Customizing Generalizations of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Goodness-of-fit Test

This paper presents a method of customizing goodness-of-fit tests that transforms the empirical distribution function in such a way as to create tests for certain alternatives. Using the @ , g transform described in Blom(1958), one can create non-parametric tests for an assortment of alternative distributions. As examples, three new ( f , g )-corrected Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for goodness-of-fit are discussed. One of these tests is powerful for testing whether or not the data come from an alternative that is heavier in the tails. Another test identifies whether or not the data come from an alternative which is heavier in the middle of the distribution. The last test identifies if the data come from an alternative in which the first or third quartile is far from the corresponding quartile of the hypothesized distribution. The behavior of the three new tests is investigated through a power study.     

Entropy estimation and goodness-of-fit tests for the inverse Gaussian and Laplace distributions using paired ranked set sampling

ABSTRACT

In this paper, Vasicek [A test for normality based on sample entropy. J R Stat Soc Ser B. 1976;38:54–59] entropy estimator is modified using paired ranked set sampling (PRSS) method. Also, two goodness-of-fit tests using PRSS are suggested for the inverse Gaussian and Laplace distributions. The new suggested entropy estimator and goodness-of-fit tests using PRSS are compared with their counterparts using simple random sampling (SRS) via Monte Carlo simulations. The critical values of the suggested tests are obtained, and the powers of the tests based on several alternatives hypotheses using SRS and PRSS are calculated. It turns out that the proposed PRSS entropy estimator is more efficient than the SRS counterpart in terms of root mean square error. Also, the proposed PRSS goodness-of-fit tests have higher powers than their counterparts using SRS for all alternative considered in this study.     

Goodness-of-Fit of the Distribution of Time-to-First-Occurrence in Recurrent Event Models

Imperfect repair models are a class of stochastic models that deal with recurrent phenomena. This article focuses on the Block, Borges, and Savits (1985) age-dependent minimal repair model (the BBS model) in which a system that fails at time t undergoes one of two types of repair: with probability p(t), a perfect repair is performed, or with probability 1-p(t), a minimal repair is performed. The goodness-of-fit problem of interest concerns the initial distribution of the failure ages. In particular, interest is on testing the null hypothesis that the hazard rate function of the time-to-first-event-occurrence, λ(·), is equal to a prespecified hazard rate function λ₀(·). This paper extends the class of hazard-based smooth goodness-of-fit tests introduced in Peña (1998a) to the case where data accrual is from a BBS model. The goodness-of-fit tests are score tests derived by reformulating Neyman's idea of smooth tests in terms of hazard functions. Omnibus as well as directional tests are developed and simulation results are presented to illustrate the sensitivities of the proposed tests for certain types of alternatives.     

Testing the Fit of Gamma Distributions Using the Empirical Moment Generating Function

ABSTRACT

This article presents goodness-of-fit tests for two and three-parameter gamma distributions that are based on minimum quadratic forms of standardized logarithmic differences of values of the moment generating function and its empirical counterpart. The test statistics can be computed without reliance to special functions and have asymptotic chi-squared distributions. Monte Carlo simulations are used to compare the proposed test for the two-parameter gamma distribution with goodness-of-fit tests employing empirical distribution function or spacing statistics. Two data sets are used to illustrate the various tests.     

A moment-based empirical likelihood ratio test for exponentiality using the probability integral transformation

ABSTRACT

A simple and efficient goodness-of-fit test for exponentiality is developed by exploiting the characterization of the exponential distribution using the probability integral transformation. We adopted the empirical likelihood methodology in constructing the test statistic. The proposed test statistic has a chi-square limiting distribution. For small to moderate sample sizes Monte-Carlo simulations revealed that our proposed tests are much more superior under increasing failure rate (IFR) and bathtub decreasing-increasing failure rate (BFR) alternatives. Real data examples were used to demonstrate the robustness and applicability of our proposed tests in practice.     

On deviations between kernel-type estimators of a distribution density in p ⩾ 2 independent samples

In the article, the tests are constructed for the hypotheses that p ? 2 independent samples have the same distribution density (homogeneity hypothesis) or have the same well-defined distribution density (goodness-of-fit test). The limiting power of the constructed tests is found for some local “close” alternatives.     

