Algorithms for optimal allocation of bets on many simultaneous events

Summary.  The problem of optimizing a number of simultaneous bets is considered, using primarily log-utility. Stochastic gradient-based algorithms for solving this problem are developed and compared with the simplex method. The solutions may be regarded as a generalization of 'Kelly staking' to the case of many simultaneous bets. Properties of the solutions are examined in two example cases using real odds from sports bookmakers. The algorithms that are developed also have wide applicability beyond sports betting and may be extended to general portfolio optimization problems, with any reasonable utility function.     

An Efficient Method of Parameter and Quantile Estimation for the Three-Parameter Weibull Distribution Based on Statistics Invariant to Unknown Location Parameter

The three-parameter Weibull distribution is widely used in life testing and reliability analysis. In this article, we propose an efficient method for the estimation of parameters and quantiles of the three-parameter Weibull distribution, which avoids the problem of unbounded likelihood, by using statistics invariant to unknown location. Through a Monte Carlo simulation study, we show that the proposed method performs well compared to other prominent methods based on bias and MSE. Finally, we present two illustrative examples.     

Empirical likelihood tests for two‐sample problems via nonparametric density estimation

The authors study the problem of testing whether two populations have the same law by comparing kernel estimators of the two density functions. The proposed test statistic is based on a local empirical likelihood approach. They obtain the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic and propose a bootstrap approximation to calibrate the test. A simulation study is carried out in which the proposed method is compared with two competitors, and a procedure to select the bandwidth parameter is studied. The proposed test can be extended to more than two samples and to multivariate distributions.     

Wavelet-based estimation for multivariate stable laws

In this article, an estimation problem for multivariate stable laws using wavelets has been studied. The method of applying wavelets, which has already been done, to estimate parameters in univariate stable laws, has been extended to multivariate stable laws. The proposed estimating method is based on a nonlinear regression model on wavelet coefficients of characteristic functions. In particular, two parametric sub-classes of stable laws are considered: the class of multivariate stable laws with discrete spectral measure, and sub-Gaussian laws. Using a simulation study, the proposed method has been compared with well-known estimation procedures.     

Asymptotic convergence of dimension reduction based boosting in classification

In high dimensional classification problem, two stage method, reducing the dimension of predictor first and then applying the classification method, is a natural solution and has been widely used in many fields. The consistency of the two stage method is an important issue, since errors induced by dimension reduction method inevitably have impacts on the following classification method. As an effective method for classification problem, boosting has been widely used in practice. In this paper, we study the consistency of two stage method–dimension reduction based boosting algorithm (briefly DRB) for classification problem. Theoretical results show that Lipschitz condition on the base learner is required to guarantee the consistency of DRB. This theoretical findings provide useful guideline for application.     

Parameter and quantile estimation for the three-parameter gamma distribution based on statistics invariant to unknown location

The three-parameter gamma distribution is widely used as a model for distributions of life spans, reaction times, and for other types of skewed data. In this paper, we propose an efficient method of estimation for the parameters and quantiles of the three-parameter gamma distribution, which avoids the problem of unbounded likelihood, based on statistics invariant to unknown location. Through a Monte Carlo simulation study, we then show that the proposed method performs well compared to other prominent methods in terms of bias and mean squared error. Finally, we present two illustrative examples.     

Bayesian elastic net single index quantile regression

Single index model conditional quantile regression is proposed in order to overcome the dimensionality problem in nonparametric quantile regression. In the proposed method, the Bayesian elastic net is suggested for single index quantile regression for estimation and variables selection. The Gaussian process prior is considered for unknown link function and a Gibbs sampler algorithm is adopted for posterior inference. The results of the simulation studies and numerical example indicate that our propose method, BENSIQReg, offers substantial improvements over two existing methods, SIQReg and BSIQReg. The BENSIQReg has consistently show a good convergent property, has the least value of median of mean absolute deviations and smallest standard deviations, compared to the other two methods.     

