A Pointwise Estimator for the k-Fold Convolution of a Distribution Function

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with some parametric and nonparametric estimators for the k-fold convolution of a distribution function. An alternative estimator is proposed and its unbiasedness, asymptotic unbiasedness, and consistency properties are investigated. The asymptotic normality of this estimator is established. Some applications of the estimator are given in renewal processes. Finally, the computational procedures are described and the relative performance of these estimators for small sample sizes is investigated by a simulation study.     

Shrinkage estimation of location parameters in a multivariate skew-normal distribution

Abstract

This paper studies decision theoretic properties of Stein type shrinkage estimators in simultaneous estimation of location parameters in a multivariate skew-normal distribution with known skewness parameters under a quadratic loss. The benchmark estimator is the best location equivariant estimator which is minimax. A class of shrinkage estimators improving on the best location equivariant estimator is constructed when the dimension of the location parameters is larger than or equal to four. An empirical Bayes estimator is also derived, and motivated from the Bayesian procedure, we suggest a simple skew-adjusted shrinkage estimator and show its dominance property. The performances of these estimators are investigated by simulation.     

A comparison of estimators for the mean in the inverse gaussian distribution with a known coefficient of variation

In this paper, we discuss an estimation problem of the mean in the inverse Gaussian distribution with a known coefficient of variation. Two types of linear estimators for the mean, the linear minimum variance unbiased estimator and the linear minimum mean squared error estimator, are constructed by using the squared error loss function and their properties are examined. It is observed that, for small samples the performance of the proposed estimators is better than that of the maximum likelihood estimator, when the coefficient of variation is large.     

Robust Estimation of Multivariate Linear Model Based on Depth Weighted Mean and Scatter

Based on the projection depth weighted mean and scatter estimation of the joint distribution of (x, y), we introduce a robust estimator of the regression coefficients for the multivariate linear model. The new estimator possesses desirable properties including affine invariance, Fisher consistency, and asymptotic normality. Also, we study the robustness of the estimator in terms of breakdown point and influence function. Extensive simulation studies are performed to investigate the finite sample behavior of robustness and efficiency. The methodology is illustrated with a real data example.     

An empirical investigation of different operating characteristics of several estimators of the intraclass correlation in the analysis of binary data

This paper is concerned with properties (bias, standard deviation, mean square error and efficiency) of twenty six estimators of the intraclass correlation in the analysis of binary data. Our main interest is to study these properties when data are generated from different distributions. For data generation we considered three over-dispersed binomial distributions, namely, the beta-binomial distribution, the probit normal binomial distribution and a mixture of two binomial distributions. The findings regarding bias, standard deviation and mean squared error of all these estimators, are that (a) in general, the distributions of biases of most of the estimators are negatively skewed. The biases are smallest when data are generated from the beta-binomial distribution and largest when data are generated from the mixture distribution; (b) the standard deviations are smallest when data are generated from the beta-binomial distribution; and (c) the mean squared errors are smallest when data are generated from the beta-binomial distribution and largest when data are generated from the mixture distribution. Of the 26, nine estimators including the maximum likelihood estimator, an estimator based on the optimal quadratic estimating equations of Crowder (1987), and an analysis of variance type estimator is found to have least amount of bias, standard deviation and mean squared error. Also, the distributions of the bias, standard deviation and mean squared error for each of these estimators are, in general, more symmetric than those of the other estimators. Our findings regarding efficiency are that the estimator based on the optimal quadratic estimating equations has consistently high efficiency and least variability in the efficiency results. In the important range in which the intraclass correlation is small (≤0 5), on the average, this estimator shows best efficiency performance. The analysis of variance type estimator seems to do well for larger values of the intraclass correlation. In general, the estimator based on the optimal quadratic estimating equations seems to show best efficiency performance for data from the beta-binomial distribution and the probit normal binomial distribution, and the analysis of variance type estimator seems to do well for data from the mixture distribution.     

