The routine may be called by the names g01slf or nagf_stat_prob_hypergeom_vector.
3Description
Let denote a vector of random variables having a hypergeometric distribution with parameters , and . Then
where , and .
The hypergeometric distribution may arise if in a population of size a number are marked. From this population a sample of size is drawn and of these are observed to be marked.
The mean of the distribution , and the variance .
g01slf computes for given , ,
and the probabilities: , and using an algorithm similar to that described in Knüsel (1986) for the Poisson distribution.
The input arrays to this routine are designed to allow maximum flexibility in the supply of vector arguments by re-using elements of any arrays that are shorter than the total number of evaluations required. See Section 2.6 in the G01 Chapter Introduction for further information.
4References
Knüsel L (1986) Computation of the chi-square and Poisson distribution SIAM J. Sci. Statist. Comput.7 1022–1036
On entry: ifail must be set to , or to set behaviour on detection of an error; these values have no effect when no error is detected.
A value of causes the printing of an error message and program execution will be halted; otherwise program execution continues. A value of means that an error message is printed while a value of means that it is not.
If halting is not appropriate, the value or is recommended. If message printing is undesirable, then the value is recommended. Otherwise, the value is recommended. When the value or is used it is essential to test the value of ifail on exit.
On exit: unless the routine detects an error or a warning has been flagged (see Section 6).
6Error Indicators and Warnings
If on entry or , explanatory error messages are output on the current error message unit (as defined by x04aaf).
Errors or warnings detected by the routine:
On entry, at least one value of n, l, m or k was invalid, or the variance was too large.
Check ivalid for more information.
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
On entry, .
Constraint: .
An unexpected error has been triggered by this routine. Please
contact NAG.
See Section 7 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
Your licence key may have expired or may not have been installed correctly.
See Section 8 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
Dynamic memory allocation failed.
See Section 9 in the Introduction to the NAG Library FL Interface for further information.
7Accuracy
Results are correct to a relative accuracy of at least on machines with a precision of or more decimal digits (provided that the results do not underflow to zero).
8Parallelism and Performance
Background information to multithreading can be found in the Multithreading documentation.
g01slf is not threaded in any implementation.
9Further Comments
The time taken by g01slf to calculate each probability depends on the variance (see Section 3) and on . For given variance, the time is greatest when ( the mean), and is then approximately proportional to the square-root of the variance.
10Example
This example reads a vector of values for , , and , and prints the corresponding probabilities.