Contagious Distributions

2
Adrienne W. Kemp

Adrienne W. Kemp

University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

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C. D. Kemp

C. D. Kemp

University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

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First published: 15 July 2005

Abstract

Polya proposed a model for the spread of an infection, whereby the probability of catching a disease depended on the existing number of cases. This leads to a distribution that has a limiting negative binomial form. Neyman proposed an alternative approach that arises from a Poisson distribution of clumps, with the number of cells for each clump being Poisson. This article surveys probability distributions and corresponding generating functions that result from such constructions.

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