Truncated linear estimation of a bounded multivariate normal mean

We consider the problem of estimating the mean θ$\theta$ of an _Np(θ,_Ip)${\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{p}}(\theta ,I_p)$ distribution with squared error loss ∥δ−θ∥²$\parallel \delta -\theta {\parallel }^2$ and under the constraint ∥θ∥≤m$\parallel \theta \parallel \le m$, for some constant m>0$m>0$. Using Stein's identity to obtain unbiased estimates of risk, Karlin's sign change arguments, and conditional risk analysis, we compare the risk performance of truncated linear estimators with that of the maximum likelihood estimator _δmle${\delta }_{\mathrm{mle}}$. We obtain for fixed (m,p)$(m,p)$ sufficient conditions for dominance. An asymptotic framework is developed, where we demonstrate that the truncated linear minimax estimator dominates _δmle${\delta }_{\mathrm{mle}}$, and where we obtain simple and accurate measures of relative improvement in risk. Numerical evaluations illustrate the effectiveness of the asymptotic framework for approximating the risks for moderate or large values of p.     

Confidence intervals in regression utilizing prior information

We consider a linear regression model with regression parameter β=(_β1,…,_βp)$\beta =({\beta }_1,\dots ,{\beta }_p)$ and independent and identically N(0,σ²)$N(0,{\sigma }^2)$ distributed errors. Suppose that the parameter of interest is θ=a^Tβ$\theta =a^T\beta$ where a$a$ is a specified vector. Define the parameter τ=c^Tβ-t$\tau =c^T\beta -t$ where the vector c$c$ and the number t$t$ are specified and a$a$ and c$c$ are linearly independent. Also suppose that we have uncertain prior information that τ=0$\tau =0$. We present a new frequentist 1-α$1-\alpha$ confidence interval for θ$\theta$ that utilizes this prior information. We require this confidence interval to (a) have endpoints that are continuous functions of the data and (b) coincide with the standard 1-α$1-\alpha$ confidence interval when the data strongly contradict this prior information. This interval is optimal in the sense that it has minimum weighted average expected length where the largest weight is given to this expected length when τ=0$\tau =0$. This minimization leads to an interval that has the following desirable properties. This interval has expected length that (a) is relatively small when the prior information about τ$\tau$ is correct and (b) has a maximum value that is not too large. The following problem will be used to illustrate the application of this new confidence interval. Consider a 2×2$2\times 2$ factorial experiment with 20 replicates. Suppose that the parameter of interest θ$\theta$ is a specified simple   effect and that we have uncertain prior information that the two-factor interaction is zero. Our aim is to find a frequentist 0.95 confidence interval for θ$\theta$ that utilizes this prior information.     

Higher-order approximations for interval estimation in binomial settings

In this paper we revisit the classical problem of interval estimation for one-binomial parameter and for the log odds ratio of two binomial parameters. We examine the confidence intervals provided by two versions of the modified log likelihood root: the usual Barndorff-Nielsen's r^*$r^{*}$ and a Bayesian version of the r^*$r^{*}$ test statistic.     

Optimality of the quasi-score estimator in a mean–variance model with applications to measurement error models

We consider a regression of y$y$ on x$x$ given by a pair of mean and variance functions with a parameter vector θ$\theta$ to be estimated that also appears in the distribution of the regressor variable x$x$. The estimation of θ$\theta$ is based on an extended quasi-score (QS) function. We show that the QS estimator is optimal within a wide class of estimators based on linear-in-y$y$ unbiased estimating functions. Of special interest is the case where the distribution of x$x$ depends only on a subvector α$\alpha$ of θ$\theta$, which may be considered a nuisance parameter. In general, α$\alpha$ must be estimated simultaneously together with the rest of θ$\theta$, but there are cases where α$\alpha$ can be pre-estimated. A major application of this model is the classical measurement error model, where the corrected score (CS) estimator is an alternative to the QS estimator. We derive conditions under which the QS estimator is strictly more efficient than the CS estimator.     

