MAT2371 B00 (Fall 2024)

Introduction to probability

Professor : Hai Yan Liu (Jack)

Email : hliu038@uottawa.ca
Office : STEM 668

Course Schedule: Tuesday 19:00 pm to 21:50 pm (FSS 1006)

Important Dates:
First Lecture Tuesday, Sept 10
Reading Week Oct 13 to 19
Midterm Tuesday, Oct 29
Last Lecture Tuesday, Dec 3

Office Hours : Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM.
For your needs, I reserved some hours every week exclusively for your questions.
Do not be shy, come and see me without an appointment, at my office. I can
also see you outside of these hours, but then you have to book an appointment
beforehand (by email).

Help Centre: The Department of Mathematics and Statistics provides you

with a centre for help in statistics (room STEM 207) to help you with your in-
troductory course in statistics. You do not need an appointment. It is strongly
suggested to not wait until the day before a test or an assignment to consult the
centre for help, as the centre could be very busy. Please consult their web page,
https://www.uottawa.ca/faculty-science/student-life-services/help-centres
for more information concerning the statistics help centre.

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Official Description of the Course: Probability axioms and their conse-
quences. Conditional probability and independence. Random variables, dis-
tributions and densities, moments, sampling distributions. Weak law of large
numbers, sums of independent random variables, moment generating functions,
convergence concepts, the central limit theorem.

Prerequisites :
MAT1322 or MAT1325 or MAT 1332. The courses MAT2371, MAT2377, ADM2303,
ECO3150, HSS2381, PSY2106 cannot be combined for units.

Required Textbook: Probability and Statistical Inference, (10th Edi-

tion). Authors: R.V. Hogg, E. Tanis and D. Zimmerman. The professor will
indicate the parts of textbook that correspond to the different sections of the
course as the course progresses.

Internet Resources: There is a Brightspace site that you can access at the
following address: uottawa.brightspace.com. Assignments and solutions are
going to be posted in Brightspace. There is also Web page for this course:
https://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/glamothe/BioStats/BioStatEN.html
We will post regular updates on the Web page such as suggested exercises. We
suggest that you visit the Web page at least once a week. We will also post
resources for R.

Studying and exercises: As with all of your other courses, the key to success
in this course is to get to work from the beginning of the semester. This work
takes generally two complementary forms: a regular review of your course notes
(and the relevant sections of the textbook), and workout relevant exercises each
week to deepen your understanding of the material covered in class.

Notes: We strongly advise you to take notes during the lecture. Then (prefer-
ably later in the same day), revise and supplement your notes with the help
of the textbook. If possible, try to work out some suggested exercises. If you
find that you have difficulty with a concept or some exercises, it is important
to consult the teacher as soon as possible. To understand the concepts covered
later in the semester, you must have a good understanding of concepts covered
earlier. The more you wait, the more difficult will be your learning. It is also
advised to read before the lecture to identify points that need to be clarified.

Exercises : Solving exercises regularly will serve two ends: 1) deepen your
understanding of the material covered in class, and 2) indicate (in the case where
you have difficulties solving many problems in a same section) the location where
the material has not been well understood. In the second case, we suggest you
go back to the relevant sections of your notes and/ or textbook to try to obtain
clarifications. If you still have difficulties, see the teacher as soon as possible.

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Statistical Software: We will learn to use R for our statistical analyses. R is
an open source programming language is is available for free, see
www.r-project.org. Here is a video concerning downloading and installing R:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iuKrPS8fMM

Assignments: There are four assignments scheduled for this course:

ˆ Assignment 1 Deadline: Before 11:59 pm on Friday, Sept. 27.

ˆ Assignment 2 Deadline: Before 11:59 pm on Friday, Oct. 11.

ˆ Assignment 3 Deadline: Before 11:59 pm on Friday, Nov. 15.

ˆ Assignment 4 Deadline: Before 11:59 pm on Friday, Nov. 29.

All assignments are due by 11:59 pm sharp in Brightspace as one PDF file. No
late assignment will be accepted.

Midterm: A closed book midterm will be held in class on Tuesday, October

29. One sheet double-sided is permitted.

Final Exam: A closed book 3-hour exam will take place during the examination
period (from Dec. 5 to Dec. 18) and will cover all the topics seen during
the semester. Two formula sheets (double sided) are permitted. It is your
responsibility to find out the date, place and time of the final exam - do not rely
on your friend(s). An error on their part could cause you some problems. In
addition, never write a test, especially a final exam, if you are sick. We cannot
account for your sickness after the fact. Please consult the Faculty of Science
regulations concerning exams: https://www.uottawa.ca/faculty-science/
student-life-services/science-101

Only the following calculators are allowed during Faculty of Science exami-
nations: Texas Instruments TI-30 and TI-34, Casio FX-260 and Casio FX-300
(scientific and non-programmable calculators).

Final Grade: We will compute your final grade as follows:

Assignments 20%; Test 20%; Final Exam 60%.

ˆ Late assignments will not be accepted.

ˆ We will count the best 3 of 4 assignments towards your final grade.

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 ˆ The midterm can only be written on Tuesday, October 29.

ˆ It is not necessary to fill out the declaration of absence form for the
midterm. If you are unable to write the midterm on that date, we will
automatically transfer the weight of the midterm to the final exam.

ˆ If you are unable to write the final exam, then the policies of the Faculty
of Science will apply. It is necessary to fill out the declaration of absence
form if you are present at the final exam.
ˆ If your mark on the final exam is better than the mark on your midterm,
then we will compute your final grade as follows:

Assignments 15%; Final Exam 85%.

Academic Regulation A-1 on Bilingualism: Except in programs and

courses for which language is a requirement, all students have the right to pro-
duce their written work and to answer examination questions in the official
language of their choice, regardless of the course’s language of instruction.

Academic regulation A-4 on Academic Integrity and Academic Mis-

conduct: Please refer to
https://www.uottawa.ca/about-us/policies-regulations/academic-regulations/
a-4-academic-integrity-academic-misconduct

Note that this syllabus is subject to modification. Modifications

will be announced in class .