The optimal allocation of active redundancies to k-out-of-n systems with respect to hazard rate ordering

This paper deals with the allocation of active redundancies to a k-out-of-n system with independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) components in the sense of the hazard rate order. It is shown that the system's hazard rate may be decreased by balancing the allocation of active redundancies. This generalizes the main result of Singh and Singh (1997) and improves the corresponding one of Hu and Wang (2009) as well. As an application, we build the reversed hazard rate order on order statistics from sample having proportional hazard rates, which strengthens the usual stochastic order in Theorem 2.1 of Pledger and Proschan (1971) to the reversed hazard order in the situation that all components are of (rational) proportional hazard rates.     

Allocation strategies of standby redundancies in series/parallel system

This article deals with the topic of optimal allocation of two standby redundancies in a two-component series/parallel system. There are two original components C₁ and C₂ which can be used to construct a series/parallel system, and two spares R₁ (same as C₁) and R₂ (different from both C₁ and C₂) at hand with them being standby redundancies so as to enhance the reliability level of the system. The goal for an engineer is to seek after the optimal allocation policy in this framework. It is shown that, for the series structure, the engineer should allocate R₂ to C₁ and R₁ to C₂ provided that C₁ (or R₁) performs either the best or worst among all the units; otherwise, the allocation policy should be reversed. For the parallel structure, the optimal allocation strategy is just opposed to that of series case. We also provide some numerical examples for illustrating the theoretical results.     

Some ordering properties of series and parallel systems with dependent component lifetimes

Abstract

In this paper, we consider series systems and parallel systems with the dependence between the component lifetimes modelled by an Archimedean copulas. We obtain sufficient and necessary conditions of relative ageing orders between series (parallel) systems with different component numbers, which partially generalize some main results of Misra and Francis. When the component lifetimes follow the scale model, we also characterize the ordering properties between the series systems and (n–1)-out-of-n systems (parallel systems and 2-out-of-n systems) by mixture distribution.     

On optimal allocation of redundant components for series and parallel systems of two dependent components

In this paper we consider the problem of optimal allocation of a redundant component in the case of series and parallel systems of two components when all the components are dependent. Whereas this problem has been extensively treated for the case of independent components, the case of dependent components has not received too much attention. In this paper we show that for this problem the main tools are the joint stochastic orders introduced by Shanthikumar and Yao (1991).     

Ordering extremes of interdependent random variables

For random variables with Archimedean copula or survival copula, we develop the reversed hazard rate order and the hazard rate order on sample extremes in the context of proportional reversed hazard models and proportional hazard models, respectively. The likelihood ratio order on sample maximum is also investigated for the proportional reversed hazard model. Several numerical examples are presented for illustrations as well.     

Some new results on allocation of coverage limits and deductibles to mutually independent risks

This article further investigates the allocation of coverage limits and deductibles to multiple independent risks from the viewpoint of policyholders with increasing utility functions. In a more general setup, we develop the usual stochastic orders on the retained loss, which either generalize or supplement the corresponding results due to Lu and Meng (2011 Lu, Z., Meng, L. (2011). Stochastic comparisons for allocations of policy limits and deductibles with applications. Insur. Math. Econ. 48:338–343. [Google Scholar]) and Hu and Wang (2014 Hu, S., Wang, R. (2014). Stochastic comparisons and optimal allocation for policy limits and deductibles. Commun. Stat. Theory Methods 43:151–164. [Google Scholar]). Also, the most unfavorable and favorable allocations of coverage limits and deductibles are developed for multiple risks with dominated reversed hazard rates and hazard rates, respectively.     

A note on the conditional residual lifetime of a coherent system under double monitoring

In this note, we derive some mixture representations for the reliability function of the conditional residual lifetime of a coherent system with n independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) components under the condition that at time t₁ the jth failures has occurred and at time t₂ the kth failures (j < k) have not occurred yet. Based on the mixture representations, we then discuss the stochastic comparisons of the conditional residual lifetimes of two coherent systems with i.i.d. components.     

On a system of nonhomogeneous components sharing a common frailty

The components of a reliability system subjected to a common random environment usually have dependent lifetimes. This paper studies the stochastic properties of such a system with lifetimes of the components following multivariate frailty models and multivariate mixed proportional reversed hazard rate (PRHR) models, respectively. Through doing stochastic comparison, we devote to throwing a new light on how the random environment affects the number of working components of a reliability system and on assessing the performance of a k-out-of-n system.     

Conditional residual lifetimes of coherent systems under double monitoring

In this paper, we obtain a mixture representation for the reliability function of the conditional residual lifetime of a coherent system with n independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) components under double monitoring. We suppose that at time t₁, j components have failed while at time t₂ the system is still alive. Based on these mixture representation, we then study stochastic comparisons of the conditional residual lifetimes of two coherent systems with independent and identical components.     

Stochastic comparisons of parallel and series systems of dependent components equipped with starting devices

This paper deals with series and parallel systems of dependent components equipped with starters. We study the hazard rate order, the dispersive order and the usual stochastic order of system lifetimes in the context of component lifetimes having proportional hazard rates. The main results either generalize or extend corresponding conclusions of Joo and Mi (2010) and Da, Ding, and Li (2010).     

