Testing for randomness in stream ciphers using the binary derivative

The binary derivative has been used to measure the randomness of a binary string formed by a pseudorandom number generator for use in cipher systems. In this paper we develop statistical properties of the binary derivative and show that certain types of randomness testing in binary derivatives are equivalent to well-established tests for randomness in the original string. A uniform method of testing randomness in binary strings is described based on using the binary derivative. We show that the new tests are faster and more powerful than several of the well-established tests for randomness.     

An approximate entropy test for randomness

We develop an entropy-based test for randomness of binary time series of finite length. The test uses the frequencies of contiguous blocks of different lengths. A simple condition ib the block lengths and the length of the time series enables one to estimate the entropy rate for the data, and this information is used to develop a statistic to test the hypothesis of randomness. This static measures the deviation of the estimated entropy of the observed data from the theoretical maximum under the randomness hypothesis. This test offers a real alternative to the conventional runs test. Critical percentage points, based on simulations, are provided for testing the hypothesis of randomness. Power calculations using dependent data show that the proposed test has higher power against the runs test for short series, and it is similar to the runs test for long series. The test is applied to two published data sets that wree investigated by others with respect to their randomness.     

A test for randomness based on a complexity measure

A test for randomness based on a statistic related to the complexity of finite sequences is presented. Simulation of binary sequences under different stochastic models provides estimates of the power of the test. The results show that the test is sensitive to a variety of alternatives to randomness and suggest that the proposed test statistic is a reasonable measure of the stochastic complexity of a finite sequence of discrete random variables.     

On the Exact Size of Tests of Treatment Effects in Multi‐Arm Clinical Trials

When testing treatment effects in multi‐arm clinical trials, the Bonferroni method or the method of Simes 1986) is used to adjust for the multiple comparisons. When control of the family‐wise error rate is required, these methods are combined with the close testing principle of Marcus et al. (1976). Under weak assumptions, the resulting p‐values all give rise to valid tests provided that the basic test used for each treatment is valid. However, standard tests can be far from valid, especially when the endpoint is binary and when sample sizes are unbalanced, as is common in multi‐arm clinical trials. This paper looks at the relationship between size deviations of the component test and size deviations of the multiple comparison test. The conclusion is that multiple comparison tests are as imperfect as the basic tests at nominal size α/m where m is the number of treatments. This, admittedly not unexpected, conclusion implies that these methods should only be used when the component test is very accurate at small nominal sizes. For binary end‐points, this suggests use of the parametric bootstrap test. All these conclusions are supported by a detailed numerical study.     

Nonparametric analysis of treatment effects with missing observations

This paper develops a test for comparing treatment effects when observations are missing at random for repeated measures data on independent subjects. It is assumed that missingness at any occasion follows a Bernoulli distribution. It is shown that the distribution of the vector of linear rank statistics depends on the unknown parameters of the probability law that governs missingness, which is absent in the existing conditional methods employing rank statistics. This dependence is through the variance–covariance matrix of the vector of linear ranks. The test statistic is a quadratic form in the linear rank statistics when the variance–covariance matrix is estimated. The limiting distribution of the test statistic is derived under the null hypothesis. Several methods of estimating the unknown components of the variance–covariance matrix are considered. The estimate that produces stable empirical Type I error rate while maintaining the highest power among the competing tests is recommended for implementation in practice. Simulation studies are also presented to show the advantage of the proposed test over other rank-based tests that do not account for the randomness in the missing data pattern. Our method is shown to have the highest power while also maintaining near-nominal Type I error rates. Our results clearly illustrate that even for an ignorable missingness mechanism, the randomness in the pattern of missingness cannot be ignored. A real data example is presented to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

非对称单位根检验和非参数方差比

基于三种退势方法较详细研究了方差比检验在非对称单位根检验中的适用性,并通过MC模拟揭示了其检验势性质。结果表明：在不含趋势项的TAR下,两机制TAR数据落在第一机制的比率是影响方差比检验势的重要因素,且比率越高检验势也越高;三机制TAR中落在中间机制的数据比率会影响检验势,随着比率增加检验势呈下降趋势,但程度不大。在含趋势的TAR下,由于趋势项在数据生成过程中具有支配作用,各种检验势会随着趋势设定的不同而不同。数据在不同机制之间的转换概率越高,则ROLS和RDM退势较OLS退势具有明显优势。     

Detecting Randomness: A Review of Existing Tests with New Comparisons

In this article we review and compare a number of existing tests for detecting randomness in time series data, with emphasis on stock market index data. By comparing variance ratio tests with traditional statistical tests, we have the most extensive simulation comparison of such procedures. The investigated tests are compared over a diverse group of distributions, models, and stock market applications. In our stock market data analysis, the choice of data transformation can have a noticeable effect on test results. This study provides the reader with a guide as to which test and transformation is most appropriate for their use.     

