A diagnostic statistic for functional-coefficient autoregressive models

In this paper, functional coefficient autoregressive (FAR) models proposed by Chen and Tsay (1993) are considered. We propose a diagnostic statistic for FAR models constructed by comparing between parametric and nonparametric estimators of the functional form of the FAR models. We show asymptotic properties of our statistic mathematically and it can be applied to the estimation of the delay parameter and the specification of the functional form of FAR models.     

Asymptotically Unbiased Estimation of the Coefficient of Tail Dependence

Abstract. We introduce and study a class of weighted functional estimators for the coefficient of tail dependence in bivariate extreme value statistics. Asymptotic normality of these estimators is established under a second‐order condition on the joint tail behaviour, some conditions on the weight function and for appropriately chosen sequences of intermediate order statistics. Asymptotically unbiased estimators are constructed by judiciously chosen linear combinations of weighted functional estimators, and variance optimality within this class of asymptotically unbiased estimators is discussed. The finite sample performance of some specific examples from our class of estimators and some alternatives from the recent literature are evaluated with a small simulation experiment.     

Estimating multivariate autoregressive moving average models by fitting long autoregressions

Some simple methods for the estimation of mixed multivariate autoregressive moving average time series models are introduced. The methods require the fitting of a long autoregression to the data and the computation of consistent initial estimates for the parameters of the model. After these preliminaries the estimators of the paper are obtained by applying weighted least squares to a multivariate auxiliary regression model. Two types of weight matrices are considered. Both of them yield estimators which are strongly consistent and asymptotically normally distributed. The first estimators are also asymptotically efficient while the second ones are not fully efficient but computationally simple. A simulation study is performed to illustrate the behaviour of the estimators in finite samples.     

Compromise Pitman estimators

In this paper, we investigate the construction of compromise estimators of location and scale, by averaging over several models selected among a specified large set of possible models. The weight given to each distribution is based on the profile likelihood, which leads to a notion of distance between distributions as we study the asymptotic behaviour of such estimators. The selection of the models is made in a minimax way, in order to choose distributions that are close to any possible distribution. We also present simulation results of such compromise estimators based on contaminated Gaussian and Student's t distributions.     

Tail density estimation for exploratory data analysis using kernel methods

It is often critical to accurately model the upper tail behaviour of a random process. Nonparametric density estimation methods are commonly implemented as exploratory data analysis techniques for this purpose and can avoid model specification biases implied by using parametric estimators. In particular, kernel-based estimators place minimal assumptions on the data, and provide improved visualisation over scatterplots and histograms. However kernel density estimators can perform poorly when estimating tail behaviour above a threshold, and can over-emphasise bumps in the density for heavy tailed data. We develop a transformation kernel density estimator which is able to handle heavy tailed and bounded data, and is robust to threshold choice. We derive closed form expressions for its asymptotic bias and variance, which demonstrate its good performance in the tail region. Finite sample performance is illustrated in numerical studies, and in an expanded analysis of the performance of global climate models.     

Trimmed mean and bounded influence estimators for the parameters of the ar(1) process

Trimmed mean type estimators are proposcd for estimating the parameters of an AR(1) process. Thcsc definitions are then extended to bounded influence trimmed mcans in analogy to those in the regression case. The behaviour of the estimators are studied numerically under two

outlicr generating models.     

Wavelet Threshold Estimators for Data with Correlated Noise

Wavelet threshold estimators for data with stationary correlated noise are constructed by applying a level-dependent soft threshold to the coefficients in the wavelet transform. A variety of threshold choices is proposed, including one based on an unbiased estimate of mean-squared error. The practical performance of the method is demonstrated on examples, including data from a neurophysiological context. The theoretical properties of the estimators are investigated by comparing them with an ideal but unattainable `bench-mark', that can be considered in the wavelet context as the risk obtained by ideal spatial adaptivity, and more generally is obtained by the use of an `oracle' that provides information that is not actually available in the data. It is shown that the level-dependent threshold estimator performs well relative to the bench-mark risk, and that its minimax behaviour cannot be improved on in order of magnitude by any other estimator. The wavelet domain structure of both short- and long-range dependent noise is considered, and in both cases it is shown that the estimators have near optimal behaviour simultaneously in a wide range of function classes, adapting automatically to the regularity properties of the underlying model. The proofs of the main results are obtained by considering a more general multivariate normal decision theoretic problem.     

