, it is convenient to treat them as if they were continuous functions,
        and permit non-integral values of their parameters.
      </p>
<p>
        To enforce a strict mathematical model, users may use floor or ceil functions
        on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_variate" target="_top">random variate</a>,
        prior to calling the distribution function, to enforce integral values.
      </p>
<p>
        For similar reasons, in continuous distributions, parameters like degrees
