Improved pretest nonparametric estimation in a multivariate regression model

Shrinkage pretest nonparametric estimation of the location parameter vector in a multivariate regression model is considered when nonsample information (NSI) about the regression parameters is available. By using the quadratic risk criterion, the dominance of the pretest estimators over the usual estimators has been investigated. We demonstrate analytically and computationally that the proposed improved pretest estimator establishes a wider dominance range for the parameter under consideration than that of the usual pretest estimator in which it is superior over the unrestricted estimator.     

Finite sample moments of a bootstrap estimator of the james-stein rule

The finite sample moments of the bootstrap estimator of the James-Stein rule are derived and shown to be biased. Analytical results shed some light upon the source of bias and suggest that the bootstrap will be biased in other settings where the moments of the statistic of interest depends on nonlinear functions of the parameters of its distribution.     

Finite sample moments of a bootstrap estimator of the james-stein rule

The finite sample moments of the bootstrap estimator of the James-Stein rule are derived and shown to be biased. Analytical results shed some light upon the source of bias and suggest that the bootstrap will be biased in other settings where the moments of the statistic of interest depends on nonlinear functions of the parameters of its distribution.     

Merging data from multiple sources: pretest and shrinkage perspectives

In this article, we have developed asymptotic theory for the simultaneous estimation of the k means of arbitrary populations under the common mean hypothesis and further assuming that corresponding population variances are unknown and unequal. The unrestricted estimator, the Graybill-Deal-type restricted estimator, the preliminary test, and the Stein-type shrinkage estimators are suggested. A large sample test statistic is also proposed as a pretest for testing the common mean hypothesis. Under the sequence of local alternatives and squared error loss, we have compared the asymptotic properties of the estimators by means of asymptotic distributional quadratic bias and risk. Comprehensive Monte-Carlo simulation experiments were conducted to study the relative risk performance of the estimators with reference to the unrestricted estimator in finite samples. Two real-data examples are also furnished to illustrate the application of the suggested estimation strategies.     

Construction of improved estimators of multinomial proportions

The improved large sample estimation theory for the probabilities of multi¬nomial distribution is developed under uncertain prior information (UPI) that the true proportion is a known quantity. Several estimators based on pretest and the Stein-type shrinkage rules are constructed. The expressions for the bias and risk of the proposed estimators are derived and compared with the maximum likelihood (ml) estimators. It is demonstrated that the shrinkage estimators are superior to the ml estimators. It is also shown that none of the preliminary test and shrinkage estimators dominate each other, though they perform y/ell relative to the ml estimators. The relative dominance picture of the estimators is presented. A simulation study is carried out to assess the performance of the estimators numerically in small samples.     

Weighted nonparametric regression

In the fixed design regression model, additional weights are considered for the Nad a ray a-Watson and Gasser-Miiller kernel estimators. We study their asymptotic behavior and the relationships between new and classical estimators. For a simple family of weights, and considering the AIMSEAS global loss criterion, we show some possible theoretical advantages. An empirical study illustrates the performance of the weighted kernel estimators in theoretical ideal situations and in simulated data sets. Also some results concerning the use of weights for local polynomial estimators are given.     

A cubic smoothing spline based lack of fit test for nonlinear regression models

The use of a statistic based on cubic spline smoothing is considered for testing nonlinear regression models for lack of fit. The statistic is defined to be the Euclidean squared norm of the smoothed residual vector obtained from fitting the nonlinear model, The asymptotic distribution of the statistic is derived under suitable smooth local alternatives and a numerical example is presented.     

Shrinkage and Penalty Estimators of a Poisson Regression Model

In this paper we propose Stein‐type shrinkage estimators for the parameter vector of a Poisson regression model when it is suspected that some of the parameters may be restricted to a subspace. We develop the properties of these estimators using the notion of asymptotic distributional risk. The shrinkage estimators are shown to have higher efficiency than the classical estimators for a wide class of models. Furthermore, we consider three different penalty estimators: the LASSO, adaptive LASSO, and SCAD estimators and compare their relative performance with that of the shrinkage estimators. Monte Carlo simulation studies reveal that the shrinkage strategy compares favorably to the use of penalty estimators, in terms of relative mean squared error, when the number of inactive predictors in the model is moderate to large. The shrinkage and penalty strategies are applied to two real data sets to illustrate the usefulness of the procedures in practice.     

