ECB3133 Probability and Random Process (May 2014)

Tutorial Week 4
1. For any three events A, B and C, use basic probability laws to show that:
P(A B C) = P(A) + P(B) + P(C) - P(AB) - P(AC) - P(BC) + P(ABC).
2. The diagram below represents a communication network where the source S communicates
with the receiver R. Let A represent the event that link a fails and B represent the event
link b fails and so on. Write an expression in the algebra of event for the event F = S fails
to communicate with R.

b
c

S
d

R
e

Assume that the link failures are independent and that each link can fail with probability 0.1.
Compute the probability of the event F.
3. In a digital control system, the control command is represented by a set of four hexadecimal
characters.
a) What is the total number of control commands that are possible?
b) If each control command must have a unique prefix, i.e, starting from left to right no hex
character must be repeated, how many control commands are possible?
4. A signal has been sampled, quantized (8 levels) and encoded into 3 bits. These bits are
sequentially transmitted over a wire.
a) Draw the sample space corresponding to the received bits. Assume that no errors occur
during the transmission.
b) Determine the probability that the received encoded sample has a value greater than 5.
c) What is the probability that the value of the received sample is between 3 and 6
(inclusive)?
5. In each lot of 100 items, 2 items are tested, and the lot is rejected if either of the tested items
is found defective.
a) Find the probability of accepting a lot with 5 defective items. Repeat for 10 defective
items.
b) Recompute the probabilities in part a) if 3 items are tested, and a lot is accepted when at
most 1 of the 3 tested items is found defective.
6. A park has N deers of which 10 were previously captured and tagged. Suppose that 20 deers
are captured. Find the probability that 5 of these are found to be tagged. Denote the

ECB3133 Probability and Random Process (May 2014)

probability by p(N). Find the value of N that maximizes this probability. Hint: Compare this
ratio p(N) / p(N-1) to unity.
7. A ternary communication channel is shown in Fig. 1. Suppose that the input symbols 0, 1 and
2 occur with probability , and , respectively.
a) Find the probabilities of the output symbols.
b) Suppose that a 1 is observed as an output. What is the probability that the input was 0? 1?
2?

In
pu
0
t
1

Out
put
0

1
2

2
Figure 1

8. Three types of messages arrive at a message center. 10% of the messages are high priority,
40% are normal priority and 50 percent are low priority.
a) Find the probability that k out of N messages are not high priority.
b) Suppose that messages arrive one at a time. Find the probability that k messages are
received before a high-priority message arrives.
c) Find the probability that out of 20 messages, 5 are high priority, 10 are normal priority
and 5 are low priority.
9. In a certain computer, the probability of a memory failure is 0.01, while the probability of a
hard disk failure is 0.02. If the probability that the memory and hard disk fail simultaneously
is 0.0014, then
a) Are memory failures and hard disk failures independent events?
b) What is the probability of a memory failure, given a hard disk failure?
c) Repeat (a) and (b) if the probability of a memory failure is 0.02, the probability of hard
disk failure is 0.015 and the probability that both fail simultaneously is 0.0003.
10. A box contains 16 integrated circuits (ICs) of which 3 are known to be defective.
a) You are asked to randomly select two ICs from the box. What is the probability that at
least one IC is good?

ECB3133 Probability and Random Process (May 2014)

b) If you randomly select one IC from the box, what is the probability that it is good?

Answers to Tutorial Week 4

1. Use basic probability law on union of sets and distributive law.
2.

F = S fails to communicate with R = (A B) C (D E)

P (F) = 0.00361
a) Total possible number of commands = 164

3.

b) Number of commands with no characters repeated =

P16
4 =43680

4. a) S = {000,001,011,010,110, 111, 101, 100}

b) P (V > 5) = 1/4
c) P (3 V 6) =
5. a) P (a lot is accepted with 5 defective items) = 0.902;
P (a lot is accepted with 10 defective items) = 0.809
b) P (a lot is accepted with 5 defective items) = 0.994;
P (a lot is accepted with 10 defective items) = 0.974
6. N = 40
7. a) P (O0) = ; P (O1) = (1+); P (O2) = (2-)
2
(1 )
I O =
P ( I 1|O1 )=
b) ( 0| 1) (1+ ) ;
(1+ ) ;

8. a)

P ( I 2|O1 )=0

()

PN (k )= N 0.9 k 0.1 Nk
k

b) P (k messages received) = 0.9k

c) P [(5H, 10N, 5L)] = 1.526 x 10-3
9. a) Events M and H are not independent
b) P (M | H) = 0.07
c) M and H are independent events, P (M | H) = 0.02 = P (M)
10. a) P (at least 1 IC is good) = 0.975

ECB3133 Probability and Random Process (May 2014)

b) P (1 IC is good) = 0.8125