The asymptotic covariance matrix of the QMLE in ARMA models

A compact analytical representation of the asymptotic covariance matrix, in terms of model parameters directly, of the quasi maximum likelihood estimator (QMLE) is derived in autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models with possible nonzero means and non-Gaussian error terms. For model parameters excluding the error variance, it is found that the Huber (1967 Huber, P. J. (1967). The behavior of maximum likelihood estimates under nonstandard conditions. Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability, Volume 1, pp. 221–233. [Google Scholar]) sandwich form for the asymptotic covariance matrix degenerates into the inverse of the associated information matrix. In comparison to the existing result that involves the second moments of some auxiliary variables for the case of zero-mean ARMA models, the analytical asymptotic covariance in this article has an advantage in that it can be conveniently estimated by plugging in the estimated model parameters directly.     

Estimation of finite population mean using two auxiliary variables in stratified two-phase sampling

We propose a new ratio type estimator for estimating the finite population mean using two auxiliary variables in stratified two-phase sampling. Expressions for bias and mean squared error of the proposed estimator are derived up to the first order of approximation. The proposed estimator is more efficient than the usual stratified sample mean estimator, traditional stratified ratio estimator and some other stratified estimators including Bahl and Tuteja (1991 Bahl, S., Tuteja, R. K. (1991). Ratio and product type exponential estimators. Information and Optimization Sciences 12:159–163. [Google Scholar]), Chami et al. (2012 Chami, P. S., Singh, B., Thomas, D. (2012). A two-prameter ratio-product-ratio estimator using auxiliary information. ISRN Probability and Statistics 2012:1–15, doi: 10.5402/2012/103860.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Chand (1975 Chand, L. (1975) Some Ratio Type Estimator Based on two or more Auxiliary Variables, Ph.D. dissertation, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (unpublished). [Google Scholar]), Choudhury and Singh (2012 Choudhury, S., Singh, B. K. (2012). A class of chain ratio-product type estimators with two auxiliary variables under double sampling scheme. Journal of the Korean Statistical Society 41:247–256. [Google Scholar]), Hamad et al. (2013 Hamad, N., Hanif, M., Haider, N. (2013). A regression type estimator with two auxiliary variables for two-phase sampling. Open Journal of Statistics, 3:74–78. [Google Scholar]), Vishwakarma and Gangele (2014 Vishwakarma, G. K., Gangele, R. K. (2014). A class of chain ratio-type exponential estimators in double sampling using two auxiliary variates. Applied Mathematics and Computation 227:171–175. [Google Scholar]), Sanaullah et al. (2014 Sanaullah, A., Ali, H. M., Noor ul Amin, M., Hanif, M. (2014). Generalized exponential chain ratio estimators under stratified two-phase random sampling. Applied Mathematics and Computation 226:541–547. [Google Scholar]), and Chanu and Singh (2014 Chanu, W. K., Singh, B. K. (2014). Improved class of ratio-cum-product estimators of finite population mean in two phase sampling. Global Journal of Science Frontier Research: F Mathematics and Decision Sciences 14(2):1–14. [Google Scholar]).     

Ratio-Cum-Product Type Exponential Estimator of Finite Population Mean in Stratified Random Sampling

This article addresses the problem of estimating the finite population mean in stratified random sampling using auxiliary information. Motivated by Singh (1967 Singh , M. P. ( 1967 ). Ratio cum product method of estimation . Metrika 12 : 34 – 42 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Bahl and Tuteja (1991 Bahl , S. , Tuteja , R. K. ( 1991 ). Ratio and product type exponential estimator . Inform. Optimiz. Sci. 12 ( 1 ): 159 – 163 .[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) a ratio-cum-product type exponential estimator has been suggested and its bias and mean squared error have been derived under large sample approximation. Suggested estimator has been compared with usual unbiased estimator of population mean in stratified random sampling, combined ratio estimator, combined product estimator, ratio and product type exponential estimator of Singh et al. (2008 Singh , R. , Kumar , M. , Singh , R. D. , Chaudhary , M. K. ( 2008 ). Exponential ratio type estimators in stratified random sampling. Presented in International Symposium on Optimisation and Statistics (I.S.O.S) at A.M.U., Aligarh, India, during 29–31 Dec . [Google Scholar]). Conditions under which suggested estimator is more efficient than other considered estimators have been obtained. A numerical illustration is given in support of the theoretical findings.     

