Some Comments on Hassairi et al.'s “Implicit Distributions and Estimation”

In social interaction studies, one commonly encounters repeated displays of behaviors along with their duration data. Statistical methods for the analysis of such data use either parametric (e.g., Weibull) or semi-nonparametric (e.g., Cox) proportional hazard models, modified to include random effects (frailty) which account for the correlation of repeated occurrences of behaviors within a unit (dyad). However, dyad-specific random effects by themselves are not able to account for the ordering of event occurrences within dyads. The occurrence of an event (behavior) can make further occurrences of the same behavior to be more or less likely during an interaction. This article develops event-dependent random effects models for analyzing repeated behaviors data using a Bayesian approach. The models are illustrated by a dataset relating to emotion regulation in families with children who have behavioral or emotional problems.     

A new class of skew-symmetric distributions and related families

In this work, we investigate a new class of skew-symmetric distributions, which includes the distributions with the probability density function (pdf) given by g _α(x)=2f(x) G(α x), introduced by Azzalini [A class of distributions which includes the normal ones, Scand. J. Statist. 12 (1985), pp. 171–178]. We call this new class as the symmetric-skew-symmetric family and it has the pdf proportional to f(x) G _β(α x), where G _β(x) is the cumulative distribution function of g _β(x). We give some basic properties for the symmetric-skew-symmetric family and study the particular case obtained from the normal distribution.     

A generalized skew slash distribution via gamma-normal distribution

In this article, we introduce a generalization of the slash distribution via the gamma-normal distribution. We define the new slash distribution by relation of a gamma-normal random variable with respect to a power of a uniform random variable. The newly defined distribution generalizes the slash distribution and is more flexible in terms of its kurtosis and skewness than the slash distribution. Basic properties of the new distribution are studied. We derive the maximum likelihood estimators of its parameters and apply the distribution to a real dataset.     

A new class of generalized Lindley distributions with applications

A new four-parameter class of generalized Lindley (GL) distribution called the beta-generalized Lindley (BGL) distribution is proposed. This class of distributions contains the beta-Lindley, GL and Lindley distributions as special cases. Expansion of the density of the BGL distribution is obtained. The properties of these distributions, including hazard function, reverse hazard function, monotonicity property, shapes, moments, reliability, mean deviations, Bonferroni and Lorenz curves are derived. Measures of uncertainty such as Renyi entropy and s-entropy as well as Fisher information are presented. Method of maximum likelihood is used to estimate the parameters of the BGL and related distributions. Finally, real data examples are discussed to illustrate the applicability of this class of models.     

New Generalizations of Cauchy Distribution

The generalized skew-normal distribution introduced by Balakrishnan (2002 Balakrishnan , N. ( 2002 ). Discussion on ‘Skew multivariate models related to hidden truncation and/or selective reporting’ by B. C. Arnold and R. J. Beaver . Test 11 : 37 – 39 .[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is used to obtain new generalizations of univariate Cauchy distribution with two parameters, denoted by GC _{m, n} (a, b) with m and n non-negative integer numbers and a, b ∈ R. For cases (m, n) = (1, 2), (m, n) = (2, 1), (m, n) = (0, 3) and (m, n) = (3, 0) explicit forms of the density functions are derived and compared to previous generalizations of Cauchy and skew-Cauchy distributions.     

Discrete distributions and purchasing models

Ihis paper reviews the use of different discrete distributions in the modelling of consumer purchasing behaviour.. A feature of the work is the extensive empirical validation of the models. Some interesting characterizations are briefly discussed.. Ihe paper concludes with some unresolved problems and suggested areas for future research     

Heine-euler extensions of the poisson distribution

The paper shows that the Heine and Euler distributions (Benkherouf and Bather, 1988) are members of a family of q-series anologues of the Poisson distribution, with similar probability mass functions, but different restrictions on their parameters, and different modes of genesis and properties. The relationships between the Heine, Euler, pseudo-Euler, Poisson and geometric distributions are explored. Illustrative data sets are discussed.     

Lifetime distributions motivated by series and parallel structures

According to Ross, any system can be represented either as a series arrangement of parallel structures or as a parallel arrangement of series structures. Motivated by this, we propose new three-parameter lifetime distributions by compounding geometric, power series, and exponential distributions. The distributions can allow for decreasing, increasing, bathtub-shaped, and upside down bathtub-shaped hazard rates. A mathematical treatment of the new distributions is provided including expressions for their density functions, Shannon and Rényi entropies, mean residual life functions, hazard rate functions, quantiles, and moments. The method of maximum likelihood is used for estimating parameters. Five of the new distributions are studied in detail. Finally, two illustrative data examples and a sensitivity analysis are presented.     

Some gamma distributions

Three new generalizations of the standard gamma distribution introduced by the author are reviewed. Various properties are derived for each distribution, including its hazard rate function and moments. An application is illustrated to drought data.     

