Optimal number of components in a load-sharing system for maximizing reliability

A $k$-out-of-$n$:G load sharing system is a cluster of $n$ components designed to withstand a certain amount of load in field operation, working only if no fewer than $k$ components work. Previous research on a load sharing system has focused on predicting the time-independent reliability from the stress–strength model or estimating the unknown parameters of the time-dependent reliability for a given load sharing rule. Differently, in this paper, we consider the problem of determining the optimal $n$ to maximize the reliability of both $n$-out-of-$n$:G and ($n$–$1$)-out-of-$n$:G load sharing systems. Since the load of each component decreases in $n$, the proportional hazard model is employed to relate the component failure rate with the load, assuming that the components, which have exponential distributions for given loads, are independent of each other. We then derive a sufficient condition under which a smaller number of components each withstanding a high load is preferred to a larger number of components each withstanding a small load. A numerical example is given for the rocket propulsion system to illustrate the result.     

Some properties of the exponential distribution class with applications to risk theory

This paper derives some equivalent conditions for tail equivalence of a distribution $G$ and the convolution $G1H$, where $G$ belongs to the exponential distribution class and $H$ is another distribution. This generalizes some existing sufficient conditions and gives further insight into closure properties of the exponential distribution class. If $G$ also is $O$-subexponential, then the new conditions are satisfied. The obtained results are applied to investigating asymptotic behavior for the finite-time ruin probability in a discrete-time risk model with both insurance and financial risks, where the distributions of the insurance risk or the product of the two risks may not belong to the convolution equivalence distribution class.     

On the rate of convergence of uniform approximations for sequences of distribution functions

In this paper, we develop uniform bounds for the sequence of distribution functions of $g(V_n+{\mu }_n)$, where $g$ is some smooth function, $\{V_n,n\ge 1\}$ is a sequence of identically distributed random variables with common distribution having a bounded derivative and $\left\{{\mu }_n\right\}$ are constants such that ${\mu }_n\to \infty$. These bounds allow us to identify a suitable sequence of random variables which is asymptotically of the same type of $g(V_n+{\mu }_n)$ showing that the rate of convergence for these uniform approximations depends on the ratio of the second derivative to the first derivative of $g$. The corresponding generalization to the multivariate case is also analyzed. An application of our results to the STATIS-ACT method is provided in the final section.     

A new goodness-of-fit test for certain bivariate distributions applicable to traffic accidents

T. Cacoullos and H. Papageorgiou [On some bivariate probability models applicable to traffic accidents and fatalities, Int. Stat. Rev. 48 (1980) 345–356] studied a special class of bivariate discrete distributions appropriate for modeling traffic accidents, and fatalities resulting therefrom. The corresponding random variable may be written as $Z={(N,Y)}^{\prime }$, with $Y={\sum }_{j=1}^N{X}_j$, where ${\left\{X_j\right\}}_{j=1}^N$, are independent copies of a (discrete) random variable $X$, and $N$ is independent of ${\left\{X_j\right\}}_{j=1}^N$, and follows a Poisson law. If $X$ follows a Poisson law (resp. Binomial law), the resulting distribution is termed Poisson–Poisson (resp. Poisson–Binomial). L2-type goodness-of-fit statistics are constructed for the ‘general distribution’ of this kind, where $X$ may be an arbitrary discrete nonnegative random variable. The test statistics utilize a simple characterization involving the corresponding probability generating function, and are shown to be consistent. The proposed procedures are shown to perform satisfactorily in simulated data, while their application to accident data leads to positive conclusions regarding the modeling ability of this class of bivariate distributions.     

Inferences for hierarchical models with partial prior information

Suppose items can be purchased from one of k-suppliers and it is required to purchase from the one with the smaller failure rate or equivalently from the one with the larger mean-time-to-failure. It is assumed that data $\mathit{d}$, in the form of the times-to-failure for $n_1,\dots ,n_k$ items from suppliers $1,\dots ,k$, respectively is available. There are two suggested selection criteria studied in this paper and when comparing only two suppliers they reduce to$P({\theta }_1<b{\theta }_2|d)\text{and}P(Y_1>{\mathit{cY}}_2|d)\text{,}$where b and c are prespecified practical constants; ${\theta }_1$ and ${\theta }_2$ are the respective mean failure rates; $Y_1$ and $Y_2$ are the predicted times to failure for individual items purchased from each supplier.In addition partial prior information about the $k$-suppliers collectively is assumed to have been elicited. This situation is modelled using the hierarchical Bayesian approach, which easily facilitates interpreting the elicited partial prior information as constraints on the hyperpriors, i.e. hyperpriors that are known only to be contained in families with specified properties. In this paper these properties are assumed to be in the form of specifying certain quantiles arising from the elicited information. Minimum and maximum values of the above selection criteria are obtained and are used to indicate whether or not the elicited prior information is useful. Specific examples are given for comparing two suppliers but generalisation to k-suppliers follows easily.     