Extreme Quantile Estimation for Autoregressive Models

ABSTRACT

A quantile autoregresive model is a useful extension of classical autoregresive models as it can capture the influences of conditioning variables on the location, scale, and shape of the response distribution. However, at the extreme tails, standard quantile autoregression estimator is often unstable due to data sparsity. In this article, assuming quantile autoregresive models, we develop a new estimator for extreme conditional quantiles of time series data based on extreme value theory. We build the connection between the second-order conditions for the autoregression coefficients and for the conditional quantile functions, and establish the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimator. The finite sample performance of the proposed method is illustrated through a simulation study and the analysis of U.S. retail gasoline price.     

A non stochastic ridge regression estimator and comparison with the James-Stein estimator

Abstract

This article presents a non-stochastic version of the Generalized Ridge Regression estimator that arises from a discussion of the properties of a Generalized Ridge Regression estimator whose shrinkage parameters are found to be close to their upper bounds. The resulting estimator takes the form of a shrinkage estimator that is superior to both the Ordinary Least Squares estimator and the James-Stein estimator under certain conditions. A numerical study is provided to investigate the range of signal to noise ratio under which the new estimator dominates the James-Stein estimator with respect to the prediction mean square error.     

Proportional Trapping-Removal Model with a Known Ratio

ABSTRACT

Population size estimator is derived for a proportional trapping-removal model with a known ratio between two sub-population sizes, and the corresponding asymptotic properties is obtained. The performance of the proposed estimator is checked via simulation studies and an example.     

Moments of the Product-Limit Estimator Under Left-Truncation and Right-Censoring

ABSTRACT

The product-limit estimator (PLE) is a well-known nonparametric estimator for the distribution function of the lifetime when data are left-truncated and right-censored. Much work has focused on developing its asymptotic properties. Finite sample results have been difficult to obtain. This article is concerned about finite moments of the PLE. The moments of the PLE can be represented as a power series in n ^?1. In addition, through the U-statistic mechanism, we obtain also computable formulas for the first, second, third, and fourth of the PLE up to o(n ^?2). Finally, a numerical example is presented.     

A Note on the Hodges–Lehmann Estimator and the Logistic Distribution

ABSTRACT

It is well known that the Hodges–Lehmann estimator is asymptotically efficient for the location parameter of the logistic distribution. In this article we give a simple and direct proof that this property also characterizes the logistic between all the symmetric location distributions under mild conditions. Using pseudolikelihood, we also show how to find from the Hodges–Lehmann estimator an asymptotically efficient estimator of the scale parameter of the logistic distribution.     

Performance of the almost unbiased ridge-type principal component estimator in logistic regression model

ABSTRACT

This article considers some different parameter estimation methods in logistic regression model. In order to overcome multicollinearity, the almost unbiased ridge-type principal component estimator is proposed. The scalar mean squared error of the proposed estimator is derived and its properties are investigated. Finally, a numerical example and a simulation study are presented to show the performance of the proposed estimator.     

ON THE ESTIMATION OF SURVIVAL FUNCTION UNDER RANDOM CENSORSHIP

ABSTRACT

The paper deals with an improvement of the well-known Kaplan–Meier estimator of survival function when the censoring mechanism is random and independent of the failure times. Small sample size properties of the new estimator, as well as the original Kaplan–Meier estimator are inspected by means of Monte Carlo simulations. It follows from the simulations that the proposed estimator prevails with respect to some basic statistical characteristics.     

Bayes and Empirical Bayes Inference in Changepoint Problems

ABSTRACT

In the case of the random design nonparametric regression, the double smoothing technique is applied to estimate the multivariate regression function. The proposed estimator has desirable properties in both the finite sample and the asymptotic cases. In the finite sample case, it has bounded conditional (and unconditional) bias and variance. On the other hand, in the asymptotic case, it has the same mean square error as the local linear estimator in Fan (Design-Adaptive Nonparametric Regression. Journal of the American Statistical Association 1992, 87, 998–1004; Local Linear Regression Smoothers and Their Minimax Efficiencies. Annals of Statistics 1993, 21, 196–216). Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed estimator is better than the local linear estimator, because it has a smaller sample mean integrated square error and gives smoother estimates.     

