On some analogues of lack of memory properties for the Gompertz distribution

We discuss some analogues of the lack of memory property, the strong lack of memory property and the almost lack of memory properties for the Gompertz distribution as applications of the integrated Cauchy functional equation.     

Statistical inference for the size-biased Weibull distribution

In this paper, statistical inferences for the size-biased Weibull distribution in two different cases are drawn. In the first case where the size r of the bias is considered known, it is proven that the maximum-likelihood estimators (MLEs) always exist. In the second case where the size r is considered as an unknown parameter, the estimating equations for the MLEs are presented and the Fisher information matrix is found. The estimation with the method of moments can be utilized in the case the MLEs do not exist. The advantage of treating r as an unknown parameter is that it allows us to perform tests concerning the existence of size-bias in the sample. Finally a program in Mathematica is written which provides all the statistical results from the procedures developed in this paper.     

Discrete Linnik Weibull distribution

Abstract

We introduce a new family of distributions using truncated discrete Linnik distribution. This family is a rich family of distributions which includes many important families of distributions such as Marshall–Olkin family of distributions, family of distributions generated through truncated negative binomial distribution, family of distributions generated through truncated discrete Mittag–Leffler distribution etc. Some properties of the new family of distributions are derived. A particular case of the family, a five parameter generalization of Weibull distribution, namely discrete Linnik Weibull distribution is given special attention. This distribution is a generalization of many distributions, such as extended exponentiated Weibull, exponentiated Weibull, Weibull truncated negative binomial, generalized exponential truncated negative binomial, Marshall-Olkin extended Weibull, Marshall–Olkin generalized exponential, exponential truncated negative binomial, Marshall–Olkin exponential and generalized exponential. The shape properties, moments, median, distribution of order statistics, stochastic ordering and stress–strength properties of the new generalized Weibull distribution are derived. The unknown parameters of the distribution are estimated using maximum likelihood method. The discrete Linnik Weibull distribution is fitted to a survival time data set and it is shown that the distribution is more appropriate than other competitive models.     

A generalization of discrete Weibull distribution

In this paper, we introduce a new family of discrete distributions and study its properties. It is shown that the new family is a generalization of discrete Marshall-Olkin family of distributions. In particular, we study generalized discrete Weibull distribution in detail. Discrete Marshall-Olkin Weibull distribution, exponentiated discrete Weibull distribution, discrete Weibull distribution, discrete Marshall-Olkin generalized exponential distribution, exponentiated geometric distribution, generalized discrete exponential distribution, discrete Marshall-Olkin Rayleigh distribution and exponentiated discrete Rayleigh distribution are sub-models of generalized discrete Weibull distribution. We derive some basic distributional properties such as probability generating function, moments, hazard rate and quantiles of the generalized discrete Weibull distribution. We can see that the hazard rate function can be decreasing, increasing, bathtub and upside-down bathtub shape. Estimation of the parameters are done using maximum likelihood method. A real data set is analyzed to illustrate the suitability of the proposed model.     

Stability in distribution of Markov-modulated stochastic differential delay equations with reflection

In this paper, we discuss Markov-modulated stochastic differential delay equations with reflection. The aim of this paper is to extend the stability criterion in distribution as in [Systems and Control Letters Vol 50 (2003) 195–207] to the equations with reflection. Interesting examples are provided to demonstrate not only our theory, but also the importance of Markov-modulating.     

Statistical inference of Marshall-Olkin bivariate Weibull distribution with three shocks based on progressive interval censored data

There are several failure modes may cause system failed in reliability and survival analysis. It is usually assumed that the causes of failure modes are independent each other, though this assumption does not always hold. Dependent competing risks modes from Marshall-Olkin bivariate Weibull distribution under Type-I progressive interval censoring scheme are considered in this paper. We derive the maximum likelihood function, the maximum likelihood estimates, the 95% Bootstrap confidence intervals and the 95% coverage percentages of the parameters when shape parameter is known, and EM algorithm is applied when shape parameter is unknown. The Monte-Carlo simulation is given to illustrate the theoretical analysis and the effects of parameters estimates under different sample sizes. Finally, a data set has been analyzed for illustrative purposes.     

Bayesian estimation of parameters of inverse Weibull distribution

The present paper describes the Bayes estimators of parameters of inverse Weibull distribution for complete, type I and type II censored samples under general entropy and squared error loss functions. The proposed estimators have been compared on the basis of their simulated risks (average loss over sample space). A real-life data set is used to illustrate the results.     