Simultaneous selection of treatments better and worse than the best and worst controls

In this paper, we consider $p(p\ge 2)$ and $q(q\ge 2)$ independent treatment and control populations respectively, such that an appropriate probability model for the data from $i\mathrm{th}\left(j\mathrm{th}\right)$ treatment (control) population is a member of absolutely continuous location and scale family of distributions which have common scale parameter and possibly differ in location parameters. For example, there may be $p$ newly invented drugs/varieties of seeds/components which have to compete with their existing $q$ standard competitors in terms of their average responses. A newly invented drug/variety of seed/component is said to be good (bad) if the distance of its average response from the largest (smallest) average response of $q$ control populations is more (less) than ${\delta }_1\left({\delta }_2\right)$ units, where ${\delta }_1$ and ${\delta }_2$ are positive constants to be specified by the experimenter. In this setting a selection procedure is proposed to select simultaneously two subsets $S_U$ and $S_L$ of the $p$ treatment populations such that the subset $S_U$ contains all the good treatments and the subset $S_L$ contains all the bad treatments with probability at least $P^1$, where $P^1$ is a pre-assigned value. The proposed procedure was applied to normal and two parameters exponential probability models separately and the relevant selection constants have been tabulated. The implementation of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through a numerical example based on real life data. The authenticity of numerically computed critical constants have been verified through simulation. Further, if we define the $i\mathrm{th}$ treatment population as bad (good) if the distance of its average response from the largest (smallest) average response of $q$ control populations is less (more) than ${\delta }_3\left({\delta }_4\right)$ units, where ${\delta }_3$ and ${\delta }_4$ are to be specified by the experimenter such that ${\delta }_4>{\delta }_3>0$, then we have proposed a simultaneous selection procedure to select $S_U$ and $S_L$ and a sample size is determined so that the probability of omitting a good (bad) treatment population from $S_U\left(S_L\right)$ or selecting a bad (good) treatment population in $S_U\left(S_L\right)$ is at most $1-P^1$.     

Asymptotic normality of the deconvolution kernel density estimator under the vanishing error variance

Let $X_1,\dots ,X_n$ be i.i.d. observations, where $X_i=Y_i+{\sigma }_n{Z}_i$ and the $Y$’s and $Z$’s are independent. Assume that the $Y$’s are unobservable and that they have the density $f$ and also that the $Z$’s have a known density $k$. Furthermore, let ${\sigma }_n$ depend on $n$ and let ${\sigma }_n\to 0$ as $n\to \infty$. We consider the deconvolution problem, i.e. the problem of estimation of the density $f$ based on the sample $X_1,\dots ,X_n$. A popular estimator of $f$ in this setting is the deconvolution kernel density estimator. We derive its asymptotic normality under two different assumptions on the relation between the sequence ${\sigma }_n$ and the sequence of bandwidths $h_n$. We also consider several simulation examples which illustrate different types of asymptotics corresponding to the derived theoretical results and which show that there exist situations where models with ${\sigma }_n\to 0$ have to be preferred to the models with fixed $\sigma$.     

Confidence intervals for P(Y

《Statistical Methodology》2012,9(3):445-455

Subset selection in multiple linear regression in the presence of outlier and multicollinearity

Various subset selection methods are based on the least squares parameter estimation method. The performance of these methods is not reasonably well in the presence of outlier or multicollinearity or both. Few subset selection methods based on the $M$-estimator are available in the literature for outlier data. Very few subset selection methods account the problem of multicollinearity with ridge regression estimator.In this article, we develop a generalized version of $S_p$ statistic based on the jackknifed ridge $M$-estimator for subset selection in the presence of outlier and multicollinearity. We establish the equivalence of this statistic with the existing $C_p$, $S_p$ and $R_p$ statistics. The performance of the proposed method is illustrated through some numerical examples and the correct model selection ability is evaluated using simulation study.