[R] simulate zero-truncated Poisson distribution

[Spencer Graves]

Hi, Peter:

Your solution is simple, elegant, very general yet sufficiently subtle 
that I (and I suspect many others) might not have thought of it until 
you mentioned it.  It is worth remembering.

Thanks.  spencer graves

Peter Dalgaard wrote:

> (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> 
>>On 01-May-05 Glazko, Galina wrote:
>>
>>>Dear All
>>>
>>>I would like to know whether it is possible with R to 
>>>generate random numbers from zero-truncated Poisson 
>>>distribution.
>>>
>>>Thanks in advance,
>>>Galina
> 
> .....
> 
>>(B) This has a deeper theoretical base.
>>
>>Suppose the mean of the original Poisson distribution (i.e.
>>before the 0's are cut out) is T (notation chosen for intuitive
>>convenience).
>>
>>The number of events in a Poisson process of rate 1 in the
>>interval (0,T) has a Poisson distribution with mean T.
>>The time to the first event of a Poisson process of rate 1
>>has the negative exponential distribution with density exp(-t).
>>
>>Conditional on the first event lying in (0,T), the time
>>to it has the conditional distribution with density
>>
>>  exp(-t)/(1 - exp(-T)) (0 <= t <= T)
>>
>>and the PDF (cumulative distribution) is
>>
>>  F(t) = (1 - exp(-t))/(1 - exp(-T))
>>
>>If t is randomly sampled from this distribution, then
>>U = F(t) has a uniform distribution on (0,1). So, if
>>you sample U from runif(1), and then
>>
>>  t = -log(1 - U*(1 - exp(-T)))
>>
>>you will have a random variable which is the time to
>>the first event, conditional on it being in (0,T).
>>
>>Next, the number of Poisson-process events in (t,T),
>>conditional on t, simply has a Poisson distribution
>>with mean (T-t).
>>
>>So sample from rpois(1,(T-t)), and add 1 (corresponding to
>>the "first" event whose time you sampled as above) to this
>>value.
>>
>>The result is a single value from a zero-truncated Poisson
>>distribution with (pre-truncation) mean T.
>>
>>Something like the following code will do the job vectorially:
>>
>>  n<-1000       # desired size of sample
>>  T<-3.5        # pre-truncation mean of Poisson
>>  U<-runif(n)   # the uniform sample
>>  t = -log(1 - U*(1 - exp(-T))) # the "first" event-times
>>  T1<-(T - t)   # the set of (T-t)
>>
>>  X <- rpois(n,T1)+1 # the final truncated Poisson sample
>>
>>The expected value of your truncated distribution is of course
>>related to the mean of the pre-truncated Poisson by
>>
>>  E(X) = T/(1 - exp(-T))
> 
> 
> There must be an easier way... Anything wrong with
> 
>  rtpois <- function(N, lambda)
>      qpois(runif(N, dpois(0, lambda), 1), lambda)
> 
>  rtpois(100,5)
> 
> ?
>