Some new methods to solve multicollinearity in logistic regression

The binary logistic regression is a widely used statistical method when the dependent variable is binary or dichotomous. In some of the situations of logistic regression, independent variables are collinear which leads to the problem of multicollinearity. It is known that multicollinearity affects the variance of maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) negatively. Thus, this article introduces new methods to estimate the shrinkage parameters of Liu-type logistic estimator proposed by Inan and Erdogan (2013 Inan, D., Erdogan, B. E. (2013). Liu-type logistic estimator. Communications in Statistics-Simulation and Computation 42(7):1578–1586. [Google Scholar]) which is a generalization of the Liu-type estimator defined by Liu (2003 Liu, K. (2003). Using Liu-type estimator to combat collinearity. Communications in Statistics: Theory and Methods 32(5):1009–1020. [Google Scholar]) for the linear model. A Monte Carlo study is used to show the effectiveness of the proposed methods over MLE using the mean squared error (MSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) criteria. A real data application is illustrated to show the benefits of new methods. According to the results of the simulation and application proposed methods have better performance than MLE.     

Discriminant analysis under the common principal components model

For two or more populations of which the covariance matrices have a common set of eigenvectors, but different sets of eigenvalues, the common principal components (CPC) model is appropriate. Pepler et al. (2015 Pepler, P. T., Uys, D. W. and Nel, D. G. (2015). Regularised covariance matrix estimation under the common principal components model. Communications in Statistics: Simulation and Computation. (In press). [Google Scholar]) proposed a regularized CPC covariance matrix estimator and showed that this estimator outperforms the unbiased and pooled estimators in situations, where the CPC model is applicable. This article extends their work to the context of discriminant analysis for two groups, by plugging the regularized CPC estimator into the ordinary quadratic discriminant function. Monte Carlo simulation results show that CPC discriminant analysis offers significant improvements in misclassification error rates in certain situations, and at worst performs similar to ordinary quadratic and linear discriminant analysis. Based on these results, CPC discriminant analysis is recommended for situations, where the sample size is small compared to the number of variables, in particular for cases where there is uncertainty about the population covariance matrix structures.     

A two-stage algorithm for computation of the exact distribution of sums of spacings

Based on the recursions in Huffer (1988 Huffer, F. (1988). Divided differences and the joint distribution of linear combinations of spacings. Journal of Applied Probability 25:346–354. [Google Scholar]) and Huffer and Lin (2001 Huffer, F. W., Lin, C. T. (2001). Computing the joint distribution of general linear combinations of spacings or exponential variates. Statistica Sinica 11:1141–1157. [Google Scholar]), we present a two-stage algorithm and two specialized methods for evaluating the probabilities involving linear combination of spacings of special forms. The two-stage algorithm combines the advantages of marking algorithm in Huffer and Lin (1997 Huffer, F. W., Lin, C. T. (1997). Computing the exact distribution of the extremes of sums of consecutive spacings. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 26:117–132. [Google Scholar]) and general algorithm in Huffer and Lin (2001 Huffer, F. W., Lin, C. T. (2001). Computing the joint distribution of general linear combinations of spacings or exponential variates. Statistica Sinica 11:1141–1157. [Google Scholar]). The proposed methods can analytically derive the exact expressions for some specific problems, and efficiently handle problems such as the distribution of the circular scan statistic and multiple coverage probabilities.     

A new estimator of finite population mean based on the dual use of the auxiliary information

When a sufficient correlation between the study variable and the auxiliary variable exists, the ranks of the auxiliary variable are also correlated with the study variable, and thus, these ranks can be used as an effective tool in increasing the precision of an estimator. In this paper, we propose a new improved estimator of the finite population mean that incorporates the supplementary information in forms of: (i) the auxiliary variable and (ii) ranks of the auxiliary variable. Mathematical expressions for the bias and the mean-squared error of the proposed estimator are derived under the first order of approximation. The theoretical and empirical studies reveal that the proposed estimator always performs better than the usual mean, ratio, product, exponential-ratio and -product, classical regression estimators, and Rao (1991 Rao, T.J. (1991). On certail methods of improving ration and regression estimators. Commun. Stat. Theory Methods 20(10):3325–3340.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Singh et al. (2009 Singh, R., Chauhan, P., Sawan, N., Smarandache, F. (2009). Improvement in estimating the population mean using exponential estimator in simple random sampling. Int. J. Stat. Econ. 3(A09):13–18. [Google Scholar]), Shabbir and Gupta (2010 Shabbir, J., Gupta, S. (2010). On estimating finite population mean in simple and stratified random sampling. Commun. Stat. Theory Methods 40(2):199–212.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Grover and Kaur (2011 Grover, L.K., Kaur, P. (2011). An improved estimator of the finite population mean in simple random sampling. Model Assisted Stat. Appl. 6(1):47–55. [Google Scholar], 2014) estimators.     

