Improve Your Understanding of College Level Statistics Problems

Recent questions in College Statistics
College StatisticsAnswered question
vidamuhae vidamuhae 2022-11-14

COVID19 data statistical adjustment for SIR model and estimation
All of us are coping with the current COVID19 crisis. I hope that all of you stay safe and that this situation will end as soon as possible.
For this sad situation and for my unstoppable curiosity, I've started to read something about the SIR model. The variables of such model are s (the fraction of people susceptible to infection), y (the fraction of infected people) and r (the fraction of recovered people + the sad statistics of deaths). The model reads as:
{ s ˙ = β s y y ˙ = β s y γ y r ˙ = γ y ,
where β and γ are positive parameters. One strong hypothesis of this model is that the population size is constant over time (deaths are assumed to be recovered, births are neglected since, hopefully, they will be the part of the population which for sure will be protected from the disease). The initial conditions are set such that s ( 0 ) + y ( 0 ) + r ( 0 ) = 1 and s ( 0 ) 0, y ( 0 ) 0 and r ( 0 ) 0. Under this assumption, it can be proven that s ( t ) + y ( t ) + r ( t ) = 1   t > 0.
The news often talk about the coefficient:
R 0 = β γ ,
which rules the behavior of the system (for R 0 < 1 the disease will be wiped out, for R 0 > 1 it will spread out).
The same news also talk about the estimation of such parameter. Well, given the time series of s, y and r, it is rather easy to estimate the parameters β and γ, and hence R 0 . My main concern is about the time series. For each country we know the daily count of infected people (let's say Y(t)), of recovered (or dead) people (let's say R(t)).
Anyway, there are several infected people which are not recorded (let's say Y′(t)), and many of them get recovered without knowing that they have been infected (let's say R′(t))! Moreover, day after day, the number of tests on people is increasing.
If we indicate with N the (constant) size of population, we get that:
y ( t ) = Y ( t ) + Y ( t ) N , r ( t ) = R ( t ) + R ( t ) N   and   s ( t ) = 1 y ( t ) r ( t ) .
Here is the question(s). How can we perform the estimation of β and γ if we don't know the unobserved variables Y′(t) and R′(t)? How do the experts of the field estimate β and γ even though the available data are not complete? Do they use some data adjustment?

College StatisticsAnswered question
Clara Dennis Clara Dennis 2022-11-12

I am not a mathematician, so go easy on me. I'm a programmer.
I have a database that I got from the Internet (USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference), detailing the amount of each nutrient in each of a few thousand foodstuffs. I wanted to write a program that would be able to create a maximally nutritious meal based on this data.
For each nutrient, I have a target and two penalties - one for going over and one for going under the target (since, for example, it's a lot worse to get too much saturated fat than not enough). The goal is to minimize the sum of the penalties.
The meal can select from all the thousands of foodstuffs, but can only contain five or six.
I wrote the program in Java, implemented a genetic algorithm, specified my requirements, and let it run. It produced recommendations that were pure poison, and didn't seem to improve with time.
Maybe I just don't get genetic algorithms? Let's see what I did...
1) Create a population of randomly generated meals.
2) Normalize each one so it has 2000 calories, by multiplying the amount of each foodstuff proportionally.
3) Select the best 10% of meals to be parents.
4) Create a new generation - a few random to avoid local minima, the rest created by combining the numbers and amounts from the parents.
5) GOTO 2.
What other algorithm can I try? Someone advised me to use simplex algorithm, but I can't seem to explain to it (the implementation in Apache Commons Math) what my fitness function is. But he claimed it would be a natural fit, and I have even heard of someone who used simplex for exactly this.

It’s not surprising that we encounter numerous ""I need help with statistics problems"" requests online because these are met everywhere, not only in economics or engineering. The majority of college statistics problems are also met in Sociology, Journalism, Healthcare, and Political Science. As long as you have statistics problems with solutions and answers, you will find solutions. Take a look at our college statistics math problems to find the answers. These will help college statistics problems be resolved. As you seek help with statistics problems, take your time to explore provided solutions and compare them with your initial instructions.