Dynamic mixing probability measures of mixtures

ABSTRACT

Lifetime of heterogeneous population can be modeled as mixture of a family of lifetime distributions according to a mixing probability measure. With the help of dynamic mixing measure, the hazard rate of the mixture can also be expressed as the mixture of the hazard rates of the lifetime distributions. Various local stochastic orderings are defined in this article. Applying these local stochastic orderings, we can explore the behavior of the dynamic mixing measures locally and then compare the hazard rates of two heterogeneous populations in both the local and global ways.     

Preservation properties of stochastic orders by transformation to the transmuted-G model

Abstract

The transmuted-G model is a useful technique to construct some new distributions by adding a parameter. This paper considers stochastic comparisons in the transmuted-G family with different parameters and different baseline distributions in the sense of the usual stochastic, shifted stochastic, proportional stochastic and shifted proportional stochastic orders. Also, we present a necessary and sufficient condition for existence of the moments of the transmuted-G model and then we obtain some bounds for the survival and aging intensity functions of the transmuted-G model conditioned on its parameter and its baseline distribution.     

Uniform stochastic ordering and related inequalities

Stochastic order between univariate random variates may be called uniform when such order persists under conditioning to a broad family of intervals. The ordering is local when it holds for any finite interval (a, b), however small. Local order in multivariate settings has been described by Whitt (1980, 1981), by Karlin and Rinott (1980), and by others. The prevalence of uniform and local order in a variety of simple stochastic-process settings is displayed, and inequalities arising from such orderings developed.     

Goodness-of-fit test for uniform stochastic ordering among several distributions

The likelihood-ratio test (LRT) is considered as a goodness-of-fit test for the null hypothesis that several distribution functions are uniformly stochastically ordered. Under the null hypothesis, H₁ : F₁ ? F₂ ?···? F_N, the asymptotic distribution of the LRT statistic is a convolution of several chi-bar-square distributions each of which depends upon the location parameter. The least-favourable parameter configuration for the LRT is not unique. It can be two different types and depends on the number of distributions, the number of intervals and the significance level α. This testing method is illustrated with a data set of survival times of five groups of male fruit flies.     

Ordering Comparison of Logarithmic Series Random Variables with their Mixtures

The problem of comparing some known distributions in various types of stochastic orderings has been of interest to many authors. In particular, several authors have been recently concerned with the comparison of Poisson, binomial, and negative binomial distributions with their respective mixtures. Incidentally, these distributions are among the four well-known distributions of the family of generalized power series distributions (GPSD's). The remaining distribution is the logarithmic series distribution. In this paper, we shall be concerned with comparing this remaining distribution of the class GPSD with its mixture in terms of various types of stochastic orderings such as the simple stochastic, likelihood ratio, uniformly more variable, convex, hazard rate and expectation orderings. Derivation of the results in this case prove to be computationally trickier than the other three. The special case when the means of the two distributions are the same is also discussed. Finally, an illustrative explicit example is provided.     

Concepts de dépendance et ordres stochastiques pour des lois bidimensionnelles

Yanagimoto and Okamoto (1969) introduced a stochastic ordering that generalizes a concept of monotone regression dependence introduced by Lehmann (1966). In this paper, we define and examine the properties of three new orderings which imply that of Yanagimoto and Okamoto. One of these orderings is seen to extend Shaked's (1977) notion of DTP(0, 1), and another includes Lehmann's concept of positive likelihood-ratio dependence as a special case. The proposed orderings are also compared with the TP₂ positive-dependence ordering defined by Kimeldorf and Sampson (1987).     

A stochastic representation for the lp-norm symmetric distribution and its applications

The family of l_p-norm symmetric distributions was proposed by Yue and Ma and is a natural generalization to the family of l₁-norm symmetric distributions studied by Fang et al. In this article, we propose a stochastic representation for the l_p-norm symmetric distribution for any constant p > 0. The stochastic representation is expressed through independent and identically distributed uniform U(0, 1) random variables. It is illustrated that the stochastic representation can be applied to statistical simulation and uniform experimental design.     

