Confidence intervals and tests on the variance ratio in random models with two variance components

The LM test is modified to test any value of the ratio of two variance components in a mixed effects linear model with two variance components. The test is exact, so it can be used to construct exact confidence intervals on this ratio.Exact Neyman-Pearson (NP) tests on the variance ratio are described.Their powers provide attainable upper bounds on powers of tests on the variance ratio.Efficiencies of LM tests, which include ANOVA tests, and NP tests are compared for unbalanced, random, one-way ANOVA models.Confidence intervals corresponding to LM tests and NP tests are described.     

The variance upper bound for a mixed random variable

In this note, we derive upper bounds on the variance of a mixed random variable. Our results are an extension of previous results for unimodal and symmetric random variables. The novelty of our findings is that this mixed random variable does not necessarily need to be symmetric and is multimodal. We also characterize the cases when these bounds are optimal.     

Bounds for the variance of the graybill-deal estimator of the common mean of two normal distributions

In this note we derive sharp lower and upper bounds for the variance of the Graybill-Deal estimator of the common mean of two normal distributions with unknown variances when the sample sizes are not necessarily equal. We also derive similar bounds for the variance of the Brown-Cohen (1974) T _a(1) class of unbiased es-timators to which the Graybill-Deal estimator belongs. Further, we illustrate the sharpness of the bounds by numerical computations in the case of the Graybill-Deal estimator.     

Lower bounds on Bayes risks for estimating a normal variance: With applications

Brown and Gajek (1990) gave useful lower bounds on Bayes risks, which improve on earlier bounds by various authors. Many of these use the information inequality. For estimating a normal variance using the invariant quadratic loss and any arbitrary prior on the reciprocal of the variance that is a mixture of Gamma distributions, we obtain lower bounds on Bayes risks that are different from Borovkov-Sakhanienko bounds. The main tool is convexity of appropriate functionals as opposed to the information inequality. The bounds are then applied to many specific examples, including the multi-Bayesian setup (Zidek and his coauthors). Subsequent use of moment theory and geometry gives a number of new results on efficiency of estimates which are linear in the sufficient statistic. These results complement earlier results of Donoho, Liu and MacGibbon (1990), Johnstone and MacGibbon (1992) and Vidakovic and DasGupta (1994) for the location case.     

Improved variance bounds for unbiased estimation in inverse sampling

Sathe (1977) derived sharper variance bounds for inverse sample unbiased estimator of the negative binomial parameter p. In the present writing improved upper/lower variance bounds are achieved and the relative improvement is numerically illustrated.     

Maximum variance of order statistics from symmetric populations revisited

We consider i.i.d. samples of size n with symmetric non-degenerate parent distributions and finite variances. Papadatos [A note on maximum variance of order statistics from symmetric populations, Ann. Inst. Statist. Math. 48 (1997), pp. 117–121] proved that the maximal variance of each non-extreme order statistic, expressed in the population variance units, is attained in a one-parametric family of symmetric two- and three-point distributions. The parameters of the extreme variance distributions coincide with the arguments maximizing some polynomials of degree 2n?1 over a finite interval. The bounds for variances are equal to the maximal values of the polynomials. We present a more precise solution to the problem by applying the variation diminishing property of Bernstein polynomials.     

Simple heterogeneity variance estimation for meta-analysis

Summary.  A simple method of estimating the heterogeneity variance in a random-effects model for meta-analysis is proposed. The estimator that is presented is simple and easy to calculate and has improved bias compared with the most common estimator used in random-effects meta-analysis, particularly when the heterogeneity variance is moderate to large. In addition, it always yields a non-negative estimate of the heterogeneity variance, unlike some existing estimators. We find that random-effects inference about the overall effect based on this heterogeneity variance estimator is more reliable than inference using the common estimator, in terms of coverage probability for an interval estimate.     

A note on the greenwood variance estimator in cohort life tables: Isolating the effect of one source of bias

A modification of the Greenwood variance estimator is defined and shown to be free of bias whenever its constitu­ent interval estimators are conditionally unbiased, given the sample size at the start of the interval. Using the modified estimator as a standard of comparison, the original Greenwood estimator is seen to have an intrinsic positive bias.Under­estimation of variances through the use of Greenwood's formula must be due to bias in the constituent interval estimators and/or, with fixed interval bounds, due to disregarding the random character of the total number of life table intervals to exhaustion of ttje sample. Some easy to prove properties of the modified and the original Greenwood estimators are stated that apply in the absence of censoring. A suggest­ion is made for reducing the bias of the interval variance estimators.     

