THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS

CCST9017: HIDDEN ORDER IN DAILY LIFE:

A MATHEMATICAL PERSPECTIVE

November 24, 2021 1:15p.m. – 2:15p.m.

Only approved calculators as announced by the Examinations Secretary can be used

in this test. It is candidates’ responsibility to ensure that their calculator operate
satisfactorily, and candidates must record the name and type of the calculator used
on the front page of the examination script.

For each question, you have to provide explanations to your answers.

Answer ALL SIX questions

P.1 of 6
1. (5 points) In a game, a basketball team has half chance to shoot above 40%
behind the 3-point line. In a 5-game series, what is the probability for the
team to shoot above 40% behind the 3-point line in (at least) 4 consecutive
games.

2. (4 points) Suppose that the secret primes in an RSA algorithm are p = 17

and q = 29. If we know that the encryption key is e = 9 and the decryption
key d is a number between 200 and 300. Compute d.

3. (6 points) Amy, Ben and Cindy want to subscribe streaming service to watch
movies and shows. There is no shortage of streaming services on the market
in Hong Kong. After carefully studying the market, they have located four
streaming services Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus and ViuTV which cost
$93,$73,$38 and $28 per month respectively. The following table summarizes
which streaming services are satisfactory for these three people.

Streaming service Satisfactory for

AppleT V P lus Amy, Cindy
DisneyP lus Ben, Cindy
V iuT V Amy, Ben
N etf lix Amy, Ben, Cindy

Since Netflix is the only streaming service which fulfills all the needs of Amy,
Ben and Cindy, they decide to subscribe Netflix and have to figure out how
to share the monthly fee $93.

(a) Model this situation as a suitable cooperative game (N, v) where N is

the set of all players and v(S) is the cost for the player(s) in coalition S
to subscribe certain streaming service. Here we may assume that each
individual will purchase the cheapest streaming service among all the
streaming services that fulfill his/her needs.
(b) For the game defined in part (a), compute its Shapley value and hence
solve the cost sharing problem.

4. (5 points) The Hong Kong Government is implementing a territory-wide

COVID-19 vaccination programme for Hong Kong residents who can choose
either the BioNTech vaccine or the the Sinovac vaccine. In an article appeared
in the newspaper Ming Pao Daily on 25 August, 2021, Prof. Kwok-Yung
YUEN of HKU and two other experts wrote that the efficacy of the BioN-
Tech vaccine against the Delta mutant strain of SARS-CoV-2 is 88 percent,
while the Sinovac vaccine’s efficacy is 60 percent. So far, the total population
with second vaccine dose is 4, 504, 704, i.e. 66.9% of the total population of
Hong Kong were fully vaccinated. Suppose for simplicity, we assume that only
BioNTech vaccine has been used in the vaccination programme and the basic
reproduction number R0 of the Delta variant is 3.2 (an estimation based on
a Delta variant outbreak in Guangdong Province, China in May–June 2021
which was reported in China CDC Weekly 2021, 3(27): 584–586). Applying

P.2 of 6
 the sir model to determine if we have achieved herd immunity against the
Delta variant in Hong Kong.

5. (5 points) Let (x1 , x2 ) denote the coordinate of a point in Cartesian plane.

Suppose we have four positively labeled data points in R2 : (1, 3), (2, 1), (4, 5),
(8, 7) and four negatively labeled data points in R2 : (5, 1), (7, 1), (9, 5), (13, 6).
What is the linear support vector machine that optimally separates these two
classes of data points by maximizing the margin?

(A) 2x1 − x2 − 5 = 0
(B) x1 − 2x2 − 6 = 0
(C) 2x1 − 2x2 − 5 = 0
(D) 2x1 − 2x2 − 3 = 0
(E) 3x1 − 3x2 − 5 = 0

6. (5 points) Suppose the web of interest has 6 pages and each webpage is indexed
by a number i, i = 1, ..., 6. Each forward link is represented by an arrow; see
Figure 1. Calculate the link matrix A of this 6-page web and the PageRank
score. Which webpage has the highest PageRank score? And, which webpage
has the lowest PageRank score?

Figure 1: A web with 6 pages.

*** END OF PAPER ***

P.3 of 6
Suggested Solution

1. Answer: 3/32.
Let u(i, j) be the probability of that we have at least 4 consecutive games
with 3-pt shoot percentage above 40% in 5-games series given the situation
that in the previous i-games the shooting percentage is above 40% and there
are j games left. We have the recursive formula

u(i, j) = 1/2 ∗ u(i + 1, j − 1) + 1/2 ∗ u(0, j − 1).

We need to compute u(0, 5). We have

u(0, j) = 0 for j = 0, 1, 2, 3

u(i, 0) = 0 for i = 0, 1, 2, 3
and
u(4, j) = 1 for all j.
By the recursive relation

u(0, 5) = 1/2 ∗ (1/16 + 1/8) = 3/32.