Exact Statistical Tests for Heterogeneity of Frequencies Based on Extreme Values

Sophisticated statistical analyses of incidence frequencies are often required for various epidemiologic and biomedical applications. Among the most commonly applied methods is the Pearson's χ² test, which is structured to detect non specific anomalous patterns of frequencies and is useful for testing the significance for incidence heterogeneity. However, the Pearson's χ² test is not efficient for assessing the significance of frequency in a particular cell (or class) to be attributed to chance alone. We recently developed statistical tests for detecting temporal anomalies of disease cases based on maximum and minimum frequencies; these tests are actually designed to test of significance for a particular high or low frequency. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate merits of these tests in epidemiologic and biomedical studies. We show that our proposed methods are more sensitive and powerful for testing extreme cell counts than is the Pearson's χ² test. This feature could provide important and valuable information in epidemiologic or biomeidcal studies. We elucidated and illustrated the differences in sensitivity among our tests and the Pearson's χ² test by analyzing a data set of Langerhans cell histiocytosis cases and its hypothetical sets. We also computed and compared the statistical power of these methods using various sets of cell numbers and alternative frequencies. The investigation of statistical sensitivity and power presented in this work will provide investigators with useful guidelines for selecting the appropriate tests for their studies.     

An exhaustive numerical assessment of alternative unconditional tests of a binary treatment effect

For testing the effectiveness of a treatment on a binary outcome, a bewildering range of methods have been proposed. How similar are all these tests? What are their theoretical strengths and weaknesses? Which are to be recommended and what is a coherent basis for deciding? In this paper, we take seven standard but imperfect tests and apply three different methods of adjustment to ensure size control: maximization (M), restricted maximization (B) and bootstrap/estimation (E). Across a wide conditions, we compute exact size and power of the 7 basic and 21 adjusted tests. We devise two new measures of size bias and intrinsic power, and employ novel graphical tools to summarise a huge set of results. Amongst the 7 basic tests, Liebermeister’s test best controls size but can still be conservative. Amongst the adjusted tests, E-tests clearly have the best power and results are very stable across different conditions.     

Rank invariant tests with left truncated and interval censored data

Peto and Peto (1972) have studied rank invariant tests to compare two survival curves for right censored data. We apply their tests, including the logrank test and the generalized Wilcoxon test, to left truncated and interval censored data. The significance levels of the tests are approximated by Monte Carlo permutation tests. Simulation studies are conducted to show their size and power under different distributional differences. In particular, the logrank test works well under the Cox proportional hazards alternatives, as for the usual right censored data. The methods are illustrated by the analysis of the Massachusetts Health Care Panel Study dataset.     

Testing equality of correlation coefficients for paired binary data from multiple groups

Paired binary data arise naturally when paired body parts are investigated in clinical trials. One of the widely used models for dealing with this kind of data is the equal correlation coefficients model. Before using this model, it is necessary to test whether the correlation coefficients in each group are actually equal. In this paper, three test statistics (likelihood ratio test, Wald-type test, and Score test) are derived for this purpose. The simulation results show that the Score test statistic maintains type I error rate and has satisfactory power, and therefore is recommended among the three methods. The likelihood ratio test is over conservative in most cases, and the Wald-type statistic is not robust with respect to empirical type I error. Three real examples, including a multi-centre Phase II double-blind placebo randomized controlled trial, are given to illustrate the three proposed test statistics.     

Asymptotic hypothesis test to compare likelihood ratios of multiple diagnostic tests in unpaired designs

The accuracy of a binary diagnostic test is usually measured in terms of its sensitivity and its specificity. Other measures of the performance of a diagnostic test are the positive and negative likelihood ratios, which quantify the increase in knowledge about the presence of the disease through the application of a diagnostic test, and which depend on the sensitivity and specificity of the diagnostic test. In this article, we construct an asymptotic hypothesis test to simultaneously compare the positive and negative likelihood ratios of two or more diagnostic tests in unpaired designs. The hypothesis test is based on the logarithmic transformation of the likelihood ratios and on the chi-square distribution. Simulation experiments have been carried out to study the type I error and the power of the constructed hypothesis test when comparing two and three binary diagnostic tests. The method has been extended to the case of multiple multi-level diagnostic tests.     

Testing homogeneity of difference of two proportions for stratified correlated paired binary data

In ophthalmologic or otolaryngologic study, each subject may contribute paired organs measurements to the analysis. A number of statistical methods have been proposed on bilateral correlated data. In practice, it is important to detect confounding effect by treatment interaction, since ignoring confounding effect may lead to unreliable conclusion. Therefore, stratified data analysis can be considered to adjust the effect of confounder on statistical inference. In this article, we investigate and derive three test procedures for testing homogeneity of difference of two proportions for stratified correlated paired binary data in the basis of equal correlation model assumption. The performance of proposed test procedures is examined through Monte Carlo simulation. The simulation results show that the Score test is usually robust on type I error control with high power, and therefore is recommended among the three methods. One example from otolaryngologic study is given to illustrate the three test procedures.     