On Some Applications of Poisson Point Processes

Poisson point processes play important role in various domains of Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics. In this article, we investigate only two applications of Poisson point processes: a generated white noise problem and parameters estimation problem. This work continues the investigations started in paper Egorov and Kondybaev (2009 Egorov , V. A. , Kondybaev , N. S. ( 2009 ). On the estimation of a signal covered by background om Poisson noise . Methods and programs of data processing 4 : 75 – 81 . [Google Scholar]).     

Unbiased Weibull Modulus Estimation Using Differential Cumulative Entropy

Recently, Liu (2007 Liu , J. ( 2007 ). Information Theoretic Content and Probability. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL . [Google Scholar]) defined a new entropy which measures the distance between a prescribed and an empirical survival function. In this article, we use this measure called Differential Cumulative Entropy (DCE) for Weibull parameters estimation. We show that the DCE method provides biased estimations of the Weibull modulus, but utilizing unbiasing factors derived here we enhance the results. A simulation study shows the higher performance of the new method over commonly used maximum likelihood and linear regression methods in Weibull parameters estimation especially in small sample sizes.     

Multivariate Generalized Distributions of Order k

Abstract

The study of multivariate distributions of order k, two of which are the multivariate negative binomial of order k and the multinomial of the same order, was introduced in Philippou et al. (Philippou, A. N., Antzoulakos, D. L., Tripsiannis, G. A. (1988 Philippou, A. N., Antzoulakos, D. L. and Tripsiannis, G. A. 1988. Multivariate distributions of order k. Statistics and Probability Letters, 7(3): 207–216.  [Google Scholar]). Multivariate distributions of order k. Statistics and Probability Letters 7(3):207–216.), and Philippou et al. (Philippou, A. N., Antzoulakos, D. L., Tripsiannis, G. A. (1990 Philippou, A. N., Antzoulakos, D. L. and Tripsiannis, G. A. 1990. Multivariate distributions of order k, part II. Statistics and Probability Letters, 10(1): 29–35.  [Google Scholar]). Multivariate distributions of order k, part II. Statistics and Probability Letters 10(1):29–35.). Recently, an order k (or cluster) generalized negative binomial distribution and a multivariate negative binomial distribution were derived in Sen and Jain (Sen, K., Jain, R. (1996 Sen, K. and Jain, R. 1996. “Cluster generalized negative binomial distribution”. In Probability Models and Statistics Medhi Festschrift, A. J., on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday Edited by: Borthakur, A. C. 227–241. New Delhi: New Age International Publishers.  [Google Scholar]). Cluster generalized negative binomial distribution. In: Borthakur et al. A. C., Eds.; Probability Models and Statistics Medhi Festschrift, A. J., on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday. New Age International Publishers: New Delhi, 227–241.) and Sen and Jain (Sen, K., Jain, R. (1997 Sen, K. and Jain, R. 1997. A multivariate generalized Polya-Eggenberger probability model-first passage approach. Communications in Statistics—Theory and Methods, 26: 871–884. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). A multivariate generalized Polya-Eggenberger probability model-first passage approach. Communications in Statistics-Theory and Methods 26:871–884.), respectively. In this paper, all four distributions are generalized to a multivariate generalized negative binomial distribution of order k by means of an appropriate sampling scheme and a first passage event. This new distribution includes as special cases several known and new multivariate distributions of order k, and gives rise in the limit to multivariate generalized logarithmic, Poisson and Borel-Tanner distributions of the same order. Applications are indicated.     

