A coin toss is referred as IID in several websites. What I want to know that if I'm understanding the concept right.  If X denote a random variable which means the "result of a coin toss" then $x_1, x_2, ... , x_n$ are the results of repeated coin tossing. Are $x_1, x_2, ... , x_n$ IID? If yes, how can observations be variables?  Or are $X_1, X_2, ... , X_n$ all considered as random variables if we want to consider them IID? How can a random sample be IID?
I have been facing hard time understanding meaning of "random sample" as well as "iid random variable". I tried to find out the meaning from several sources, but just got more and more confused. I am posting here what I tried and got to know:  Degroot's Probability &amp; Statistics says:     Random Samples / i.i.d. / Sample Size : Consider a given probability distribution on the real line that can be represented by either a p.f. or a p.d.f. $f$. It is said that $n$ random variables $X_1 , . . . , X_n$ form a random sample from this distribution if these random variables are independent and the marginal p.f. or p.d.f. of each of them is $f$. Such random variables are also said to be independent and identically distributed, abbreviated i.i.d. We refer to the number n of random variables as the sample size.   But one of the other statistics book I have says:       In a Random Sampling, we guarantee that every individual unit in the population gets an equal chance(probability) of being selected.   So, I have a feeling that i.i.d.s are elements that construct random sample, and the procedure to have random sample is random sampling. Am I right?   P.S.: I am very confused about this topic, so I will appreciate elaborate reply. Thanks.
Get specific GPS location somehow on windows 8 I would like to create a reminder on Google Calendar every month on the 15th, but if the 15th in that month is a Friday/Saturday, I want it automatically to set it to the closest Sunday/Thursday. Is this possible? Qt: Best practice for a single instance app protection I computed the homology groups of the torus, can someone tell me if this is correct? The calculation, not the result that is. Thanks!  The cells of $T^2$ are $e^0, e^1_a, e^1_b, e^2$  The chain groups are  $$ C_0(T^2) = \{ k e^0 |&#160;k \in \mathbb{Z} \} = \mathbb{Z}$$  $$ C_1(T^2) = \{&#160;k_1 e^1_a + k_2 e^1_b |&#160;k_1 , k_2 \in \mathbb{Z} \} = \mathbb{Z} \oplus \mathbb{Z}$$  $$ C_2(T^2) = \mathbb{Z}$$  $$ C_k(T^2) = \{ 0 \} , k &gt; 2$$  Now the homology groups:  $$ H_0(T^2) = \ker \partial_0 / im \partial_1 = \mathbb{Z} / 0 = \mathbb{Z}$$  where $im \partial_1 = 0$ because there is no chain in $C_1(T^2)$ whose boundary is a zero-chain in $C_0(T^2)$. (Is this reasoning correct?)  $$ H_1(T^2) = \ker \partial_1 / im \partial_2 = \mathbb{Z} \oplus \mathbb{Z}$$  where $\ker \partial_1 =  \mathbb{Z} \oplus \mathbb{Z} $, i.e. again everything maps to zero because there is no element in $C_1$ whose boundary maps to an element in $C_0$.  $im \partial_2 = 0$ again because there is no element in $C_2$ whose boundary is an element of $C_1$.  I don't want to use Hurewicz to do $H_1$.  $$ H_2(T^2) = \mathbb{Z}$$ using similar arguments as above.  Thanks for your help.  Edit  I posted the computations as an answer below. I got two up votes but I don't know by who so I'm not yet sure I can trust them... Namespaces and Operator Overloading in C++ When authoring a library in a particular namespace, it's often convenient to provide overloaded operators for the classes in that namespace.  It seems (at least with g++) that the overloaded operators can be implemented either in the library's namespace:  namespace Lib { class A { };  A operator+(const A&amp;, const A&amp;); } // namespace Lib   or the global namespace  namespace Lib { class A { }; } // namespace Lib  Lib::A operator+(const Lib::A&amp;, const Lib::A&amp;);   From my testing, they both seem to work fine.  Is there any practical difference between these two options?  Is either approach better? has two corollaries:   The gravitational attraction of a spherically symmetric body acts as if all its mass were concentrated at the center, and The gravitational acceleration inside the cavity of a spherically symmetric body vanishes.   Consider a spaceship floating freely in space. In a homogeneous universe, the combined attraction from all matter should cancel out, and the spaceship should stay motionless. Nevertheless, I'm free to divide the attraction into several parts originating from different parts of the universe: In the figure below, I've divided the universe into a red sphere centered on some arbitrary point (×) with my spaceship located at the edge of the sphere, plus infinitely many shells centered on the same point.  By corollary #1, the gravitational attraction of the red sphere equals that of all its mass centered at the point ×. By corollary #2, the combined acceleration of the spaceship from all mass in the green shell vanishes. The same can be said for the blue shell, the orange shell, and so on ad infinitum.  Hence my spaceship should start accelerating toward ×. By choosing the sphere large enough, I should be able to make it accelerate arbitrarily fast, and by choosing the location of × I can make it accelerate in any direction.    Of course this doesn't work, but why?  