Re^6: Need technique for generating constrained random data sets

(Grrr. Lost a response. Shorter version follows)

I think this is a great analogy for illustrating the problem. However, consider the case where the sum must equal ten. There are only three options (4/6, 5/5, 6/4) and they occur with equal probability. However, we only see 4, 5 and 6, whereas the assumption was that the inputs could be evenly distributed between 1 and 6.

Does that matter? That's a question that requires the original problem context -- as you pointed out.

-xdg

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Comment on Re^6: Need technique for generating constrained random data sets

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Re^7: Need technique for generating constrained random data sets by GrandFather (Saint) on Feb 09, 2007 at 00:17 UTC
The original problem boils down to randomly sampling a 7 dimensional search space with a small amount of information that suggests some corners don't need to be looked in. The space is presumed to be too big and possibly chaotic to be amenable to being searched using a grid or gradient type search for example, so the adopted technique used throws a bunch of darts and hopes some will hit interesting mountains. For example it may be known that shell fish can not comprise more than 70% of a diet because that causes death in short order (value invented BTW, effect real). But there is no information to say what the probability function is so a flat distribution is used for the search. DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel	[reply]

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Re^7: Need technique for generating constrained random data sets
by GrandFather (Saint) on Feb 09, 2007 at 00:17 UTC

The original problem boils down to randomly sampling a 7 dimensional search space with a small amount of information that suggests some corners don't need to be looked in. The space is presumed to be too big and possibly chaotic to be amenable to being searched using a grid or gradient type search for example, so the adopted technique used throws a bunch of darts and hopes some will hit interesting mountains.

For example it may be known that shell fish can not comprise more than 70% of a diet because that causes death in short order (value invented BTW, effect real). But there is no information to say what the probability function is so a flat distribution is used for the search.

DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

[reply]