A lower bound for the risk of classes of shrinkage estimators ina general multivariate estimation problem and some deduced estimators

Given a general statistical model and an arbitrary quadratic loss, we propose a lower bound for the associated risk of a class of shrinkage estimators. With respect to the considered class of shrinkage estimators, this bound is optimal.In the particular case of the estimation of the location parameter of an ellipti-cally symmetric distribution, this bound can be used to find the relative improvement brought by a given estimator and the remaining possible improvement, using a Monte-Carlo method. We deduce from these results a new type of shrinkage estimators whose risk can be as close as one wants of the lower bound near a chosen pole and yet remain bounded. Some of them are good alternatives to the positive-part James-Stein estimator.     

A note on james type robust estimators

M-estimation of a single parameter of the life time distribution is considered based on independent and identically distributed survival data which may be randomly censored. The most robust and the optimal robust M-estimators of the location parameters of the survival time distribution are derived within a class considered in James (1986) as well as for the general unrestricted class. The properties of the estimators corresponding to the above two classes are discussed. A data set is used to illustrate the usefulness of the optimal robust estimators for the parameter of extreme value distribution.     

Whither jackknifing in stein-rule estimation

In multi-parameter ( multivariate ) estimation, the Stein rule provides minimax and admissible estimators , compromising generally on their unbiasedness. On the other hand, the primary aim of jack-knifing is to reduce the bias of an estimator ( without necessarily compromising on its efficacy ), and, at the same time, jackknifing provides an estimator of the sampling variance of the estimator as well. In shrinkage estimation ( where minimization of a suitably defined risk function is the basic goal ), one may wonder how far the bias-reduction objective of jackknifing incorporates the dual objective of minimaxity ( or admissibility ) and estimating the risk of the estimator ? A critical appraisal of this basic role of jackknifing in shrinkage estimation is made here. Restricted, semi-restricted and the usual versions of jackknifed shrinkage estimates are considered and their performance characteristics are studied . It is shown that for Pitman-type ( local ) alternatives, usually, jackkntfing fails to provide a consistent estimator of the ( asymptotic ) risk of the shrinkage estimator, and a degenerate asymptotic situation arises for the usual fixed alternative case.     

On shrinkage r-estimation in a multiple regression model

For a multiple regression model, bearing the plausibility of a subset of the regression parameters being close to a pivot, for the complementary subset, based on the usual James-Stein rule, a general formulation of shrinkage R-estimation is considered. In the light of asymptotic distributional risks of estimators, performance characteristics ( under local alternatives) of the classical R-est-imator and its preliminary test and shrinkage versions (all based on the common score function ) are studied. These shed light on the relative dominance picture in a meaningful asymptotic setup.     

Estimating quantiles of several normal populations with a common mean

Suppose we have k( ? 2) normal populations with a common mean and possibly different variances. The problem of estimation of quantile of the first population is considered with respect to a quadratic loss function. In this paper, we have generalized the inadmissibility results obtained by Kumar and Tripathy (2011 Kumar, S., Tripathy, M.R. (2011). Estimating quantiles of normal populations with a common mean. Commun. Stat. - Theory Methods 40:2719–2736.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for k = 2 to a general k( ? 2). Moreover, a massive simulation study has been done in order to numerically compare the risk values of various proposed estimators for the cases k = 3 and k = 4 and recommendations are made for the use of estimators under certain situations.     

Estimating ordered quantiles of two exponential populations with a common minimum guarantee time

The problem of estimating ordered quantiles of two exponential populations is considered, assuming equality of location parameters (minimum guarantee times), using the quadratic loss function. Under order restrictions, we propose new estimators which are the isotonized version of the MLEs, call it, restricted MLE. A sufficient condition for improving equivariant estimators is derived under order restrictions on the quantiles. Consequently, estimators improving upon the old estimators have been derived. A detailed numerical study has been done to evaluate the performance of proposed estimators using the Monte-Carlo simulation method and recommendations have been made for the use of the estimators.     

