ECE Ph.D. Qualifying Exam

Communication, Networking, Signal and Image Processing (CS)

Question 1: Probability and Random Processes

August 2007



Question

1. (25 Points)

X and Y are iid random variable with

$ P(X=i) = P(Y=i) = \frac {1}{2^i}\ ,i = 1,2,3,... $

a) Find $ P(min(X,Y)=k)\ $.

b) Find $ P(X=Y)\ $.

c) Find $ P(Y>X)\ $.

d) Find $ P(Y=kX)\ $.


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2. (25 Points)

Let $ \left\{ \mathbf{X}_{n}\right\} _{n\geq1} $ be a sequence of binomially distributed random variables, with the $ n $ -th random variable $ \mathbf{X}_{n} $ having pmf $ p_{\mathbf{X}_{n}}\left(k\right)=P\left(\left\{ \mathbf{X}_{n}=k\right\} \right)=\left(\begin{array}{c} n\\ k \end{array}\right)p_{n}^{k}\left(1-p_{n}\right)^{n-k}\;,\qquad k=0,\cdots,n,\quad p_{n}\in\left(0,1\right). $

Show that, if the $ p_{n} $ have the property that $ np_{n}\rightarrow\lambda $ as $ n\rightarrow\infty $ , where $ \lambda $ is a positive constant, then the sequence $ \left\{ \mathbf{X}_{n}\right\} _{n\geq1} $ converges in distribution to a Poisson random variable $ \mathbf{X} $ with mean $ \lambda $ .

Hint:

You may find the following fact useful:

$ \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\left(1+\frac{x}{n}\right)^{n}=e^{x}. $


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3. (25 Points)

Let $ \mathbf{X}\left(t\right) $ be a real Gaussian random process with mean function $ \mu\left(t\right) $ and autocovariance function $ C_{\mathbf{XX}}\left(t_{1},t_{2}\right) $ .

(a)

Write the expression for the $ n $ -th order characteristic function of $ \mathbf{X}\left(t\right) $ in terms of $ \mu\left(t\right) $ and $ C_{\mathbf{XX}}\left(t_{1},t_{2}\right) $ .

ref.

There are the note about the n-th order characteristic function of Gaussians random process . The only difference between the note and this problem is that this problem use the $ \mu\left(t\right) $ rather than $ \eta_{\mathbf{X}}\left(t\right)=E\left[\mathbf{X}\left(t\right)\right] $ .

Solution

$ \Phi_{\mathbf{X}\left(t_{1}\right)\cdots\mathbf{X}\left(t_{n}\right)}\left(\omega_{1},\cdots,\omega_{n}\right)=\exp\left\{ i\sum_{k=1}^{n}\mu_{\mathbf{X}}\left(t_{k}\right)\omega_{k}-\frac{1}{2}\sum_{j=1}^{n}\sum_{k=1}^{n}C_{\mathbf{XX}}\left(t_{j},t_{k}\right)\omega_{j}\omega_{k}\right\} $ .

(b)

Show that the probabilistic description of $ \mathbf{X}\left(t\right) $ is completely characterized by $ \mu\left(t\right) $ and autocovariance function $ C_{\mathbf{XX}}\left(t_{1},t_{2}\right) $ .


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4. (25 Points)

Let $ \mathbf{X}_{1},\mathbf{X}_{2},\mathbf{X}_{3},\cdots $ be a sequence of independent, identically distributed random variables, each having Cauchy pdf $ f\left(x\right)=\frac{1}{\pi\left(1+x^{2}\right)}\;,\qquad-\infty<x<\infty. Let \mathbf{Y}_{n}=\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n}\mathbf{X}_{i}. $ Find the pdf of $ \mathbf{Y}_{n} $ . Describe how the pdf of $ \mathbf{Y}_{n} $ depends on $ n $ . Does the sequence $ \mathbf{Y}_{1},\mathbf{Y}_{2},\mathbf{Y}_{3},\cdots $ converge in distribution? If yes, what is the distribution of the random variable it converges to?


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Ryne Rayburn