A new compounding life distribution: the Weibull–Poisson distribution

In this paper, a new compounding distribution, named the Weibull–Poisson distribution is introduced. The shape of failure rate function of the new compounding distribution is flexible, it can be decreasing, increasing, upside-down bathtub-shaped or unimodal. A comprehensive mathematical treatment of the proposed distribution and expressions of its density, cumulative distribution function, survival function, failure rate function, the kth raw moment and quantiles are provided. Maximum likelihood method using EM algorithm is developed for parameter estimation. Asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood estimates are discussed, and intensive simulation studies are conducted for evaluating the performance of parameter estimation. The use of the proposed distribution is illustrated with examples.     

On the two-parameter Bell–Touchard discrete distribution

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a new two-parameter discrete distribution which may be useful for modeling count data. Additionally, the probability mass function is very simple and it may have a zero vertex. We show that the new discrete distribution is a particular solution of a multiple Poisson process, and that it is infinitely divisible. Additionally, various structural properties of the new discrete distribution are derived. We also discuss two methods (moments and maximum likelihood) to estimate the model parameters. The usefulness of the proposed distribution is illustrated by means of real data sets to prove its versatility in practical applications.     

How precise is the finite sample approximation of the asymptotic distribution of realised variation measures in the presence of jumps?

This paper studies the impact of jumps on volatility estimation and inference based on various realised variation measures such as realised variance, realised multipower variation and truncated realised multipower variation. We review the asymptotic theory of those realised variation measures and present a new estimator for the asymptotic ‘variance’ of the centered realised variance in the presence of jumps. Next, we compare the finite sample performance of the various estimators by means of detailed Monte Carlo studies. Here we study the impact of the jump activity, of the jump size of the jumps in the price and of the presence of additional independent or dependent jumps in the volatility. We find that the finite sample performance of realised variance and, in particular, of log-transformed realised variance is generally good, whereas the jump-robust statistics tend to struggle in the presence of a highly active jump process.     

On the Marshall–Olkin extended Weibull distribution

We study some mathematical properties of the Marshall–Olkin extended Weibull distribution introduced by Marshall and Olkin (Biometrika 84:641–652, 1997). We provide explicit expressions for the moments, generating and quantile functions, mean deviations, Bonferroni and Lorenz curves, reliability and Rényi entropy. We determine the moments of the order statistics. We also discuss the estimation of the model parameters by maximum likelihood and obtain the observed information matrix. We provide an application to real data which illustrates the usefulness of the model.     

A note on the posterior inference for the Yule–Simon distribution

The Yule–Simon distribution has been out of the radar of the Bayesian community, so far. In this note, we propose an explicit Gibbs sampling scheme when a Gamma prior is chosen for the shape parameter. The performance of the algorithm is illustrated with simulation studies, including count data regression, and a real data application to text analysis. We compare our proposal to the frequentist counterparts showing better performance of our algorithm when a small sample size is considered.     

An alpha-power extension for the Birnbaum–Saunders distribution

Data on fatigue to exceed a critical value (or to grow to a critical level at which failure is likely to occur) is typically adjusted using the Birnbaum–Saunders (BS) distribution [see Birnbaum ZW, Saunders SC. A new family of life distributions. J Appl Probab. 1969a;6:319–327]. Although this type of distribution is asymmetric, in some cases the degree of skewness and/or kurtosis are outside the distributional range allowed by the BS distribution. Thus, a more adequate distribution model for better adjusting such unexpected deviations is called for. With this in mind, the main object of this paper is to propose an extension of the BS distribution based on the asymmetric alpha-power family of distributions [see Pewsey A, Gómez HW, Bolfarine H. Likelihood-based inference for power distributions. Test. 2012;21(4):775–789]. This extension is called the exponentiated BS distribution. We expect that by replacing the normal distribution by such more general family, a more flexible BS family is obtained. Asymmetry in the alpha-power family is controlled by a shape parameter, which also presents a similar performance in the extended BS family. The paper presents the density function for the extended BS and derives closed-form expressions for moments. Estimation is dealt with by using maximum likelihood estimators. Large sample inference can be conducted by using the Fisher information matrix derived in the paper. Estimation performance is studied by using a small scale simulation study. Results of a real application illustrates the good performance of the proposed approach.     

Computing the distribution of sequential Hölder norms of the Brownian motion

ABSTRACT

In this article, we give explicit formulas and study practical computations for the distribution function of sequential Hölder norms of a Brownian motion and of a Brownian bridge. We also discuss some statistical applications in the detection of some short “epidemic” changes in a sample.     

Failure–censored reliability sampling plans for the exponential distribution

In this paper we examine the failure-censored sampling plans for the two–parameter exponential distri- bution based on m random samples, each of size n. The suggested procedure is based on exact results and only the first failure time of each sample is needed. The values of the acceptability constant are also tabulated for selected values of p _α ¹ p _β ¹, α and β. Further, a comparison of the proposed sampling plans with ordinary sampling plans using a sample of size mn is made. When compared to ordinary sampling plans, the proposed plan has an advantage in terms of shorter test-time and a saving of resources.     

Approximating the Conway–Maxwell–Poisson distribution normalization constant

By adding a second parameter, Conway and Maxwell created a new distribution for situations where data deviate from the standard Poisson distribution. This new distribution contains a normalization constant expressed as an infinite sum whose summation has no known closed-form expression. Shmueli et al. produced an approximation for this sum but proved that it was valid only for integer values of the second parameter, although they conjectured it was also valid for non-integers. Here we prove their conjecture to be true and discuss for what range of parameters the approximation can be accurately applied.     