Transformations for Testing the Fit of the Inverse-Gaussian Distribution

Abstract

Use of the MVUE for the inverse-Gaussian distribution has been recently proposed by Nguyen and Dinh [Nguyen, T. T., Dinh, K. T. (2003). Exact EDF goodnes-of-fit tests for inverse Gaussian distributions. Comm. Statist. (Simulation and Computation) 32(2):505–516] where a sequential application based on Rosenblatt's transformation [Rosenblatt, M. (1952). Remarks on a multivariate transformation. Ann. Math. Statist. 23:470–472] led the authors to solve the composite goodness-of-fit problem by solving the surrogate simple goodness-of-fit problem, of testing uniformity of the independent transformed variables. In this note, we observe first that the proposal is not new since it was proposed in a rather general setting in O'Reilly and Quesenberry [O'Reilly, F., Quesenberry, C. P. (1973). The conditional probability integral transformation and applications to obtain composite chi-square goodness-of-fit tests. Ann. Statist. I:74–83]. It is shown on the other hand that the results in the paper of Nguyen and Dinh (2003) are incorrect in their Sec. 4, specially the Monte Carlo figures reported. Power simulations are provided here comparing these corrected results with two previously reported goodness-of-fit tests for the inverse-Gaussian; the modified Kolmogorov–Smirnov test in Edgeman et al. [Edgeman, R. L., Scott, R. C., Pavur, R. J. (1988). A modified Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for inverse Gaussian distribution with unknown parameters. Comm. Statist. 17(B): 1203–1212] and the A ² based method in O'Reilly and Rueda [O'Reilly, F., Rueda, R. (1992). Goodness of fit for the inverse Gaussian distribution. T Can. J. Statist. 20(4):387–397]. The results show clearly that there is a large loss of power in the method explored in Nguyen and Dinh (2003) due to an implicit exogenous randomization.     

Goodness-of-fit testing by transforming to normality: comparison between classical and characteristic function-based methods

Chen and Balakrishnan [Chen, G. and Balakrishnan, N., 1995, A general purpose approximate goodness-of-fit test. Journal of Quality Technology, 27, 154–161] proposed an approximate method of goodness-of-fit testing that avoids the use of extensive tables. This procedure first transforms the data to normality, and subsequently applies the classical tests for normality based on the empirical distribution function, and critical points thereof. In this paper, we investigate the potential of this method in comparison to a corresponding goodness-of-fit test which instead of the empirical distribution function, utilizes the empirical characteristic function. Both methods are in full generality as they may be applied to arbitrary laws with continuous distribution function, provided that an efficient method of estimation exists for the parameters of the hypothesized distribution.     

New invariant and consistent chi-squared type goodness-of-fit tests for multivariate normality and a related comparative simulation study

ABSTRACT

New invariant and consistent goodness-of-fit tests for multivariate normality are introduced. Tests are based on the Karhunen–Loève transformation of a multidimensional sample from a population. A comparison of simulated powers of tests and other well-known tests with respect to some alternatives is given. The simulation study demonstrates that power of the proposed McCull test almost does not depend on the number of grouping cells. The test shows an advantage over other chi-squared type tests. However, averaged over all of the simulated conditions examined in this article, the Anderson–Darling type and the Cramer–von Mises type tests seem to be the best.     

The Sensitivity of Chi-Squared Goodness-of-Fit Tests to the Partitioning of Data

Abstract

The power of Pearson's overall goodness-of-fit test and the components-of-chi-squared or “Pearson analog” tests of Anderson [Anderson, G. (1994). Simple tests of distributional form. J. Econometrics 62:265–276] to detect rejections due to shifts in location, scale, skewness and kurtosis is studied, as the number and position of the partition points is varied. Simulations are conducted for small and moderate sample sizes. It is found that smaller numbers of classes than are used in practice may be appropriate, and that the choice of non-equiprobable classes can result in substantial gains in power.     

A new class of probability distributions via cosine and sine functions with applications

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we introduce a new class of (probability) distributions, based on a cosine-sine transformation, obtained by compounding a baseline distribution with cosine and sine functions. Some of its properties are explored. A special focus is given to a particular cosine-sine transformation using the exponential distribution as baseline. Estimations of parameters of a particular cosine-sine exponential distribution are performed via the maximum likelihood estimation method. A simulation study investigates the performances of these estimates. Applications are given for four real data sets, showing a better fit in comparison to some existing distributions based on some goodness-of-fit tests.     

Exponentiality test based on Renyi distance between equilibrium distributions

ABSTRACT

On the basis of Csiszar's φ-divergence discrimination information, we propose a measure of discrepancy between equilibriums associated with two distributions. Proving that a distribution can be characterized by associated equilibrium distribution, a Renyi distance of the equilibrium distributions is constructed that made us to propose an EDF-based goodness-of-fit test for exponential distribution. For comparing the performance of the proposed test, some well-known EDF-based tests and some entropy-based tests are considered. Based on the simulation results, the proposed test has better powers than those of competing entropy-based tests for the alternatives with decreasing hazard rate function. The use of the proposed test is evaluated in an illustrative example.     

Decisions on Seasonal Unit Roots

Decisions on the presence of seasonal unit roots in economic time series are commonly taken on the basis of statistical hypothesis tests. Some of these tests have absence of unit roots as the null hypothesis, while others use unit roots as their null. Following a suggestion by Hylleberg (1995) to combine such tests in order to reach a clearer conclusion, we evaluate the merits of such test combinations on the basis of a Bayesian decision setup. We find that the potential gains over a pure application of the most common test due to Hylleberg et al. (1990) can be small.     

