Comparison of point estimators of normal percentiles

There are available several point estimators of the percentiles of a normal distribution with both mean and variance unknown. Consequently, it would seem appropriate to make a comparison among the estimators through some “closeness to the true value” criteria. Along these lines, the concept of Pitman-closeness efficiency is introduced. Essentially, when comparing two estimators, the Pit-man-closeness efficiency gives the “odds” in favor of one of the estimators being closer to the true value than is the other in a given situation. Through the use of Pitman-closeness efficiency, this paper compares (a) the maximum likelihood estimator, (b) the minimum variance unbiased estimator, (c) the best invariant estimator, and (d) the median unbiased estimator within a class of estimators which includes (a), (b), and (c). Mean squared efficiency is also discussed.     

Indifference-zone ranking and selection: confidence intervals for true achieved P(CD)

In this paper we present procedures which attempt to allow experimenters to take at least partial advantage of more-favorable configurations of the population parameters (without, in the process, sacrificing precise probability statements about the inferences made) by obtaining confidence intervals for the true probability of a correct decision, regarded as a function of the true unknown underlying parameter values.     

Maximum term of a particular autoregressivesequence with discrete margins

In this paper we consider a stationary sequence of discrete random variables with marginal distribution H(x), obtained by a simple transformation from the max-AR(1) sequence considered by Alpuim (1989). Because discrete distributions impose severe restrictions on the convergence of the normalized maxima to an extreme value distribution, it is seen that in this particular case, whenever H(x) belongs to the domain of attraction of any max-stable distribution, the sequence possesses an extremal index 0 = 0. Nevertheless, it, is possible to obtain a nondegenerate limiting distribution for the linearized maxima by choosing other sets of normalizing constants. Whenever H(x) does not belong to the domain of attraction of any max-stable distribution, but, satisfies adequate conditions, the maxima nearly possess an asymptotic stability with the presence of an extremal index 0 <θ<1.

Motivated by the behaviour of these sequences we obtained a more general result extending the results of Anderson (1970) and Me (Jon nick and Park (1992) over the mixing conditionsD ^(k)(u_n), defined by Chermck et al (1991).

Several examples, obtained after simulation, are presented in order to illustrate the different situations that may occur.     

The linear and euclidean discriminant functions: a comparison v1a asymptotic expansions and simulation study

This article considers the problem of statistical classification involving multivariate normal populations and compares the performance of the linear discriminant function (LDF) and the Euclidean distance function (EDF), Although the LDF is quite popular and robust, it has been established (Marco, Young and Turner, 1989) that under certain non-trivial conditions, the EDF is "equivalent" to the LDF, in terms of equal probabilities of misclassifica-tion (error rates). Thus it follows that under those conditions the sample EDF could perform better than the sample LDF, since the sample EDF involves estimation of fewer parameters. Sindation results, also from the above paper; seemed to support this hypothesis. This article compares the two sample discriminant functions through asymptotic expansions of error rates, and identifies situations when the sample EDF should perform better than the sample LDF. Results from simulation experiments are also reported and discussed.     

Asymptotic distributions of weighted divergence between discrete distributions

A divergence measure between discrete probability distributions introduced by Csiszar (1967) generalizes the Kullback-Leibler information and several other information measures considered in the literature. We introduce a weighted divergence which generalizes the weighted Kullback-Leibler information considered by Taneja (1985). The weighted divergence between an empirical distribution and a fixed distribution and the weighted divergence between two independent empirical distributions are here investigated for large simple random samples, and the asymptotic distributions are shown to be either normal or equal to the distribution of a linear combination of independent X²-variables     

Measuring Gross Flows in the Labor Force: An Overview of a Special Conference

The measurement of flows in the American labor market has challenged researchers for years. Several problems, including response variability, rotation group bias, and matching errors, hinder accurate measurement of the flows. The Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics jointly sponsored a conference to examine these problems, present current research on solutions to the problems, and submit recommendations for improving the data. Recommendations include procedural changes in the Current Population Survey as well as new estimation techniques.     

A functional marked point process model for lupus data

Modelling for marked point processes is an important problem, but has received remarkably little attention in the statistical literature. The authors developed a marked point process model that incorporates the use of functional data analysis in a joint estimation of the frequency function of the point process and the intensity of the mark, with application to data from 22 lupus patients consisting of times of flares in symptom severity combined with a quantitative assessment of the severity. The data indicate that a rapid decrease in drug dose is significantly associated with a decrease in flare frequency. Experiments with simulated data designed to model the actual data further support this conclusion. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 40: 517–529; 2012 © 2012 Statistical Society of Canada     

The estimations under power normalization for the tail index,with comparison

It is well known that the max-stable laws under power normalization attract more distributions than that under linear normalization. This fact practically means that the classical linear model (L-model) may fail to fit the given extreme data, while the power model (P-model) succeeds to do that. The main object of this paper is developing the modeling of extreme values via P-model by suggesting a simple technique to obtain a parallel estimator of the extreme value index (EVI) in the P-model for every known estimator to the corresponding parameter in L-mode. An application of this technique yields two classes of moment and moment ratio estimators for EVI in the P-model. The performances of these estimators are assessed via a simulation study. Moreover, an efficient criterion for comparing the L and P models is proposed to choose the best model when the two models successfully work.     

Measuring association between nominal categorical variables: an alternative to the Goodman–Kruskal lambda

As a measure of association between two nominal categorical variables, the lambda coefficient or Goodman–Kruskal's lambda has become a most popular measure. Its popularity is primarily due to its simple and meaningful definition and interpretation in terms of the proportional reduction in error when predicting a random observation's category for one variable given (versus not knowing) its category for the other variable. It is an asymmetric measure, although a symmetric version is available. The lambda coefficient does, however, have a widely recognized limitation: it can equal zero even when there is no independence between the variables and when all other measures take on positive values. In order to mitigate this problem, an alternative lambda coefficient is introduced in this paper as a slight modification of the Goodman–Kruskal lambda. The properties of the new measure are discussed and a symmetric form is introduced. A statistical inference procedure is developed and a numerical example is provided.     

A Classification Rule Whose Probability of Misclassification is Independent of the Variance

An observation ×_o is to be classified into one of two normal populations φ₁ and φ₂. A classification rule, the Two-stage sample Rule, R(TS), whose probability of misclassification, P[MC], is independent of the common but unknown variance is proposed. Some optimal properties of R(TS) are also discussed and some values of P[MC | R(TS)], the probability of misclassification given the rule R(TS), are tabulated.