从统计学史解析“自由度”概念

自由度是统计学中一个十分重要而又长期没有被圆满解释的概念。对此,从统计学史角度,对皮尔逊、费歇尔有关自由度问题争论原始文献细致考察,彻底澄清了自由度概念的内涵及与其相关的统计思想,弥补了Fienberg、Stigler与陈希孺已有解释的缺陷。研究表明：皮尔逊关于卡方检验中无论总体分布已知还是其来自于样本推断统计量都具有同一分布的错误判断,导致卡方检验的准确性出现偏差,这种偏差虽被同时代少数几个统计学家察觉但他们却无法解释其根源。费歇尔提出自由度概念并结合n维几何、假设检验与最大似然方法的论证不仅修正了皮尔逊的错误,也完善了从样本统计量估计总体参数的数理逻辑。     

Testing Equality of Mean Vectors in Two Sample Problem with Missing Data

Finding the influence of traffic accident on the road is helpful to analyze the characteristics of traffic flow, and take reasonable and effective control measures. Here, the detrended fluctuation analysis method is applied to investigate the complexity of time series in mixed traffic flow with a blockage induced by an accident. As a parameter to depict the long-term evolutionary behavior of the time series in traffic flow, the scaling exponent is analyzed. According to the scaling exponent, it is shown that the traffic flow time series can display long-range correlation characteristics, short-range correlation characteristics, and non-power-law relation in the long-range correlation characteristics, which is strongly dependent on the entering probability of vehicle, the ratio of slow vehicle and the blockage duration time.     

Standard Exponential Cure Rate Model with Informative Censoring

In this article, we consider the standard cure rate model proposed by Boag (1949 Boag , J. W. ( 1949 ). Maximum likelihood estimates of the proportion of patients cured by cancer therapy . J. Roy. Statist. Soc. B 11 : 15 – 53 . [Google Scholar]) and Berkson and Gage (1952 Berkson , J. , Gage , R. ( 1952 ). Survival curve for cancer patients following treatment . J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 47 : 501 – 515 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). We present a new definition of informative censoring similar to Lawless (1982 Lawless , J. F. ( 1982 ). Statistical Models and Methods for Lifetime Data . New York : Wiley .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and the corresponding likelihood function. Under informative censoring, we obtain the Fisher information matrix of the exponential standard cure rate model. We verify, with simulated data, the impact caused by informative censoring in the coverage probabilities and in the lengths of asymptotic confidence intervals of the parameters of interest. An example with real data is analyzed.     

Multivariate Control Charts Based on Hybrid Novelty Scores

We propose a new nonparametric multivariate control chart that integrates a novelty score. The proposed control chart uses as its monitoring statistic a hybrid novelty score, calculated based on the distance to local observations as well as on the distance to the convex hull constructed by its neighbors. The control limits of the proposed control chart were established based on a bootstrap method. A rigorous simulation study was conducted to examine the properties of the proposed control chart under various scenarios and compare it with existing multivariate control charts in terms of average run length (ARL) performance. The simulation results showed that the proposed control chart outperformed both the parametric and nonparametric Hotelling's T ² control charts, especially in nonnormal situations. Moreover, experimental results with real semiconductor data demonstrated the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed control chart. To increase the capability to detect small mean shift, we propose an exponentially weighted hybrid novelty score control chart. Simulation results indicated that exponentially weighted hybrid score charts outperformed the hybrid novelty score based control charts.     

On a preliminary test estimator for one of the parameters of the log-zero-poisson distribution

A discrete distribution called the log-zero-Poisson distribution has been recommended by Katti (c.f. Biometrics 1970) as an alternate to the negative binomial and other distributions usually called "contagious" distributions.A major problem in the use of this and all other contagious distributions has been the difficulty of obtaining the maximum likelihood esti-mates. A custom-made ad hoc estimator, λ, has been proposed for the parameter λ of this distribution in Katti and Khedr (1980). In this paper, its efficiency relative to Fisher information is studied, only to discover that λ can be 30 times better than the maximum likelihood estimate in some parts of the parameter space and much weaker in other parts.A preliminary test is recommended to choose between the estimates, and the efficiency of the procedure is tabulated. As it is to be expected, the resultant estimator equals the better of the two estimators with some error at the values of the parameters where the two estimators are equivalent.     

Goodness-of-Fit Tests for Multivariate Distributions

We propose three new statistics, Z _p , C _p , and R _p for testing a p-variate (p ≥ 2) normal distribution and compare them with the prominent test statistics. We show that C _p is overall most powerful and is effective against skew, long-tailed as well as short-tailed symmetric alternatives. We show that Z _p and R _p are most powerful against skew and long-tailed alternatives, respectively. The Z _p and R _p statistics can also be used for testing an assumed p-variate nonnormal distribution.     

Optimal testing in a three way anova model

We consider likelihood ratio, score and Wald tests for a three-way random effects ANOVA model. Competitor tests are compared using criteria such as small sample power, asymptotic relative efficiency, and convenient null distribution. The final choice is between a new test and two tests long used in practice.     

Exact likelihood ratio and score confidence intervals for the binomial proportion

Many methods are available for computing a confidence interval for the binomial parameter, and these methods differ in their operating characteristics. It has been suggested in the literature that the use of the exact likelihood ratio (LR) confidence interval for the binomial proportion should be considered. This paper provides an evaluation of the operating characteristics of the two‐sided exact LR and exact score confidence intervals for the binomial proportion and compares these results to those for three other methods that also strictly maintain nominal coverage: Clopper‐Pearson, Blaker, and Casella. In addition, the operating characteristics of the two‐sided exact LR method and exact score method are compared with those of the corresponding asymptotic methods to investigate the adequacy of the asymptotic approximation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Appropriateness of Some Common Procedures for Testing the Equality of Two Independent Binomial Populations

For testing the equality of two independent binomial populations the Fisher exact test and the chi-squared test with Yates's continuity correction are often suggested for small and intermediate size samples. The use of these tests is inappropriate in that they are extremely conservative. In this article we demonstrate that, even for small samples, the uncorrected chi-squared test (i.e., the Pearson chi-squared test) and the two-independent-sample t test are robust in that their actual significance levels are usually close to or smaller than the nominal levels. We encourage the use of these latter two tests.     

Semiparametric score test for varying copula parameter in Markov time series

This article examines a semiparametric test for checking the constancy of serial dependence via copula models for Markov time series. A semiparametric score test is proposed for testing the constancy of the copula parameter against stochastically varying copula parameter. The asymptotic null distribution of the test is established. A semiparametric bootstrap procedure is employed for the estimation of the variance of the proposed score test. Illustrations are given based on simulated series and historic interest rate data.