Chi–square tests for comparing vectors of proportions for several cluster samples

Test statistics are developed for comparing vectors of proportions obtained from several independent two–stage cluster samples. It is assumed that clusters are selected with probability proportional to size for each sample. Wald's general method of constructing quadratic forms is used to obtain a large sample chi–square test. More easily evaluted chi–square tests are derived from the Dirichlet–multinnomial model. Corresponding goodness–of–fit test for the Dirichlet–multinomial model are also derived.     

Simultaneous estimation of λs for poisson distributions

Consider the problem of simultaneously estimating an integral power of the parameters of POISSOK populations using independent samples. Let the loss be the sum of quadratic losses for the components. An estimator which is better than the unbiased esti¬mator is obtained     

Estimation of reliability of multicomponent stress–strength for a Kumaraswamy distribution

This article deals with the Bayesian and non Bayesian estimation of multicomponent stress–strength reliability by assuming the Kumaraswamy distribution. Both stress and strength are assumed to have a Kumaraswamy distribution with common and known shape parameter. The reliability of such a system is obtained by the methods of maximum likelihood and Bayesian approach and the results are compared using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique for both small and large samples. Finally, two data sets are analyzed for illustrative purposes.     

Rate of convergence for asymptotic variance of the Horvitz–Thompson estimator

Drawing distinct units without replacement and with unequal probabilities from a population is a problem often considered in the literature (e.g. Hanif and Brewer, 1980, Int. Statist. Rev. 48, 317–355). In such a case, the sample mean is a biased estimator of the population mean. For this reason, we use the unbiased Horvitz–Thompson estimator (1951). In this work, we focus our interest on the variance of this estimator. The variance is cumbersome to compute because it requires the calculation of a large number of second-order inclusion probabilities. It would be helpful to use an approximation that does not need heavy calculations. The Hájek (1964) variance approximation provides this advantage as it is free of second-order inclusion probabilities. Hájek (1964) proved that this approximation is valid under restrictive conditions that are usually not fulfilled in practice. In this paper, we give more general conditions and we show that this approximation remains acceptable for most practical problems.     

Equivalent Conditions of Complete Moment Convergence of Weighted Sums for ϕ-Mixing Sequence of Random Variables

In this article, the complete moment convergence of weighted sums for ?-mixing sequence of random variables is investigated. By applying moment inequality and truncation methods, the equivalent conditions of complete moment convergence of weighted sums for ?-mixing sequence of random variables are established. These results promote and improve the corresponding results obtained by Li et al. (1995 Li, D.L., Rao, M.B., Jiang, T.F., Wang, X.C. (1995). Complete convergence and almost sure convergence of weighted sums of random variables. J. Theoret. Probab. 8:49–76.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Gut (1993 Gut, A. (1993). Complete convergence and Cesàro summation for i.i.d. random variables. Probab. Theory Related Fields 97:169–178.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) from i.i.d. to ?-mixing setting. Moreover, we obtain the complete moment convergence of moving average processes based on ?-mixing random variables, which extends the result of Kim et al. (2008 Kim, T.S., Ko, M.H. (2008). Complete moment convergence of moving average processes under dependence assumptions. Statist. Probab. Lett. 78:839–846.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in the sense that it does not require a specific mixing rate.     

Test of Independence for Baker’s Bivariate Distributions

Baker (2008 Baker, R. (2008). An order-statistics-based method for constructing multivariate distributions with fixed marginals. Journal of Multivariate Analysis 99: 2312–2327.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) introduced a new method for constructing multivariate distributions with given marginals based on order statistics. In this paper, we provide a test of independence for a pair of absolutely continuous random variables (X, Y) jointly distributed according to Baker’s bivariate distributions. Our purpose is to test the hypothesis that X and Y are independent versus the alternative that X and Y are positively (negatively) quadrant dependent. The asymptotic distribution of the proposed test statistic is investigated. Also, the powers of the proposed test and the class of distribution-free tests proposed by Kochar and Gupta (1987 Kochar, S. G., Gupta, R. P. (1987). Competitors of Kendall-tau test for testing independence against positive quadrant dependence. Biometrika 74(3): 664–666.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) are compared empirically via a simulation study.     

An improved method of estimation for the parameters of the Birnbaum–Saunders distribution

The Birnbaum–Saunders (BS) distribution is a positively skewed distribution, frequently used for analysing lifetime data. In this paper, we propose a simple method of estimation for the parameters of the two-parameter BS distribution by making use of some key properties of the distribution. Compared with the maximum likelihood estimators and the modified moment estimators, the proposed method has smaller bias, but having the same mean square errors as these two estimators. We also discuss some methods of construction of confidence intervals. The performance of the estimators is then assessed by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, an example is used to illustrate the method of estimation developed here.     

