A method for high-dimensional smoothing

We consider the problem of the computation of smoothed additive functionals, which are some integrals with respect to the joint smoothing distribution. It is a key issue in inference for general state-space models as these quantities appear naturally for maximum likelihood parameter inference. The computation of smoothed additive functionals is very challenging as exact computations are not possible for non-linear non-Gaussian state-space models. It becomes even more difficult when the hidden state lies in a high dimensional space because traditional numerical methods suffer from the curse of dimensionality. We propose a new algorithm to efficiently calculate the smoothed additive functionals in an online manner for a specific family of high-dimensional state-space models in discrete time, which is named the Space–Time Forward Smoothing (STFS) algorithm. The cost of this algorithm is at least $O\left(N^2{d}^{2}T\right)$, which is polynomial in $d$. $T$ and $N$ denote the number of time steps and the number of particles respectively, while $d$ is the dimension of the hidden state space. Its superior performance over other existing methods is illustrated by various simulation studies. Moreover, STFS algorithm is successfully applied to perform Maximum Likelihood estimation for static model parameters both in an online and an offline manner.     

Hypothesis testing via a penalized-likelihood approach

It is illustrated in this paper that hypothesis testing procedures can be derived based on the penalized likelihood approach. Based on this point of view, many traditional hypothesis tests, including the two-sample mean test, score test, and Hotelling’s $T^2$ test are revisited under the penalized likelihood framework. Similar framework is also applicable to the empirical likelihood.     

Asymptotic normality and mean consistency for the weighted estimator in nonparametric regression models

In this paper, we mainly study the asymptotic properties of weighted estimator for the nonparametric regression model based on linearly negative quadrant dependent (LNQD, for short) errors. We obtain the rate of uniformly asymptotic normality of the weighted estimator which is nearly $O\left(n^{?1∕4}\right)$ when the moment condition is appropriate. The results generalize the corresponding ones of Yang (2003) from NA samples to LNQD samples and improve or extend the corresponding one of Li et al. (2012) for LNQD samples. Moreover, we obtain some results on mean consistency, uniformly mean consistency, and the rate of mean consistency for the weighted estimator. Finally we carry out some simulations to verify the validity of our results.     

Linear sufficiency and completeness in the context of estimating the parametric function in the general Gauss–Markov model

In this paper we consider linear sufficiency and linear completeness in the context of estimating the estimable parametric function K^′β${\mathbf{K}}^{\prime }\mathit{\beta }$ under the general Gauss–Markov model {y,Xβ,σ²V}$\{\mathbf{y},\mathbf{X}\mathit{\beta },{\sigma }^2\mathbf{V}\}$. We give new characterizations for linear sufficiency, and define and characterize linear completeness in a case of estimation of K^′β${\mathbf{K}}^{\prime }\mathit{\beta }$. Also, we consider a predictive approach for obtaining the best linear unbiased estimator of K^′β${\mathbf{K}}^{\prime }\mathit{\beta }$, and subsequently, we give the linear analogues of the Rao–Blackwell and Lehmann–Scheffé Theorems in the context of estimating K^′β${\mathbf{K}}^{\prime }\mathit{\beta }$.     

Optimality of the quasi-score estimator in a mean–variance model with applications to measurement error models

We consider a regression of y$y$ on x$x$ given by a pair of mean and variance functions with a parameter vector θ$\theta$ to be estimated that also appears in the distribution of the regressor variable x$x$. The estimation of θ$\theta$ is based on an extended quasi-score (QS) function. We show that the QS estimator is optimal within a wide class of estimators based on linear-in-y$y$ unbiased estimating functions. Of special interest is the case where the distribution of x$x$ depends only on a subvector α$\alpha$ of θ$\theta$, which may be considered a nuisance parameter. In general, α$\alpha$ must be estimated simultaneously together with the rest of θ$\theta$, but there are cases where α$\alpha$ can be pre-estimated. A major application of this model is the classical measurement error model, where the corrected score (CS) estimator is an alternative to the QS estimator. We derive conditions under which the QS estimator is strictly more efficient than the CS estimator.     

Grenander functionals and Cauchy's formula

Let ${\widehat{f}}_n$ be the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator of a decreasing density. Grenander characterized this as the left‐continuous slope of the least concave majorant of the empirical distribution function. For a sample from the uniform distribution, the asymptotic distribution of the L₂‐distance of the Grenander estimator to the uniform density was derived in an article by Groeneboom and Pyke by using a representation of the Grenander estimator in terms of conditioned Poisson and gamma random variables. This representation was also used in an article by Groeneboom and Lopuhaä to prove a central limit result of Sparre Andersen on the number of jumps of the Grenander estimator. Here we extend this to the proof of the main result on the L₂‐distance of the Grenander estimator to the uniform density and also prove a similar asymptotic normality results for the entropy functional. Cauchy's formula and saddle point methods are the main tools in our development.     

