Reliability Research of Dependent Failure Systems Using Copula

The computation of reliability characteristics of a system that consists of dependent components sometimes becomes difficult, especially when a specific type of dependence is not identified. In this paper, some systems with arbitrary dependent components are studied using copula. In the system, the components are dependent on each other and the dependent relations may be either linear or nonlinear correlation. The efficient formulas are presented to compute the reliability characteristics, such as reliability function, failure rate and meantime to failure of series, parallel and k-out-of-n systems. The reliability functions of dependant systems are compared with independent system. At last, the numerical examples are presented to illustrate the results obtained in this paper.     

An Enhanced Double MEWMA Controller for Drifted MIMO Systems

For a drifted multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) system, the double multivariate exponentially weighted moving average (dMEWMA) controller is a popular run-to-run (RTR) controller for adjusting the process mean to a desired target. The stability and performance of dMEWMA controller had been widely studied in literature. Although the dMEWMA controller (with suitable discount matrices) can guarantee long-term stability, it usually requires a moderately large number of runs to bring the process output to approach its desired target if the initial recipe is not chosen appropriately. Due to the initial recipe possibly having an infinite number of feasible solutions for MIMO systems, “how to determine an optimal setting for the initial recipe” turns out to be an interesting research topic. In this article, by solving a constrained optimization problem, we first obtain an optimal initial setting for the input recipe. Then, motivated by this setting, we propose an enhanced dMEWMA controller. The long-term stability conditions and short-term performance of the proposed controller are also addressed. Given a fixed and finite production run, it reveals that the proposed controller has the ability of reducing total mean squared error (TMSE) better than the conventional dMEWMA controller.     

Identifiability of distributions under competing risks and complementary risks model

Let X₁,X₂,…,X_p be p random variables with cdf's F₁(x),F₂(x),…,F_p(x)respectively. Let U = min(X₁,X₂,…,X_p) and V = max(X₁,X₂,…,X_p).In this paper we study the problem of uniquely determining and estimating the marginal distributions F₁,F₂,…,F_p given the distribution of U or of V.

First the problem of competing and complementary risks are introduced with examples and the corresponding identification problems are considered when the X₁'s are independently distributed and U(V) is identified, as well as the case when U(V) is not identified. The case when the X₁'s are dependent is considered next. Finally the problem of estimation is considered.     

Grey Predictive Process Control Charts

The present article intends to develop some imputation methods to reduce the impact of non response at both the occasions in two-occasion successive (rotation) sampling. Utilizing the auxiliary information, which is only available at the current occasion, estimators have been proposed for estimating the population mean at the current occasion. Estimators for the current occasion are also derived as a particular case when there is non response either on the first occasion or second occasion. Behaviors of the proposed estimators are studied and their respective optimum replacement policies are also discussed. To study the effectiveness of the suggested imputation methods, performances of the proposed estimators are compared in two different situations, with and without non response. The results obtained are demonstrated with the help of empirical studies.     

Limited information bayesian analysis of a structural coefficient in a simultaneous equations system

An analytical expression is obtained for the marginal posterior density for a structural coefficient in a simultaneous equations system based on a limited information Bayesian analysis. A con- ditional posterior density is obtained given reduced form para- meters. This conditional posterior density is in univariate student t form. Numerical examples suggest that the conditional density hasa tighter distribution around the posterior mean than the unconditional density when the correlation between the endo- genous variables and the structural error term is high.     

Bayesian prediction bounds for the pareto lifetime model

Suppose that the length of time in years for which a business operates until failure has a Pareto distribution. Let x₁ ≤ x₂ x₃ ≤…≤z_k denote the survival lifetimes of the first k of a random sample of n businesses. Bayesian predictions are to be made on the ordered failure times of t h e remaining (n-k) businesses, using the conditional probability density function. Examples are given to illustrate our results.     

A natural conjugate prior for the nonhomogeneous poisson process with an exponential intensity function

This article presents a natural conjugate prior for the nonhomogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) with an exponential intensity function, for modeling the failure rate of repairable systems. The behavior of the conjugate prior distribution with respect to its parameters is studied, and the use of this prior in Bayesian estimation is compared to two other estimation approaches (the use of independent prior distributions, and the bivariate normal distribution). The use of the conjugate prior proposed here facilitates Bayesian statistical analysis of aging. In particular, the proposed prior allows us to explicitly account for dependence between the initial failure rate and the aging rate. This is a significant improvement over the assumptions made in most prior work (either the assumption that the aging rate is known, or the assumption that the initial failure rate and the aging rate are independent). Monte Carlo simulation shows that Bayesian estimation using the proposed prior generally performs at least as well as Bayesian estimation using independent priors for the initial failure rate and the aging rate,except in the case where the prior distribution underestimates both the initial failure rate and the aging rate.     

Bank Business Models at Zero Interest Rates

We propose a novel observation-driven finite mixture model for the study of banking data. The model accommodates time-varying component means and covariance matrices, normal and Student’s t distributed mixtures, and economic determinants of time-varying parameters. Monte Carlo experiments suggest that units of interest can be classified reliably into distinct components in a variety of settings. In an empirical study of 208 European banks between 2008Q1–2015Q4, we identify six business model components and discuss how their properties evolve over time. Changes in the yield curve predict changes in average business model characteristics.     

VARIATION REDUCTION AND ROBUST DESIGNS

In this paper we consider two strategies for variation reduction. One of them is the exploitation of interactions. We also discuss the role of experiments in discovering interactions and in particular the use of robust designs to obtain the interaction between control and noise factors. Then we attempt to reduce the variation in a measurement system using a robust design.     

RELIABILITY PROPERTIES OF SERIES AND PARALLEL SYSTEMS FROM BIVARIATE EXPONENTIAL MODELS

ABSTRACT

In this paper we study the classification of the generalized mixtures of two or three exponential distributions, in the ILR and DLR classes, and consequently in the IFR and DFR classes. We apply these results to classify the aging of the series and parallel systems, in accord with some common bivariate exponential models of their components.