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I am reading supplementary information of the paper Activity driven modeling of dynamic networks. It analogys the number of out degree of a activity node by Polya urns problem:

it will equal to the number of different balls extracted from a urn with $N$ balls, performing $Tma_i$ extractions. The probability of extracting $d$ balls will be given by

$$P(d)= \begin{pmatrix} N \\ d \end{pmatrix} p^d(1-p)^{(N-d)}$$

where

$$p=1-(1-\frac{1}{N})^{Tma_i}$$

is the probability of extracting at least one ball in the urn.

I just even dont know why to treated this as Binormial Distribution? How to get the probability of extracting at least one ball in the urn? What's the solving detail? Thanks for your consideration. Am I clear about my question? Do you need more information for answering my question?

It should looks like:

enter image description here

If there are more than one edges between two nodes, only one edge should be chosen. e6 e1 e8 treated as same ball. For the figure above there should be 9 balls in a urn.

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1 Answer 1

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Here is an account of what that maths does model.

Consider an urn with $M$ balls and one golden ball. Consider $E:= Tma_i$ selections, $X_1,X_2,\dots,X_E$ from the urn with replacement. $\mathbb{P}[X_i=\text{gold}]=\frac{1}{N}$ and the $X_i$ are pairwise independent.

What is the probability that the golden ball is selected at some point?

$$\begin{align} \mathbb{P}[\text{not selected}]&=\mathbb{P}[(X_1\neq \text{gold})\cap(X_2\neq\text{gold})\cap\cdots\cap(X_E\neq\text{gold})] \\&\prod_{i=1}^E\mathbb{P}[X_i\neq\text{gold}] \\&=\left(1-\frac{1}{N}\right)^E \\\Rightarrow \mathbb{P}[\text{selected}]&=1-\left(1-\frac{1}{N}\right)^E:=p. \end{align}$$

Now consider $N$ urns, each with $M$ balls, and each with a golden ball (suppose in addition the golden ball in urn $i$ has a little stamp "$i$" on it).

Now if we are going to make $E$ selections from the $N$ urns, then the probability that we select the golden ball at least once is $p$ in each case. Furthermore these probabilities are independent. Therefore if $Y$ is the number of urns for which the $E$ selections yields a golden ball, $Y\sim \operatorname{Bin}[N,p]$ and so $$\mathbb{P}[Y=d]={N\choose d}p^d(1-p)^{N-d}.$$

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  • $\begingroup$ When you said N urns, do you mean do the experiment N times in a urn, since it is replacement? $\endgroup$
    – Nick Dong
    Commented May 3, 2016 at 14:21
  • $\begingroup$ No I mean N different but identical urns. Alternatively yes the question can be selecting E balls and stop. Have you got the golden ball at least once. Plus one for yes, zero for no. Repeat N-1 more times keeping a running total. The probability given equals the probability that in d of the N trails, the golden ball was seen at least once $\endgroup$ Commented May 3, 2016 at 15:03
  • $\begingroup$ The number of balls in the urn is M and different from N. $\endgroup$ Commented May 3, 2016 at 15:04
  • $\begingroup$ I am a little confused about the golden ball now. Does it the ball which must be selected? $\endgroup$
    – Nick Dong
    Commented May 3, 2016 at 15:11
  • $\begingroup$ Yes: Let $Y_i=1$ if the golden ball is seen at least once in the $E$ selections of urn $i$ and $Y_i=0$ if the golden ball is not seen once during the $E$ selections of urn $i$. $Y=Y_1+Y_2+\cdots+Y_N$. This is with $N$ urns. $\endgroup$ Commented May 3, 2016 at 15:15

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