On evaluating the performance of different forecasters

In this article, we have evaluated the performance of different forecasters and tested association between their performances for different pairs of variables. We have used three data sets of track records of professional U.S. economic forecasters participating in the Blue Chip consensus forecasting service (the data sets contain the root mean square errors (RMSE) of different forecasters for different years). To evaluate the performance of forecasters we have covered three well-known tests, namely the usual F test (cf. Fisher (1923 Fisher, R. A., Mackenzie, M. A. (1923). Studied in crop variation II. The manurial response of different potato. Journal of Agricultural Science 13:311–320. [Google Scholar])), Kruskal Wallis test (cf. Kruskal and Wallis (1952 Kruskall, W. H., Wallis, W. A. (1952). Use of ranks in one-criterion variance analysis. Journal of American Statistical Association 47:583–621. [Google Scholar])), and Extension of Median test (cf. Daniel (1990 Daniel, W. W. (1990). Applied Nonparametric Statistics. Duxbury Classic Series. (2nd Ed.), Boston. [Google Scholar])). To test the association between the forecaster's performances for different pairs of variables, we have considered Gini mean correlation coefficient r_g1 (cf. Yitzhaki, S., and Olkin, I. (1991 Yitzhaki, S., Olkin, I. (1991). Concentration indices and concentration curves, in K. Mosler and M. Scarsini (eds.), Stochastic Orders and Decisions under Risk, Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Lecture-Notes Monograph Series, 19, 1991, 380–392. [Google Scholar]) and Yitzhaki (2003 Yitzaki, S. (2003). Gini mean difference: A superior measure of variability for non normal distribution. Metron-International Journal of Statistics, LXI:285–316. [Google Scholar])), Modified rank correlation coefficient (cf. Zimmerman (1994 Zimmerman, D. W. (1994). A Note on modified rank correlation. Journal of educational and Behavioral Statistics 19:357–362. [Google Scholar])) and three modifications of Spearman rank correlation coefficient. We have observed that different forecasters do not necessarily offer same average performance. Moreover, an evidence of association between two criteria does not always lead us reaching at the same decision. The outcomes of the study may help the practitioners in selecting the best forecaster(s) for policymaking purposes.     

An Asymmetric Kernel Estimator of Density Function for Stationary Associated Sequences

Here, we apply the smoothing technique proposed by Chaubey et al. (2007 Chaubey , Y. P. , Sen , A. , Sen , P. K. ( 2007 ). A new smooth density estimator for non-negative random variables. Technical Report No. 1/07. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada . [Google Scholar]) for the empirical survival function studied in Bagai and Prakasa Rao (1991 Bagai , I. , Prakasa Rao , B. L. S. ( 1991 ). Estimation of the survival function for stationary associated processes . Statist. Probab. Lett. 12 : 385 – 391 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for a sequence of stationary non-negative associated random variables.The derivative of this estimator in turn is used to propose a nonparametric density estimator. The asymptotic properties of the resulting estimators are studied and contrasted with some other competing estimators. A simulation study is carried out comparing the recent estimator based on the Poisson weights (Chaubey et al., 2011 Chaubey , Y. P. , Dewan , I. , Li , J. ( 2011 ). Smooth estimation of survival and density functions for a stationary associated process using poisson weights . Statist. Probab. Lett. 81 : 267 – 276 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) showing that the two estimators have comparable finite sample global as well as local behavior.     

Uniformly strong consistency of frequency polygons for negatively associated samples

In this article, the frequency polygon studied by Scott (1985 Scott, D. W. (1985). Frequency polygons: Theory and application. Journal of the American Statistical Association 80(390):348–354.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is investigated as a nonparametric estimator for negatively associated samples. By the Bernstein type inequality, we give the uniformly strong consistency of the estimator and obtain the corresponding rate under some mild conditions.     

Testing the validity of the logistic model based on the empirical distribution function

The logistic distribution is one of the fundamental distribution and is widely used for describing model growth curves in survival analysis and biological studies. Applications of this distribution are presented in statistical literature. In this article, goodness of fit tests for the logistic distribution based on the empirical distribution function (EDF) are considered. In order to compute the test statistics, because the MLEs cannot be obtained explicitly, we use the approximate maximum likelihood estimates (AMLEs) suggested by Balakrishnan and Cohen (1990 Balakrishnan, N., Cohen, A. C. (1990). Order Statistics and Inference: Estimation Methods. Boston: Academic Press. [Google Scholar]), which are simple explicit estimators. Power comparisons of the considered tests are carried out via simulations. Finally, two illustrative examples are presented and analyzed.     

Selecting the best exponential population under Type-II progressive censoring scheme via empirical Bayes approach

The problem of selecting a population according to “selection and ranking” is an important statistical problem. The ideas in selecting the best populations with some demands having optimal criterion have been suggested originally by Bechhofer (1954 Bechhofer, R. E. (1954). A single-sample multiple-decision procedure for ranking means of normal populations with known variances. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 25:16–39. [Google Scholar]) and Gupta (1956 Gupta, S. S. (1956). On a decision rule for a problem in ranking means. Mimeograph Series No. 150. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina. [Google Scholar], 1965 Gupta, S. S. (1965). On some multiple decision (selection and ranking) rules. Technometrics 7:225–245. [Google Scholar]). In the area of ranking and selection, the large part of literature is connected with a single criterion. However, this may not satisfy the experimenter’s demand. We follow methodology of Huang and Lai (1999 Huang, W. T., Lai, Y. T. (1999). Empirical Bayes procedures for selecting the best population with multiple criteria. Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics 51:281–299. [Google Scholar]) and the main focus of this article is to select a best population under Type-II progressively censored data for the case of right tail exponential distributions with a bounded and unbounded supports for μ_i. We formulate the problem and develop a Bayesian setup with two kinds of bounded and unbounded prior for μ_i. We introduce an empirical Bayes procedure and study the large sample behavior of the proposed rule. It is shown that the proposed empirical Bayes selection rule is asymptotically optimal.     