Inequalities involving expectations of selected functions in reliability theory to characterize distributions

Recently, authors have studied inequalities involving expectations of selected functions, viz. failure rate, mean residual life, aging intensity function, and log-odds rate which are defined for left truncated random variables in reliability theory to characterize some well-known distributions. However, there has been growing interest in the study of these functions in reversed time (X ? x, instead of X > x) and their applications. In the present work we consider reversed hazard rate, expected inactivity time, and reversed aging intensity function to deal with right truncated random variables and characterize a few statistical distributions.     

Standby redundancies at component level versus system level in series system

Abstract

It is known that the redundancy at the component level is better than the system level for the case of active redundancy. However, few results are available for standby redundancy due to the complexity of convolution. This note stochastically compares allocations of standby redundancies in series systems with exponential components at the component level versus the system level in sense of the likelihood ratio ordering. The established results strengthen and extend some known ones in the literature.     

Ordering properties of sample minimum from Kumaraswamy-G random variables

In this paper we compare the minimums of two independent and heterogeneous samples each following Kumaraswamy (Kw)-G distribution with the same and the different parent distribution functions. The comparisons are carried out with respect to usual stochastic ordering and hazard rate ordering with majorized shape parameters of the distributions. The likelihood ratio ordering between the minimum order statistics is established for heterogeneous multiple-outlier Kw-G random variables with the same parent distribution function.     

Toward the evaluation of P(X(t) > Y(t)) when both X(t) and Y(t) are inactivity times of two systems

The inactivity time, also known as reversed residual life, has been a topic of increasing interest in the literature. In this investigation, based on the comparison of inactivity times of two devices, we introduce and study a new estimate of the probability of the inactivity time of one device exceeding that of another device. The problem studied in this paper is important for engineers and system designers. It would enable them to compare the inactivity times of the products and, hence to design better products. Several properties of this probability are established. Connections between the target probability and the reversed hazard rates of the two devices are established. In addition, some of the reliability properties of the new concept are investigated extending the well-known probability ordering. Finally, to illustrate the introduced concepts, many examples and applications in the context of reliability theory are included.     

Ordering properties of largest order statistics from independent and heterogeneous Dagum populations

Abstract

The Dagum distribution has been extensively used to model income data, and its features have been appreciated in economics and financial studies. In this article, we discuss ordering properties of largest order statistics from independent and heterogeneous Dagum populations. We present some sufficient conditions for stochastic comparisons between largest order statistics in terms of the reversed hazard rate order, the usual stochastic order, the convex order, the likelihood ratio order and the dispersive order. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the results established here.     

On the Allocation of General Standby Redundancy to Series and Parallel Systems

This article studies series and parallel systems with two independent components. Optimal allocation of one redundancy to a parallel system and that of two redundancies to a series one are derived, respectively.     

Determining the optimal allocation of testing resource for modular software system using dynamic programming

Abstract

Reliability is a major concern in the process of software development because unreliable software can cause failure in the computer system that can be hazardous. A way to enhance the reliability of software is to detect and remove the faults during the testing phase, which begins with module testing wherein modules are tested independently to remove a substantial number of faults within a limited resource. Therefore, the available resource must be allocated among the modules in such a way that the number of faults is removed as much as possible from each of the modules to achieve higher software reliability. In this article, we discuss the problem of optimal resource allocation of the testing resource for a modular software system, which maximizes the number of faults removed subject to the conditions that the amount of testing-effort is fixed, a certain percentage of faults is to be removed and a desired level of reliability is to be achieved. The problem is formulated as a non linear programming problem (NLPP), which is modeled by the inflection S-shaped software reliability growth models (SRGM) based on a non homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) which incorporates the exponentiated Weibull (EW) testing-effort functions. A solution procedure is then developed using a dynamic programming technique to solve the NLPP. Furthermore, three special cases of optimum resource allocations are also discussed. Finally, numerical examples using three sets of software failure data are presented to illustrate the procedure developed and to validate the performance of the strategies proposed in this article. Experimental results indicate that the proposed strategies may be helpful to software project managers for making the best decisions in allocating the testing resource. In addition, the results are compared with those of Kapur et al. (2004), Huang and Lyu (2005), and Jha et al. (2010) that are available in the literature to deal the similar problems addressed in this article. It reveals that the proposed dynamic programming method for the testing-resource allocation problem yields a gain in efficiency over other methods.     

On some reliability measures and their stochastic orderings for the Topp-Leone distribution

Topp-Leone distribution is a continuous unimodal distribution with bounded support (recently rediscovered) which is useful for modelling life-time phenomena. In this paper we study some reliability measures of this distribution such as the hazard rate, mean residual life, reversed hazard rate, expected inactivity time, and their stochastic orderings.     

On Redundancy Allocation to Series and Parallel Systems of Two Components

Abstract

For two components and one standby redundancy, we develop a characterization on the hazard rate order and the reversed hazard rate order of the redundant system lifetime in the context of mutually independent components lifetimes. Also, the likelihood ratio order is derived on the lifetime of the series system with two components lifetimes and two matched active redundancies lifetimes both following the proportional hazard model.     

On the Mixture of Proportional Odds Models

This article studies the mixed proportional odds model. We build TP2 dependence between the overall population variable and the unobservable covariate and present some preservation properties. Relations on aging characteristics, such as odds function and (reversed) hazard rate, are discussed. Stochastic comparisons on overall population variables are conducted as well.