satisfactory fit. In the other 4 data-sets the negative binomial distribution still provided a better fit than the Poisson distribu...

The Pricing of Options on Credit-Sensitive Bonds We build a three-factor term-structure of interest rates model and use it to price corporate bonds. The first two factors allow the risk-free term structure to shift and tilt. The third factor generates a stochastic credit-risk premium. To implement the model, we apply the Peterson and Stapleton (2002) diffusion approximation methodology. The met...

We show for every k ≥ 1 that the binomial tree of order 3k has a vertex-coloring with 2k+1 colors such that every path contains some color odd number of times. This disproves a conjecture from [1] asserting that for every tree T the minimal number of colors in a such coloring of T is at least the vertex ranking number of T minus one.

We propose a fault-tolerant broadcasting algorithm for hypercubes with link faults. This algorithm is based on an extended spanning binomial tree structure that still keeps the simplicity of conventional binomial-tree-based broadcasting. In addition, it is optimal in the sense that exactly n steps are required to complete a broadcast in an n-dimensional injured hypercube with up to n 2 faulty l...