Data-driven smooth test for a location-scale family

A combination of a smooth test statistic and (an approximate) Schwarz's selection rule has been proposed by Inglot, T., Kallenberg, W. C. M. and Ledwina, T. ((1997). Data-driven smooth tests for composite hypotheses. Ann. Statist. 25, 1222–1250) as a solution of a standard goodness-of-fit problem when nuisance parameters are present. In the present paper we modify the above solution in the sense that we propose another analogue of Schwarz's rule and rederive properties of it and the resulting test statistic. To avoid technicalities we restrict our attention to location-scale family and method of moments estimators of its parameters. In a parallel paper [Janic-Wróblewska, A. (2004). Data-driven smooth tests for the extreme value distribution. Statistics, in press] we illustrate an application of our solution and advantages of modification when testing of fit to extreme value distribution.     

Goodness-of-fit tests for progressively Type-II censored data from location–scale distributions

In this article, we propose several goodness-of-fit methods for location–scale families of distributions under progressively Type-II censored data. The new tests are based on order statistics and sample spacings. We assess the performance of the proposed tests for the normal and Gumbel models against several alternatives by means of Monte Carlo simulations. It has been observed that the proposed tests are quite powerful in comparison with an existing goodness-of-fit test proposed for progressively Type-II censored data by Balakrishnan et al. [Goodness-of-fit tests based on spacings for progressively Type-II censored data from a general location–scale distribution, IEEE Trans. Reliab. 53 (2004), pp. 349–356]. Finally, we illustrate the proposed goodness-of-fit tests using two real data from reliability literature.     

On goodness-of-fit tests for Aalen's additive model based on left-truncated right-censored or doubly censored data

ABSTRACT

Gandy and Jensen (2005 Gandy, A., Jensen, U. (2005). On goodness-of-fit tests for Aalen's additive risk model. Scan. J. Stat. 32:425–445.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) proposed goodness-of-fit tests for Aalen's additive risk model. In this article, we demonstrate that the approach of Gandy and Jensen (2005 Gandy, A., Jensen, U. (2005). On goodness-of-fit tests for Aalen's additive risk model. Scan. J. Stat. 32:425–445.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) can be applied to left-truncated right-censored (LTRC) data and doubly censored data. A simulation study is conducted to investigate the performance of the proposed tests. The proposed tests are illustrated using heart transplant data.     

Corrected likelihood ratio and score tests for the beta distribution

We present correction formulae to improve likelihood ratio and score teats for testing simple and composite hypotheses on the parameters of the beta distribution. As a special case of our results we obtain improved tests for the hypothesis that a sample is drawn from a uniform distribution on (0, 1). We present some Monte Carlo investigations to show that both corrected tests have better performances than the classical likelihood ratio and score tests at least for small sample sizes.     

Goodness-of-fit tests of hypothesized canonical variables

In the literature goodness-of-fit tests for canonical variables are available either in the x space or in the y space, see e.g., Bartlett (1951), Kshirsagar (1971, 1972), Radcliffe (1968), and Williams (1952). Here we present goodness-of-fit tests for canonical variables in both the x and y spaces. The results appear as extensions of the results of the above authors.     

A Comparative Study of Model-based Tests of Independence for Ordinal Data Using the Bootstrap

When analyzing categorical data using loglinear models in sparse contingency tables, asymptotic results may fail. In this paper the empirical properties of three commonly used asymptotic tests of independence, based on the uniform association model for ordinal data, are investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulation. Five different bootstrapped tests of independence are presented and compared to the asymptotic tests. The comparisons are made with respect to both size and power properties of the tests. Results indicate that the asymptotic tests have poor size control. The test based on the estimated association parameter is severely conservative and the two chi-squared tests (Pearson, likelihood-ratio) are both liberal. The bootstrap tests that either use a parametric assumption or are based on non-pivotal test statistics do not perform better than the asymptotic tests in all situations. The bootstrap tests that are based on approximately pivotal statistics provide both adjustment of size and enhancement of power. These tests are therefore recommended for use in situations similar to those included in the simulation study.     

More powerful sign test using median ranked set sample: Finite sample power comparison

Sign test using median ranked set samples (MRSS) is introduced and investigated. We show that, this test is more powerful than the sign tests based on simple random sample (SRS) and ranked set sample (RSS) for finite sample size. It is found that, when the set size of MRSS is odd, the null distribution of the MRSS sign test is the same as the sign test obtained by using SRS. The exact null distributions and the power functions, in case of finite sample sizes, of these tests are derived. Also, the asymptotic distribution of the MRSS sign tests are derived. Numerical comparison of the MRSS sign test power with the power of the SRS sign test and the RSS sign test is given. Illustration of the procedure, using real data set of bilirubin level in Jaundice babies who stay in neonatal intensive care is introduced.