My best guess is that, even in an infinite universe, you can't keep adding spheres because you'll exit the observable universe, in which case there's no way to feel the gravity in part of the shell so that it's no longer symmetric. Perhaps also the expansion of the universe matters. But see the last two points below.  A few more things to consider:   The mass of the red sphere increases with the chosen radius $r$ as $r^3$, while the acceleration it generates is proportional to $r^{-2}$; hence the acceleration increases linearly with the chosen $r$. Our universe — the "Universe" — has an average density of some $10^{-29}\,\mathrm{g}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-3}$. Hence if I set $r$ equal to the radius of the observable Universe (46.3 billion light-years), the acceleration is a minuscule $10^{-7}\,\mathrm{cm}\,\mathrm{s}^{-2}$. If that bothers you, choose another universe where $\rho$ is ten orders of magnitude higher. Our Universe is not really homogeneous, but on large enough scales ($\gtrsim$ half a billion light-years) it seems it is. Still, the acceleration of the spaceship will be dominated by nearby sources. If that bothers you, choose a sufficiently homogeneous universe. On the scales we're considering, the Universe is not governed by Newtonian dynamics, but by general relativity. If that bothers you, use  instead — I think the issue is the same. If the issue is really that the size of the observable universe matters, then my intuition tells me that I can just choose an arbitrarily old universe where the asymmetric contribution from the most distant shells is arbitrarily small. If the issue is that the universe expands (so that gravity from the far side of a shell is somehow weakened, or "redshifted"), then my intuition tells me that I can just choose a sufficiently static universe. Book series about aliens who put "caps" on people to control them I remember reading a series when I was around 7th or 8th grade about aliens who had taken over Earth by putting metal caps on people when they were "entering adulthood" to control them (not direct control, but it would keep them from rebelling). There was a faction of people who able to escape and had fake caps and would save teens who were about to be capped.  The main protagonist was a teen boy who was a boxer (or training to be a boxer or something). The aliens would hold tournaments for the humans and whoever won would be "worthy" to serve as personal slaves to the aliens.     The protagonist won and was able to get inside to try and learn more about the aliens from the inside. What harm can be done with a copy of one's passport? Proving the given quadratic form is chi-squared $k$ Suppose $\underline{X}$ is an $m$-dimensional vector following multivariate Normal distribution i.e. $\underline{X}$~$N_m(\underline{\mu},\Sigma)$ where $\Sigma$ is positive definite. Let $B$ be a symmetric $m$ by $m$ matrix, having the following properties:  $B\Sigma B=B$  $\underline{\mu}'B\underline{\mu}=0$  $trace(B\Sigma)=k$, where $k&lt;m$   Prove that $\underline{X}'B\underline{X}$ follows chi-squared ($k$).  I proceeded a lot but got stuck in one last step where I think linear algebra is troubling me. Kindly have  a look at my &quot;solution&quot;.  The second condition can be written as $\underline{\mu}'B\Sigma B\underline{\mu}=0\implies B\underline{\mu}=\underline{0}$ as $\Sigma$ is Positive definite. Then after a little algebra and considering condition 2, we can write $\underline{X}'B\underline{X}=(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})'B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})=(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})'B\Sigma B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$ But $\Sigma$ is positive definite hence we can have a symmetric matrix $\sqrt{\Sigma}$ defined such that $\sqrt{\Sigma}\sqrt{\Sigma}=\Sigma$. Using this, we can write $(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})'B\Sigma B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})=(\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu}))'(\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu}))$ We want to show that this follows chi-squared ($k$). Now, it is obvious that as $(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$~$N(\underline{0},\Sigma)$, $\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$~$N(\underline{0},\sqrt{\Sigma}B\Sigma B\sqrt{\Sigma})=N(\underline{0},\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma})$ Now, $trace(\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma})=trace(B\Sigma)=k$ and $\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma}$ is idempotent (verified). So its eigenvalues are only $0$ or $1$. Since its trace is $k$, there are $k$ eigenvalues with value $1$ and other $m-k$ eigenvalues are $0$. Now here is the thing I want to prove: I want to show that$\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma}$, which is the covariance matrix, is diagonal and has only $k$ $1$'s and remaining $m-k$ diagonal entries $0$. The reason is, then I will be able to say that $k$ components of $\sqrt{\Sigma}B(\underline{X}-\underline{\mu})$ are independent standard normals whose sum of squares is our quadratic form and thus it follows chi-squared ($k$). But I really could not show that $\sqrt{\Sigma}B\sqrt{\Sigma}$ has the desired property i.e. it is diagonal with rank $k$. But this is crucial, it is the finale. If this does not happen, then some components will be correlated with each other and we cannot say that our quadratic form has chi-squared ($k$). I would really appreciate if someone helped me to prove this final part. Show that if $\lim_{x\to a}f'(x) = A$ then $f'(a)$ exists and equals A I ran across this problem in my Analysis class and can't seem to come up with a good solution. Here's the question: Show that if $\lim_{x\to a}f'(x) = A$ then $f'(a)$ exists and equals $A$. $f$ is continuous on $[a,b]$ and differentiable on $(a,b)$.  