Optimal tests in AR (m) time series model

In the univariate framework, two problems of testing the nonlinearity are investigated in Hwang and Basawa. The first one is concerned with the testing problem for a nonlinear class contiguous to the AR(1) process. The second one is focused on the testing problem of the ARCH model contiguous to the AR(1) models. In each case, an efficient test of linearity was obtained, the local asymptotic normality (LAN) was proved, an efficient test of linearity was constructed, and the asymptotic power function was derived. All these results were obtained under the assumption where the parameter of the time series model is assumed to be known. In practical situation, this parameter is unspecified and its estimation induces an error that has an impact on the asymptotic limit distribution. A new method for the good evaluation of this error is introduced and investigated in the present article. Consequently, its application allows us to preserve the local asymptotic optimality with the estimated parameter. An extension to testing in class of ARCH models contiguous to p-order autoregressive processes is obtained. The LAN property plays a fundamental role in the present study.     

Attribute Charts for Zero-Inflated Processes

The classical Shewhart c-chart and p-chart which are constructed based on the Poisson and binomial distributions are inappropriate in monitoring zero-inflated counts. They tend to underestimate the dispersion of zero-inflated counts and subsequently lead to higher false alarm rate in detecting out-of-control signals. Another drawback of these charts is that their 3-sigma control limits, evaluated based on the asymptotic normality assumption of the attribute counts, have a systematic negative bias in their coverage probability. We recommend that the zero-inflated models which account for the excess number of zeros should first be fitted to the zero-inflated Poisson and binomial counts. The Poisson parameter λ estimated from a zero-inflated Poisson model is then used to construct a one-sided c-chart with its upper control limit constructed based on the Jeffreys prior interval that provides good coverage probability for λ. Similarly, the binomial parameter p estimated from a zero-inflated binomial model is used to construct a one-sided np-chart with its upper control limit constructed based on the Jeffreys prior interval or Blyth–Still interval of the binomial proportion p. A simple two-of-two control rule is also recommended to improve further on the performance of these two proposed charts.     

LAN property for an ergodic diffusion with jumps

In this paper, we consider a multidimensional ergodic diffusion with jumps driven by a Brownian motion and a Poisson random measure associated with a compound Poisson process, whose drift coefficient depends on an unknown parameter. Considering the process discretely observed at high frequency, we derive the local asymptotic normality (LAN) property.     

Hypotheses testing for a multidimensional parameter of inhomogeneous Poisson processes

We observe a realization of an inhomogeneous Poisson process whose intensity function depends on an unknown multidimensional parameter. We consider the asymptotic behaviour of the Rao score test for a simple null hypothesis against the multilateral alternative. By using the Edgeworth type expansion (under the null hypothesis) for a vector of stochastic integrals with respect to the Poisson process, we refine the (classic) threshold of the test (obtained by the central limit theorem), which improves the first type probability of error. The expansion allows us to describe the power of the test under the local alternative, i.e. a sequence of alternatives, which converge to the null hypothesis with a certain rate. The rates can be different for components of the parameter.     

Exact and Monte Carlo calculations of integrated likelihoods for the latent class model

The latent class model or multivariate multinomial mixture is a powerful approach for clustering categorical data. It uses a conditional independence assumption given the latent class to which a statistical unit is belonging. In this paper, we exploit the fact that a fully Bayesian analysis with Jeffreys non-informative prior distributions does not involve technical difficulty to propose an exact expression of the integrated complete-data likelihood, which is known as being a meaningful model selection criterion in a clustering perspective. Similarly, a Monte Carlo approximation of the integrated observed-data likelihood can be obtained in two steps: an exact integration over the parameters is followed by an approximation of the sum over all possible partitions through an importance sampling strategy. Then, the exact and the approximate criteria experimentally compete, respectively, with their standard asymptotic BIC approximations for choosing the number of mixture components. Numerical experiments on simulated data and a biological example highlight that asymptotic criteria are usually dramatically more conservative than the non-asymptotic presented criteria, not only for moderate sample sizes as expected but also for quite large sample sizes. This research highlights that asymptotic standard criteria could often fail to select some interesting structures present in the data.     

What is the effective sample size of a spatial point process?

Point process models are a natural approach for modelling data that arise as point events. In the case of Poisson counts, these may be fitted easily as a weighted Poisson regression. Point processes lack the notion of sample size. This is problematic for model selection, because various classical criteria such as the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) are a function of the sample size, n, and are derived in an asymptotic framework where n tends to infinity. In this paper, we develop an asymptotic result for Poisson point process models in which the observed number of point events, m, plays the role that sample size does in the classical regression context. Following from this result, we derive a version of BIC for point process models, and when fitted via penalised likelihood, conditions for the LASSO penalty that ensure consistency in estimation and the oracle property. We discuss challenges extending these results to the wider class of Gibbs models, of which the Poisson point process model is a special case.     

