On testing hypotheses with divergence statistics

Using divergence measures based on entropy functions, a procedure to test statistical hypotheses is proposed. Replacing the parameters by suitable estimators in the expresion of the divergence measure, the test statistics are obtained. Asymptotic distributions for these statistics are given in several cases when maximum likelihood estimators are considered, so they can be used to construct confidence intervals and to test statistical hypotheses based on one or more samples. These results can also be applied to multinomial populations. Tests of goodness of fit and tests of homogeneity can be constructed.     

Testing hypotheses in truncated samples by means of divergence statistics

In this paper we consider the problem of testing hypotheses in parametric models, when only the first r (of n) ordered observations are known.Using divergence measures, a procedure to test statistical hypotheses is proposed, Replacing the parameters by suitable estimators in the expresion of the divergence measure, the test statistics are obtained.Asymptotic distributions for these statistics are given in several cases when maximum likelihood estimators for truncated samples are considered.Applications of these results in testing statistical hypotheses, on the basis of truncated data, are presented.The small sample behavior of the proposed test statistics is analyzed in particular cases.A comparative study of power values is carried out by computer simulation.     

On preferred point geometry in statistics

A brief synopsis of progress in differential geometry in statistics is followed by a note of some points of tension in the developing relationship between these disciplines. The preferred point nature of much of statistics is described and suggests the adoption of a corresponding geometry which reduces these tensions. Applications of preferred point geometry in statistics are then reviewed. These include extensions of statistical manifolds, a statistical interpretation of duality in Amari's expected geometry, and removal of the apparent incompatibility between (Kullback–Leibler) divergence and geodesic distance. Equivalences between a number of new expected preferred point geometries are established and a new characterisation of total flatness shown. A preferred point geometry of influence analysis is briefly indicated. Technical details are kept to a minimum throughout to improve accessibility.     

Hellinger distances and α-entropy in a one-parameter class of density functions

Hellinger distances are considered as measures of distance between density functions, and an inequality concerning different Hellinger distances is proved. Distance measures based on the α-entropy are proposed, and their relationship to a Hellinger distance is shown. Furthermore explicit expressions for the distance measures examined are derived in a one—parameter class of density functions, including Weibull, Gamma, and Maxwell distributions.     

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.     

Distributions of test statistics for multiple outliers in exponential samples

Null as well as alternative distributions of two types of statistics used to test for multiple outliers in exponential samples are obtained. Of these two types one is based on the ratio of sum of the observations suspected to be outliers to sum of the sample observations and the other is Dixon's type. Powers of the tests based on these statistics are compared.

     

Some distribution-free rane-like statistics having the mann-whitney-wilcoxon null distribution

In this note we suggest a class of two-sample test statistics iich have, as their null distribution,the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon

ill distribution. An interesting property of these statistics is lat many are not rank statistics; that is, they cannot be coumplited from, the ranks of the original observations. However, they %e still distribution-free when the two populations are identi-il. This class contains the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test for the niality of location parameters of two distributions and a two-aiaple test for equality of spreads of two distributions recently ivestigated by Fligner and Killeen (1976)     

On distributions Of generalized order statistics

In a wide subclass of generalized order statistics, representations of marginal density and distribution functions are developed. The results are applied to obtain several relations, such as recurrence relations, and explicit expressions for the moments of generalized order statistics from Pareto, power function and Weibull distributions Moreover, characterizations of exponential distributions are shown by means of a distributional identity as well as by* an identity of expectations involving a subrange and a corresponding generalized order statistic.     

On special linear identities for order statistics

Linear identities for the distribution functions of order statistics from an iid sample are defined. It is shown that such identities are true for all distributions or to some discrete distributions taking a finite number of values.     

Non-parametric predictive inference for future order statistics

This article presents non-parametric predictive inference for future order statistics. Given the data consisting of n real-valued observations, m future observations are considered and predictive probabilities are presented for the rth-ordered future observation. In addition, joint and conditional probabilities for events involving multiple future order statistics are presented. The article further presents the use of such predictive probabilities for order statistics in statistical inference, in particular considering pairwise and multiple comparisons based on two or more independent groups of data.     

Characterization of distributions by conditional expectation of generalized order statistics

In this work, general forms of many well-known continuous probability distributions are characterized by conditional expectation of some functions of generalized order statistics. These results are the generalization of the characterization results based on conditional expectation of the functions of order statistics given by Khan and Abu-Salih (1989).     

Modern statistics: the myth and the magic

Summary.  The paper is a personal exploration of the puzzling contradiction between the fundamental excitement of statistics and its poor public image. It begins with the historical foundations and proceeds through the role of applications and the dramatic impact of the computer in shaping the discipline. The mismatch between the reality of statistics and its public perception arises from a number of dichotomies, some of which are explored. In particular, although statistics is perhaps typically seen as an impersonal discipline, in some sense it is very personal, and many of its applications are aimed at providing unique benefit to individuals. This benefit depends on the creation of detailed data sets describing individuals, but the contrary view is that this represents an invasion of privacy. Some observations on statistical education are made, and issues which will affect the future health of the discipline are examined.     

