Principles of Random Variate Generation

Book excerpt: An up-to-date account of the theory and practice of generating random variates from probability distributions is presented in this accessible text. After a brief introduction to simulation, the author discusses the general principles for generating and testing uniform and non-uniform variates. These techniques are applied to univariate and multivariate distributions, Markov processes, and order statistics. Dr. Dagpunar has included Fortran 77 programs for generating the more familiar distributions and a set of graphical aids for the manual generation of variates. Competing methods are also compared and their advantages and disadvantages discussed. In addition, algorithms throughout the book enable readers to generate variates from selected distributions, making this an invaluable guide for statisticians, operational researchers, computer scientists, and postgraduates engaged in computer simulation.