The R poisson random generator rpois appears to have a bug for theta 10 or larger. The sample mean of the pseudo variates is too small: sample mean approx theta - 0.5.
I use Version 1.1.1 (August 15, 2000) Of R on a Dell OptiPlex computer with the Windows XP Professional operating system. Has this bug been fixed in later versions? (I found another reported rpois bug, but it appears to be different and to have been fixed : rpois gives a large number repeatedly [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue, 15 Feb 2000 12:18:28 +0100 (MET)) The following output helps illustrate the bug. > zsim function(nc = 100, nr = 500, theta = 1) {# check rpois function x <- matrix(rpois(nr*nc, theta),nrow=nr,ncol=nc) z<-apply(x,2,mean) list(z=z)} > zsim(theta=10) $z [1] 9.594 9.552 9.538 9.448 9.438 9.544 9.630 9.474 9.568 9.700 9.720 9.642 [13] 9.624 9.328 9.420 9.492 9.368 9.674 9.528 9.436 9.296 9.502 9.260 9.440 [25] 9.572 9.698 9.372 9.458 9.532 9.570 9.534 9.528 9.572 9.536 9.234 9.416 [37] 9.400 9.370 9.438 9.628 9.672 9.738 9.454 9.478 9.438 9.496 9.672 9.308 [49] 9.632 9.386 9.842 9.452 9.632 9.460 9.660 9.688 9.486 9.492 9.576 9.664 [61] 9.290 9.300 9.304 9.472 9.618 9.480 9.458 9.558 9.782 9.532 9.198 9.258 [73] 9.384 9.630 9.520 9.646 9.554 9.406 9.390 9.554 9.610 9.382 9.604 9.638 [85] 9.304 9.586 9.848 9.434 9.460 9.644 9.450 9.542 9.502 9.446 9.828 9.364 [97] 9.664 9.628 9.704 9.354 Notice that all 100 sample means of size 500 are less than 10, about half should be larger. The following commands also suggest that the rpois function is biased for theta > 10. > hist(zsim(theta=1)$z) > hist(zsim(theta=10)$z) > hist(zsim(theta=100)$z) > hist(zsim(theta=1000)$z) Best Regards, David Olive [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel