A generalized two-piece skew normal distribution and some of its properties

In this paper, we develop a generalized version of the two-piece skew normal distribution of Kim [On a class of two-piece skew-normal distributions, Statistics 39(6) (2005), pp. 537–553] and derive explicit expressions for its distribution function and characteristic function and discuss some of its important properties. Further estimation of the parameters of the generalized distribution is carried out.     

Models for Extremal Dependence Derived from Skew‐symmetric Families

Skew‐symmetric families of distributions such as the skew‐normal and skew‐t represent supersets of the normal and t distributions, and they exhibit richer classes of extremal behaviour. By defining a non‐stationary skew‐normal process, which allows the easy handling of positive definite, non‐stationary covariance functions, we derive a new family of max‐stable processes – the extremal skew‐t process. This process is a superset of non‐stationary processes that include the stationary extremal‐t processes. We provide the spectral representation and the resulting angular densities of the extremal skew‐t process and illustrate its practical implementation.     

On multiple constraint skewed models

The Azzalini [A. Azzalini, A class of distributions which includes the normal ones, Scandi. J. Statist. 12 (1985), pp. 171–178.] skew normal model can be viewed as one involving normal components subject to a single linear constraint. As a natural extension of this model, we discuss skewed models involving multiple linear and nonlinear constraints and possibly non-normal components. Particular attention is devoted to a distribution called the extended two-piece normal (ETN) distribution. This model is a two-constraint extension of the two-piece normal model introduced by Kim [H.J. Kim, On a class of two-piece skew normal distributions, Statistics 39(6) (2005), pp. 537–553.]. Likelihood inference for the ETN distribution is developed and illustrated using two data sets.     

Moments and quadratic forms of matrix variate skew normal distributions

ABSTRACT

In 2007, Domínguez-Molina et al. obtained the moment generating function (mgf) of the matrix variate closed skew normal distribution. In this paper, we use their mgf to obtain the first two moments and some additional properties of quadratic forms for the matrix variate skew normal distributions. The quadratic forms are particularly interesting because they are essentially correlation tests that introduce a new type of orthogonality condition.     

Shannon Entropy and Mutual Information for Multivariate Skew‐Elliptical Distributions

Abstract. The entropy and mutual information index are important concepts developed by Shannon in the context of information theory. They have been widely studied in the case of the multivariate normal distribution. We first extend these tools to the full symmetric class of multivariate elliptical distributions and then to the more flexible families of multivariate skew‐elliptical distributions. We study in detail the cases of the multivariate skew‐normal and skew‐t distributions. We implement our findings to the application of the optimal design of an ozone monitoring station network in Santiago de Chile.     

Skew Gaussian Process for Nonlinear Regression

In this article, we extend the Gaussian process for regression model by assuming a skew Gaussian process prior on the input function and a skew Gaussian white noise on the error term. Under these assumptions, the predictive density of the output function at a new fixed input is obtained in a closed form. Also, we study the Gaussian process predictor when the errors depart from the Gaussianity to the skew Gaussian white noise. The bias is derived in a closed form and is studied for some special cases. We conduct a simulation study to compare the empirical distribution function of the Gaussian process predictor under Gaussian white noise and skew Gaussian white noise.     

Objective Bayesian Analysis of Skew‐t Distributions

Abstract. We study the Jeffreys prior and its properties for the shape parameter of univariate skew‐t distributions with linear and nonlinear Student's t skewing functions. In both cases, we show that the resulting priors for the shape parameter are symmetric around zero and proper. Moreover, we propose a Student's t approximation of the Jeffreys prior that makes an objective Bayesian analysis easy to perform. We carry out a Monte Carlo simulation study that demonstrates an overall better behaviour of the maximum a posteriori estimator compared with the maximum likelihood estimator. We also compare the frequentist coverage of the credible intervals based on the Jeffreys prior and its approximation and show that they are similar. We further discuss location‐scale models under scale mixtures of skew‐normal distributions and show some conditions for the existence of the posterior distribution and its moments. Finally, we present three numerical examples to illustrate the implications of our results on inference for skew‐t distributions.     

BAYESIAN PREDICTION FOR SPATIAL GENERALISED LINEAR MIXED MODELS WITH CLOSED SKEW NORMAL LATENT VARIABLES

Spatial generalised linear mixed models are used commonly for modelling non‐Gaussian discrete spatial responses. In these models, the spatial correlation structure of data is modelled by spatial latent variables. Most users are satisfied with using a normal distribution for these variables, but in many applications it is unclear whether or not the normal assumption holds. This assumption is relaxed in the present work, using a closed skew normal distribution for the spatial latent variables, which is more flexible and includes normal and skew normal distributions. The parameter estimates and spatial predictions are calculated using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. Finally, the performance of the proposed model is analysed via two simulation studies, followed by a case study in which practical aspects are dealt with. The proposed model appears to give a smaller cross‐validation mean square error of the spatial prediction than the normal prior in modelling the temperature data set.     

Non‐Gaussian geostatistical modeling using (skew) t processes

We propose a new model for regression and dependence analysis when addressing spatial data with possibly heavy tails and an asymmetric marginal distribution. We first propose a stationary process with t marginals obtained through scale mixing of a Gaussian process with an inverse square root process with Gamma marginals. We then generalize this construction by considering a skew‐Gaussian process, thus obtaining a process with skew‐t marginal distributions. For the proposed (skew) t process, we study the second‐order and geometrical properties and in the t case, we provide analytic expressions for the bivariate distribution. In an extensive simulation study, we investigate the use of the weighted pairwise likelihood as a method of estimation for the t process. Moreover we compare the performance of the optimal linear predictor of the t process versus the optimal Gaussian predictor. Finally, the effectiveness of our methodology is illustrated by analyzing a georeferenced dataset on maximum temperatures in Australia.     

Calibration model with skew scale mixtures of normal distributions

This work presents a new linear calibration model with replication by assuming that the error of the model follows a skew scale mixture of the normal distributions family, which is a class of asymmetric thick-tailed distributions that includes the skew normal distribution and symmetric distributions. In the literature, most calibration models assume that the errors are normally distributed. However, the normal distribution is not suitable when there are atypical observations and asymmetry. The estimation of the calibration model parameters are done numerically by the EM algorithm. A simulation study is carried out to verify the properties of the maximum likelihood estimators. This new approach is applied to a real dataset from a chemical analysis.     

A study of generalized normal distributions

In this work, first some distributional properties of extended two-piece skew normal distributions are presented. Next we revisit the special case, that is two-piece skew normal distributions. Then two distributions related to two-piece skew normal distributions are studied. More precisely, we give some properties about generalized half normal distributions as well as a generalized Cauchy distribution. Finally, we discuss the distributions of linear combinations of two independent skew normal random variables.     

The skew generalized t distribution as the scale mixture of a skew exponential power distribution and its applications in robust estimation

In this paper, we consider the family of skew generalized t (SGT) distributions originally introduced by Theodossiou [P. Theodossiou, Financial data and the skewed generalized t distribution, Manage. Sci. Part 1 44 (12) ( 1998), pp. 1650–1661] as a skew extension of the generalized t (GT) distribution. The SGT distribution family warrants special attention, because it encompasses distributions having both heavy tails and skewness, and many of the widely used distributions such as Student's t, normal, Hansen's skew t, exponential power, and skew exponential power (SEP) distributions are included as limiting or special cases in the SGT family. We show that the SGT distribution can be obtained as the scale mixture of the SEP and generalized gamma distributions. We investigate several properties of the SGT distribution and consider the maximum likelihood estimation of the location, scale, and skewness parameters under the assumption that the shape parameters are known. We show that if the shape parameters are estimated along with the location, scale, and skewness parameters, the influence function for the maximum likelihood estimators becomes unbounded. We obtain the necessary conditions to ensure the uniqueness of the maximum likelihood estimators for the location, scale, and skewness parameters, with known shape parameters. We provide a simple iterative re-weighting algorithm to compute the maximum likelihood estimates for the location, scale, and skewness parameters and show that this simple algorithm can be identified as an EM-type algorithm. We finally present two applications of the SGT distributions in robust estimation.     

Goodness‐of‐Fit Tests for Bivariate and Multivariate Skew‐Normal Distributions

Abstract. Goodness‐of‐fit tests are proposed for the skew‐normal law in arbitrary dimension. In the bivariate case the proposed tests utilize the fact that the moment‐generating function of the skew‐normal variable is quite simple and satisfies a partial differential equation of the first order. This differential equation is estimated from the sample and the test statistic is constructed as an L ₂ ‐type distance measure incorporating this estimate. Extension of the procedure to dimension greater than two is suggested whereas an effective bootstrap procedure is used to study the behaviour of the new method with real and simulated data.     

Goodness-of-Fit Tests for Multivariate Distributions

We propose three new statistics, Z _p , C _p , and R _p for testing a p-variate (p ≥ 2) normal distribution and compare them with the prominent test statistics. We show that C _p is overall most powerful and is effective against skew, long-tailed as well as short-tailed symmetric alternatives. We show that Z _p and R _p are most powerful against skew and long-tailed alternatives, respectively. The Z _p and R _p statistics can also be used for testing an assumed p-variate nonnormal distribution.     

A multimodal skewed extension of normal distribution: its properties and applications

A multimodal skewed extension of normal distribution is proposed by applying the general method as in [Huang WJ, Chen YH. Generalized skew-Cauchy distribution. Stat Probab Lett. 2007;77:1137–1147] for the construction of skew-symmetric distributions by using a trigonometric periodic skew function. Some of its distributional properties are investigated. Properties of maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters are studied numerically by simulation. The suitability of the proposed distribution in empirical data modelling is investigated by carrying out comparative fitting of two real-life data sets.     

Characteristic function of the SGT distribution

An explicit closed form is derived for the characteristic function for the skew generalized t distribution studied by Arslan and Genç [The skew generalized t (SGT) distribution as the scale mixture of a skew exponential power distribution and its applications in robust estimation, Statistics 43(5) (2009), pp. 481–498]. The expression involves the Wright generalized hypergeometric Ψ–function.     

The power series skew normal class of distributions

A class of power series skew normal distributions is introduced by generalizing the geometric skew normal distribution of Kundu. Various mathematical properties are derived and estimation addressed by the method of maximum likelihood. The data application of Kundu [Sankhyā B, 76, 2014, 167–189] is revisited and the proposed class is shown to provide a better fit.     

An alternative skew exponential power distribution formulation

In this note we propose a newly formulated skew exponential power distribution that behaves substantially better than previously defined versions. This new model performs very well in terms of the large sample behavior of the maximum likelihood estimation procedure when compared to the classically defined four parameter model defined by Azzalini. More recently, approaches to defining a skew exponential power distribution have used five or more parameters. Our approach improves upon previous attempts to extend the symmetric power exponential family to include skew alternatives by maintaining a minimum set of four parameters corresponding directly to location, scale, skewness and kurtosis. We illustrate the utility of our proposed model using translational and clinical data sets.     

On the strong Kotz approximation of Dirichlet random vectors

Let (X ₁, X ₂) be a bivariate L _p -norm generalized symmetrized Dirichlet (LpGSD) random vector with parameters α₁,α₂. If p=α₁=α₂=2, then (X ₁, X ₂) is a spherical random vector. The estimation of the conditional distribution of Z _u *:=X ₂ | X ₁>u for u large is of some interest in statistical applications. When (X ₁, X ₂) is a spherical random vector with associated random radius in the Gumbel max-domain of attraction, the distribution of Z _u * can be approximated by a Gaussian distribution. Surprisingly, the same Gaussian approximation holds also for Z _u :=X ₂| X ₁=u. In this paper, we are interested in conditional limit results in terms of convergence of the density functions considering a d-dimensional LpGSD random vector. Stating our results for the bivariate setup, we show that the density function of Z _u * and Z _u can be approximated by the density function of a Kotz type I LpGSD distribution, provided that the associated random radius has distribution function in the Gumbel max-domain of attraction. Further, we present two applications concerning the asymptotic behaviour of concomitants of order statistics of bivariate Dirichlet samples and the estimation of the conditional quantile function.     

On the distribution of quotient of random variables conditioned to the positive quadrant

Abstract

Motivated by Caginalp and Caginalp [Physica A—Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications, 499, 2018, 457–471], we derive the exact distribution of X/Y conditioned on X?>?0, Y?>?0 for more than ten classes of distributions, including the bivariate t, bivariate Cauchy, bivariate Lomax, Arnold and Strauss’ bivariate exponential, Balakrishna and Shiji’s bivariate exponential, Mohsin et al.’s bivariate exponential, Morgenstern type bivariate exponential, bivariate gamma exponential and bivariate alpha skew normal distributions. The results can be useful in finance and other areas.