Combining poisson means

The problem of estimating the Poisson mean is considered based on the two samples in the presence of uncertain prior information (not in the form of distribution) that two independent random samples taken from two possibly identical Poisson populations. The parameter of interest is λ₁ from population I. Three estimators, i.e. the unrestricted estimator, restricted estimator and preliminary test estimator are proposed. Their asymptotic mean squared errors are derived and compared; parameter regions have been found for which restricted and preliminary test estimators are always asymptotically more efficient than the classical estimator. The relative dominance picture of the estimators is presented. Maximum and minimum asymptotic efficiencies of the estimators relative to the classical estimator are tabulated. A max-min rule for the size of the preliminary test is also discussed. A Monte Carlo study is presented to compare the performance of the estimator with that of Kale and Bancroft (1967).     

Exact and asymptotic results for pattern waiting times

Waiting time problems for the occurrence of a pattern have attracted considerable research interest. Several results, including Poisson or Compound Poisson approximations as well as Normal approximations have appeared in the literature. In addition, a number of asymptotic results has been developed by making use of the finite Markov chain imbedding technique and the Perron–Frobenius eigenvalue. In the present paper we present a recursive scheme for the evaluation of the tail probabilities of the waiting time for the first and r-th occurrence of a pattern. A number of asymptotic results (along with their rates of convergence) that do not require the existence of the Perron–Frobenius eigenvalue are also offered. These results cover a quite wide class of pattern waiting time problems and, in most cases, perform better than the ones using the Perron–Frobenius eigenvalue.     

Estimation of the correlation coefficient in probability proportional to size with replacement sampling

g of the population correlation coefficient has been suggested in case of probability proportional to size with replacement sampling. The asymptotic bias, variance and the estimate of the variance of the estimator r_g have been obtained. A comparison of this estimator has been made with the estimator r given by Gupta et al (1993) and usual estimator r₁ for PPSWR sampling. The proposed estimator r_g satisfies the condition −1≤r_g≤1 which the estimator r does not satisfy. Received: September 1, 1999; revised version: May 29, 2001     

RANKED SET SAMPLING FROM LOCATION-SCALE FAMILIES OF SYMMETRIC DISTRIBUTIONS

Statistical inference based on ranked set sampling has primarily been motivated by nonparametric problems. However, the sampling procedure can provide an improved estimator of the population mean when the population is partially known. In this article, we consider estimation of the population mean and variance for the location-scale families of distributions. We derive and compare different unbiased estimators of these parameters based on rindependent replications of a ranked set sample of size n.Large sample properties, along with asymptotic relative efficiencies, help identify which estimators are best suited for different location-scale distributions.     

Nonadditivity in loglinear models using φ-divergences and MLEs

In this paper three families of test statistics for testing nonadditivity in loglinear models are presented under the assumption of either Poisson, multinomial, or product-multinomial sampling. These new families are based on the φ-divergence measures. The standard method for testing nonadditivity is used, i.e., the two-stage tests procedure. In this procedure the parameters are first estimated using an additive model and then the estimates are treated as known constants for the second stage of the procedure. These test statistics, which are asymptotically chi-squared, generalize the likelihood ratio test for this problem given by Christensen and Utts (J. Statist. Plann. Inference 33 (1992) 333). An example and a simulation study are included.     

Geometry of the log-likelihood ratio statistic in misspecified models

We show that the asymptotic mean of the log-likelihood ratio in a misspecified model is a differential geometric quantity that is related to the exponential curvature of Efron (1978), Amari (1982), and the preferred point geometry of [Critchley et al., 1993] and [Critchley et al., 1994]. The mean is invariant with respect to reparameterization, which leads to the differential geometrical approach where coordinate-system invariant quantities like statistical curvatures play an important role. When models are misspecified, the likelihood ratios do not have the chi-squared asymptotic limit, and the asymptotic mean of the likelihood ratio depends on two geometric factors, the departure of models from exponential families (i.e. the exponential curvature) and the departure of embedding spaces from being totally flat in the sense of Critchley et al. (1994). As a special case, the mean becomes the mean of the usual chi-squared limit (i.e. the half of the degrees of freedom) when these two curvatures vanish. The effect of curvatures is shown in the non-nested hypothesis testing approach of Vuong (1989), and we correct the numerator of the test statistic with an estimated asymptotic mean of the log-likelihood ratio to improve the asymptotic approximation to the sampling distribution of the test statistic.     