Dempster's combination rule and sufficient statistics

In his articles (1966-1968) concerning statistical inference based on lower and upper probabilities, Dempster refers to the connection between Fisher's fiducial argument and his own ideas of statistical inference. Dempster's main concern however focuses on the “Bayesian” aspects of his theory and not on an elaboration of the relation between Fisher's and his ideas. This article attempts to work out the connection between those two approaches and focuses primarily on the question, whether Dempster's combination rule, his upper and lower probabilty based on sufficient statistics and inference based on sufficient statistics in Fisher's sense are consistent. To be adequate to Fisher's reasoning, we deal with absolutely continuous, one parametric families of distributions.This is certainly not the usual assumption in context with Dempster's theory and implies a normative but straightforward definition concerning the underlying conditional distribution; this definition however is done in Dempster's spirit as can be seen from his articles, (1966, 1968,a,b). Under those assumptions it can be shown that - similar to Lindley's results concerning consistency in fiducial reasoning (1958) - the combination rule, Dempster's procedure based on sufficient statistics and fiducial inference by sufficient statistics agree iff the parametric family under consideration can be transformed to location parameter form.     

Generalized discriminant analysis based on distances

This paper describes a method of generalized discriminant analysis based on a dissimilarity matrix to test for differences in a priori groups of multivariate observations. Use of classical multidimensional scaling produces a low‐dimensional representation of the data for which Euclidean distances approximate the original dissimilarities. The resulting scores are then analysed using discriminant analysis, giving tests based on the canonical correlations. The asymptotic distributions of these statistics under permutations of the observations are shown to be invariant to changes in the distributions of the original variables, unlike the distributions of the multi‐response permutation test statistics which have been considered by other workers for testing differences among groups. This canonical method is applied to multivariate fish assemblage data, with Monte Carlo simulations to make power comparisons and to compare theoretical results and empirical distributions. The paper proposes classification based on distances. Error rates are estimated using cross‐validation.     

Powerful nonparametric statistics to compare k independent ROC curves

The authors deal with the problem of comparing receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves from independent samples. From a nonparametric approach, they propose and study three different statistics. Their asymptotic distributions are obtained and a resample plan is considered. In order to study the statistical power of the introduced statistics, a simulation study is carried out. The (observed) results suggest that, for the considered models, the new statistics are more powerful than the usually employed ones (the Venkatraman test and the usual area under the ROC curve criterion) in non-uniform dominance situations and quite good otherwise.     

An exact distribution-free test comparing two multivariate distributions based on adjacency

Summary.  A new test is proposed comparing two multivariate distributions by using distances between observations. Unlike earlier tests using interpoint distances, the new test statistic has a known exact distribution and is exactly distribution free. The interpoint distances are used to construct an optimal non-bipartite matching, i.e. a matching of the observations into disjoint pairs to minimize the total distance within pairs. The cross-match statistic is the number of pairs containing one observation from the first distribution and one from the second. Distributions that are very different will exhibit few cross-matches. When comparing two discrete distributions with finite support, the test is consistent against all alternatives. The test is applied to a study of brain activation measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging during two linguistic tasks, comparing brains that are impaired by arteriovenous abnormalities with normal controls. A second exact distribution-free test is also discussed: it ranks the pairs and sums the ranks of the cross-matched pairs.     

Some distributional problems connected with order statistics

Two characterizations of distributions symmetric about zero are given. These are based on the distributional properties of the squates of the order statistics from a random sample from these distributions. A result explering the relation between the distribution funcitons of two unordered (not necessarily independent) variables and those of their order statistics is presented. This has some interesting applications.     

Measurements of separation among probability densities or random variables

Distance between two probability densities or two random variables is a well established concept in statistics. The present paper considers generalizations of distances to separation measurements for three or more elements in a function space. Geometric intuition and examples from hypothesis testing suggest lower and upper bounds for such measurements in terms of pairwise distances; but also in L_p spaces some useful non-pairwise separation measurements always lie within these bounds. Examples of such separation measurements are the Bayes probability of correct classification among several arbitrary distributions, and the expected range among several random variables.     

Random distances and edge correction

Two classes of random distances (generated as contact distances or free path lengths) external to a stationary random closed set in Euclidean space are introduced. The censored distance distributions within bounded region are obtained. Unbiased estimators of the random distance distribution functions using only the information from inside the bounded region are constructed.     

A survey of robust statistics

We argue that robust statistics has multiple goals, which are not always aligned. Robust thinking grew out of data analysis and the realisation that empirical evidence is at times supported merely by one or a few observations. The paper examines the outgrowth from this criticism of the statistical method over the last few decades. This research was supported in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation. An erratum to this article can be found at