Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The confidence region is calculated in such a way that if a set of measurements were repeated many times and a confidence region calculated in the same way on each set of measurements, then a certain percentage of the time (e.g. 95%) the confidence region would include the point representing the "true" values of the set of variables being estimated.
Given a sample from a normal distribution, whose parameters are unknown, it is possible to give prediction intervals in the frequentist sense, i.e., an interval [a, b] based on statistics of the sample such that on repeated experiments, X n+1 falls in the interval the desired percentage of the time; one may call these "predictive confidence intervals".
Confidence bands can be constructed around estimates of the empirical distribution function.Simple theory allows the construction of point-wise confidence intervals, but it is also possible to construct a simultaneous confidence band for the cumulative distribution function as a whole by inverting the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, or by using non-parametric likelihood methods.
Classically, a confidence distribution is defined by inverting the upper limits of a series of lower-sided confidence intervals. [15] [16] [page needed] In particular, For every α in (0, 1), let (−∞, ξ n (α)] be a 100α% lower-side confidence interval for θ, where ξ n (α) = ξ n (X n,α) is continuous and increasing in α for each sample X n.
In the social sciences, a result may be considered statistically significant if its confidence level is of the order of a two-sigma effect (95%), while in particle physics and astrophysics, there is a convention of requiring statistical significance of a five-sigma effect (99.99994% confidence) to qualify as a discovery.
A 95% confidence level does not mean that 95% of the sample data lie within the confidence interval. A 95% confidence level does not mean that there is a 95% probability of the parameter estimate from a repeat of the experiment falling within the confidence interval computed from a given experiment. [25]
Calculating the confidence interval. Let's say we have a sample with size 11, sample mean 10, and sample variance 2. For 90% confidence with 10 degrees of freedom, the one-sided t value from the table is 1.372 . Then with confidence interval calculated from
For example, the 68% confidence limits for a one-dimensional variable belonging to a normal distribution are approximately ± one standard deviation σ from the central value x, which means that the region x ± σ will cover the true value in roughly 68% of cases. If the uncertainties are correlated then covariance must be taken into account ...