On the distribution of the estimated mean from nonstandard mixtures of distributions

The distribution of the estimated mean of the nonstandard mixture of distributions that has a discrete probability mass at zero and a gamma distribution for positive values is derived. Furthermore, for the studied nonstandard mixture of distributions, the distribution of the standardized statistic (estimator - true mean)/standard deviation of estimator is derived. The results are used to study the accuracy of the confidence interval for the mean based on a large sample approximation. Quantiles for the standardized statistic are also calculated.     

A new approximation for the distribution of the difference of two t-variables

A mixture representation for the distribution of the difference of two independent t-varlables is provided to approximate the probabilities and percentiles The mixture of normal and standardized t is found to be quite suitable in terms of the accuracy and simplicity as it compares favorably to the best known approximation namelyt that due to Ghosh (1975). The idea of the mixture distribution is also extended to provide an approximation to the distribution of a linear combination of independent t-variables which provides an approximation to the Behrens-Fisher distribution in particular.     

On the Fisher–Bingham distribution

This paper primarily is concerned with the sampling of the Fisher–Bingham distribution and we describe a slice sampling algorithm for doing this. A by-product of this task gave us an infinite mixture representation of the Fisher–Bingham distribution; the mixing distributions being based on the Dirichlet distribution. Finite numerical approximations are considered and a sampling algorithm based on a finite mixture approximation is compared with the slice sampling algorithm.     

On Stein's method, smoothing estimates in total variation distance and mixture distributions

In many settings it is useful to have bounds on the total variation distance between some random variable Z and its shifted version Z+1. For example, such quantities are often needed when applying Stein's method for probability approximation. This note considers one way in which such bounds can be derived, in cases where Z is either the equilibrium distribution of some birth-death process or the mixture of such a distribution. Applications of these bounds are given to translated Poisson and compound Poisson approximations for Poisson mixtures and the Pólya distribution.     

A note on the accuracy of fisher's approximation to the large sample variance of an intraclass correlationa

The adequacy of Fisher's approximation to the large sample variance of an intraclass correlation is investigated in the context of family studies. It is found that the approximation is highly accurate in samples of moderately large size (≧ 30 families), and can also be used for significance-testing under a broad range of circumstances. The exact sampling of distribution of the intraclass correlation coefficient is also derived.     

On the distribution of Fisher's transformation of the correlation coefficient

As the sample size increases, the coefficient of skewness of the Fisher's transformation, z = (1/2) log ((l+r)/(l-r)), of the correlation coefficient decreases much more rapidly than the excess of its kurtosis. Hence, the usual normal approximation for its distribution can be improved by adjusting for the excess of its kurtosis. This is accomplished by mixing the approximating normal distribution with a logistic distribution. The resulting mixture approximation which can be used to estimate the probabilities, as well as the percentiles, compares favorably in both accuracy and simplicity, with the two best earlier approximations, namely, those due to Ruben (1966) and Kraemer (1973).     

A moment-generating function with application to the birnbaum-saunders distribution

The Birnbaum-Saunders distribution is a fatigue life distribution that was derived from a model assuming that failure is due to the development and growth of a dominant crack. This distribution has been shown to be applicable not only for fatigue analysis but also in other areas of engineering science. Because of its increasing use, it would be desirable to obtain expressions for the expected value of different powers of this distribution.

In this article, the moment-generating function for the sinh-normal distribution is derived. It is shown that this moment-generating function can be used to obtain both integer and fractional moments for the Birnbaum-Saunders distribution. Thus it is now possible to obtain an expression for the expected value of the square root of a Birnbaum-Saunders random variable. A general expression for integer noncentral moments for the Birnbaum-Saunders distribution is derived using the moment-generating function of the sinh-normal distribution. Also included is an approximation of the moment-generating function that can be used fcx small values of the shape parameter.     

On the time to extinction in recurrent epidemics

An approximation is derived for the expected time to extinction in a stochastic model for recurrent epidemics. Numerical illustrations indicate that the approximation is crude but that it has the correct order of magnitude. The quasi-stationary distribution plays an important role in the derivation. Approximations for the critical community size and of the persistence threshold are derived. Comments are made on the classical study by Bartlell (1956–1960).     

