On the degree of uniformity measure for probability distributions

Rajaram, R; Ritchey, N; Castellani, B

Abstract

A key challenge in studying probability distributions is quantifying the inherent inequality within them. Certain parts of the distribution have higher probabilities than others, and our goal is to measure this inequality using the concept of mathematical diversity, a novel approach to examining inequality. We introduce a new measure mD(P), called the degree of uniformity measure on a given probability space that generalizes the idea of the slope of secant of the slope of diversity curve. This measure generalizes the idea of degree of uniformity of a contiguous part (P = {k1, k2} in the discrete case or P = (a, b) in the continuous case) in a probability space related to a random variable X, to an arbitrary measurable part P. We also demonstrate the truly scale free and self-contained nature of the concept of degree of uniformity by relating the measure of two parts P1 and P2 from completely unrelated distributions with random variables X1 and X2 that have completely different scales of variation.

Citation

Rajaram, R., Ritchey, N., & Castellani, B. (2024). On the degree of uniformity measure for probability distributions. Journal of Physics Communications, 8(11), Article 115003. https://doi.org/10.1088/2399-6528/ad8f10

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 5, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Nov 14, 2024
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2024
• Deposit Date: Nov 18, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 18, 2024
• Journal: Journal of Physics Communications
• Electronic ISSN: 2399-6528
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 11
• Article Number: 115003
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/2399-6528/ad8f10
• Keywords: degree of inequality, degree of uniformity, shannon entropy
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3098715