Optimally robust credible sets with a class of priors

We determine a credible set A   that is the “best” with respect to the variation of the prior distribution in a neighborhood Γ$\Gamma$ of the starting prior _π0(θ)${\pi }_0(\theta )$. Among the class of sets with credibility γ$\gamma$ under _π0${\pi }_0$, the “optimally robust” set will be the one which maximizes the minimum probability of including θ$\theta$ as the prior varies over Γ$\Gamma$. This procedure is also Γ-minimax$\Gamma \text{-minimax}$ with respect to the risk function, probability of non-inclusion. We find the optimally robust credible set for three neighborhood classes Γ$\Gamma$, the ε-contamination$\epsilon \text{-contamination}$ class, the density ratio class and the density bounded class. A consequence of this investigation is that the maximum likelihood set is seen to be an optimal credible set from a robustness perspective.     

On E(s)-optimal supersaturated designs

A popular measure to assess 2-level supersaturated designs is the E(s²)$E(s^2)$ criterion. In this paper, improved lower bounds on E(s²)$E(s^2)$ are obtained. The same improvement has recently been established by Ryan and Bulutoglu [2007. E(s²)$E(s^2)$-optimal supersaturated designs with good minimax properties. J. Statist. Plann. Inference 137, 2250–2262]. However, our analysis provides more details on precisely when an improvement is possible, which is lacking in Ryan and Bulutoglu [2007. E(s²)$E(s^2)$-optimal supersaturated designs with good minimax properties. J. Statist. Plann. Inference 137, 2250–2262]. The equivalence of the bounds obtained by Butler et al. [2001. A general method of constructing E(s²)$E(s^2)$-optimal supersaturated designs. J. Roy. Statist. Soc. B 63, 621–632] (in the cases where their result applies) and those obtained by Bulutoglu and Cheng [2004. Construction of E(s²)$E(s^2)$-optimal supersaturated designs. Ann. Statist. 32, 1662–1678] is established. We also give two simple methods of constructing E(s²)$E(s^2)$-optimal designs.     

Optimal designs for threshold-determining limiting dilution assays

In common with other non-linear models, the optimal design for a limiting dilution assay (LDA) depends on the value of the unknown parameter, θ$\theta$, in the model. Consequently optimal designs cannot be specified unless some assumptions are made about the possible values of θ$\theta$. If a prior distribution can be specified then a Bayesian approach can be adopted. A proper specification of the Bayesian approach requires the aim of the experiment to be described and quantified through an appropriate utility function. This paper addresses the problem of finding optimal designs for LDAs when the aim is to determine whether θ$\theta$ is above or below a specified threshold, _θ0${\theta }_0$.     

Construction of blocked two-level regular designs with general minimum lower order confounding

Zhang et al. (2008) proposed a general minimum lower order confounding (GMC for short) criterion, which aims to select optimal factorial designs in a more elaborate and explicit manner. By extending the GMC criterion to the case of blocked designs, Wei et al. (submitted for publication) proposed a B¹-GMC criterion. The present paper gives a construction theory and obtains the B¹-GMC 2^n−m:2^r$2^{n-m}:2^r$ designs with n≥5N/16+1$n\ge 5N/16+1$, where 2^n−m:2^r$2^{n-m}:2^r$ denotes a two-level regular blocked design with N=2^n−m$N=2^{n-m}$ runs, n   treatment factors, and 2^r$2^r$ blocks. The construction result is simple. Up to isomorphism, the B¹-GMC 2^n−m:2^r$2^{n-m}:2^r$ designs can be constructed as follows: the n   treatment factors and the 2^r−1$2^r-1$ block effects are, respectively, assigned to the last n   columns and specific 2^r−1$2^r-1$ columns of the saturated 2^{(N−1)−(N−1−n+m)}$2^{(N-1)-(N-1-n+m)}$ design with Yates order. With such a simple structure, the B¹-GMC designs can be conveniently used in practice. Examples are included to illustrate the theory.     

On asymptotic properties of the parameter estimator for a type of SPDE

In this paper, we study a random field _U?(t,x)$U_{?}(t,x)$ governed by some type of stochastic partial differential equations with an unknown parameter θ$\theta$ and a small noise ?$?$. We construct an estimator of θ$\theta$ based on the continuous observation of N   Fourier coefficients of _U?(t,x)$U_{?}(t,x)$, and prove the strong convergence and asymptotic normality of the estimator when the noise ?$?$ tends to zero.     

