Bridging the gap: A likelihood function approach for the analysis of ranking data

ABSTRACT

In the parametric setting, the notion of a likelihood function forms the basis for the development of tests of hypotheses and estimation of parameters. Tests in connection with the analysis of variance stem entirely from considerations of the likelihood function. On the other hand, non parametric procedures have generally been derived without any formal mechanism and are often the result of clever intuition. In the present article, we propose a more formal approach for deriving tests involving the use of ranks. Specifically, we define a likelihood function motivated by characteristics of the ranks of the data and demonstrate that this leads to well-known tests of hypotheses. We also point to various areas of further exploration such as how co-variates may be incorporated.     

On Redundancy Allocation to Series and Parallel Systems of Two Components

Abstract

For two components and one standby redundancy, we develop a characterization on the hazard rate order and the reversed hazard rate order of the redundant system lifetime in the context of mutually independent components lifetimes. Also, the likelihood ratio order is derived on the lifetime of the series system with two components lifetimes and two matched active redundancies lifetimes both following the proportional hazard model.     

Approximations of the critical region of the fbietkan statistic

The Friedman (1937) test for the randomized complete block design is used to test the hypothesis of no treatment effect among k treatments with b blocks. Difficulty in determination of the size of the critical region for this hypothesis is com¬pounded by the facts that (1) the most recent extension of exact tables for the distribution of the test statistic by Odeh (1977) go up only to the case with k6 and b6, and (2) the usual chi-square approximation is grossly inaccurate for most commonly used combinations of (k,b). The purpose of this paper 2 is to compare two new approximations with the usual x² and F large sample approximations. This work represents an extension to the two-way layout of work done earlier by the authors for the one-way Kruskal-Wallis test statistic.     

An approximation of the inverse moments of the positive hypergeometric distribution

The negative moments of the positive hyper geometric distribution are often approximated by the inverse of the positive moments of this distribution. In this paper, a suitable approximation to the positive hypergeometric distribution is used to obtain the negative moments.     

A modal method for generating binomial variables

The paper considers the problem of generating binomial random variables when the parameters n and p may vary from call to call (as in the generation of multinomial random variables), A new algorithm, based on sequentially searching alternately down and up from the modal probability, is introduced. This is easy to program and requires no special library facilities It is suitable for microcomputers as well as mainframes Some sample timings are given for a FORTRAN 7 7 implementation     

An asymptotic expression for cumulative sum of probabilities of the hermite distribution

An asymptotic approximation of cumulative sum F(s) of probabilities of the Hermite distribution (Kemp C. D. and Kemp A. W. (1965)) and an asymptotic approximation of individual Hemite Probability P_s are given for large s.     

An approximation for analyzing a broad class of implicitly and explicitly defined estimators

An approximation is presented that can be used to gain insight into the characteristics – such as outlier sensitivity, bias, and variability – of a wide class of estimators, including maximum likelihood and least squares. The approximation relies on a convenient form for an arbitrary order Taylor expansion in a multivariate setting. The implicit function theorem can be used to construct the expansion when the estimator is not defined in closed form. We present several finite-sample and asymptotic properties of such Taylor expansions, which are useful in characterizing the difference between the estimator and the expansion.     

Bayesian credibility limits for small finite population proportions:stratified and cluster sampling

Bayes credibility limits for small proportions from stratified and fixed size cluster samples are discussed. Ericson’s (JRSS B (1969)) Beta Binomial and Dirichlet-Multinomial priors are used. Approximate limits that are appropriate for large samples and small proportions are derived in both cases. These allow asymptotic comparisons of the efficacy of stratified and cluster sampling relative to simple random sampling for estimating small proportions. Procedures for the selection of hyper parameters are also presented.