2. Answer: 249.

m = (p − 1)(q − 1) = 16 ∗ 28 = 64 ∗ 7. The condition on d is

de ≡ 1 mod 64 ∗ 7,

i.e. 9d − 1 = 64 ∗ 7 ∗ k for some integer k. Since 64 = 9 ∗ 7 + 1, we have

9d − 1 = 9 ∗ (49k) + 7k.

We set d = 49k + j then we have 9j − 1 = 7k. Then j = 4 is a solution and

the corresponding k is 5. Then

d = 49 ∗ 5 + 4 = 249.

P.4 of 6
3. (a) Let A = Amy, B = Ben and C = Cindy. Define v(φ) = 0, v(A) =
28, v(B) = 28, v(C) = 38, v(A, C) = 38, v(B, C) = 73, v(A, B) = 28, v(A, B, C) =
93
(b) [v(Nσi ∪ {i}) − v(Nσi )]

A B C
ABC 28 0 65
ACB 28 55 10
BAC 0 28 65
BCA 20 28 45
Permutation σ CAB 0 55 38
CBA 20 35 38
96 201 261
6 6 6
= 16 = 33.5 = 43.5
∴ the Shapley value is (16, 33.5, 43.5) which gives the amount Amy, Ben
and Cindy should pay.

4. Answer: No.

We may assume the contact number σ is the same as the basic reproduction
number R0 in this case as the total population is very close to the population
of susceptibles.
We know that the minimal fraction of the population that must be vaccinated
successfully to ensure herd immunity is thus 1 − 1/σ = 1 − 1/R0 = 0.6875. If
the vaccination is only 88% effective, the percentage of the population that
should receive vaccination should be at least 68.75%/0.88 = 78.125% which
is higher than the current 66.9%.

5. Answer: (C) is true.

Explanation: If we plot these data points on the Cartesian plane, we can

easily find that (2, 1) and (8, 7) are support vectors for the positively labeled
data points, while (5, 1) and (9, 5) are support vectors for the negatively la-
beled data points. One key observation is that the slope of the line passing
through the two points (2, 1) and (8, 7) is 1, and the slope of the line passing
through the two points (5, 1) and (9, 5) is the same. Simple calculation allows
us to fine the line passing through (2, 1) and (8, 7) is x1 − x2 − 1 = 0 and the
line passing through (5, 1) and (9, 5) is x1 − x2 − 4 = 0. Thus, the support
vector machine is the middle of these two lines, i.e., x1 − x2 − 52 = 0.

6. Answer: Webpage 6 has the highest score and webpage 1 has the lowest score

P.5 of 6
Explanation: The link matrix is
1
 
0 0 0 0
3
0
 1 0 1
0 0 0 
 31 2 
1 

3
0 0 0 0 2 .
A=  0 1 
 1 1 0 0 0 2 
1 1

3
0 2 3
0 0 
1
0 0 0 3 1 0

Let e = [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1]T . The importance scores of the pages after 1 iteration
are given by x[1] = Ae, where e is the column vector of all 1’s:

0 0 0 31 0 0  
   
0.3333
 1 0 1 0 0 0  1
    0.8333 
 
 13 2
1  1 
 0 0 0 0 2     0.8333 
x[1] = Ae =  3
 0 1 0 0 0 1   1  =  1.5  .

 1 2  1   

3
0 21 31 0 0   1.1667 
1
0 0 0 13 1 0 1.3333

The importance scores of the pages after 2 iteration are given by

0 0 13 0 0
    
0 0.3333 0.5
 1 1
0 2 0 0 0   0.8333   0.5278
    
 13 
[2] [1]

3
0 0 0 0 12    0.8333  =  0.7778
   
x = Ax =   0 1 
.
 1 1 0 0 0 2   1.5  
 1.5000




3
0 21 31 0 0   1.1667   1.0278 
0 0 0 13 1 0 1.3333 1.6667

The importance scores of the pages after 3 iteration are given by

0 0 31 0 0
    
0 0.5 0.5
 1 0 21 0 0 0   0.5278   0.5667 
 13    
 0 0 0 0 12   0.7778   1 
x[3] = Ax[2] = 
 0
3 
1 
= .
 1 1 0 0 0 2   1.5000   1.3611
  


3
0 21 31 0 0   1.0278   1.0556 
0 0 0 13 1 0 1.6667 1.5278

From the entries of x[3] we observe that, after 3 iteration, webpage 6 has the
highest score, and webpage 1 has the lowest score.

Alternatively, we solve Av = 1v with A being the link matrix. We get the

1-eigenvector of A as follows:

v = [0.1759, 0.2345, 0.3517, 0.5276, 0.4103, 0.5862]T .

The biggest entry of v is the 6-th entry of v and the smallest entry of v is the
1-th entry.

P.6 of 6