A simple approximation relation between the symmetric generalized logistic and the students t distributions

In this paper, we obtain a new approximation of the Student's t distribution by using the symmetric generalized logistic (SGL) distribution function. The error of this approximation is shown to be 0(1/n² )where nis the degrees of freedom of thetdistribution. In comparison to similar approximations by George and Ojo and George et al. (1986), this new approximation is much simpler and more accurate. It is also shown that under some conditions, the tdistribution is a good approximation of the SGL distribution. Therefore, the complicated expressions for the cumulants and moments of the SGL can be approximated by those of the t, distribution. Finally, numerical results are given.     

Histogram-Based Interpolation of the Lorenz Curve and Gini Index for Grouped Data

In grouped data, the estimation of the Lorenz curve without taking into account the within-class variability leads to an overestimation of the curve and an underestimation of the Gini index. We propose a new strictly convex estimator of the Lorenz curve derived from a linear interpolation-based approximation of the cumulative distribution function. Integrating the Lorenz curve, a correction can be derived for the Gini index that takes the intraclass variability into account.     

Improved Measures of the Spread of Data for Some Unknown Complex Distributions Using Saddlepoint Approximations

Measures of the spread of data for random sums arise frequently in many problems and have a wide range of applications in real life, such as in the insurance field (e.g., the total claim size in a portfolio). The exact distribution of random sums is extremely difficult to determine, and normal approximation usually performs very badly for this complex distributions. A better method of approximating a random-sum distribution involves the use of saddlepoint approximations.

Saddlepoint approximations are powerful tools for providing accurate expressions for distribution functions that are not known in closed form. This method not only yields an accurate approximation near the center of the distribution but also controls the relative error in the far tail of the distribution.

In this article, we discuss approximations to the unknown complex random-sum Poisson–Erlang random variable, which has a continuous distribution, and the random-sum Poisson-negative binomial random variable, which has a discrete distribution. We show that the saddlepoint approximation method is not only quick, dependable, stable, and accurate enough for general statistical inference but is also applicable without deep knowledge of probability theory. Numerical examples of application of the saddlepoint approximation method to continuous and discrete random-sum Poisson distributions are presented.     

Gamma mixture of generalized error distribution

Abstract

A new symmetric heavy-tailed distribution, namely gamma mixture of generalized error distribution is defined by scaling generalized error distribution with gamma distribution, its probability density function, k-moment, skewness and kurtosis are derived. After tedious calculation, we also give the Fisher information matrix, moment estimators and maximum likelihood estimators for the parameters of gamma mixture of generalized error distribution. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the point estimators and the stability of Fisher information matrix, extensive simulation experiments are carried out in three groups of parameters. Additionally, the new distribution is applied to Apple Inc. stock (AAPL) data and compared with normal distribution, F-S skewed standardized t distribution and generalized error distribution. It is found that the new distribution has better fitting effect on the data under the Akaike information criterion (AIC). To a certain extent, our results enrich the probability distribution theory and develop the scale mixture distribution, which will provide help and reference for financial data analysis.     

Approximate Bayesian analysis of doubly censored samples from mixture of two Weibull distributions

The purpose of the paper is to estimate the parameters of the two-component mixture of Weibull distribution under doubly censored samples using Bayesian approach. The choice of Weibull distribution is made due to its (i) capability to model failure time data from engineering, medical and biological sciences (ii) added advantages over the well-known lifetime distributions such as exponential, Raleigh, lognormal and gamma distribution in terms of flexibility, increasing and decreasing hazard rate and closed-form distribution function and hazard rate. The proposed two-component mixture of Weibull distribution is even more flexible than its conventional form. However, the estimation of the parameters from the proposed mixture is more complex. Further, we have assumed couple of loss functions under non informative prior for the Bayesian analysis of the parameters from the mixture model. As the resultant Bayes estimators and associated posterior risks cannot be derived in the closed form, we have used the importance sampling and Lindley’s approximation to obtain the approximate estimates for the parameters of the mixture model. The comparison between the performances of approximation techniques has been made on the basis of simulation study and real-life data analysis. The importance sampling is found to be better than Lindley’s approximation as it gives better estimation for shape and mixing parameters of the mixture model and computations under this technique are much easier/shorter than those under Lindley’s approximation.     