Local regression for vector responses

We explore a class of vector smoothers based on local polynomial regression for fitting nonparametric regression models which have a vector response. The asymptotic bias and variance for the class of estimators are derived for two different ways of representing the variance matrices within both a seemingly unrelated regression and a vector measurement error framework. We show that the asymptotic behaviour of the estimators is different in these four cases. In addition, the placement of the kernel weights in weighted least squares estimators is very important in the seeming unrelated regressions problem (to ensure that the estimator is asymptotically unbiased) but not in the vector measurement error model. It is shown that the component estimators are asymptotically uncorrelated in the seemingly unrelated regressions model but asymptotically correlated in the vector measurement error model. These new and interesting results extend our understanding of the problem of smoothing dependent data.     

DELAY ESTIMATION BY A HILBERT TRANSFORM METHOD

This paper describes an estimation of the time delay between two stationary time series signals, in which an input signal is measured with little noise and an output signal is the sum of a noise and the response from a linear system. We use the Hilbert transform relation for minimum delay systems to estimate the time delay. Some computer simulation results are given to evaluate the performance of the proposed method.     

On Smooth Statistical Tail Functionals

Many estimators of the extreme value index of a distribution function F that are based on a certain number k _n of largest order statistics can be represented as a statistical tail function al, that is a functional T applied to the empirical tail quantile function Q _n. We study the asymptotic behaviour of such estimators with a scale and location invariant functional T under weak second order conditions on F . For that purpose first a new approximation of the empirical tail quantile function is established. As a consequence we obtain weak consistency and asymptotic normality of T ( Q _n) if T is continuous and Hadamard differentiable, respectively, at the upper quantile function of a generalized Pareto distribution and k _pn tends to infinity sufficiently slowly. Then we investigate the asymptotic variance and bias. In particular, those functionals T re characterized that lead to an estimator with minimal asymptotic variance. Finally, we introduce a method to construct estimators of the extreme value index with a made-to-order asymptotic behaviour     

A conditional perspective of weighted variance estimation of the optimal regression estimator

The estimation of the variance for the GREG (general regression) estimator by weighted residuals is widely accepted as a method which yields estimators with good conditional properties. Since the optimal (regression) estimator shares the properties of GREG estimators which are used in the construction of weighted variance estimators, we introduce the weighting procedure also for estimating the variance of the optimal estimator. This method of variance estimation was originally presented in a seemingly ad hoc manner, and we shall discuss it from a conditional point of view and also look at an alternative way of utilizing the weights. Examples that stress conditional behaviour of estimators are then given for elementary sampling designs such as simple random sampling, stratified simple random sampling and Poisson sampling, where for the latter design we have conducted a small simulation study.     

Generalised Variance Function Estimation for Binary Variables in Large‐Scale Sample Surveys

Generalised variance function (GVF) models are data analysis techniques often used in large‐scale sample surveys to approximate the design variance of point estimators for population means and proportions. Some potential advantages of the GVF approach include operational simplicity, more stable sampling errors estimates and providing a convenient method of summarising results when a high number of survey variables is considered. In this paper, several parametric and nonparametric methods for GVF estimation with binary variables are proposed and compared. The behavior of these estimators is analysed under heteroscedasticity and in the presence of outliers and influential observations. An empirical study based on the annual survey of living conditions in Galicia (a region in the northwest of Spain) illustrates the behaviour of the proposed estimators.     

