A goodness-of-fit test for the stratified proportional hazards model for survival data

Abstract

Goodness-of-fit testing is addressed in the stratified proportional hazards model for survival data. A test statistic based on within-strata cumulative sums of martingale residuals over covariates is proposed and its asymptotic distribution is derived under the null hypothesis of model adequacy. A Monte Carlo procedure is proposed to approximate the critical value of the test. Simulation studies are conducted to examine finite-sample performance of the proposed statistic.     

Diagnostic tests for the distribution of random effects in multivariate mixed effects models

Abstract

Fourier methods are proposed for testing the distribution of random effects in classical and robust multivariate mixed effects models. The test statistics involve estimation of the characteristic function of random effects. Theoretical and computational issues are addressed while Monte Carlo results show that the new procedures compare favorably with other methods.     

Inferences on the Coefficients of Variation in a Multivariate Normal Population

In this article, the problem of testing the equality of coefficients of variation in a multivariate normal population is considered, and an asymptotic approach and a generalized p-value approach based on the concepts of generalized test variable are proposed. Monte Carlo simulation studies show that the proposed generalized p-value test has good empirical sizes, and it is better than the asymptotic approach. In addition, the problem of hypothesis testing and confidence interval for the common coefficient variation of a multivariate normal population are considered, and a generalized p-value and a generalized confidence interval are proposed. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we find that the coverage probabilities and expected lengths of this generalized confidence interval are satisfactory, and the empirical sizes of the generalized p-value are close to nominal level. We illustrate our approaches using a real data.     

A new generalized p-value approach for testing equality of coefficients of variation in k normal populations

A new generalized p-value method is proposed for testing the equality of coefficients of variation in k normal populations. Simulation studies show that the type I error probabilities are close to the nominal level. The proposed test is also compared with likelihood ratio test, modified Bennett's test and score test through Monte Carlo simulation, the results demonstrate that the generalized p-value method has satisfactory performance in terms of sizes and powers.     

Bootstrap Tests of Nonnested Hypotheses: Some Further Results

Abstract

Nonnested models are sometimes tested using a simulated reference distribution for the uncentred log likelihood ratio statistic. This approach has been recommended for the specific problem of testing linear and logarithmic regression models. The general asymptotic validity of the reference distribution test under correct choice of error distributions is questioned. The asymptotic behaviour of the test under incorrect assumptions about error distributions is also examined. In order to complement these analyses, Monte Carlo results for the case of linear and logarithmic regression models are provided. The finite sample properties of several standard tests for testing these alternative functional forms are also studied, under normal and nonnormal error distributions. These regression-based variable-addition tests are implemented using asymptotic and bootstrap critical values.     

Bootstrap versus traditional hypothesis testing procedures for coefficients in least absolute value regression

Several approaches to hypothesis testing for coefficients in least absolute value regression are compared using a Monte Carlo simulation: likelihood ratio test, Lagrange multiplier test, and three versions of the bootstrap hypothesis test. Factors considered that might influence test performance include the disturbance distribution, the type of independent variable, and the sample size. Overall, the likelihood ratio and the bootstrap tests perform best, with the likelihood ratio test being marginally more powerful. Least absolute value tests are also compared to the standard t test and three versions of the bootstrapped t test for least squares regression.     

On simultaneous confidence intervals based on rank-estimates with application to analysis of gene expression data

Abstract

Inferential methods based on ranks present robust and powerful alternative methodology for testing and estimation. In this article, two objectives are followed. First, develop a general method of simultaneous confidence intervals based on the rank estimates of the parameters of a general linear model and derive the asymptotic distribution of the pivotal quantity. Second, extend the method to high dimensional data such as gene expression data for which the usual large sample approximation does not apply. It is common in practice to use the asymptotic distribution to make inference for small samples. The empirical investigation in this article shows that for methods based on the rank-estimates, this approach does not produce a viable inference and should be avoided. A method based on the bootstrap is outlined and it is shown to provide a reliable and accurate method of constructing simultaneous confidence intervals based on rank estimates. In particular it is shown that commonly applied methods of normal or t-approximation are not satisfactory, particularly for large-scale inferences. Methods based on ranks are uniquely suitable for analysis of microarray gene expression data since they often involve large scale inferences based on small samples containing a large number of outliers and violate the assumption of normality. A real microarray data is analyzed using the rank-estimate simultaneous confidence intervals. Viability of the proposed method is assessed through a Monte Carlo simulation study under varied assumptions.     