Reliability study of proportional odds family of discrete distributions

The proportional odds model gives a method of generating new family of distributions by adding a parameter, called tilt parameter, to expand an existing family of distributions. The new family of distributions so obtained is known as Marshall–Olkin family of distributions or Marshall–Olkin extended distributions. In this paper, we consider Marshall–Olkin family of distributions in discrete case with fixed tilt parameter. We study different ageing properties, as well as different stochastic orderings of this family of distributions. All the results of this paper are supported by several examples.     

Dependence structures and asymptotic properties of Baker's distributions with fixed marginals

We investigate the properties of Baker's (2008) bivariate distributions with fixed marginals and their multivariate extensions. The properties include the weak convergence to the Fréchet–Hoeffding upper bound, the product-moment convergence, as well as the dependence structures TP₂ (totally positive of order 2), or MTP₂ (multivariate TP₂). In proving the weak convergence, a generalized local limit theorem for binomial distribution is provided.     

Bayesian Estimation of Survival Functions under Stochastic Precedence

When estimating the distributions of two random variables, X and Y, investigators often have prior information that Y tends to be bigger than X. To formalize this prior belief, one could potentially assume stochastic ordering between X and Y, which implies Pr(X < or = z) > or = Pr(Y < or = z) for all z in the domain of X and Y. Stochastic ordering is quite restrictive, though, and this article focuses instead on Bayesian estimation of the distribution functions of X and Y under the weaker stochastic precedence constraint, Pr(X < or = Y) > or = 0.5. We consider the case where both X and Y are categorical variables with common support and develop a Gibbs sampling algorithm for posterior computation. The method is then generalized to the case where X and Y are survival times. The proposed approach is illustrated using data on survival after tumor removal for patients with malignant melanoma.     

Relationship between the weighted distributions and some inequality measures

In this paper, we study the relationships between the weighted distributions and the parent distributions in the context of Lorenz curve, Lorenz ordering and inequality measures. These relationships depend on the nature of the weight functions and give rise to interesting connections. The properties of weighted distributions for general weight functions are also investigated. It is shown how to derive and to determine characterizations related to Lorenz curve and other inequality measures for the cases weight functions are increasing or decreasing. Some of the results are applied for special cases of the weighted distributions. We represent the reliability measures of weighted distributions by the inequality measures to obtain some results. Length-biased and equilibrium distributions have been discussed as weighted distributions in the reliability context by concentration curves. We also review and extend the problem of stochastic orderings and aging classes under weighting. Finally, the relationships between the weighted distribution and transformations are discussed.     

Fisher information in weighted distributions

Suppose that a density f_θ (x) belongs to an exponential family, but that inference about θ must be based on data that are obtained from a density that is proportional to W(x)f_θ(x). The authors study the Fisher information about θ in observations obtained from such weighted distributions and give conditions under which this information is greater than under the original density. These conditions involve the hazard- and reversed-hazard-rate functions.     

Exponentiated models preserve stochastic orderings of parallel and series systems

Abstract

In this paper, we establish that the usual stochastic, hazard rate, reversed hazard rate, likelihood ratio, dispersive and star orders are all preserved for parallel systems under exponentiated models for lifetimes of components. We then use the multiple-outlier exponentiated gamma models to illustrate this result. Finally, we consider the dual family with exponentiated survival function and establish similar results for series systems. The results established here extend some well-known results for series and parallel systems arising from different exponentiated distributions such as generalized exponential and exponentiated Weibull, established previously in the literature.     

On some generalized orderings: In the spirit of relative ageing

ABSTRACT

We introduce some new generalized stochastic orderings (in the spirit of relative ageing) which compare probability distributions with the exponential distribution. These orderings are useful to understand the phenomenon of positive ageing classes and also helpful to guide the practitioners when there are crossing hazard rates and/or crossing mean residual lives. We study some characterizations of these orderings. Inter-relations among these orderings have also been discussed.     

Ordering Properties of Convolutions of Exponential Random Variables

Convolutions of independent random variables are usually compared. In this paper, after a synthetic comparison with respect to hazard rate ordering between sums of independent exponential random variables, we focus on the special case where one sum is identically distributed. So, for a given sum of n independent exponential random variables, we deduce the "best" Erlang-n bounds, with respect to each of the usual orderings: mean ordering, stochastic ordering, hazard rate ordering and likelihood ratio ordering.     

