A classroom demonstration of the length-bias paradox in renewal theory; first words on printed lines are longer than average
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Authors
Marshall, Kneale T.
Subjects
Renewal theory
Length-biased sampling
Stochastic modelling
Length-biased sampling
Stochastic modelling
Advisors
Date of Issue
1977-03
Date
March 1977
Publisher
Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Language
Abstract
This paper demonstrates the existence of the length-bias paradox of renewal theory in most printed material. This fact is useful as a teaching aid, and may be of use in certain data packing problems. The result is that if one takes the sum of the squares of lengths of all the words on a page, and divides by the sum of the lengths, the result will estimate the average length of the first words on each line. If all words on a page are not the same length (a reasonable assumption), the first word on each line is on average longer than an arbitrary word.
Type
Technical Report
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Operations Research (OR)
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
NPSSS-77-12
Sponsors
Funder
Format
18 p.
Citation
Distribution Statement
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.