Signed compound poisson integer-valued GARCH processes

Abstract

We propose signed compound Poisson integer-valued GARCH processes for the modeling of the difference of count time series data. We investigate the theoretical properties of these processes and we state their ergodicity and stationarity under mild conditions. We discuss the conditional maximum likelihood estimator when the series appearing in the difference are INGARCH with geometric distribution and explore its finite sample properties in a simulation study. Two real data examples illustrate this methodology.     

Minimum distance estimation in linear regression with strong mixing errors

Abstract

Minimum distance estimation on the linear regression model with independent errors is known to yield an efficient and robust estimator. We extend the method to the model with strong mixing errors and obtain an estimator of the vector of the regression parameters. The goal of this article is to demonstrate the proposed estimator still retains efficiency and robustness. To that end, this article investigates asymptotic distributional properties of the proposed estimator and compares it with other estimators. The efficiency and the robustness of the proposed estimator are empirically shown, and its superiority over the other estimators is established.     

TESTS FOR EQUALITY OF TWO DISTRIBUTIONS WITH CORRELATED INTERVAL CENSORED LIFE-TIMES

ABSTRACT

Large sample properties of Life-Table estimator are discussed for interval censored bivariate survival data. We restrict our attention to the situation where response times within pairs are not distinguishable, and the univariate survival distribution is the same for any individual within any pair. The large sample properties are applied to test for equality of two distributions with correlated response times where treatments are applied to different independent sets of cohorts. Data, which can be separated into two independent sets, from an angioplasty study where more than one procedure is performed on some patients are used to illustrate this methodology.     

A hypothesis testing procedure for the evaluation on the lifetime performance index of products with Burr XII distribution under progressive type I interval censoring

ABSTRACT

It is a very important topic these days to assessing the lifetime performance of products in manufacturing or service industries. Lifetime performance indices C_L is used to measure the larger-the-better type quality characteristics to evaluate the process performance for the improvement of quality and productivity. The lifetimes of products are assumed to have Burr XII distribution. The maximum likelihood estimator is used to estimate the lifetime performance index based on the progressive type I interval censored sample. The asymptotic distribution of this estimator is also developed. We use this estimator to build the new hypothesis testing algorithmic procedure with respect to a lower specification limit. Finally, two practical examples are given to illustrate the use of this testing algorithmic procedure to determine whether the process is capable.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF STOCHASTIC SHRINKAGE PARAMETERS IN RIDGE REGRESSION

ABSTRACT

In this article we derive the density and distribution functions of the stochastic shrinkage parameters of three well known operational Ridge Regression (RR) estimators by assuming normality. The stochastic behavior of these parameters is likely to affect the properties of the resulting RR estimator, therefore such knowledge can be useful in the selection of the shrinkage rule. Some numerical calculations are carried out to illustrate the behavior of these distributions, throwing light on the performance of the different RR estimators.     

Oracally efficient spline-backfitted kernel smoothing of additive partial linear measurement error model

Abstract

We consider statistical inference for additive partial linear models when the linear covariate is measured with error. A bias-corrected spline-backfitted kernel smoothing method is proposed. Under mild assumptions, the proposed component function and parameter estimator are oracally efficient and fast to compute. The nonparametric function estimator’s pointwise distribution is asymptotically equivalent to an function estimator in partial linear model. Finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators is assessed by simulation experiments. The proposed methods are applied to Boston house data set.     

Order-preserving Estimators and an Inequality on the Integration of Zonal Polynomial

ABSTRACT

Suppose X , p × p p.d. random matrix, has the distribution which depends on a p × p p.d. parameter matrix Σ and this distribution is orthogonally invariant. The orthogonally invariant estimator of Σ which has the eigenvalues of the same order as the eigenvalues of X is called order-preserving. We conjecture that a non-order-preserving estimator is dominated by modified order-preserving estimators with respect to the entropy (Stein's) loss function. We show that an inequality on the integration of zonal polynomial is sufficient for this conjecture. We also prove this inequality for the case p = 2.