LARGE AND MODERATE DEVIATIONS PRINCIPLES FOR KERNEL ESTIMATION OF A MULTIVARIATE DENSITY AND ITS PARTIAL DERIVATIVES

This paper studies the large deviations behaviour of the kernel estimator of a probability density f, by considering the case when the kernel takes negative values. It establishes large and moderate deviations principles for the kernel estimators of the partial derivatives of f. The estimators of the derivatives exhibit a quadratic behaviour for both the large and the moderate deviations scales, whereas for the density estimator there is a classical gap between the large deviations and the moderate deviations asymptotics.     

Asymptotics for L1-estimators of regression parameters under heteroscedasticityY

We consider the asymptotic behaviour of L₁ -estimators in a linear regression under a very general form of heteroscedasticity. The limiting distributions of the estimators are derived under standard conditions on the design. We also consider the asymptotic behaviour of the bootstrap in the heteroscedastic model and show that it is consistent to first order only if the limiting distribution is normal.     

Influence functions applied to the estimation of mean rain rate

In this paper we illustrate the usefulness of influence functions for studying properties of various statistical estimators of mean rain rate using space-borne radar data. In Martin (1999), estimators using censoring, minimum chi-square, and least squares are compared in terms of asymptotic variance. Here, we use influence functions to consider robustness properties of the same estimators. We also obtain formulas for the asymptotic variance of the estimators using influence functions, and thus show that they may also be used for studying relative efficiency. The least squares estimator, although less efficient, is shown to be more robust in the sense that it has the smallest gross-error sensitivity. In some cases, influence functions associated with the estimators reveal counterintuitive behaviour. For example, observations that are less than the mean rain rate may increase the estimated mean. The additional information gleaned from influence functions may be used to understand better and improve the estimation procedures themselves.     

UMVU estimation of the reliability function of the generalized life distributions

The problems of estimating the reliability function and P=P_rX > Y are considered for the generalized life distributions. Uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimators (UMVUES) of the powers of the parameter involved in the probabilistic model and the probability density function (pdf) at a specified point are derived. The UMVUE of the pdf is utilized to obtain the UMVUE of the reliability function and ‘P’. Our method of obtaining these estimators is quite simple than the traditional approaches. A theoretical method of studying the behaviour of the hazard-rate is provided.     

Effect of dependence on statistics for determination of change

Quite a number of test statistics and estimators for detection of a change in the mean of a series of independent observations were proposed and studied. The purpose of this paper is to examine the behaviour of these statistics if the observations are dependent, particularly, if they form a linear process.     

EFFICIENT ESTIMATION IN REGRESSION FRAILTY OR TRANSFORMATION MODELS BASED ON AN ALGORITHM

This paper considers a regression frailty or transformation model in which the structural parameter is the vector of regression coefficients and the nuisance parameter is a vector of arbitrarily high dimension. It proposes jointly (implicitly) defined parameter estimators which have been proved to be consistent and asymptotically efficient, and develops an algorithmic procedure that provides these estimators. The behaviour of the algorithm is illustrated by analysing simulated and real data.     

Non parametric estimation of the structural expectation of a stochastic increasing function

This article introduces a non parametric warping model for functional data. When the outcome of an experiment is a sample of curves, data can be seen as realizations of a stochastic process, which takes into account the variations between the different observed curves. The aim of this work is to define a mean pattern which represents the main behaviour of the set of all the realizations. So, we define the structural expectation of the underlying stochastic function. Then, we provide empirical estimators of this structural expectation and of each individual warping function. Consistency and asymptotic normality for such estimators are proved.     

Asymptotic results for random coefficient bifurcating autoregressive processes

The purpose of this paper is to study the asymptotic behaviour of the weighted least-squares estimators of the unknown parameters of random coefficient bifurcating autoregressive processes. Under suitable assumptions on the immigration and the inheritance, we establish the almost sure convergence of our estimators, as well as a quadratic strong law and central limit theorems. Our study mostly relies on limit theorems for vector-valued martingales.