Based on the curiosity over my cheese-related exam question on twitter, I have decided to post the midterm for my graduate level course on stochastic processes. My favorite questions are #1 and #2. I should note that #1 was inspired by actual leftover cheese that is packaged and sold at a discount at the Babock Dairy Store on campus (picture is below). If there is enough extra leftover cheese, it is poured into a bag, leading to cheese that has layers like an onion. It is apparently not cost-effective to repress the leftover cheese into a smooth brick of cheese. As someone who didn’t grow up wearing a foam cheese hat, I find that cheese production, quality control, and inventory is the right avenue for me to learn about cheese.
The Midterm
1. The dairy plant in Babcock Hall makes one batch of cheese six days per week. The amount of cheese (in pounds) left over after each batch is distributed according to an exponential distribution with parameter 1. Cheese production on each day is independent. The Babcock Dairy store will package and sell any leftover cheese in a batch (i.e., a day) that is more than 1 pound—a “cheese factory second.” Let Ei be the event that there is more than 1 pound of cheese available on day i, with i = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Therefore, Ei is a random variable:
Ei = 1 if there are cheese factory seconds for the type of cheese produced on day i and 0 otherwise (i.e., ignore how much cheese is leftover – we are instead interested in the binary outcome of whether cheese is leftover).
E = the total number of types of cheese factory seconds across the 6 day week.
a) Define E in terms of Ei.
b) What is the sample space for E?
c) What is the probability that there is at least a pound of leftover cheese on day 1?
d) What is the probability that four or more days in the week produce cheese factory seconds?
2. The Lightsaber Manufacturing Company (LMC) operates their manufacturing plant in a galaxy far, far away. They need to decide to how many lightsabers to stock for the next Jedi Convention, where they will sell lightsabers to Jedi apprentices. Due to the expense associated with interstellar travel, LMC will discard the unsold lightsabers after the convention. Lightsabers cost 413 galactic credits to produce and are sold for 795 galactic credits (the unit of currency in the Empire). If the demand for lightsabers follows an exponential distribution with an average of 75 lightsabers, how many lightsabers should the LMC bring to the Jedi Convention to maximize its profit?
3. A student has a hard time figuring out how to get started on homework for Stochastic Modeling Techniques. The student randomly selects one of 3 potential places to start a homework problem with equal probability. The first approach is not fruitful; the student will return to the starting point after 1 hour of work. The second approach will return the student to the starting point after 3 hours. The third will lead to the solution in 15 minutes (1/4 hour). The student is confused, so he/she always chooses from all 3 available approaches each time. What is the expected amount of time it takes this diligent student to solve the homework problem?
4. A mysterious illness called “badgerpox” has affected the local badger population near Madison. The exposure level (X) largely determines whether a badger contracts the disease (D). The probability distribution for the exposure level and the conditional probability of disease given the exposure level are given in the table below.
Exposure level (Xi) |
P(Xi) |
P(D | Xi) |
10 |
0.7 |
0.001 |
100 |
0.15 |
0.005 |
1000 |
0.12 |
0.12 |
10000 |
0.03 |
0.78 |
Find:
(a) The conditional distribution P(Xi | D) for each value of Xi
(b) The probability that a badger contracts the disease P(D)
(c) The expected exposure level for badgers that have contracted the disease.
5. A student likes to come to ISyE 624 on time, which is possible as long as the student can travel from left to right in the diagram below. There are two paths to class; the student can pass through if and only if all components along its path are open. Due to construction, the probability that component i is open has probability pi, i = 1,2,3,4. Assume components are independent. If there is not a path to class, the student will arrive to class late, and the professor will be sad. What is the probability the student gets to class on time?

6. The Wisconsin-Minnesota football rivalry dates back to 1890. The teams play once per year for the trophy of “Paul Bunyan’s Axe,” which replaced the first trophy (the “Slab of Bacon,” 1930-1943)*. The teams are unevenly matched, with Wisconsin winning 16 of the last 20 games. Let’s say that Wisconsin wins each game independently with probability 0.8. The teams play next on 11/23/13.
(a) What is the expected number of games/years until Wisconsin loses next?
(b) What is the expected number of games/years until Wisconsin loses 2 games in a row?
(c) What is the probability that it Wisconsin loses for the 3rd time in the 5th game in the series?
* I didn’t make that up!