Spatial variation in risk of disease: a nonparametric binary regression approach

A common problem in environmental epidemiology is the estimation and mapping of spatial variation in disease risk. In this paper we analyse data from the Walsall District Health Authority, UK, concerning the spatial distributions of cancer cases compared with controls sampled from the population register. We formulate the risk estimation problem as a nonparametric binary regression problem and consider two different methods of estimation. The first uses a standard kernel method with a cross-validation criterion for choosing the associated bandwidth parameter. The second uses the framework of the generalized additive model (GAM) which has the advantage that it can allow for additional explanatory variables, but is computationally more demanding. For the Walsall data, we obtain similar results using either the kernel method with controls stratified by age and sex to match the age–sex distribution of the cases or the GAM method with random controls but incorporating age and sex as additional explanatory variables. For cancers of the lung or stomach, the analysis shows highly statistically significant spatial variation in risk. For the less common cancers of the pancreas, the spatial variation in risk is not statistically significant.     

Generalized confidence intervals compatible with the Min test for simultaneous comparisons of one subpopulation to several other subpopulations

A problem where one subpopulation is compared with several other subpopulations in terms of means with the goal of estimating the smallest difference between the means commonly arises in biology, medicine, and many other scientific fields. A generalization of Strass-burger-Bretz-Hochberg approach for two comparisons is presented for cases with three and more comparisons. The method allows constructing an interval estimator for the smallest mean difference, which is compatible with the Min test. An application to a fluency-disorder study is illustrated. Simulations confirmed adequate probability coverage for normally distributed outcomes for a number of designs.     

Assessing direct and indirect seasonal decomposition in state space

The problem of whether seasonal decomposition should be used prior to or after aggregation of time series is quite old. We tackle the problem by using a state-space representation and the variance/covariance structure of a simplified one-component model. The variances of the estimated components in a two-series system are compared for direct and indirect approaches and also to a multivariate method. The covariance structure between the two time series is important for the relative efficiency. Indirect estimation is always best when the series are independent, but when the series or the measurement errors are negatively correlated, direct estimation may be much better in the above sense. Some covariance structures indicate that direct estimation should be used while others indicate that an indirect approach is more efficient. Signal-to-noise ratios and relative variances are used for inference.     

A Stochastic Approach to General Nonlinear Programming Problems

Nonlinear programming problem is the general case of mathematical programming problem such that both the objective and constraint functions are nonlinear and is the most difficult case of smooth optimization problem to solve. In this article, we suggest a stochastic search method to general nonlinear programming problems which is not an iterative algorithm but it is an interior point method. The proposed method finds the near-optimal solution to the problem. The results of a few numerical studies are reported. The efficiency of the new method is compared and is found to be reasonable.     

Estimating the parameters of a Burr distribution under progressive type II censoring

The problem of estimating unknown parameters and reliability function of a two parameter Burr type XII distribution is considered on the basis of a progressively type II censored sample. Several Bayesian estimates are obtained against different symmetric and asymmetric loss functions such as squared error, linex and general entropy. These Bayesian estimates are evaluated by applying the Lindley approximation method. Using simulations, all Bayesian estimates are compared with the corresponding maximum likelihood estimates numerically in terms of their mean square error values and some specific comments are made. Finally, two data sets are analyzed for the purpose of illustration.     

A TEST FOR THE NONPARAMETRIC TWO SAMPLE SCALE PROBLEM

We propose a distribution-free test for the nonparametric two sample scale problem. Unlike the other tests for this problem, we do not assume that the two distribution functions have a common median. We assume that they have a common quantile of order a (not necessarily 1/2). The test statistic is a modification of the Sukhatme statistic for the scale problem and the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney statistic for stochastic dominance. It is shown that the new test is uniformly more efficient (in the Pitman sense) than the Sukhatme test and has very good efficiency when compared to the Mood test.     

How to Avoid Undue Influence of Federal Agencies on the Editorial Content of ASA Journals

This note discusses a problem that might occur when forward stepwise regression is used for variable selection and among the candidate variables is a categorical variable with more than two categories. Most software packages (such as SAS, SPSS^x, BMDP) include special programs for performing stepwise regression. The user of these programs has to code categorical variables with dummy variables. In this case the forward selection might wrongly indicate that a categorical variable with more than two categories is nonsignificant. This is a disadvantage of the forward selection compared with the backward elimination method. A way to avoid the problem would be to test in a single step all dummy variables corresponding to the same categorical variable rather than one dummy variable at a time, such as in the analysis of covariance. This option, however, is not available in forward stepwise procedures, except for stepwise logistic regression in BMDP. A practical possibility is to repeat the forward stepwise regression and change the reference categories each time.     