Efficiency estimation of type-I censored sample from the Weibull distribution based on sup-entropy

On the basis of Awad sup-entropy, the efficiency function for type-I censored sample from the Weibull distribution is numerically introduced. The properties of the derived efficiency are discussed. Furthermore, for a given efficiency, the termination time of the experiment, and the maximum likelihood estimates for the Weibull parameters, are proposed. Simulation results are tabulated and discussed. Censored and complete samples are compared for a wide range of the efficiency. The comparisons show the quality of the developed algorithms and the effectiveness of using censoring in estimating with the Weibull distribution.     

Comparison of estimation methods for the Weibull distribution

Weibull distributions have received wide ranging applications in many areas including reliability, hydrology and communication systems. Many estimation methods have been proposed for Weibull distributions. But there has not been a comprehensive comparison of these estimation methods. Most studies have focused on comparing the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) with one of the other approaches. In this paper, we first propose an L-moment estimator for the Weibull distribution. Then, a comprehensive comparison is made of the following methods: the method of maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), the method of logarithmic moments, the percentile method, the method of moments and the method of L-moments.     

A study of moments and likelihood estimators of the odd Weibull distribution

The odd Weibull distribution is a three-parameter generalization of the Weibull and the inverse Weibull distributions having rich density and hazard shapes for modeling lifetime data. This paper explored the odd Weibull parameter regions having finite moments and examined the relation to some well-known distributions based on skewness and kurtosis functions. The existence of maximum likelihood estimators have shown with complete data for any sample size. The proof for the uniqueness of these estimators is given only when the absolute value of the second shape parameter is between zero and one. Furthermore, elements of the Fisher information matrix are obtained based on complete data using a single integral representation which have shown to exist for any parameter values. The performance of the odd Weibull distribution over various density and hazard shapes is compared with generalized gamma distribution using two different test statistics. Finally, analysis of two data sets has been performed for illustrative purposes.     

An improper form of Weibull distribution for competing risks analysis with Bayesian approach

ABSTRACT

In survival analysis, individuals may fail due to multiple causes of failure called competing risks setting. Parametric models such as Weibull model are not improper that ignore the assumption of multiple failure times. In this study, a novel extension of Weibull distribution is proposed which is improper and then can incorporate to the competing risks framework. This model includes the original Weibull model before a pre-specified time point and an exponential form for the tail of the time axis. A Bayesian approach is used for parameter estimation. A simulation study is performed to evaluate the proposed model. The conducted simulation study showed identifiability and appropriate convergence of the proposed model. The proposed model and the 3-parameter Gompertz model, another improper parametric distribution, are fitted to the acute lymphoblastic leukemia dataset.     

Theoretical results on the discrete Weibull distribution of Nakagawa and Osaki

In this paper, we discuss some theoretical results and properties of the discrete Weibull distribution, which was introduced by Nakagawa and Osaki [The discrete Weibull distribution. IEEE Trans Reliab. 1975;24:300–301]. We study the monotonicity of the probability mass, survival and hazard functions. Moreover, reliability, moments, p-quantiles, entropies and order statistics are also studied. We consider likelihood-based methods to estimate the model parameters based on complete and censored samples, and to derive confidence intervals. We also consider two additional methods to estimate the model parameters. The uniqueness of the maximum likelihood estimate of one of the parameters that index the discrete Weibull model is discussed. Numerical evaluation of the considered model is performed by Monte Carlo simulations. For illustrative purposes, two real data sets are analyzed.     

General Multivariate Weibull Processes

Two multivariate stationary processes with general multivariate Weibull marginals are developed and studied. The joint distribution of the two adjacent events in the processes and the distributions of the finite sample minima as well as the geometric minima are derived. The characterization properties of these two processes are also proved.     

Parameter estimation of the flexible Weibull distribution for type I censored samples

Often in practice one is interested in the situation where the lifetime data are censored. Censorship is a common phenomenon frequently encountered when analyzing lifetime data due to time constraints. In this paper, the flexible Weibull distribution proposed in Bebbington et al. [A flexible Weibull extension, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Safety 92 (2007), pp. 719–726] is studied using maximum likelihood technics based on three different algorithms: Newton Raphson, Levenberg Marquardt and Trust Region reflective. The proposed parameter estimation method is introduced and proved to work from theoretical and practical point of view. On one hand, we apply a maximum likelihood estimation method using complete simulated and real data. On the other hand, we study for the first time the model using simulated and real data for type I censored samples. The estimation results are approved by a statistical test.     