Model selection and parameter estimation of a multinomial logistic regression model

In the multinomial regression model, we consider the methodology for simultaneous model selection and parameter estimation by using the shrinkage and LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operation) [R. Tibshirani, Regression shrinkage and selection via the LASSO, J. R. Statist. Soc. Ser. B 58 (1996), pp. 267–288] strategies. The shrinkage estimators (SEs) provide significant improvement over their classical counterparts in the case where some of the predictors may or may not be active for the response of interest. The asymptotic properties of the SEs are developed using the notion of asymptotic distributional risk. We then compare the relative performance of the LASSO estimator with two SEs in terms of simulated relative efficiency. A simulation study shows that the shrinkage and LASSO estimators dominate the full model estimator. Further, both SEs perform better than the LASSO estimators when there are many inactive predictors in the model. A real-life data set is used to illustrate the suggested shrinkage and LASSO estimators.     

On the estimation of reliabilty function in a Weibull lifetime distribution

The estimation of the reliability function of the Weibull lifetime model is considered in the presence of uncertain prior information (not in the form of prior distribution) on the parameter of interest. This information is assumed to be available in some sort of a realistic conjecture. In this article, we focus on how to combine sample and non-sample information together in order to achieve improved estimation performance. Three classes of point estimatiors, namely, the unrestricted estimator, the shrinkage estimator and shrinkage preliminary test estimator (SPTE) are proposed. Their asymptotic biases and mean-squared errors are derived and compared. The relative dominance picture of the estimators is presented. Interestingly, the proposed SPTE dominates the unrestricted estimator in a range that is wider than that of the usual preliminary test estimator. A small-scale simulation experiment is used to examine the small sample properties of the proposed estimators. Our simulation investigations have provided strong evidence that corroborates with asymptotic theory. The suggested estimation methods are applied to a published data set to illustrate the performance of the estimators in a real-life situation.     

On a class of partially sequential two-sample test procedures for multivariate continuous data

In a two-sample testing problem, sometimes one of the sample observations are difficult and/or costlier to collect compared to the other one. Also, it may be the situation that sample observations from one of the populations have been previously collected and for operational advantages we do not wish to collect any more observations from the second population that are necessary for reaching a decision. Partially sequential technique is found to be very useful in such situations. The technique gained its popularity in statistics literature due to its very nature of capitalizing the best aspects of both fixed and sequential procedures. The literature is enriched with various types of partially sequential techniques useable under different types of data set-up. Nonetheless, there is no mention of multivariate data framework in this context, although very common in practice. The present paper aims at developing a class of partially sequential nonparametric test procedures for two-sample multivariate continuous data. For this we suggest a suitable stopping rule adopting inverse sampling technique and propose a class of test statistics based on the samples drawn using the suggested sampling scheme. Various asymptotic properties of the proposed tests are explored. An extensive simulation study is also performed to study the asymptotic performance of the tests. Finally the benefit of the proposed test procedure is demonstrated with an application to a real-life data on liver disease.     

Improved estimation of quantiles of two normal populations with common mean and ordered variances

Abstract

Estimation of quantiles from two normal populations is considered under the assumption of common mean and ordered variances. Several new estimators have been proposed using certain estimators of the common mean, including the plug-in type restricted MLE. A sufficient condition for improving equivariant estimators is proved and as a result improved estimators are derived. The percentage of risk improvements for each of the improved estimators have been computed numerically, which are quite significant. All the improved estimators have been compared numerically using Monte-Carlo simulation method. Finally, recommendations have been made for the use of estimators in practice.     

Application of shrinkage estimation in linear regression models with autoregressive errors

In this paper, we consider the shrinkage and penalty estimation procedures in the linear regression model with autoregressive errors of order p when it is conjectured that some of the regression parameters are inactive. We develop the statistical properties of the shrinkage estimation method including asymptotic distributional biases and risks. We show that the shrinkage estimators have a significantly higher relative efficiency than the classical estimator. Furthermore, we consider the two penalty estimators: least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and adaptive LASSO estimators, and numerically compare their relative performance with that of the shrinkage estimators. A Monte Carlo simulation experiment is conducted for different combinations of inactive predictors and the performance of each estimator is evaluated in terms of the simulated mean-squared error. This study shows that the shrinkage estimators are comparable to the penalty estimators when the number of inactive predictors in the model is relatively large. The shrinkage and penalty methods are applied to a real data set to illustrate the usefulness of the procedures in practice.