Estimation of extreme quantiles from heavy and light tailed distributions

In Gardes et al. (2011), a new family of distributions is introduced, depending on two parameters τ$\tau$ and θ$\theta$, which encompasses Pareto-type distributions as well as Weibull tail-distributions. Estimators for θ$\theta$ and extreme quantiles are also proposed, but they both depend on the unknown parameter τ$\tau$, making them useless in practical situations. In this paper, we propose an estimator of τ$\tau$ which is independent of θ$\theta$. Plugging our estimator of τ$\tau$ in the two previous ones allows us to estimate extreme quantiles from Pareto-type and Weibull tail-distributions in an unified way. The asymptotic distributions of our three new estimators are established and their efficiency is illustrated on a small simulation study and on a real data set.     

Optimal designs based on exact confidence regions for parameter estimation of a nonlinear regression model

This paper is concerned with the proposal of optimality criteria, referred to as X  - and X^′$X^{\prime }$-optimality criteria, and the construction of X  - and X^′$X^{\prime }$-optimal designs, for nonlinear regression models. These optimal designs aim at improving the estimation of parameters of this class of models. The principle of these criteria is the minimization, with respect to the design, of the expected volume of a particular exact parametric confidence region. In this paper we give detailed definitions, properties, and computation methods of X  - and X^′$X^{\prime }$-optimal designs. We also compare these designs with the classic local D-optimal designs, with regard to robustness and efficiency, for two very well-known academic models (Box–Lucas and Michaelis–Menten models).     

Distribution theory of quadratic forms for matrix multivariate elliptical distribution

This paper proposes the density and characteristic functions of a general matrix quadratic form X^(?)AX${\mathbf{X}}^{(?)}\mathbf{AX}$, when A=A^(?)$\mathbf{A}={\mathbf{A}}^{(?)}$ is a positive semidefinite matrix, X$\mathbf{X}$ has a matrix multivariate elliptical distribution and X^(?)${\mathbf{X}}^{(?)}$ denotes the usual conjugate transpose of X$\mathbf{X}$. These results are obtained for real normed division algebras. With particular cases we obtained the density and characteristic functions of matrix quadratic forms for matrix multivariate normal, Pearson type VII, t and Cauchy distributions.     

Generalization of the order-restricted information criterion for multivariate normal linear models

The generalized order-restricted information criterion (goric) is a model selection criterion which can, up to now, solely be applied to the analysis of variance models and, so far, only evaluate restrictions of the form Rθ≤0$R\theta \le 0$, where θ$\theta$ is a vector of k group means and R   a _cm×k$c_m\times k$ matrix. In this paper, we generalize the goric in two ways: (i) such that it can be applied to t  -variate normal linear models and (ii) such that it can evaluate a more general form of order restrictions: Rθ≤r$R\theta \le r$, where θ$\theta$ is a vector of length tk, r a vector of length c_m, and R   a _cm×tk$c_m\times \mathit{tk}$ matrix of full rank (when r≠0$r\ne 0$). At the end, we illustrate that the goric is easy to implement in a multivariate regression model.     

Improving the estimators of the parameters of a probit regression model: A ridge regression approach

This paper considered the estimation of the regression parameters of a general probit regression model. Accordingly, we proposed five ridge regression (RR) estimators for the probit regression models for estimating the parameters (β)$(\beta )$ when the weighted design matrix is ill-conditioned and it is suspected that the parameter β$\beta$ may belong to a linear subspace defined by Hβ=h$H\beta =h$. Asymptotic properties of the estimators are studied with respect to quadratic biases, MSE matrices and quadratic risks. The regions of optimality of the proposed estimators are determined based on the quadratic risks. Some relative efficiency tables and risk graphs are provided to illustrate the numerical comparison of the estimators. We conclude that when q≥3$q\ge 3$, one would uses PRRRE; otherwise one uses PTRRE with some optimum size α$\alpha$. We also discuss the performance of the proposed estimators compare to the alternative ridge regression method due to Liu (1993).     

Goodness-of-fit tests for parametric regression with selection biased data

Consider the nonparametric location-scale regression model Y=m(X)+σ(X)ε$Y=m(X)+\sigma (X)\epsilon$, where the error ε$\epsilon$ is independent of the covariate X$X$, and m$m$ and σ$\sigma$ are smooth but unknown functions. The pair (X,Y)$(X,Y)$ is allowed to be subject to selection bias. We construct tests for the hypothesis that m(·)$m(·)$ belongs to some parametric family of regression functions. The proposed tests compare the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE) based on the residuals obtained under the assumed parametric model, with the NPMLE based on the residuals obtained without using the parametric model assumption. The asymptotic distribution of the test statistics is obtained. A bootstrap procedure is proposed to approximate the critical values of the tests. Finally, the finite sample performance of the proposed tests is studied in a simulation study, and the developed tests are applied on environmental data.     