Testing for abrupt breaks in variance structures with smooth changes

Abstract

We investigate the problem of testing for variance breaks in the case where the variance structure is assumed to be smoothly time-varying under the null. Since the classical tests are aimed to detect any change in the variance, they are not able to distinguish between smooth non constant variance and abrupt breaks. In this paper a new procedure for detecting variance breaks taking into account for smooth changes in the variance under the null is proposed. The finite sample properties of the test we introduce are investigated by Monte Carlo experiments. The theoretical outputs are illustrated using U.S. macroeconomic data.     

Shewhart x-charts with estimated process variance

Properties of the Shewhart X-chart for controlling the mean of a process with a normal distribution are investigated for the situation where the process variance Ó²must be estimated from initial sample data. The control limits of the X-chart depend on the estimate of Ó²and thus, unlike the case when Ó²is known, the X-chart is not equivalent to a sequence of independent tests. When Ó²is estimated the distribution of the run length is not geometric and cannot be characterized simply in terms of the probability of a signal at a given point. The average run length (ARL) for the X-chart is expressed in terms of an integral involving the normal cdf, and it is shown that the chart signals with

probability one, but the ARL may not be finite if the size of the 2 sample used to estimate Ó²is sufficiently small. In addition, certain bounds for the ARL are also derived. Numerical integration is use to show that the effect of using small sample sizes in estimating Ó²is to increase the ARL and the variance of the run length distribution     

Chi-Square quantile-based multivariate variance monitoring for individual observations

Under the normality assumption, some statistics for monitoring a multivariate process variance for individual observations can be used to detect a variance shift, but the distribution of their in-control run length has a high variance as well as the median that is extremely smaller than the mean, which leads to many false alarms in the in-control process. In this paper, we propose a chi-square quantile-based monitoring statistic which is free of the problems. The numerical experiments show that the proposed monitoring statistics outperform the existing monitoring statistics in terms of the detection of a shift for the variance.     

On the variance estimate of a wilcoxon-mann whitney statistic for group ordered data

Two consistent estimators for the non-null variance of Wil-coxon-Mann-Whitney’s statistic applied to grouped ordered data, are considered. The first is based on U-statistics and the sec-ond is obtained by the Delta method. Some examples are given to demonstrate the extent of error when using a null variance esti-mate for constructing confidence intervals. It appears that the two consistent estimates are very close, but may both be disting-uishably larger or smaller than the null variance estimate.     

A new approach for monitoring process variance

ABSTRACT

Control charts are effective tools for signal detection in both manufacturing processes and service processes. Much service data come from a process with variables having non-normal or unknown distributions. The commonly used Shewhart variable control charts, which depend heavily on the normality assumption, should not be properly used in such circumstances. In this paper, we propose a new variance chart based on a simple statistic to monitor process variance shifts. We explore the sampling properties of the new monitoring statistic and calculate the average run lengths (ARLs) of the proposed variance chart. Furthermore, an arcsine transformed exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) chart is proposed because the ARLs of this modified chart are more intuitive and reasonable than those of the variance chart. We compare the out-of-control variance detection performance of the proposed variance chart with that of the non-parametric Mood variance (NP-M) chart with runs rules, developed by Zombade and Ghute [Nonparametric control chart for variability using runs rules. Experiment. 2014;24(4):1683–1691], and the nonparametric likelihood ratio-based distribution-free exponential weighted moving average (NLE) chart and the combination of traditional exponential weighted moving average (EWMA) mean and EWMA variance (CEW) control chart proposed by Zou and Tsung [Likelihood ratio-based distribution-free EWMA control charts. J Qual Technol. 2010;42(2):174–196] by considering cases in which the critical quality characteristic has a normal, a double exponential or a uniform distribution. Comparison results showed that the proposed chart performs better than the NP-M with runs rules, and the NLE and CEW control charts. A numerical example of service times with a right-skewed distribution from a service system of a bank branch in Taiwan is used to illustrate the application of the proposed variance chart and of the arcsine transformed EWMA chart and to compare them with three existing variance (or standard deviation) charts. The proposed charts show better detection performance than those three existing variance charts in monitoring and detecting shifts in the process variance.     