Accuracy of regularized D-rule for binary classification

We consider a regularized D-classification rule for high dimensional binary classification, which adapts the linear shrinkage estimator of a covariance matrix as an alternative to the sample covariance matrix in the D-classification rule (D-rule in short). We find an asymptotic expression for misclassification rate of the regularized D-rule, when the sample size $n$ and the dimension $p$ both increase and their ratio $p∕n$ approaches a positive constant $\gamma$. In addition, we compare its misclassification rate to the standard D-rule under various settings via simulation.     

Limit behaviors of the estimator of nonparametric regression model based on martingale difference errors

In the paper, we shall establish some limit theorems for the nonparametric estimator of the regression model, which include $L^p$-convergence, complete convergence, and strong convergence of the estimator. These results supplement and improve some known works.     

Minimum Hellinger distance estimation in a nonparametric mixture model

In this paper, we investigate the estimation problem of the mixture proportion λ$\lambda$ in a nonparametric mixture model of the form λF(x)+(1-λ)G(x)$\lambda F(x)+(1-\lambda )G(x)$ using the minimum Hellinger distance approach, where F and G are two unknown distributions. We assume that data from the distributions F and G   as well as from the mixture distribution λF+(1-λ)G$\lambda F+(1-\lambda )G$ are available. We construct a minimum Hellinger distance estimator of λ$\lambda$ and study its asymptotic properties. The proposed estimator is chosen to minimize the Hellinger distance between a parametric mixture model and a nonparametric density estimator. We also develop a maximum likelihood estimator of λ$\lambda$. Theoretical properties such as the existence, strong consistency, asymptotic normality and asymptotic efficiency of the proposed estimators are investigated. Robustness properties of the proposed estimator are studied using a Monte Carlo study. Two real data examples are also analyzed.     

Moderate deviations for parameter estimation in some time inhomogeneous diffusions

We study moderate deviations for the maximum likelihood estimation of some inhomogeneous diffusions. The moderate deviation principle with explicit rate functions is obtained. Moreover, we apply our result to the parameter estimation in α$\alpha$-Wiener bridges.     

Modified ridge-type for the Poisson regression model: simulation and application

The Poisson regression model (PRM) is employed in modelling the relationship between a count variable (y) and one or more explanatory variables. The parameters of PRM are popularly estimated using the Poisson maximum likelihood estimator (PMLE). There is a tendency that the explanatory variables grow together, which results in the problem of multicollinearity. The variance of the PMLE becomes inflated in the presence of multicollinearity. The Poisson ridge regression (PRRE) and Liu estimator (PLE) have been suggested as an alternative to the PMLE. However, in this study, we propose a new estimator to estimate the regression coefficients for the PRM when multicollinearity is a challenge. We perform a simulation study under different specifications to assess the performance of the new estimator and the existing ones. The performance was evaluated using the scalar mean square error criterion and the mean squared error prediction error. The aircraft damage data was adopted for the application study and the estimators’ performance judged by the SMSE and the mean squared prediction error. The theoretical comparison shows that the proposed estimator outperforms other estimators. This is further supported by the simulation study and the application result.KEYWORDS: Poisson regression model, Poisson maximum likelihood estimator, multicollinearity, Poisson ridge regression, Liu estimator, simulation     

A bivariate distribution with Lomax and geometric margins

We develop a stochastic model describing the joint distribution of $(X,N)$, where $N$ has a geometric distribution while $X$ is the sum of $N$ dependent, heavy-tail Pareto components. Models of this form arise in many applications, ranging from hydro-climatology to finance and insurance. We present fundamental properties of this vector, including marginal and conditional distributions, moments, representations, and parameter estimation. We also include an example from finance, illustrating modeling potential of this new bivariate distribution.     

Confidence intervals for P(Y

《Statistical Methodology》2012,9(3):445-455

Mantel-Haenszel estimators for irregular sparse K2×J tables

This paper deals with sparse K2×J(J>2)$K2\times J(J>2)$ tables. Projection-method Mantel–Haenszel (MH) estimators of the common odds ratios have been proposed for K2×J$K2\times J$ tables, which include Greenland's generalized MH estimator as a special case. The method projects log-transformed MH estimators for all K2×2$K2\times 2$ subtables, which were called naive MH estimators, onto a linear space spanned by log odds ratios. However, for sparse tables it is often the case that naive MH estimators are unable to be computed. In this paper we introduce alternative naive MH estimators using a graph that represents K2×J$K2\times J$ tables, and apply the projection to these alternative estimators. The idea leads to infinitely many reasonable estimators and we propose a method to choose the optimal one by solving a quadratic optimization problem induced by the graph, where some graph-theoretic arguments play important roles to simplify the optimization problem. An illustration is given using data from a case–control study. A simulation study is also conducted, which indicates that the MH estimator tends to have a smaller mean squared error than the MH estimator previously suggested and the conditional maximum likelihood estimator for sparse tables.