An Efficient Method of Parameter and Quantile Estimation for the Three-Parameter Weibull Distribution Based on Statistics Invariant to Unknown Location Parameter

The three-parameter Weibull distribution is widely used in life testing and reliability analysis. In this article, we propose an efficient method for the estimation of parameters and quantiles of the three-parameter Weibull distribution, which avoids the problem of unbounded likelihood, by using statistics invariant to unknown location. Through a Monte Carlo simulation study, we show that the proposed method performs well compared to other prominent methods based on bias and MSE. Finally, we present two illustrative examples.     

Parameter and quantile estimation for the three-parameter gamma distribution based on statistics invariant to unknown location

The three-parameter gamma distribution is widely used as a model for distributions of life spans, reaction times, and for other types of skewed data. In this paper, we propose an efficient method of estimation for the parameters and quantiles of the three-parameter gamma distribution, which avoids the problem of unbounded likelihood, based on statistics invariant to unknown location. Through a Monte Carlo simulation study, we then show that the proposed method performs well compared to other prominent methods in terms of bias and mean squared error. Finally, we present two illustrative examples.     

A consistent parameter estimation in the three-parameter lognormal distribution

In this work, we propose a consistent method of estimation for the parameters of the three-parameter lognormal distribution. We then discuss some properties of these estimators and show by means of a Monte Carlo simulation study that the proposed estimators perform better than some other prominent estimators in terms of bias and root mean squared error. Finally, we present two real-life examples to illustrate the method of estimation proposed.     

Estimation of parameters of a right truncated exponential distribution

The maximum likelihood, moment and mixture of the estimators are for samples from the right truncated exponential distribution. The estimators are compared empirically when all the parameters are unknown; their bias and mean square error are investigated with the help of numerical technique. We have shown that these estimators are asymptotically unbiased. At the end, we conclude that mixture estimators are better than the maximum likelihood and moment estimators.     

COMPARATIVE CALIBRATION WITH SUBGROUPS

The main object of this paper is to consider structural comparative calibration models under the assumption that the unknown quantity being measured is not identically distributed for all units. We consider the situation where the mean of the unknown quantity being measured is different within subgroups of the population. Method of moments and maximum likelihood estimators are considered for estimating the parameters in the model. Large sample inference is facilitated by the derivation of the asymptotic variances. An application to a data set which indeed motivated the consideration of such general model and was obtained by measuring the heights of a group of trees with five different instruments is considered.     

A Comparison of Unit-Root Test Criteria

During the past 15 years, the ordinary least squares estimator and the corresponding pivotal statistic have been widely used for testing the unit-root hypothesis in autoregressive processes. Recently, several new criteria, based on maximum likelihood estimators and weighted symmetric estimators, have been proposed. In this article, we describe several different test criteria. Results from a Monte Carlo study that compares the power of the different criteria indicate that the new tests are more powerful against the stationary alternative. Of the procedures studied, the weighted symmetric estimator and the unconditional maximum likelihood estimator provide the most powerful tests against the stationary alternative. As an illustration, the weekly series of one-month treasury-bill rates is analyzed.     

Estimation of parameters and the mean life of a mixed failure time distribution

This paper deals with estimation of parameters and the mean life of a mixed failure time distribution that has a discrete probability mass at zero and an exponential distribution with mean O for positive values. A new sampling scheme similar to Jayade and Prasad (1990) is proposed for estimation of parameters. We derive expressions for biases and mean square errors (MSEs) of the maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs). We also obtain the uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimators (UMVUEs) of the parameters. We compare the estimator of O and mean life fj based on the proposed sampling scheme with the estimators obtained by using the sampling scheme of Jayade and Prasad (1990).     

Computing maximum likelihood estimates from type II doubly censored exponential data

It is well-known that, under Type II double censoring, the maximum likelihood (ML) estimators of the location and scale parameters, θ and δ, of a twoparameter exponential distribution are linear functions of the order statistics. In contrast, when θ is known, theML estimator of δ does not admit a closed form expression. It is shown, however, that theML estimator of the scale parameter exists and is unique. Moreover, it has good large-sample properties. In addition, sharp lower and upper bounds for this estimator are provided, which can serve as starting points for iterative interpolation methods such as regula falsi. Explicit expressions for the expected Fisher information and Cramér-Rao lower bound are also derived. In the Bayesian context, assuming an inverted gamma prior on δ, the uniqueness, boundedness and asymptotics of the highest posterior density estimator of δ can be deduced in a similar way. Finally, an illustrative example is included.     

Some inadmissibility results for estimating ordered uniform scale parameters

Independent random samples (of possibly unequal sizes) are drawn from k (≥2) uniform populations having unknown scale parameters μ₁,…,μ_k. The problem of componentwise estimation of ordered parameters is investigated. The loss function is assumed to be squared error and the cases of known and unknown ordering among μ₁,…,μ_k. are dealt with separately. Sufficient conditions for an estimator to be inadmissible are provided and as a consequence, many natural estimators are shown to be inadmissible, Better estimators are provided.     

Estimation of parameters of mixed failure time distribution

The problem of estimation of parameters of a mixture of degenerate and exponential distributions is considered. A new sampling scheme is proposed and the exact bias and the mean square error (MSE) of the maximum likelihood estimators of the parameters is derived. Moment estimators, their approximate biases and the MSE are obtained. Asymptotic distributions of the estimators are also obtained for both the cases.     

Estimation of the Bias of the Maximum Likelihood Estimators in an Extreme Value Context

Interest is centered on the maximum likelihood (ML) estimators of the parameters of the Generalized Pareto Distribution in an extreme value context. Our aim consists of reducing the bias of these estimates for which no explicit expression is available. To circumvent this difficulty, we prove that these estimators are asymptotically equivalent to one-step estimators introduced by Beirlant et al. (2010 Beirlant , J. , Guillou , A. , Toulemonde , G. ( 2010 ). Peaks-over-threshold modeling under random censoring . Commun. Statist. Theor. Meth.  [Google Scholar]) in a right-censoring context. Then, using this equivalence property, we estimate the bias of these one-step estimators to approximate the asymptotic bias of the ML-estimators. Finally, a small simulation study and an application to a real data set are provided to illustrate that these new estimators actually exhibit reduced bias.     

Nonparametric (smoothed) likelihood and integral equations

We show that there is an intimate connection between the theory of nonparametric (smoothed) maximum likelihood estimators for certain inverse problems and integral equations. This is illustrated by estimators for interval censoring and deconvolution problems. We also discuss the asymptotic efficiency of the MLE for smooth functionals in these models.     

The maximum likelihood estimators in the growth curve model with serial covariance structure

The maximum likelihood estimators of unknown parameters in the growth curve model with serial covariance structure under some conditions are derived in the paper.