Limiting distributions of MLE and UMVUE in the biparametric uniform distribution

In this paper, we study the asymptotic distributions of MLE and UMVUE of a parametric functionh(θ₁, θ₂) when sampling from a biparametric uniform distributionU(θ₁, θ₂). We obtain both limiting distributions as a convolution of exponential distributions, and we observe that the limiting distribution of UMVUE is a shift of the limiting distribution of MLE.     

Discrete Linnik Weibull distribution

Abstract

We introduce a new family of distributions using truncated discrete Linnik distribution. This family is a rich family of distributions which includes many important families of distributions such as Marshall–Olkin family of distributions, family of distributions generated through truncated negative binomial distribution, family of distributions generated through truncated discrete Mittag–Leffler distribution etc. Some properties of the new family of distributions are derived. A particular case of the family, a five parameter generalization of Weibull distribution, namely discrete Linnik Weibull distribution is given special attention. This distribution is a generalization of many distributions, such as extended exponentiated Weibull, exponentiated Weibull, Weibull truncated negative binomial, generalized exponential truncated negative binomial, Marshall-Olkin extended Weibull, Marshall–Olkin generalized exponential, exponential truncated negative binomial, Marshall–Olkin exponential and generalized exponential. The shape properties, moments, median, distribution of order statistics, stochastic ordering and stress–strength properties of the new generalized Weibull distribution are derived. The unknown parameters of the distribution are estimated using maximum likelihood method. The discrete Linnik Weibull distribution is fitted to a survival time data set and it is shown that the distribution is more appropriate than other competitive models.     

Two-sided generalized Topp and Leone (TS-GTL) distributions

Over 50 years ago, in a 1955 issue of JASA, a paper on a bounded continuous distribution by Topp and Leone [C.W. Topp and F.C. Leone, A family of J-shaped frequency functions, J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 50(269) (1955), pp. 209–219] appeared (the subject was dormant for over 40 years but recently the family was resurrected). Here, we shall investigate the so-called Two-Sided Generalized Topp and Leone (TS-GTL) distributions. This family of distributions is constructed by extending the Generalized Two-Sided Power (GTSP) family to a new two-sided framework of distributions, where the first (second) branch arises from the distribution of the largest (smallest) order statistic. The TS-GTL distribution is generated from this framework by sampling from a slope (reflected slope) distribution for the first (second) branch. The resulting five-parameter TS-GTL family of distributions turns out to be flexible, encompassing the uniform, triangular, GTSP and two-sided slope distributions into a single family. In addition, the probability density functions may have bimodal shapes or admitting shapes with a jump discontinuity at the ‘threshold’ parameter. We will discuss some properties of the TS-GTL family and describe a maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) procedure. A numerical example of the MLE procedure is provided by means of a bimodal Galaxy M87 data set concerning V–I color indices of 80 globular clusters. A comparison with a Gaussian mixture fit is presented.     

A STOCHASTIC ORDERING FOR RANDOM VARIABLES WITH APPLICATIONS

A new univariate stochastic ordering is introduced. Some characterization results for such an ordering are stated. It is proved that the ordering is an integral stochastic ordering, obtaining a maximal generator. By means of this generator, the main properties of the ordering are deduced. A method for introducing univariate stochastic orderings, suggested by the new ordering, is analysed. Relationships with other stochastic orderings are also developed. To conclude, an example of an application of the new ordering to the field of medicine is proposed.     

Statistical inference for a relaxation index of stochastic dominance under density ratio model

Stochastic dominance is usually used to rank random variables by comparing their distributions, so it is widely applied in economics and finance. In actual applications, complete stochastic dominance is too demanding to meet, so relaxation indexes of stochastic dominance have attracted more attention. The π index, the biggest gap between two distributions, can be a measure of the degree of deviation from complete dominance. The traditional estimation method is to use the empirical distribution functions to estimate it. Considering the populations under comparison are generally of the same nature, we can link the populations through density ratio model under certain condition. Based on this model, we propose a new estimator and establish its statistical inference theory. Simulation results show that the proposed estimator substantially improves estimation efficiency and power of the tests and coverage probabilities satisfactorily match the confidence levels of the tests, which show the superiority of the proposed estimator. Finally we apply our method to a real example of the Chinese household incomes.