I tried applying the Mean Value theorem like this: There exists a $c \in (a, x)$ st $f(x)-f(a)=f'(c)(x-a) \implies \frac{f(x)-f(a)}{x-a}=f'(c) \implies f'(a)=\lim_{x\to a}\frac{f(x)-f(a)}{x-a}=\lim_{c\to a}f'(c)=A$  However, I think this is wrong. I am pretty sure the Mean Value theorem is needed, but my application of it seems to be incorrect. Would somebody be able to point me in the right direction? Website giving pronunciations of English words recorded in different dialects? I'm aware that there are certain websites around that provide recorded examples of English words pronounced in different accents/dialects.  Could anybody list some of them? When I use ssh -X on my Mac (running OS X 10.6.7) to connect to my Ubuntu (11.04) box, I get the following warning:     Warning: untrusted X11 forwarding   setup failed: xauth key data not   generated Warning: No xauth data;   using fake authentication data for X11   forwarding.   Is there something I can do to make this warning go away?  If not, can I safely ignore it?  X11 forwarding seems to work fine, though I do see this message:     Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on   display "localhost:10.0".   Is that related to the warning?  (I'm guessing not.  If it's not, I'll file a new question about that.) C/C++/Assembly Programatically detect if hyper-threading is active on Windows, Mac and Linux How to override Drupal.ajax.prototype.beforeSend? I need to add my own little if's and checks in 3 functions inside   misc/ajax.js (   Drupal.ajax.prototype.beforeSend,   Drupal.ajax.prototype.success,   Drupal.ajax.prototype.error )   How can I override them in my module? I can't find a manual and it's not in Examples for Developers. Sorry if it seems a dumb question, but I'm a php developer - I can work with js, but I'm not so fluent with it.   Can I simply write it in my module's js file? If 2 or 3 modules needs to modify them, how to avoid conflicts? How can I query the  for tags I've created? Evolution of the (phenotypic) facial features of the indigenous people of (west/central) Africa I am not even remotely an expert in this field; I just got curious, so help me.   First of all, let us remove all human sentimental attributes from this question (such as connotations of  or emotional reactions thereof) and ask it from a purely scientific point of view. The typical facial feature of a West/Central African person (the so-called ) exhibits a wide nose, a lack of nasal bridge projection (similar to many Asian noses) and a prognathous skull shape that resembles more closely to our ancestor Homo Heidelbergensis than many other indigenous phenotypes from other parts of the world do.  I agree that this claim sounds anecdotal, and is certainly not true of all Africans (for example, Ethiopians), but one cannot dismiss it simply on grounds of ethical policing. I cannot help but notice that many of my African friends remind me of our shared ancestry (with no disrespect meant whatsoever), as is clear from the photographs below, one of a supposed Homo Heidelbergensis and one of a random African Homo Sapiens of today.     My question is the following. What is the reason behind this seeming resemblance? Is this appearance an illusion and possibly a construct of a prejudiced mind, or does this have a valid scientific answer? For example, are most Africans closer to our ancestors than the rest of humanity is? How does evolution answer this question?  Thank you for your help. Is it possible to delete multiple elements from a list at the same time? If I want to delete elements at index 0 and 2, and try something like del somelist[0], followed by del somelist[2], the second statement will actually delete somelist[3].  I suppose I could always delete the higher numbered elements first but I'm hoping there is a better way. How to compare a program's version in a shell script? Suppose I want to compare gcc version to see whether the system has the minimum version installed or not.  To check the gcc version, I executed the following  gcc --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f4   The output was  4.8.5   So, I wrote a simple if statement to check this version against some other value  if [ "$(gcc --version | head -n1 | cut -d" " -f4)" -lt 5.0.0 ]; then     echo "Less than 5.0.0" else     echo "Greater than 5.0.0" fi   But it throws an error:  [: integer expression expected: 4.8.5   I understood my mistake that I was using strings to compare and the -lt requires integer. So, is there any other way to compare the versions? Facebook authorization fails on iOS6 when switching FB account on device How can I determine what is taking up so much space?