Sampling design proportional to order statistic of auxiliary variable

The sampling designs dependent on sample moments of auxiliary variables are well known. Lahiri (Bull Int Stat Inst 33:133–140, 1951) considered a sampling design proportionate to a sample mean of an auxiliary variable. Sing and Srivastava (Biometrika 67(1):205–209, 1980) proposed the sampling design proportionate to a sample variance while Wywiał (J Indian Stat Assoc 37:73–87, 1999) a sampling design proportionate to a sample generalized variance of auxiliary variables. Some other sampling designs dependent on moments of an auxiliary variable were considered e.g. in Wywiał (Some contributions to multivariate methods in, survey sampling. Katowice University of Economics, Katowice, 2003a); Stat Transit 4(5):779–798, 2000) where accuracy of some sampling strategies were compared, too.These sampling designs cannot be useful in the case when there are some censored observations of the auxiliary variable. Moreover, they can be much too sensitive to outliers observations. In these cases the sampling design proportionate to the order statistic of an auxiliary variable can be more useful. That is why such an unequal probability sampling design is proposed here. Its particular cases as well as its conditional version are considered, too. The sampling scheme implementing this sampling design is proposed. The inclusion probabilities of the first and second orders were evaluated. The well known Horvitz–Thompson estimator is taken into account. A ratio estimator dependent on an order statistic is constructed. It is similar to the well known ratio estimator based on the population and sample means. Moreover, it is an unbiased estimator of the population mean when the sample is drawn according to the proposed sampling design dependent on the appropriate order statistic.     

国家治理中的第三次分配:美国镜鉴与中国道路

第三次分配在中国推动共同富裕迈入新阶段的当下扮演着重要角色。基于国家社会关系视角,将第三次分配划分为强政府大社会、弱政府大社会、强政府小社会、弱政府小社会4种实践模式。美国第三次分配建构起了弱政府大社会实践模式,以社会主导、政府监管、政治中立为主要特征。工具理性是美国第三次分配的成功经验,形成了文化、组织、制度及技术“四位一体”的逻辑理路。隐藏在工具理性外衣下的阶级理性是美国第三次分配的失败教训,在阶级理性思维影响下,社会“私”的方面被放大,形成了以捐赠者为中心的家长制作风。中国第三次分配是先富带动后富、助推共同富裕的实现方式,它深嵌到中国式现代化进程中。中国第三次分配不能照搬美国模式,需要在充分吸收工具理性和摒弃阶级理性的经验教训基础上,塑造强政府大社会模式,将中国文化要素融入制度体系,增强第三次分配主体规范性,加大第三次分配激励力度,完善第三次分配监管体系,持续并高度关注贫困人群。     

语言多属性决策的目标规划模型

研究了只有部分属性权重信息、属性值以语言变量或不确定语言变量形式给出且决策者对方案有偏好信息的语言多属性决策问题.给出了语言变量和不确定语言变量的运算法则,以及不确定语言变量之间比较的可能度公式,定义了语言变量的偏离度概念.在属性值以1)语言变量和2)不确定语言变量,这两种形式给出的情形下,分别建立了一个基于偏离度的目标规划模型,并通过求解这两种模型分别获得相应的属性权重.然后对于情形1),利用语言加权平均(LWA)算子,对语言决策信息进行加权集成,继而对方案进行排序和择优;对于情形2),利用不确定语言加权平均(ULWA)算子,对不确定语言决策信息进行加权集成,并利用可能度公式构造可能度矩阵(互补判断矩阵),继而利用互补判断矩阵排序公式对决策方案进行排序和择优.最后进行了实例分析.     

Population structure and correlation between auxiliary and target variables may affect precision of estimates in forest inventory

Simulations of forest inventory in several populations compared simple random with “quick probability proportional to size” (QPPS) sampling. The latter may be applied in the absence of a list sampling frame and/or prior measurement of the auxiliary variable. The correlation between the auxiliary and target variables required to render QPPS sampling more efficient than simple random sampling varied over the range 0.3–0.6 and was lower when sampling from populations that were skewed to the right. Two possible analytical estimators of the standard error of the estimate of the mean for QPPS sampling were found to be less reliable than bootstrapping.     

Marginal likelihood estimation from the Metropolis output: tips and tricks for efficient implementation in generalized linear latent variable models

The marginal likelihood can be notoriously difficult to compute, and particularly so in high-dimensional problems. Chib and Jeliazkov employed the local reversibility of the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm to construct an estimator in models where full conditional densities are not available analytically. The estimator is free of distributional assumptions and is directly linked to the simulation algorithm. However, it generally requires a sequence of reduced Markov chain Monte Carlo runs which makes the method computationally demanding especially in cases when the parameter space is large. In this article, we study the implementation of this estimator on latent variable models which embed independence of the responses to the observables given the latent variables (conditional or local independence). This property is employed in the construction of a multi-block Metropolis-within-Gibbs algorithm that allows to compute the estimator in a single run, regardless of the dimensionality of the parameter space. The counterpart one-block algorithm is also considered here, by pointing out the difference between the two approaches. The paper closes with the illustration of the estimator in simulated and real-life data sets.     

A Method to Handle Zero Counts in the Multinomial Model

In the context of an objective Bayesian approach to the multinomial model, Dirichlet(a, …, a) priors with a < 1 have previously been shown to be inadequate in the presence of zero counts, suggesting that the uniform prior (a = 1) is the preferred candidate. In the presence of many zero counts, however, this prior may not be satisfactory either. A model selection approach is proposed, allowing for the possibility of zero parameters corresponding to zero count categories. This approach results in a posterior mixture of Dirichlet distributions and marginal mixtures of beta distributions, which seem to avoid the problems that potentially result from the various proposed Dirichlet priors, in particular in the context of extreme data with zero counts.     

Quantile regression and variable selection for the single-index model

In this paper, we propose a new full iteration estimation method for quantile regression (QR) of the single-index model (SIM). The asymptotic properties of the proposed estimator are derived. Furthermore, we propose a variable selection procedure for the QR of SIM by combining the estimation method with the adaptive LASSO penalized method to get sparse estimation of the index parameter. The oracle properties of the variable selection method are established. Simulations with various non-normal errors are conducted to demonstrate the finite sample performance of the estimation method and the variable selection procedure. Furthermore, we illustrate the proposed method by analyzing a real data set.     

Complex Latent Variable Modeling in Educational Assessment

Bayesian item response theory models have been widely used in different research fields. They support measuring constructs and modeling relationships between constructs, while accounting for complex test situations (e.g., complex sampling designs, missing data, heterogenous population). Advantages of this flexible modeling framework together with powerful simulation-based estimation techniques are discussed. Furthermore, it is shown how the Bayes factor can be used to test relevant hypotheses in assessment using the College Basic Academic Subjects Examination (CBASE) data.     

Inferences on functions of Pareto parameters with application to income inequality measures

The Theil, Pietra, Éltetö and Frigyes measures of income inequality associated with the Pareto distribution function are expressed in terms of parameters defining the Pareto distribution. Inference procedures based on the generalized variable method, the large sample method, and the Bayesian method for testing of, and constructing confidence interval for, these measures are discussed. The results of Monte Carlo study are used to compare the performance of the suggested inference procedures from a population characterized by a Pareto distribution.