Course materials

Math Revision Session for OSIPP (2026)

A five-day revision course in matrix algebra, probability, introductory statistics, estimation, and hypothesis testing.

  • Academic year: 2026
  • Term: Spring
  • University: The University of Osaka, OSIPP
DateSessionTopicsMaterials
1
Matrix algebra
  • Dimensions and common matrix types
  • Matrix addition, scalar multiplication, and matrix multiplication
  • Transpose, determinants, and inverses
  • Rank, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and diagonalisation
  • Systems of equations and matrix differentiation
  • Chain rule, OLS, gradients, Jacobians, Hessians, and the variance of the OLS estimator
2
Probability and discrete random variables
  • Sets and probability axioms
  • Addition rule, joint and conditional probability, and independence
  • Bayes’ theorem and random variables
  • Joint and marginal distributions for discrete variables
  • Covariance, correlation, conditional expectation, and expectation rules
  • Bernoulli, binomial, and Poisson distributions
3
Continuous random variables and distributions
  • CDFs and probability density functions
  • Uniform distribution
  • Expectation and variance
  • Joint and marginal distributions, covariance, and independence
  • Conditional density and conditional expectation
  • Normal, chi-squared, t, and exponential distributions
  • Degrees of freedom
4
Population, sampling, and limit theory
  • Population and sample; population and sampling distributions
  • Law of large numbers
  • Markov and Chebyshev inequalities
  • Central limit theorem
  • Big-O and little-o notation
  • Moment-generating and characteristic functions
  • Sampling distribution of the sample variance
5
Estimation and hypothesis testing
  • Point and interval estimation
  • Confidence intervals with known and unknown variance
  • Confidence intervals when the population distribution is unknown
  • Construction and interpretation of hypothesis tests
  • One-sided and two-sided tests
  • Testing differences in means
  • Type I and Type II errors
  • p-values