Testing for monotonic trend in time series based on resampling methods

In this paper, we propose several tests for monotonic trend based on the Brillinger's test statistic (1989, Biometrika, 76, 23–30). When there are highly correlated residuals or short record lengths, Brillinger's test procedure tends to have significance level much higher than the nominal level. It is found that this could be related to the discrepancy between the empirical distribution of the test statistic and the asymptotic normal distribution. Hence, in this paper, we propose three bootstrap-based procedures based on the Brillinger's test statistic to test for monotonic trend. The performance of the proposed test procedures is evaluated through an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study, and is compared to other trend test procedures in the literature. It is shown that the proposed bootstrap-based Brillinger test procedures can well control the significance levels and provide satisfactory power performance in testing the monotonic trend under different scenarios.     

Permutation Tests for Comparing Inequality Measures

ABSTRACT

Asymptotic and bootstrap tests for inequality measures are known to perform poorly in finite samples when the underlying distribution is heavy-tailed. We propose Monte Carlo permutation and bootstrap methods for the problem of testing the equality of inequality measures between two samples. Results cover the Generalized Entropy class, which includes Theil’s index, the Atkinson class of indices, and the Gini index. We analyze finite-sample and asymptotic conditions for the validity of the proposed methods, and we introduce a convenient rescaling to improve finite-sample performance. Simulation results show that size correct inference can be obtained with our proposed methods despite heavy tails if the underlying distributions are sufficiently close in the upper tails. Substantial reduction in size distortion is achieved more generally. Studentized rescaled Monte Carlo permutation tests outperform the competing methods we consider in terms of power.     

Testing the Fit of Gamma Distributions Using the Empirical Moment Generating Function

ABSTRACT

This article presents goodness-of-fit tests for two and three-parameter gamma distributions that are based on minimum quadratic forms of standardized logarithmic differences of values of the moment generating function and its empirical counterpart. The test statistics can be computed without reliance to special functions and have asymptotic chi-squared distributions. Monte Carlo simulations are used to compare the proposed test for the two-parameter gamma distribution with goodness-of-fit tests employing empirical distribution function or spacing statistics. Two data sets are used to illustrate the various tests.     

Analysis of non-repairable cold-standby systems in Bayes theory

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we seek to analyse the reliability of k-out-of-n cold-standby system with components having Weibull time-to-failure distribution in view of Bayes theory. At first, we review the existing methods exhaustively and find that all these methods have not considered Bayes theory. Then we modify the simplest method and propose new methods based on Monte Carlo simulation. Next, we combine all the information to derive the posterior distribution of Weibull parameters. A robust and universal sample-based method is proposed according to the Monte Carlo Markov Chain method to draw the sample of parameters to obtain the Bayes estimate of reliability. The drawn samples are proved to be rather satisfactory. Conducting a simulation study to compare all the methods in terms of accuracy and computational time, we have presented some useful recommendations from the simulation results. These conclusions would provide insight on the application for k-out-of-n cold-standby system.     

Point and Interval Estimation for Bivariate Normal Distribution Based on Progressively Type-II Censored Data

ABSTRACT

The maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of parameters of a bivariate normal distribution are derived based on progressively Type-II censored data. The asymptotic variances and covariances of the MLEs are derived from the Fisher information matrix. Using the asymptotic normality of MLEs and the asymptotic variances and covariances derived from the Fisher information matrix, interval estimation of the parameters is discussed and the probability coverages of the 90% and 95% confidence intervals for all the parameters are then evaluated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. To improve the probability coverages of the confidence intervals, especially for the correlation coefficient, sample-based Monte Carlo percentage points are determined and the probability coverages of the 90% and 95% confidence intervals obtained using these percentage points are evaluated and shown to be quite satisfactory. Finally, an illustrative example is presented.     