Some contributions on the multivariate Poisson–Skellam probability distribution

In this article, we introduce a new form of distribution whose components have the Poisson or Skellam marginal distributions. This new specification allows the incorporation of relevant information on the nature of the correlations between every component. In addition, we present some properties of this distribution. Unlike the multivariate Poisson distribution, it can handle variables with positive and negative correlations. It should be noted that we are only interested in modeling covariances of order 2, which means between all pairs of variables. Some simulations are presented to illustrate the estimation methods. Finally, an application of soccer teams data will highlight the relationship between number of points per season and the goal differential by some covariates.     

Robust explicit estimation of the two-parameter Birnbaum–Saunders distribution

The two-parameter Birnbaum–Saunders distribution is widely applicable to model failure times of fatiguing materials. Its maximum-likelihood estimators (MLEs) are very sensitive to outliers and also have no closed-form expressions. This motivates us to develop some alternative estimators. In this paper, we develop two robust estimators, which are also explicit functions of sample observations and are thus easy to compute. We derive their breakdown points and carry out extensive Monte Carlo simulation experiments to compare the performance of all the estimators under consideration. It has been observed from the simulation results that the proposed estimators outperform in a manner that is approximately comparable with the MLEs, whereas they are far superior in the presence of data contamination that often occurs in practical situations. A simple bias-reduction technique is presented to reduce the bias of the recommended estimators. Finally, the practical application of the developed procedures is illustrated with a real-data example.     

Approximate tolerance intervals for the discrete Poisson–Lindley distribution

The Poisson–Lindley distribution is a compound discrete distribution that can be used as an alternative to other discrete distributions, like the negative binomial. This paper develops approximate one-sided and equal-tailed two-sided tolerance intervals for the Poisson–Lindley distribution. Practical applications of the Poisson–Lindley distribution frequently involve large samples, thus we utilize large-sample Wald confidence intervals in the construction of our tolerance intervals. A coverage study is presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed tolerance intervals. The tolerance intervals are also demonstrated using two real data sets. The R code developed for our discussion is briefly highlighted and included in the tolerance package.     

An improved method of estimation for the parameters of the Birnbaum–Saunders distribution

The Birnbaum–Saunders (BS) distribution is a positively skewed distribution, frequently used for analysing lifetime data. In this paper, we propose a simple method of estimation for the parameters of the two-parameter BS distribution by making use of some key properties of the distribution. Compared with the maximum likelihood estimators and the modified moment estimators, the proposed method has smaller bias, but having the same mean square errors as these two estimators. We also discuss some methods of construction of confidence intervals. The performance of the estimators is then assessed by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, an example is used to illustrate the method of estimation developed here.     

Learning the two parameters of the Poisson–Dirichlet distribution with a forensic application

In forensic science, the rare type match problem arises when the matching characteristic from the suspect and the crime scene is not in the reference database; hence, it is difficult to evaluate the likelihood ratio that compares the defense and prosecution hypotheses. A recent solution consists of modeling the ordered population probabilities according to the two-parameter Poisson–Dirichlet distribution, which is a well-known Bayesian nonparametric prior, and plugging the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters into the likelihood ratio. We demonstrate that this approximation produces a systematic bias that fully Bayesian inference avoids. Motivated by this forensic application, we consider the need to learn the posterior distribution of the parameters that governs the two-parameter Poisson–Dirichlet using two sampling methods: Markov Chain Monte Carlo and approximate Bayesian computation. These methods are evaluated in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Finally, we compare the likelihood ratio that is obtained by our proposal with the existing solution using a database of Y-chromosome haplotypes.     

Extended tables of the distribution of friedman’ s s-statistic in the two-way layout

Friedman’s (1937, 1940) S-statistic is designed to test the hypothesis that there is no treatment effect in a randomized-block design with k treatments and n blocks. In this paper we give tables of the null distribution of S for k = 5, n = 6(1)8, and for k = 6, n = 2(1)6. Computational details are discussed.     

Statistical inference for α-series process with the inverse Gaussian distribution

Statistical inferences for the geometric process (GP) are derived when the distribution of the first occurrence time is assumed to be inverse Gaussian (IG). An α-series process, as a possible alternative to the GP, is introduced since the GP is sometimes inappropriate to apply some reliability and scheduling problems. In this study, statistical inference problem for the α-series process is considered where the distribution of first occurrence time is IG. The estimators of the parameters α, μ, and σ² are obtained by using the maximum likelihood (ML) method. Asymptotic distributions and consistency properties of the ML estimators are derived. In order to compare the efficiencies of the ML estimators with the widely used nonparametric modified moment (MM) estimators, Monte Carlo simulations are performed. The results showed that the ML estimators are more efficient than the MM estimators. Moreover, two real life datasets are given for application purposes.     

Comparison of estimation methods for the Marshall–Olkin extended Lindley distribution

The aim of this paper is to compare the parameters' estimations of the Marshall–Olkin extended Lindley distribution obtained by six estimation methods: maximum likelihood, ordinary least-squares, weighted least-squares, maximum product of spacings, Cramér–von Mises and Anderson–Darling. The bias, root mean-squared error, average absolute difference between the true and estimate distributions' functions and the maximum absolute difference between the true and estimate distributions' functions are used as comparison criteria. Although the maximum product of spacings method is not widely used, the simulation study concludes that it is highly competitive with the maximum likelihood method.     

Admissible minimax estimators for the shape parameter of Topp–Leone distribution

Abstract

The shape parameter of Topp–Leone distribution is estimated in this article from the Bayesian viewpoint under the assumption of known scale parameter. Bayes and empirical Bayes estimates of the unknown parameter are proposed under non informative and suitable conjugate priors. These estimates are derived under the assumption of squared and linear-exponential error loss functions. The risk functions of the proposed estimates are derived in analytical forms. It is shown that the proposed estimates are minimax and admissible. The consistency of the proposed estimates under the squared error loss function is also proved. Numerical examples are provided.