Reducing bias of the maximum-likelihood estimation for the truncated Pareto distribution

The Pareto distribution is an important distribution in statistics, which has been widely used in finance, physics, hydrology, geology, astronomy, and so on. Even though the parameter estimation for the Pareto distribution has been well established in the literature, the estimation problem for the truncated Pareto distribution becomes complex. This article investigates the bias and mean-squared error of the maximum-likelihood estimation for the truncated Pareto distribution, and some useful results are obtained.     

An Efficient Estimation for Switching Regression Models: A Monte Carlo Study

This article investigates an efficient estimation method for a class of switching regressions based on the characteristic function (CF). We show that with the exponential weighting function, the CF-based estimator can be achieved from minimizing a closed form distance measure. Due to the availability of the analytical structure of the asymptotic covariance, an iterative estimation procedure is developed involving the minimization of a precision measure of the asymptotic covariance matrix. Numerical examples are illustrated via a set of Monte Carlo experiments examining the implementation, finite sample property and the efficiency of the proposed estimator.     

On the Preliminary Test Backfitting and Speckman Estimators in Partially Linear Models and Numerical Comparisons

Przystalski and Krajewski (2007 Przystalski , M. , Krajewski , P. ( 2007 ). Constrained estimators of treatment parameters in semiparametric models . Statist. Probab. Lett. 77 : 914 – 919 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) proposed the restricted backfitting (RBCF) estimator and restricted Speckman (RSPC) estimator for the treatment effects in a partially linear model when some additional exact linear restrictions are assumed to hold. In this article, we introduce the preliminary test backfitting (PTBCF) estimator and preliminary test Speckman (PTSPC) estimator when the validity of the restrictions is suspected. Performances of the proposed estimators are examined with respect to the mean squared error (MSE) criterion. In addition, numerical behaviors of the proposed estimators are illustrated and compared via a Monte Carlo simulation study.     

Storage Life Prediction for a High-Performance Capacitor Using Multi-Phase Wiener Degradation Model

Capacitance is a critical performance characteristic of high-voltage-pulse capacitor which is used to store and discharge electrical energy rapidly. The capacitors usually are stored for a long period of time before put into use. Experimental result and engineering experience indicate that the capacitance increases with storage time and will eventually exceed the failure threshold, which means that the capacitor may fail during storage. This is a typical mode of degradation failure for long storage products. Further, the capacitance degradation path can be extrapolated in several stages based on the shifting characteristics. That is, the capacitance increases slowly or fluctuates in the initial storage stage that lasts about three months. Then it increases sharply in the middle stage which lasts about four months. After the two stages, the capacitor enters into the third stage in which capacitance increases constantly. This degradation phenomenon motivates us to study the storage life prediction method based on multi-phase degradation path model. The storage performance degradation mechanism of high-voltage-pulse capacitor was investigated, which provides the physical basis for multi-phase Wiener degradation model. Identification procedure for the transition points in the degradation path was proposed using maximum likelihood principle (MLP). The result of Kruskal-Wallis test which is the method to test whether two populations are consistent or not in statistics showed that the transition points are statistically effective. Other parameters in the multi-phase degradation model are estimated with maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) after the transition points have been specified. The multi-phase Inverse Gaussian (IG) distribution for storage life was deduced for the capacitor, and the point and interval estimation procedure for reliable storage life are constructed with bootstrap method. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed multi-phase degradation model is compared with storage life prediction under single-phase condition.     