Parameter Identification for Drift Fractional Brownian Motions with Application to the Chinese Stock Markets

This article deals with the problem of estimating all the unknown parameters in the drift fractional Brownian motion with discretely sampled data. The estimation procedure is built upon the marriage of the variation method and the ergodic theory. The strong consistencies of these estimators are provided. Moreover, our method and two existing approaches are compared based on the computational running time and the accuracy of estimation via simulation studies. We also apply the proposed method to the real high-frequency financial data within a window of 4 h in the trading day from the Chinese mainland stock market.     

Monte Carlo Approximations of the Quantiles of a Sample Statistic

We consider in this article the problem of numerically approximating the quantiles of a sample statistic for a given population, a problem of interest in many applications, such as bootstrap confidence intervals. The proposed Monte Carlo method can be routinely applied to handle complex problems that lack analytical results. Furthermore, the method yields estimates of the quantiles of a sample statistic of any sample size though Monte Carlo simulations for only two optimally selected sample sizes are needed. An analysis of the Monte Carlo design is performed to obtain the optimal choices of these two sample sizes and the number of simulated samples required for each sample size. Theoretical results are presented for the bias and variance of the numerical method proposed. The results developed are illustrated via simulation studies for the classical problem of estimating a bivariate linear structural relationship. It is seen that the size of the simulated samples used in the Monte Carlo method does not have to be very large and the method provides a better approximation to quantiles than those based on an asymptotic normal theory for skewed sampling distributions.     

Existence,uniqueness and consistency of estimation of life characteristics of three-parameter Weibull distribution based on Type-II right censored data

In this paper, we propose a new method of estimation for the parameters and quantiles of the three-parameter Weibull distribution based on Type-II right censored data. The method, based on a data transformation, overcomes the problem of unbounded likelihood. In the proposed method, under mild conditions, the estimates always exist uniquely, and the estimators are also consistent over the entire parameter space. Through Monte Carlo simulations, we further show that the proposed method of estimation performs well compared to some prominent methods in terms of bias and root mean squared error in small-sample situations. Finally, two real data sets are used to illustrate the proposed method of estimation.     

Bayes Estimation Based on Joint Progressive Type II Censored Data Under LINEX Loss Function

In the lifetime experiments, the joint censoring scheme is useful for planning comparative purposes of two identical products manufactured coming from different lines. In this article, we will confine ourselves to the data obtained by conducting a joint progressive Type II censoring scheme on the basis of the two combined samples selected from the two lines. Moreover, it is supposed that the distributions of lifetimes of the two products satisfy in a proportional hazard model. A general form for the distributions is considered, and we tackle the problem of obtaining Bayes estimates under the squared error and linear-exponential (LINEX) loss functions. As a special case, the Weibull distribution is discussed in more detail. Finally, the estimated risks of the various estimators obtained are compared using the Monte Carlo method.     

Inferences on a linear combination of K multivariate normal mean vectors

In this paper, the hypothesis testing and confidence region construction for a linear combination of mean vectors for K independent multivariate normal populations are considered. A new generalized pivotal quantity and a new generalized test variable are derived based on the concepts of generalized p-values and generalized confidence regions. When only two populations are considered, our results are equivalent to those proposed by Gamage et al. [Generalized p-values and confidence regions for the multivariate Behrens–Fisher problem and MANOVA, J. Multivariate Aanal. 88 (2004), pp. 117–189] in the bivariate case, which is also known as the bivariate Behrens–Fisher problem. However, in some higher dimension cases, these two results are quite different. The generalized confidence region is illustrated with two numerical examples and the merits of the proposed method are numerically compared with those of the existing methods with respect to their expected areas, coverage probabilities under different scenarios.     

The Slippage Problem for the Circular Normal Distribution

The slippage problem occurs when an unspecified observation in a given random sample is from a distribution other than that for all the remaining observations. This paper studies the problem in terms of the 'slip' in the mean direction of a circular normal distribution. The slippage problem is first treated as a multiple decision problem with a prior which is invariant under the permutations of the hypotheses. The probabilities of accepting the various hypotheses for the Bayes rule with respect to this prior are explicitly obtained. The likelihood ratio tests for this slippage problem, for the cases when the mean directions are both known and unknown, are shown to be easily computable. The tests are illustrated through two well-known datasets. The performances of a range of tests are compared using extensive simulation.