How to avoid logarithms in comparisons with uniform random variables (Q1103317)

In many algorithms for sampling from non-uniform distributions the logarithm of a uniform deviate must be compared with some test quantity. It is shown that all these comparisons can be done efficiently without calling a logarithm subprogram: two procedures for this task are presented and compared. The methods were applied to routines for the generation of normal, Poisson and binomial deviates resulting in considerably improved sampling speed.