Case–control genome-wide joint association study using semiparametric empirical model and approximate Bayes factor

We propose a semiparametric approach for the analysis of case–control genome-wide association study. Parametric components are used to model both the conditional distribution of the case status given the covariates and the distribution of genotype counts, whereas the distribution of the covariates are modelled nonparametrically. This yields a direct and joint modelling of the case status, covariates and genotype counts, and gives a better understanding of the disease mechanism and results in more reliable conclusions. Side information, such as the disease prevalence, can be conveniently incorporated into the model by an empirical likelihood approach and leads to more efficient estimates and a powerful test in the detection of disease-associated SNPs. Profiling is used to eliminate a nuisance nonparametric component, and the resulting profile empirical likelihood estimates are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal. For the hypothesis test on disease association, we apply the approximate Bayes factor (ABF) which is computationally simple and most desirable in genome-wide association studies where hundreds of thousands to a million genetic markers are tested. We treat the approximate Bayes factor as a hybrid Bayes factor which replaces the full data by the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters of interest in the full model and derive it under a general setting. The deviation from Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) is also taken into account and the ABF for HWE using cases is shown to provide evidence of association between a disease and a genetic marker. Simulation studies and an application are further provided to illustrate the utility of the proposed methodology.     

Implementation of a Federated Search System: Resource Accessibility Issues

Abstract

During 2009, the Hilton M. Briggs Library, South Dakota State University, went live with MetaLib, a federated search engine from Ex Libris. This paper presents the implementation process, addresses resource accessibility issues, and suggests a number of resources that can be consulted about these issues. Readers can apply similar strategies to projects involving federated search systems, as many implementation projects involve the same basic considerations presented here. The author did not find any studies specifically focused on configurations of MetaLib resources, so this content should be singularly useful.     

Estimation of Main Effect When Covariates Have Non-Proportional Hazards

The Cox proportional hazards (PH) regression model has been widely used to analyze survival data in clinical trials and observational studies. In addition to estimating the main treatment or exposure group effect, it is common to adjust for additional covariates using the Cox model. It is well known that violation of the PH assumption can lead to estimates that are biased and difficult to interpret, and model checking has become a routine procedure. However, such checking might focus on the primary group comparisons, and the assumption can still be violated when adjusting for many of the potential covariates. We study the effect of violation of the PH assumption of the covariates on the estimation of the main group effect in the Cox model. The results are summarized in terms of the bias and the coverage properties of the confidence intervals. Overall in randomized clinical trials, the bias caused by misspecifying the PH assumption on the covariates is no more than 15% in absolute value regardless of sample size. In observational studies where the covariates are likely correlated with the group variable, however, the bias can be very severe. The coverage properties largely depend on sample size, as expected, as bias becomes dominating with increasing sample size. These findings should serve as cautionary notes when adjusting for potential confounders in observational studies, as the violation of PH assumption on the confounders can lead to erroneous results.     

Detection of outliers in mixed regressive-spatial autoregressive models

ABSTRACT

This article studies the outlier detection problem in mixed regressive-spatial autoregressive model. The formulae for testing outliers and their approximate distributions are derived under the mean-shift model and the variance-weight model, respectively. The simulation studies are conducted for examining the power and size of the test, as well as for the detection of outliers when a simulated data contains several outliers. A real data is analyzed to illustrate the proposed method, and modified models based on mean-shift and variance-weight models in which detected outliers are taken into account are suggested to deal with the outliers and confirm theconclusions.     

PMSE performance of two different types of preliminary test estimators under a multivariate t error term

Abstract

In this paper, assuming that the error terms follow a multivariate t distribution, we derive the exact formula for the predictive mean squared error (PMSE) of two different types of pretest estimators. It is shown analytically that one of the pretest estimator dominates the SR estimator if a critical value of the pretest is chosen appropriately. Also, we compare the PMSE of the pretest estimators with the MMSE, AMMSE, SR and PSR estimators by numerical evaluations. Our results show that the pretest estimators dominate the OLS estimator for all combinations when the degrees of freedom is not more than 5.     

B-spline estimation for partially linear varying coefficient composite quantile regression models

Abstract

In this article, a new composite quantile regression estimation (CQR) approach is proposed for partially linear varying coefficient models (PLVCM) under composite quantile loss function with B-spline approximations. The major advantage of the proposed procedures over the existing ones is easy to implement using existing software, and it requires no specification of the error distributions. Under the regularity conditions, the consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimators are also derived. Finally, a simulation study and a real data application are undertaken to assess the finite sample performance of the proposed estimation procedure.