Nested Hadamard difference sets

A Hadamard difference set (HDS) has the parameters (4N², 2N² − N, N² − N). In the abelian case it is equivalent to a perfect binary array, which is a multidimensional matrix with elements ±1 such that all out-of-phase periodic autocorrelation coefficients are zero. We show that if a group of the form H × Z²_p^r contains a (hp^2r, √hp^r(2√hp^r − 1), √hp^r(√hp^r − 1)) HDS (HDS), p a prime not dividing |H| = h and p^j ≡ −1 (mod exp(H)) for some j, then H × Z²_p^t has a (hp^2t, √hp^t(2√hp^t − 1), √hp^t(√hp^t − 1)) HDS for every 0⩽t⩽r. Thus, if these families do not exist, we simply need to show that H × Z²_p does not support a HDS. We give two examples of families that are ruled out by this procedure.     

An improved Cp criterion for spline smoothing

Spline smoothing is a popular technique for curve fitting, in which selection of the smoothing parameter is crucial. Many methods such as Mallows’ C_p, generalized maximum likelihood (GML), and the extended exponential (EE) criterion have been proposed to select this parameter. Although C_p is shown to be asymptotically optimal, it is usually outperformed by other selection criteria for small to moderate sample sizes due to its high variability. On the other hand, GML and EE are more stable than C_p, but they do not possess the same asymptotic optimality as C_p. Instead of selecting this smoothing parameter directly using C_p, we propose to select among a small class of selection criteria based on Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE). Due to the selection effect, the spline estimate obtained from a criterion in this class is nonlinear. Thus, the effective degrees of freedom in SURE contains an adjustment term in addition to the trace of the smoothing matrix, which cannot be ignored in small to moderate sample sizes. The resulting criterion, which we call adaptive C_p, is shown to have an analytic expression, and hence can be efficiently computed. Moreover, adaptive C_p is not only demonstrated to be superior and more stable than commonly used selection criteria in a simulation study, but also shown to possess the same asymptotic optimality as C_p.     

Asymptotic normality of the minimum distance estimators for a Poisson process with a discontinuous intensity function

We consider the problem of estimation of a two-dimensional parameter θ₀=(θ₁,θ₂) of a Poisson process. The intensity function of the process is a smooth function with respect to θ₁ and is a discontinuous function of θ₂. We show the consistency and asymptotic normality of the minimum distance estimator of θ₀.     

Semiparametric lower bounds for tail index estimation

We consider estimation of the tail index parameter from i.i.d. observations in Pareto and Weibull type models, using a local and asymptotic approach. The slowly varying function describing the non-tail behavior of the distribution is considered as an infinite dimensional nuisance parameter. Without further regularity conditions, we derive a local asymptotic normality (LAN) result for suitably chosen parametric submodels of the full semiparametric model. From this result, we immediately obtain the optimal rate of convergence of tail index parameter estimators for more specific models previously studied. On top of the optimal rate of convergence, our LAN result also gives the minimal limiting variance of estimators (regular for our parametric model) through the convolution theorem. We show that the classical Hill estimator is regular for the submodels introduced with limiting variance equal to the induced convolution theorem bound. We also discuss the Weibull model in this respect.     

Nonparametric Bayes estimation of a distribution function with truncated data

A truncation bias affects the observation of a pair of variables (X,Y), so that data are available only if Y ⩽ X. In such a situation, the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE) of the distribution function of Y may have unpleasant features (Woodroofe, Ann. Statist. 13 (1985) 163–177). As a possible alternative, a nonparametric Bayes estimator is obtained using a Dirichlet prior (Ferguson, Ann. Statist. 1 (1973) 209–230). Its frequentist asymptotic behavior is investigated and found to be the same as the asymptotic behavior of the NPMLE. The results are illustrated by an example, with astronomical data, where the NPMLE is clearly unacceptable.     

On multiple change-point estimation for Poisson process

This work is devoted to the problem of change-point parameter estimation in the case of the presence of multiple changes in the intensity function of the Poisson process. It is supposed that the observations are independent inhomogeneous Poisson processes with the same intensity function and this intensity function has two jumps separated by a known quantity. The asymptotic behavior of the maximum-likelihood and Bayesian estimators are described. It is shown that these estimators are consistent, have different limit distributions, the moments converge and that the Bayesian estimators are asymptotically efficient. The numerical simulations illustrate the obtained results.     

Some results for type I censored sampling from geometric distributions

This paper gives the likelihood function for a Type I censored sample from the geometric distribution with parameter p, and the maximum likelihood estimator for p. Exact and asymptotic sampling distributions of joint sufficient statistics for p are derived. Such distributional results make it possible to develop tests or confidence intervals based on discrete censored data, which are not available now in the literature. Neyman-Pearson tests for p are developed. Examples are given to illustrate these results.