Characterizations of the General Multivariate Weibull Distributions

For studying and modeling the time to failure of a system or component, many reliability practitioners used the hazard rate and its monotone behaviors. However, nowadays, there are two problems. First, the modern components have high reliability and, second, their distributions are usually have non monotone hazard rate, such as, the truncated normal, Burr XII, and inverse Gaussian distributions. So, modeling these data based on the hazard rate models seems to be too stringent. Zimmer et al. (1998 Zimmer , W. J. , Wang , Y. , Pathak , P. K. ( 1998 ). Log-odds rate and monotone log-odds rate distributions . J. Qual. Technol. 30 ( 4 ): 376 – 385 .[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Wang et al. (2003 Wang , Y. , Hossain , A. M. , Zimmer , W. J. ( 2003 ). Monotone log-odds rate distributions in reliability analysis . Commun. Statist. Theor. Meth. 32 ( 11 ): 2227 – 2244 .[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2008 Wang , Y. , Hossain , A. M. , Zimmer , W. J. ( 2008 ). Useful properties of the three-parameter Burr XII distribution. In: Ahsanullah M., Applied Statistics Research Progress. pp. 11–20 . [Google Scholar]) introduced and studied a new time to failure model in continuous distributions based on log-odds rate (LOR) which is comparable to the model based on the hazard rate.

There are many components and devices in industry, that have discrete distributions with non monotone hazard rate, so, in this article, we introduce the discrete log-odds rate which is different from its analog in continuous case. Also, an alternative discrete reversed hazard rate which we called it the second reversed rate of failure in discrete times is also defined here. It is shown that the failure time distributions can be characterized by the discrete LOR. Moreover, we show that the discrete logistic and log logistics distributions have property of a constant discrete LOR with respect to t and ln t, respectively. Furthermore, properties of some distributions with monotone discrete LOR, such as the discrete Burr XII, discrete Weibull, and discrete truncated normal are obtained.     

On MLEs of the parameters of a modified Weibull distribution based on record values

The modified Weibull distribution can be used quite effectively to model complex data from mechanical engineering or survival analysis studies that posses a monotonic or a bathtub-shape hazard rate. In this paper, we study the MLEs of the parameters of a modified Weibull distribution model in the presence of upper kth record values. The existence and uniqueness of the MLEs are proven in this case. Real data analysis is performed for illustrative purposes.     

On Khatri's characterization of the inverse-Gaussian distribution

Khatri has given a characterization of the inverse-Gaussian distribution by the independence of two statistics. His proof involves assumptions on the existence of certain moments. In this note, we offer a short proof using only the positivity of the random variable X₁.     

Extended Weibull type distribution and finite mixture of distributions

An extended form of Weibull distribution is suggested which has two shape parameters (m and δ). Introduction of another shape parameter δ helps to express the extended Weibull distribution not only as an exact form of a mixture of distributions under certain conditions, but also provides extra flexibility to the density function over positive range. The shape of density function of the extended Weibull type distribution for various values of the parameters is shown which may be of some interest to Bayesians. Certain statistical properties such as hazard rate function, mean residual function, rth moment are defined explicitly. The proposed extended Weibull distribution is used to derive an exact form of two, three and k-component mixture of distributions. With the help of a real data set, the usefulness of mixture Weibull type distribution is illustrated by using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), Gibbs sampling approach.     

On an Extension of the Exponentiated Weibull Distribution

In this article, the exponentiated Weibull distribution is extended by the Marshall-Olkin family. Our new four-parameter family has a hazard rate function with various desired shapes depending on the choice of its parameters and, thus, it is very flexible in data modeling. It also contains two mixed distributions with applications to series and parallel systems in reliability and also contains several previously known lifetime distributions. We shall study some basic distributional properties of the new distribution. Some closed forms are derived for its moment generating function and moments as well as moments of its order statistics. The model parameters are estimated by the maximum likelihood method. The stress–strength parameter and its estimation are also investigated. Finally, an application of the new model is illustrated using two real datasets.