Testing the Martingale Difference Hypothesis

Abstract

In this paper we consider testing that an economic time series follows a martingale difference process. The martingale difference hypothesis has typically been tested using information contained in the second moments of a process, that is, using test statistics based on the sample autocovariances or periodograms. Tests based on these statistics are inconsistent since they cannot detect nonlinear alternatives. In this paper we consider tests that detect linear and nonlinear alternatives. Given that the asymptotic distributions of the considered tests statistics depend on the data generating process, we propose to implement the tests using a modified wild bootstrap procedure. The paper theoretically justifies the proposed tests and examines their finite sample behavior by means of Monte Carlo experiments.     

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.     

Testing multivariate uniformity: The distance‐to‐boundary method

Given a random sample taken on a compact domain S ? ^d, the authors propose a new method for testing the hypothesis of uniformity of the underlying distribution. The test statistic is based on the distance of every observation to the boundary of S. The proposed test has a number of interesting properties. In particular, it is feasible and particularly suitable for high dimensional data; it is distribution free for a wide range of choices of 5; it can be adapted to the case that the support of S is unknown; and it also allows for one‐sided versions. Moreover, the results suggest that, in some cases, this procedure does not suffer from the well‐known curse of dimensionality. The authors study the properties of this test from both a theoretical and practical point of view. In particular, an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study allows them to compare their methods with some alternative procedures. They conclude that the proposed test provides quite a satisfactory balance between power, computational simplicity, and adaptability to different dimensions and supports.     

A comparison of uniformity tests

Problems of goodness-of-fit to a given distribution can usually be reduced to test uniformity. The uniform distribution appears due to natural random events or due to the application of methods for transforming samples from any other distribution to the samples with values uniformly distributed in the interval (0, 1). Thus, one can solve the problem of testing if a sample comes from a given distribution by testing whether its transformed sample is distributed according to the uniform distribution. For this reason, the methods of testing for goodness-of-fit to a uniform distribution have been widely investigated. In this paper, a comparative power analysis of a selected set of statistics is performed in order to give suggestions on which one to use for testing uniformity against the families of alternatives proposed by Stephens [Stephens, M.A., 1974, EDF statistics for goodness of fit and some comparisons. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 69, 730–737.]. Definition and some relevant features of the considered test statistics are given in section 1. Implemented numerical processes to calculate percentage points of every considered statistic are described in section 2. Finally, a Monte Carlo simulation experiment has been carried out to fulfill the mentioned target of this paper.     

Testing Serial Correlation in Semiparametric Varying-Coefficient Partially Linear Models

We propose two test statistics for testing serial correlation in semiparametric varying-coefficient partially linear models. The proposed test statistics are not only for testing zero first-order serial correlation, but also for testing higher-order serial correlations. Under the null hypothesis of no serial correlation, the test statistics are shown to have asymptotic normal or chi-square distributions. By using R, some Monte Carlo experiments are conducted to examine the finite sample performances of the proposed tests. Simulation results show that the estimated size and power of the proposed tests behave well.     

A Metropolis algorithm to obtain co-sufficient samples with applications in conditional tests

ABSTRACT

Conditional tests are constructed by conditioning a fit measure to a minimal sufficient statistic. To calculate the p-value of these tests, Monte Carlo methods with co-sufficient samples can be used. In this paper we show how to simulate co-sufficient samples when the data distribution belongs to the exponential family with doubly transitive sufficient statistics. The proposed method is illustrated using the beta distribution.     

Goodness-of-fit testing of a weak memoryless property of life distributions

A life distribution is said to have a weak memoryless property if its conditional probability of survival beyond a fixed time point is equal to its (unconditional) survival probability at that point. Goodness‐of‐fit testing of this notion is proposed in the current investigation, both when the fixed time point is known and when it is unknown but estimable from the data. The limiting behaviour of the proposed test statistic is obtained and the null variance is explicitly given. The empirical power of the test is evaluated for a commonly known alternative using Monte Carlo methods, showing that the test performs well. The case when the fixed time point t₀ equals a quantile of the distribution F gives a distribution‐free test procedure. The procedure works even if t₀ is unknown but is estimable.     

On the ratio of two independent skewnesses

In many fields, the researchers are interested in making inferences about the ratio of skewnesses in two independent populations. In the present paper, the asymptotic distribution for the ratio of the sample skewnesses in two independent populations is established. Then the asymptotic distribution is used to derive the asymptotic confidence interval and to test the hypothesis for the ratio of population's skewnesses. Finally, the applicability of the proposed method is investigated through Monte Carlo simulations.