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Approximations for cumulative distribution function of standard
normal
Omar M. Eidous *
Enas Ananbeh
Department of Statistics
Faculty of Science
Yarmouk University
Irbid
Jordan
Abstract
In this paper, Tocher’s approximation for standard normal distribution function is
improved and three new approximations are proposed. The quality of the new approximations
was computed based on two criteria; the maximum absolute error and the mean absolute
error. We found that the maximum absolute errors of the proposed approximations fall
between
7
7.62 10
-
´ and
5
4.95 10
-
´ and the mean absolute errors -based on 5001 values
between 0 and 5- fall between
7
1.82 10
-
´ and
5
1.59 10 .
-
´
Subject Classification: 62E17.
Keywords: Normal distribution, Approximations, Cumulative distribution function, Maximum
absolute error, Mean absolute error.
1. Introduction
The normal distribution is one of the most important continuous
distribution functions, where the cumulative distribution function of
normal distribution is used in various sciences and fields.
If a random variable Z is normally distributed with mean ( 0) m =
and standard deviation ( 1) s = then the resulting distribution is known
as the standard normal distribution. The probability density function of
Z is given by,
*E-mail: omarm@yu.edu.jo
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Journal of Statistics & Management Systems
ISSN 0972-0510 (Print), ISSN 2169-0014 (Online)
DOI : 10.1080/09720510.2021.1892278