The inverse problem of multivariate and matrix-variate skew normal distributions

In this paper, we prove that the joint distribution of random vectors Z ₁ and Z ₂ and the distribution of Z ₂ are skew normal provided that Z ₁ is skew normally distributed and Z ₂ conditioning on Z ₁ is distributed as closed skew normal. Also, we extend the main results to the matrix variate case.     

Slashed power-Lindley distribution

In this article, we introduce the slashed power-Lindley distribution. This model can be seen as an extension of the power-Lindley distribution with more flexibility in terms of the kurtosis of distribution. It arises as the ratio of two independent random variables, the one being a power-Lindley distribution and a power of the uniform distribution. We present properties and carry out estimates of the model parameters by the maximum likelihood method. Finally, we conduct a small simulation study to evaluate the performance of maximum likelihood estimators and we analyze a real data set to illustrate the usefulness of the new model.     

Truncated inverted generalized exponential distribution and its properties

The inverted generalized exponential distribution is defined as an alternative model for lifetime data. The existence of moments of this distribution is shown to hold under some restrictions. However, all the moments exist for the truncated inverted generalized exponential distribution and closed-form expressions for them are derived in this article. The distributional properties of this truncated distribution are studied. Maximum likelihood estimation method is discussed for the estimation of the parameters of the distribution both theoretically and empirically. In order to see the modeling performance of the distribution, two real datasets are analyzed.     

A Numerical Study of Small Parameter Behavior of Some Families of Distributions

Limiting distributions play an important role in approximating the exact distributions, especially when they have a rather cumbersome analytic form, or simply when they do not have a closed from. The question that naturally arises is how good the approximation is. In this article, we propose a procedure for the numerical assessment of the “goodness” of some easy-to-calculate limiting distributions, originally proposed in Bar-Lev and Enis, in various cases of the underlying distributions, some of which are inherently computationally challenging. The details of the procedure are provided in three examples. The first example deals with the gamma distributions; the second deals with Bessel distributions related to a symmetric random walk, and the third example deals with positive stable distributions. The details of two additional variations of these examples are also discussed. These examples illustrate the ease with which the limiting approximations could be applied in the various cases, well-demonstrating their computational simplicity and attractiveness.     

Optimal cutpoints for random observations

For the discretisation of a continuous random variable into different categories the choice of cutpoints is essential. A popular application is the contingent valuation method. In a parametric approach, the choice of cutpoints directly effects the quality of the estimates. Therefore, optimal cutpoints are desirable in order to estimate the parameters most accurately. We consider an arbitrary number of cutpoints and determine optimal cutpoints for the exponential and Gumbel distribution and prove that the c-optimal cutpoints for the location parameter of the logistic distribution have corresponding equal category probabilities. Furthermore, we show that in the limiting case for infinitely many cutpoints there is no loss of information.     

Hazard functions and life distributions in discrete time

The problem of studying lifelength distributions in discrete time is considered for certain forms of hazard functions. A class of life distributions that consists of the geometric, the Waring and the negative hypergeometric distributions is shown to result when the hazard function is inversely proportional to some linear function of time.     

Two-Sided Generalized Exponential Distribution

We derive a generalization of the exponential distribution by making log transformation of the standard two-sided power distribution. We show that this new generalization is in fact a mixture of a truncated exponential distribution and truncated generalized exponential distribution introduced by Gupta and Kundu [Generalized exponential distributions. Aust. N. Z. J. Stat. 41(1999):173–188]. The newly defined distribution is more flexible for modeling data than the ordinary exponential distribution. We study its properties, estimate the parameters, and demonstrate it on some well-known real data sets comparing other existing methods.     

Asymptotic calculations of functions of expected values and covariances of order statistics

Suppose m and V are respectively the vector of expected values and the covariance matrix of the order statistics of a sample of size n from a continuous distribution F. A method is presented to calculate asymptotic values of functions of m and V ^–1, for distributions F which are sufficiently regular. Values are given for the normal, logistic, and extreme-value distributions; also, for completeness, for the uniform and exponential distributions, although for these other methods must be used.     

Heine process as a q-analog of the Poisson process—waiting and interarrival times

In this study, we introduce the Heine process, {X_q(t), t > 0}, 0 < q < 1, where the random variable X_q(t), for every t > 0, represents the number of events (occurrences or arrivals) during a time interval (0, t]. The Heine process is introduced as a q-analog of the basic Poisson process. Also, in this study, we prove that the distribution of the waiting time W_{ν, q}, ν ? 1, up to the νth arrival, is a q-Erlang distribution and the interarrival times T_{k, q} = W_{k, q} ? W_{k ? 1, q},?k = 1, 2, …, ν with W_{0, q} = 0 are independent and equidistributed with a q-Exponential distribution.