Testing regions with nonsmooth boundaries via multiscale bootstrap

A new class of approximately unbiased tests based on bootstrap probabilities is obtained for the multivariate normal model with unknown expectation parameter vector. The null hypothesis is represented as an arbitrary-shaped region with possibly nonsmooth boundary surfaces such as cones, which appear in, for example, multiple comparisons and hierarchical clustering. The size n^′$n^{\prime }$ of bootstrap samples is intentionally altered from the size n of the data. A scaling-law of the bootstrap probability leads to our bias corrected p  -values which are calculated by extrapolating the bootstrap probability back to n^′=-n$n^{\prime }=-n$. The new method approximates the bootstrap iteration applied to the bootstrap probability.     

An identity for the Fisher information and Mahalanobis distance

Consider a mixture problem consisting of k classes. Suppose we observe an s-dimensional random vector X   whose distribution is specified by the relations P(X∈A|Y=i)=_Pi(A)$P(X\in A|Y=i)=P_i(A)$, where Y   is an unobserved class identifier defined on {1,…,k}$\{1,\dots ,k\}$, having distribution P(Y=i)=_pi$P(Y=i)=p_i$. Assuming the distributions _Pi$P_i$ having a common covariance matrix, elegant identities are presented that connect the matrix of Fisher information in Y   on the parameters _p1,…,_pk$p_1,\dots ,p_k$, the matrix of linear information in X, and the Mahalanobis distances between the pairs of P  's. Since the parameters are not free, the information matrices are singular and the technique of generalized inverses is used. A matrix extension of the Mahalanobis distance and its invariant forms are introduced that are of interest in their own right. In terms of parameter estimation, the results provide an independent of the parameter upper bound for the loss of accuracy by esimating _p1,…,_pk$p_1,\dots ,p_k$ from a sample of X^′$X^{\prime }$s, as compared with the ideal estimator based on a random sample of Y^′$Y^{\prime }$s.     

Lattice and Schröder paths with periodic boundaries

We consider paths in the plane with (1,0$1,0$), (0,1$0,1$), and (a,b$a,b$)-steps that start at the origin, end at height n$n$, and stay strictly to the left of a given non-decreasing right boundary. We show that if the boundary is periodic and has slope at most b/a$b/a$, then the ordinary generating function for the number of such paths ending at height n   is algebraic. Our argument is in two parts. We use a simple combinatorial decomposition to obtain an Appell relation or “umbral” generating function, in which the power zⁿ$z^n$ is replaced by a power series of the form zⁿ_φn(z),$z^n{\phi }_n(z),$ where _φn(0)=1.${\phi }_n(0)=1.$ Then we convert (in an explicit way) the umbral generating function to an ordinary generating function by solving a system of linear equations and a polynomial equation. This conversion implies that the ordinary generating function is algebraic. We give several concrete examples, including an alternative way to solve the tennis ball problem.     

Double-smoothing for bias reduction in local linear regression

Local linear regression involves fitting a straight line segment over a small region whose midpoint is the target point x, and the local linear estimate at x   is the estimated intercept of that straight line segment, with an asymptotic bias of order h²$h^2$ and variance of order (nh)^-1$(\mathit{nh}{)}^{-1}$ (h is the bandwidth). In this paper, we propose a new estimator, the double-smoothing local linear estimator, which is constructed by integrally combining all fitted values at x   of local lines in its neighborhood with another round of smoothing. The proposed estimator attempts to make use of all information obtained from fitting local lines. Without changing the order of variance, the new estimator can reduce the bias to an order of h⁴$h^4$. The proposed estimator has better performance than local linear regression in situations with considerable bias effects; it also has less variability and more easily overcomes the sparse data problem than local cubic regression. At boundary points, the proposed estimator is comparable to local linear regression. Simulation studies are conducted and an ethanol example is used to compare the new approach with other competitive methods.