Asymptotic Properties of the MLE in Nonlinear Reproductive Dispersion Models With Stochastic Regressors

Nonlinear reproductive dispersion models with stochastic regressors (NRDMWSR) includes generalized linear models with stochastic regressors (Fahrmer and Kaufmann, 1985 Fahrmer , L. , Kaufmann , H. ( 1985 ). Consistency and asymptotic normality of the maximum likelihood estimator in generalized linear models . Ann. Statist. 13 : 342 – 368 . [Google Scholar]) as a special case. This article presents some mild regularity conditions. On the basis of those mild conditions, the existence, strong consistency, and asymptotic normality of maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) are obtained in NRDMWSR.     

Inversion Theorem Based Kernel Density Estimation for the Ordinary Least Squares Estimator of a Regression Coefficient

The traditional confidence interval associated with the ordinary least squares estimator of linear regression coefficient is sensitive to non-normality of the underlying distribution. In this article, we develop a novel kernel density estimator for the ordinary least squares estimator via utilizing well-defined inversion based kernel smoothing techniques in order to estimate the conditional probability density distribution of the dependent random variable. Simulation results show that given a small sample size, our method significantly increases the power as compared with Wald-type CIs. The proposed approach is illustrated via an application to a classic small data set originally from Graybill (1961 Graybill, F.A. (1961). Introduction to Linear Statistical Models. Vol. 1. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. [Google Scholar]).     

A Tail Quantile Approximation for the Student t Distribution

In this article, we derive a new formula for extreme Student t quantiles. We use the fact that the Student t distribution arises as the limit of a variance-mixture of normals. For the normal distribution there is already a tail quantile formula derived by Reiss (1989 Reiss , R.-D. ( 1989 ). Approximate Distributions of Order Statistics: With Applications to Non-parametric Statistics . New York : Springer .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). We generalize his procedure and transfer it to our scenario.

Eventually, we compare the quantile estimates of our formula to those from Gafer and Kafadar (1984 Gafer , D. P. , Kafadar , K. ( 1984 ). A retrievable recipe for inverse t. Amer. Statistician 38(4):308–311 . [Google Scholar]), who also derived a Student t quantile formula. Using R to generate a benchmark we find that our method is more accurate for very high quantiles.     

Edgeworth Expansion for Linear Regression Processes with Long-Memory Errors

This article provides an Edgeworth expansion for the distribution of the log-likelihood derivative LLD of the parameter of a time series generated by a linear regression model with Gaussian, stationary, and long-memory errors. Under some sets of conditions on the regression coefficients, the spectral density function, and the parameter values, an Edgeworth expansion of the density as well as the distribution function of a vector of centered and normalized derivatives of the plug-in log-likelihood PLL function of arbitrarily large order is established. This is done by extending the results of Lieberman et al. (2003 Lieberman , O. , Rousseau , J. , Zucker , D. M. ( 2003 ). Valid edgeworth expansions for the maximum likelihood estimator of the parameter of a stationary. gaussian, strongly dependent processes. it Ann. Statist. 31:586–612 . [Google Scholar]), who provided an Edgeworth expansion for the Gaussian stationary long-memory case, to our present model, which is a linear regression process with stationary Gaussian long-memory errors.     

An approximation to the convolution of gamma distributions

In general, the exact distribution of a convolution of independent gamma random variables is quite complicated and does not admit a closed form. Of all the distributions proposed, the gamma-series representation of Moschopoulos (1985 Moschopoulos, P. G. (1985). The distribution of the sum of independent gamma random variables. Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics 37Part A:541–544. [Google Scholar]) is relatively simple to implement but for particular combinations of scale and/or shape parameters the computation of the weights of the series can result in complications with too much time consuming to allow a large-scale application. Recently, a compact random parameter representation of the convolution has been proposed by Vellaisamy and Upadhye (2009 Vellaisamy, P., Upadhye, N. S. (2009). On the sums of compound negative binomial and gamma random variables. Journal of Applied Probability 46:272–283.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and it allows to give an exact interpretation to the weights of the series. They describe an infinite discrete probability distribution. This result suggested to approximate Moschopoulos’s expression looking for an approximating theoretical discrete distribution for the weights of the series. More precisely, we propose a general negative binomial distribution. The result is an “excellent” approximation, fast and simple to implement for any parameter combination.