Paper 4, Section II, J

Principles of Statistics
Part II, 2014

Suppose you have at hand a pseudo-random number generator that can simulate an i.i.d. sequence of uniform U[0,1]U[0,1] distributed random variables U1,,UNU_{1}^{*}, \ldots, U_{N}^{*} for any NNN \in \mathbb{N}. Construct an algorithm to simulate an i.i.d. sequence X1,,XNX_{1}^{*}, \ldots, X_{N}^{*} of standard normal N(0,1)N(0,1) random variables. [Should your algorithm depend on the inverse of any cumulative probability distribution function, you are required to provide an explicit expression for this inverse function.]

Suppose as a matter of urgency you need to approximately evaluate the integral

I=12πR1(π+x)1/4ex2/2dxI=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2 \pi}} \int_{\mathbb{R}} \frac{1}{(\pi+|x|)^{1 / 4}} e^{-x^{2} / 2} d x

Find an approximation INI_{N} of this integral that requires NN simulation steps from your pseudo-random number generator, and which has stochastic accuracy

Pr(INI>N1/4)N1/2\operatorname{Pr}\left(\left|I_{N}-I\right|>N^{-1 / 4}\right) \leqslant N^{-1 / 2}

where Pr denotes the joint law of the simulated random variables. Justify your answer.