Bivariate symmetry tests for complete and competing risks data: a saddlepoint approach

A class of bivariate symmetry tests for complete data and competing risks data is considered. Saddlepoint approximation for the exact p-values of the underlying permutation distribution of these tests is derived. Several simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the performance of the saddlepoint approximation and the asymptotic approximation. The saddlepoint approximation was found to be highly accurate and superior to the asymptotic approximations in replicating the exact permutation significance.     

Development and comparative study of two near-exact approximations to the distribution of the product of an odd number of independent Beta random variables

Using the concept of near-exact approximation to a distribution we developed two different near-exact approximations to the distribution of the product of an odd number of particular independent Beta random variables (r.v.'s). One of them is a particular generalized near-integer Gamma (GNIG) distribution and the other is a mixture of two GNIG distributions. These near-exact distributions are mostly adequate to be used as a basis for approximations of distributions of several statistics used in multivariate analysis. By factoring the characteristic function (c.f.) of the logarithm of the product of the Beta r.v.'s, and then replacing a suitably chosen factor of that c.f. by an adequate asymptotic result it is possible to obtain what we call a near-exact c.f., which gives rise to the near-exact approximation to the exact distribution. Depending on the asymptotic result used to replace the chosen parts of the c.f., one may obtain different near-exact approximations. Moments from the two near-exact approximations developed are compared with the exact ones. The two approximations are also compared with each other, namely in terms of moments and quantiles.     

DENSITY FUNCTION APPROXIMATION WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE DISTRIBUTION OF OVERLAP OF CIRCLES

Given that two circles overlap, the area in common is a function of the distance between their centres. This paper adopts a suitable random distribution for the intercentre distance and then derives the distribution of the area of overlap. An approximation is sought for the density function using a criterion which enables bounds to be placed on the difference between the moments of the density function and those of the approximation. This is an approach of general applicability. The importance of matching the end-point behaviour of the density and the approximation is stressed. It is shown that the distribution of the area of overlap may be well approximated by a mixture of beta distributions in which the parameters change smoothly with the ratio of radii.     

Mixtures of concentrated multivariate sine distributions with applications to bioinformatics

Motivated by examples in protein bioinformatics, we study a mixture model of multivariate angular distributions. The distribution treated here (multivariate sine distribution) is a multivariate extension of the well-known von Mises distribution on the circle. The density of the sine distribution has an intractable normalizing constant and here we propose to replace it in the concentrated case by a simple approximation. We study the EM algorithm for this distribution and apply it to a practical example from protein bioinformatics.     

An F Approximation to the Distribution of a Linear Combination of Chi-squared Variables.

A three-parameter F approximation to the distribution of a positive linear combination of central chi-squared variables is described. It is about as easy to implement as the Satterthwaite-Welsh and Hall-Buckley-Eagleson approximations. Some reassuring properties of the F approximation are derived, and numerical results are presented. The numerical results indicate that the new approximation is superior to the Satterthwaite approximation and, for some purposes, better than the Hall-Buckley-Eagleson approximation. It is not quite as good as the Gamma-Weibull approximation due to Solomon and Stephens, but is easier to implement because iterative methods are not required.     

An Alpha Half Normal Slash Distribution for Analyzing Non Negative Data

In this paper, we study a new class of slash distribution. We define the distribution through means of a stochastic representation as the mixture of an alpha half normal random variable with respect to the power of a uniform random variable. Properties involving moments and moment generating function are derived. The usefulness and flexibility of the proposed distribution is illustrated through a real application by maximum likelihood procedure.     

A uniform saddlepoint expansion for the null‐distribution of the wilcoxon‐mann‐whitney statistic

The authors give the exact coefficient of 1/N in a saddlepoint approximation to the Wilcoxon‐Mann‐Whitney null‐distribution. This saddlepoint approximation is obtained from an Edgeworth approximation to the exponentially tilted distribution. Moreover, the rate of convergence of the relative error is uniformly of order O (1/N) in a large deviation interval as defined in Feller (1971). The proposed method for computing the coefficient of 1/N can be used to obtain the exact coefficients of 1/Nⁱ, for any i. The exact formulas for the cumulant generating function and the cumulants, needed for these results, are those of van Dantzig (1947‐1950).