The early learning centre contains three rooms, Nursery \((N)\), Toddler \((T)\) and Pre-kinder \((P)\) .
From one year to the next, children can move between rooms, stay in the same room, or may leave \((L)\) the centre. The following transition matrix, \(M\), shows the expected proportion of children who will move between categories or stay in the same category from one year to the next.
\begin{aligned}
& \quad \quad \quad \quad \quad \textit{this year} \\
& \quad \quad \ \ \ \ N \quad \quad \ \ T \quad \quad P \quad \ L \\
M&=\begin{bmatrix}
0.25 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\
0.625 & 0.25 & 0 & 0 \\
0 & 0.625 & 0.1 & 0 \\
0.125 & 0.125 & 0.9 & 1
\end{bmatrix}\begin{array}{l}
N\\
T \\
P \\
P
\end{array}\quad \textit{next year}
\end{aligned}
- The number of children expected to be in each of the four categories, from one year to the next, can be calculated using the matrix recurrence relation
- \(S_{n+1}=M S_n\)
- where \(S_n\) represents the expected number of children in each of the four categories at the start of year \(n\).
- The state matrix \(S_{2024}\), shown below, gives the number of children in each category at the start of 2024.
-
- \begin{align*}S_{2024}=\left[\begin{array}{c}4 \\15 \\15 \\27\end{array}\right]\begin{aligned}& N \\& T \\& P \\& L\end{aligned}\end{align*}
-
- Find \(S_{2023}\). (1 mark)
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- From the start of 2025, new children commenced in the early learning centre at the start of each year.
- A new matrix recurrence relation for determining the expected number of children in each of the four categories from one year to the next is
-
- \begin{align*}
S_{n+1}=M S_n+B
\end{align*}
- \begin{align*}
-
- where
-
- \begin{align*}B=\left[\begin{array}{c}12 \\5 \\10 \\0\end{array}\right] \begin{aligned}& N \\& T \\& P \\& L\end{aligned}\end{align*}
-
- gives the number of new children enrolled in each room of the early learning centre at the start of each year.
- Given the state matrix
- \begin{align*}S_{2024}=\left[\begin{array}{c}4 \\15 \\15 \\27\end{array}\right]\begin{aligned}& N \\& T \\& P \\& L\end{aligned}\end{align*}
- find the expected total number of children to be enrolled in the early learning centre at the start of 2026. Round your answer to the nearest whole number. (1 mark)
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