Short confidence intervals for variance components

Four approximate methods are proposed to construct confidence intervals for the estimation of variance components in unbalanced mixed models. The first three methods are modifications of the Wald, arithmetic and harmonic mean procedures, see Harville and Fenech (1985), while the fourth is an adaptive approach, combining the arithmetic and harmonic mean procedures. The performances of the proposed methods were assessed by a Monte Carlo simulation study. It was found that the intervals based on Wald's method maintained the nominal confidence levels across all designs and values of the parameters under study. On the other hand, the arithmetic (harmonic) mean method performed well for small (large) values of the variance component, relative to the error variance component. The adaptive procedure performed rather well except for extremely unbalanced designs. Further, compared with equal tails intervals, the intervals which use special tables, e.g., Table 678 of Tate and Klett (1959), provided adequate coverage while having much shorter lengths and are thus recommended for use in practice.     

Robust estimation of variance components

New robust estimates for variance components are introduced. Two simple models are considered: the balanced one-way classification model with a random factor and the balanced mixed model with one random factor and one fixed factor. However, the method of estimation proposed can be extended to more complex models. The new method of estimation we propose is based on the relationship between the variance components and the coefficients of the least-mean-squared-error predictor between two observations of the same group. This relationship enables us to transform the problem of estimating the variance components into the problem of estimating the coefficients of a simple linear regression model. The variance-component estimators derived from the least-squares regression estimates are shown to coincide with the maximum-likelihood estimates. Robust estimates of the variance components can be obtained by replacing the least-squares estimates by robust regression estimates. In particular, a Monte Carlo study shows that for outlier-contaminated normal samples, the estimates of variance components derived from GM regression estimates and the derived test outperform other robust procedures.     

Inadmissibility of the uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator of the inverse gaussian variance

The uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator (UMVUE) of the variance of the inverse Gaussian distribution is shown to be inadmissible in terms of the mean squared error, and a dominating estimator is given. A dominating estimator to the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the variance and estimators dominating the MLE's and the UMVUE's of other parameters are also given.     

Model selection for infinite variance time series

In this we consider the problem of model selection for infinite variance time series. We introduce a group of model selection critera based on a general loss function Ψ. This family includes various generalizations of predictive least square and AIC Parameter estimation is carried out using Ψ. We use two loss functions commonly used in robust estimation and show that certain criteria out perform the conventional approach based on least squares or Yule-Walker estima­tion for heavy tailed innovations. Our conclusions are based on a comprehensive study of the performance of competing criteria for a wide selection of AR(2) models. We also consider the performance of these techniques when the ‘true’ model is not contained in the family of candidate models.     

How to compare interpretatively different models for the conditional variance function

This study considers regression-type models with heteroscedastic Gaussian errors. The conditional variance is assumed to depend on the explanatory variables via a parametric or non-parametric variance function. The variance function has usually been selected on the basis of the log-likelihoods of fitted models. However, log-likelihood is a difficult quantity to interpret – the practical importance of differences in log-likelihoods has been difficult to assess. This study overcomes these difficulties by transforming the difference in log-likelihood to easily interpretative difference in the error of predicted deviation. In addition, methods for testing the statistical significance of the observed difference in test data log-likelihood are proposed.     

Umvu estimators for the population mean and variance based on random effects models for lognormal data

Cross-classified data are often obtained in controlled experimental situations and in epidemiologic studies. As an example of the latter, occupational health studies sometimes require personal exposure measurements on a random sample of workers from one or more job groups, in one or more plant locations, on several different sampling dates. Because the marginal distributions of exposure data from such studies are generally right-skewed and well-approximated as lognormal, researchers in this area often consider the use of ANOVA models after a logarithmic transformation. While it is then of interest to estimate original-scale population parameters (e.g., the overall mean and variance), standard candidates such as maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) can be unstable and highly biased. Uniformly minimum variance unbiased (UMVU) cstiniators offer a viable alternative, and are adaptable to sampling schemes that are typiral of experimental or epidemiologic studies. In this paper, we provide UMVU estimators for the mean and variance under two random effects ANOVA models for logtransformed data. We illustrate substantial mean squared error gains relative to the MLE when estimating the mean under a one-way classification. We illustrate that the results can readily be extended to encompass a useful class of purely random effects models, provided that the study data are balanced.     

Bias-corrected realized variance

We propose a novel “bias-corrected realized variance” (BCRV) estimator based upon the appropriate re-weighting of two realized variances calculated at different sampling frequencies. Our bias-correction methodology is found to be extremely accurate, with the finite sample variance being significantly minimized. In our Monte Carlo experiments and a finite sample MSE comparison of alternative estimators, the performance of our straightforward BCRV estimator is shown to be comparable to other widely-used integrated variance estimators. Given its simplicity, our BCRV estimator is likely to appeal to researchers and practitioners alike for the estimation of integrated variance.