A modified test for testing exponentiality using transformed data

In this article, we present a test for testing uniformity. Based on the test, we provide a test for testing exponentiality. Empirical critical values for both the tests are computed. Both the tests are compared with the tests proposed by Noughabi and Arghami [H. Alizadeh Noughabi, and N.R. Arghami, Testing exponentiality using transformed data, J. Statist. Comput. Simul. 81 (4) (2011), pp. 511–516] using simulation experiments for a wide class of alternatives. The tests possess attractive power properties.     

Some linear and nonlinear rank tests for competing risks models

Using the methods of asymptotic decision theory asymptotically optimal for translation and scale families as well as for certian nonparmetric families. Moreover, two new classes of nonlinear rank tests are introduced. These tests are designed for detecting either “ omnibus alternatives ” or “ one sided alternatives of trend ”. Under the null hypothesis of randomness all tests are distribution - free. The asymptotic distributions of the test statistics are derived under contiguous alternatives.     

Bootstrap tests: how many bootstraps?

In practice, bootstrap tests must use a finite number of bootstrap samples. This means that the outcome of the test will depend on the sequence of random numbers used to generate the bootstrap samples, and it necessarily results in some loss of power. We examine the extent of this power loss and propose a simple pretest procedure for choosing the number of bootstrap samples so as to minimize experimental randomness. Simulation experiments suggest that this procedure will work very well in practice.     

A powerful test for uniformity to detect highly peaked alternativedensities

A new class of statistical tests for uniformity based on sample ranges is proposed to detect a uniform density contaminated by a density with one or more high peaks. These kinds of alternatives occur quite frequently, especially in physics. It is shown that the proposed tests arc consistent and have high Pitman asymptotic relative efficiencies. Results of a Monte Carlo power study indicate that they, compared with other tests of uniformity, possess good power properties.A comparative study of various tests is also conducted using real data. An effcient algorithm for computing out test statistic and a table of percentage points are given, providing a practical guide for using the new test.     

Performance of and software for a modified mantel-haenszel statistic for correlated data

This paper presents the results of a small sample simulation study designed to evaluate the performance of a recently proposed test statistic for the analysis of correlated binary data. The new statistic is an adjusted Mantel-Haenszel test, which may be used in testing for association between a binary exposure and a binary outcome of interest across several fourfold tables when the data have been collected under a cluster sampling design. Al- though originally developed for the analysis of periodontal data, the proposed method may be applied to clustered binary data arising in a variety of settings, including longitu- dinal studies, family studies, and school-based research. The features of the simulation are intended to mimic those of a research study of periodontal health, in which a large number of observations is made on each of a relatively small number of patients. The simulation reveals that the adjusted test statistic performs well in finite samples, having empirical type I error rates close to nominal and empirical power similar to that of more complicated marginal regression methods. Software for computing the adjusted statistic is also provided.     

A comparison of several adaptive tests for paired data

In the last few years, two adaptive tests for paired data have been proposed. One test proposed by Freidlin et al. [On the use of the Shapiro–Wilk test in two-stage adaptive inference for paired data from moderate to very heavy tailed distributions, Biom. J. 45 (2003), pp. 887–900] is a two-stage procedure that uses a selection statistic to determine which of three rank scores to use in the computation of the test statistic. Another statistic, proposed by O'Gorman [Applied Adaptive Statistical Methods: Tests of Significance and Confidence Intervals, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, 2004], uses a weighted t-test with the weights determined by the data. These two methods, and an earlier rank-based adaptive test proposed by Randles and Hogg [Adaptive Distribution-free Tests, Commun. Stat. 2 (1973), pp. 337–356], are compared with the t-test and to Wilcoxon's signed-rank test. For sample sizes between 15 and 50, the results show that the adaptive test proposed by Freidlin et al. and the adaptive test proposed by O'Gorman have higher power than the other tests over a range of moderate to long-tailed symmetric distributions. The results also show that the test proposed by O'Gorman has greater power than the other tests for short-tailed distributions. For sample sizes greater than 50 and for small sample sizes the adaptive test proposed by O'Gorman has the highest power for most distributions.     

Permutation tests of scale using deviances

Robust tests for comparing scale parameters, based on deviances—absolute deviations from the median—are examined. Higgins (2004) proposed a permutation test for comparing two treatments based on the ratio of deviances, but the performance of this procedure has not been investigated. A simulation study examines the performance of Higgins’ test relative to other tests of scale utilizing deviances that have been shown in the literature to have good properties. An extension of Higgins’ procedure to three or more treatments is proposed, and a second simulation study compares its performance to other omnibus tests for comparing scale. While no procedure emerged as a preferred choice in every scenario, Higgins’ tests are found to perform well overall with respect to Type I error rate and power.