Testing Goodness of Fit for Parametric Families of Copulas—Application to Financial Data

ABSTRACT

This article suggests a chi-square test of fit for parametric families of bivariate copulas. The marginal distribution functions are assumed to be unknown and are estimated by their empirical counterparts. Therefore, the standard asymptotic theory of the test is not applicable, but we derive a rule for the determination of the appropriate degrees of freedom in the asymptotic chi-square distribution. The behavior of the test under H ₀ and for selected alternatives is investigated by Monte Carlo simulation. The test is applied to investigate the dependence structure of daily German asset returns. It turns out that the Gauss copula is inappropriate to describe the dependencies in the data. A t _ν-copula with low degrees of freedom performs better.     

Efficiencies of some two–sample location tests for a broad class of distributions

Efficiencies of variety of two–sample tests are examomed for a broad class of distributions. Two new test statistics are introduced. and their potential use as part of an adaptive procedure discussed. Recommendations are made as to the utility of the various test statistics when the underlying distribution is unknown.     

On Blest’s Measure of Kurtosis Adjusted for Skewness

We reconsider the derivation of Blest’s (2003) skewness adjusted version of the classical moment-based coefficient of kurtosis and propose an adaptation of it which generally eliminates the effects of asymmetry a little more successfully. Lower bounds are provided for the two skewness adjusted kurtosis moment measures as functions of the classical coefficient of skewness. The results from a Monte Carlo experiment designed to investigate the sampling properties of numerous moment-based estimators of the two skewness adjusted kurtosis measures are used to identify those estimators with lowest mean squared error for small to medium sized samples drawn from distributions with varying levels of asymmetry and tailweight.     

Strong Consistency of Conditional Value-at-risk Estimate for ϕ-mixing Samples

In this article, we investigate the strong consistency of conditional value-at-risk estimate for ? ?mixing samples under mild conditions. Moreover, the corresponding strong consistency rate is also obtained.     

Two-dimensional generalisations of dynamic programming for image analysis

Dynamic programming (DP) is a fast, elegant method for solving many one-dimensional optimisation problems but, unfortunately, most problems in image analysis, such as restoration and warping, are two-dimensional. We consider three generalisations of DP. The first is iterated dynamic programming (IDP), where DP is used to recursively solve each of a sequence of one-dimensional problems in turn, to find a local optimum. A second algorithm is an empirical, stochastic optimiser, which is implemented by adding progressively less noise to IDP. The final approach replaces DP by a more computationally intensive Forward-Backward Gibbs Sampler, and uses a simulated annealing cooling schedule. Results are compared with existing pixel-by-pixel methods of iterated conditional modes (ICM) and simulated annealing in two applications: to restore a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image, and to warp a pulsed-field electrophoresis gel into alignment with a reference image. We find that IDP and its stochastic variant outperform the remaining algorithms.     

A Generalization of Shapiro–Wilk's Test for Multivariate Normality

A goodness-of-fit test for multivariate normality is proposed which is based on Shapiro–Wilk's statistic for univariate normality and on an empirical standardization of the observations. The critical values can be approximated by using a transformation of the univariate standard normal distribution. A Monte Carlo study reveals that this test has a better power performance than some of the best known tests for multinormality against a wide range of alternatives.     

Goodness-of-fit tests via ϕ-measures of divergence for censored data

Measures of divergence or discrepancy are used extensively in statistics in various fields. In this article, we are focusing on divergence measures that are based on a class of measures known as Csiszar's divergence measures. In particular, we propose a class of goodness-of-fit tests based on Csiszar's class of measures designed for censored survival or reliability data. Further, we derive the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic under simple and composite null hypotheses as well as under contiguous alternative hypotheses. Simulations are furnished and real data are analysed to show the performance of the proposed tests for different ?-divergence measures.     

A mixture of beta–Dirichlet processes prior for Bayesian analysis of event history data

In this paper, we propose a mixture of beta–Dirichlet processes as a nonparametric prior for the cumulative intensity functions of a Markov process. This family of priors is a natural extension of a mixture of Dirichlet processes or a mixture of beta processes which are devised to compromise advantages of parametric and nonparametric approaches. They give most of their prior mass to the small neighborhood of a specific parametric model. We show that a mixture of beta–Dirichlet processes prior is conjugate with Markov processes. Formulas for computing the posterior distribution are derived. Finally, results of analyzing credit history data are given.     

Explicit formulas for the smoother weights of the Whittaker–Henderson graduation of order 1

The Whittaker–Henderson (WH) graduation is a widely applied smoothing method. This paper contributes to the literature by providing explicit formulas for the smoother weights of the WH graduation of order 1 along with some related results, which leads to a richer understanding of the filter.     

Comparisons of ten estimation methods for the parameters of Marshall–Olkin extended exponential distribution

The aim of this article is to compare via Monte Carlo simulations the finite sample properties of the parameter estimates of the Marshall–Olkin extended exponential distribution obtained by ten estimation methods: maximum likelihood, modified moments, L-moments, maximum product of spacings, ordinary least-squares, weighted least-squares, percentile, Crámer–von-Mises, Anderson–Darling, and Right-tail Anderson–Darling. The bias, root mean-squared error, absolute and maximum absolute difference between the true and estimated distribution functions are used as criterion of comparison. The simulation study reveals that the L-moments and maximum products of spacings methods are highly competitive with the maximum likelihood method in small as well as in large-sized samples.