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As its name implies, the moment-generating function can be used to compute a distribution’s moments: the nth moment about 0 is the nth derivative of the moment-generating function, evaluated at 0. In addition to real-valued distributions (univariate distributions), moment-generating functions can be defined for vector- or matrix-valued random ...
Other generating functions of random variables include the moment-generating function, the characteristic function and the cumulant generating function. The probability generating function is also equivalent to the factorial moment generating function , which as E [ z X ] {\displaystyle \operatorname {E} \left[z^{X}\right]} can also be ...
So the cumulant generating function is the logarithm of the moment generating function = (). The first cumulant is the expected value ; the second and third cumulants are respectively the second and third central moments (the second central moment is the variance ); but the higher cumulants are neither moments nor central moments, but ...
Besides the probability function, the cumulative distribution function, the probability mass function and the probability density function, the moment generating function and the characteristic function also serve to identify a probability distribution, as they uniquely determine an underlying cumulative distribution function. [10]
The moment generating function of a real random variable is the expected value of , as a function of the real parameter . For a normal distribution with density f {\textstyle f} , mean μ {\textstyle \mu } and variance σ 2 {\textstyle \sigma ^{2}} , the moment generating function exists and is equal to
In probability theory, it is possible to approximate the moments of a function f of a random variable X using Taylor expansions, provided that f is sufficiently differentiable and that the moments of X are finite. A simulation-based alternative to this approximation is the application of Monte Carlo simulations.
This can be seen using moment generating functions as follows: () = = = = by the independence of the random variables. It remains to plug in the MGF for the non-central chi square distributions into the product and compute the new MGF – this is left as an exercise.
In mathematics, the moments of a function are certain quantitative measures related to the shape of the function's graph.If the function represents mass density, then the zeroth moment is the total mass, the first moment (normalized by total mass) is the center of mass, and the second moment is the moment of inertia.