Lecture

Stochastic Simulation: Monte Carlo Method

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In course

MATH-414: Stochastic simulation

The student who follows this course will get acquainted with computational tools used to analyze systems with uncertainty arising in engineering, physics, chemistry, and economics. Focus will be on sampling methods as Monte Carlo, quasi Monte Carlo, Mark ...

Description

This lecture covers the properties and error estimates of the Monte Carlo method in stochastic simulation. It explains how to set up algorithms for stochastic models when the distribution is unknown, and how to simulate it. The goal is to compute the sample mean using the Monte Carlo estimator and generate independent realizations. The lecture also discusses unbiased projections and confidence intervals, emphasizing the strong law of large numbers. It concludes with the adaptation of the Monte Carlo algorithm and the sequential Monte Carlo method.

Instructor

Fabio Nobile

Teaching & PhD PhD Students Veronica Montanaro, Matteo Raviola, Francesca Bettinelli, Eliott Van Dieren, Riccardo Saporiti, Giacomo Mossinelli, Noé Stauffer, Fabio Zoccolan Past EPFL PhD Students Diane Sylvie Guignard, Francesco Tesei, Eleonora Musharbash, Matthieu Claude Martin, Davide Pradovera, Sundar Subramaniam Ganesh, Eva Vidlicková, Juan Pablo Madrigal Cianci, Andrea Zanoni, Thomas Simon Spencer Trigo Trindade Past EPFL PhD Students as codirector Michele Pisaroni Courses Advanced analysis II - ve

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Statistics

Statistical inference: Mathematical statistics

Related concepts (32)

Sample mean and covariance

The sample mean (sample average) or empirical mean (empirical average), and the sample covariance or empirical covariance are statistics computed from a sample of data on one or more random variables. The sample mean is the average value (or mean value) of a sample of numbers taken from a larger population of numbers, where "population" indicates not number of people but the entirety of relevant data, whether collected or not. A sample of 40 companies' sales from the Fortune 500 might be used for convenience instead of looking at the population, all 500 companies' sales.

Monte Carlo method

Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be deterministic in principle. They are often used in physical and mathematical problems and are most useful when it is difficult or impossible to use other approaches. Monte Carlo methods are mainly used in three problem classes: optimization, numerical integration, and generating draws from a probability distribution.

Confidence interval

In frequentist statistics, a confidence interval (CI) is a range of estimates for an unknown parameter. A confidence interval is computed at a designated confidence level; the 95% confidence level is most common, but other levels, such as 90% or 99%, are sometimes used. The confidence level, degree of confidence or confidence coefficient represents the long-run proportion of CIs (at the given confidence level) that theoretically contain the true value of the parameter; this is tantamount to the nominal coverage probability.

Weighted arithmetic mean

The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The notion of weighted mean plays a role in descriptive statistics and also occurs in a more general form in several other areas of mathematics. If all the weights are equal, then the weighted mean is the same as the arithmetic mean.

Arithmetic mean

In mathematics and statistics, the arithmetic mean (pronˌærɪθˈmɛtɪk_ˈmiːn ), arithmetic average, or just the mean or average (when the context is clear) is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the count of numbers in the collection. The collection is often a set of results from an experiment, an observational study, or a survey. The term "arithmetic mean" is preferred in some mathematics and statistics contexts because it helps distinguish it from other types of means, such as geometric and harmonic.

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