Exact Bounds on Finite Populations of Interval Data

Authors

Scott Ferson
Lev Ginzburg
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Luc Longpre, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Monica Aviles

Publication Date

9-2004

Comments

UTEP-CS-02-13f.

Published in Reliable Computing, 2005, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 207-233.

Abstract

In this paper, we start research into using intervals to bound the impact of bounded measurement errors on the computation of bounds on finite population parameters ("descriptive statistics"). Specifically, we provide a feasible (quadratic time) algorithm for computing the lower bound on the finite population variance function of interval data. We prove that the problem of computing the upper bound on the finite population variance function of interval data is, in general, NP-hard. We provide a feasible algorithm that computes this upper bound under reasonable easily verifiable conditions, and provide preliminary results on computing other functions of finite populations.