The gamma-linear failure rate distribution: theory and applications

For any continuous baseline G distribution, Zografos and Balakrishnan [On families of beta- and generalized gamma-generated distributions and associated inference. Statist Methodol. 2009;6:344–362] introduced the generalized gamma-generated distribution with an extra positive parameter. A new three-parameter continuous model called the gamma-linear failure rate (LFR) distribution, which extends the LFR model, is proposed and studied. Various structural properties of the new distribution are derived, including some explicit expressions for ordinary and incomplete moments, generating function, probability-weighted moments, mean deviations and Rényi and Shannon entropies. We estimate the model parameters by maximum likelihood and obtain the observed information matrix. The new model is modified to cope with possible long-term survivors in lifetime data. We illustrate the usefulness of the proposed model by means of two applications to real data.     

Bayesian Learning,Smooth Approximate Optimal Behavior,and Convergence to ε‐Nash Equilibrium

In this paper, I construct players' prior beliefs and show that these prior beliefs lead the players to learn to play an approximate Nash equilibrium uniformly in any infinitely repeated slightly perturbed game with discounting and perfect monitoring. That is, given any ε > 0, there exists a (single) profile of players' prior beliefs that leads play to almost surely converge to an ε‐Nash equilibrium uniformly for any (finite normal form) stage game with slight payoff perturbation and any discount factor less than 1.     

Elective Patient Admission and Scheduling under Multiple Resource Constraints

We consider a patient admission problem to a hospital with multiple resource constraints (e.g., OR and beds) and a stochastic evolution of patient care requirements across multiple resources. There is a small but significant proportion of emergency patients who arrive randomly and have to be accepted at the hospital. However, the hospital needs to decide whether to accept, postpone, or even reject the admission from a random stream of non‐emergency elective patients. We formulate the control process as a Markov decision process to maximize expected contribution net of overbooking costs, develop bounds using approximate dynamic programming, and use them to construct heuristics. We test our methods on data from the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and find that our intuitive newsvendor‐based heuristic performs well across all scenarios.     

Referee recognition

The paper provides theoretical and experimental results concerning the distribution of the sample lead. They apply to sample lead of one party over another in political opinion polls, one product over another in market research surveys, share of market of one company over another in industrial studies, one class over another in social investigations, one programme over another in TV viewing surveys, etc. The theoretical results include the derivation of the moment and cumulant generating functions. it is shown formally that the sampling distribution approaches normality as sample size increases. Experimental results provide guidelines for the choice of sample size to ensure adequacy of the normal approximation. Calculations based on one of the Central Limit Theorems support the results of the simulation.     

On approximate least squares estimators of parameters of one-dimensional chirp signal

Chirp signals are quite common in many natural and man-made systems such as audio signals, sonar, and radar. Estimation of the unknown parameters of a signal is a fundamental problem in statistical signal processing. Recently, Kundu and Nandi [Parameter estimation of chirp signals in presence of stationary noise. Stat Sin. 2008;75:187–201] studied the asymptotic properties of least squares estimators (LSEs) of the unknown parameters of a simple chirp signal model under the assumption of stationary noise. In this paper, we propose periodogram-type estimators called the approximate least squares estimators (ALSEs) to estimate the unknown parameters and study the asymptotic properties of these estimators under the same error assumptions. It is observed that the ALSEs are strongly consistent and asymptotically equivalent to the LSEs. Similar to the periodogram estimators, these estimators can also be used as initial guesses to find the LSEs of the unknown parameters. We perform some numerical simulations to see the performance of the proposed estimators and compare them with the LSEs and the estimators proposed by Lahiri et al. [Efficient algorithm for estimating the parameters of two dimensional chirp signal. Sankhya B. 2013;75(1):65–89]. We have analysed two real data sets for illustrative purposes.     

New inference procedures for generalized Poisson distributions

A common feature for compound Poisson and Katz distributions is that both families may be viewed as generalizations of the Poisson law. In this paper, we present a unified approach in testing the fit to any distribution belonging to either of these families. The test involves the probability generating function, and it is shown to be consistent under general alternatives. The asymptotic null distribution of the test statistic is obtained, and an effective bootstrap procedure is employed in order to investigate the performance of the proposed test with real and simulated data. Comparisons with classical methods based on the empirical distribution function are also included.     

有无重复选择下以矩母函数研究矿工脱险问题

给出两种典型的方案，用矩母函数研究矿工脱险时间问题，经计算发现有记号选择方案所用时间一定小于无记号选择方案所用时间，最后举实例验证说明。     

Simulated Likelihood Approximations for Stochastic Volatility Models

Abstract. This paper deals with parametric inference for continuous-time stochastic volatility models observed at discrete points in time. We consider approximate maximum likelihood estimation: for the k th-order approximation, we pretend that the observations form a k th-order Markov chain, find the corresponding approximate log-likelihood function, and maximize it with respect to θ . The approximate log-likelihood function is not known analytically, but can easily be calculated by simulation. For each k , the method yields consistent and asymptotically normal estimators. Simulations from a model based on the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross model are used for illustration.     

Joint Inventory and Pricing Coordination with Incomplete Demand Information

In retailing operations, retailers face the challenge of incomplete demand information. We develop a new concept named K‐approximate convexity, which is shown to be a generalization of K‐convexity, to address this challenge. This idea is applied to obtain a base‐stock list‐price policy for the joint inventory and pricing control problem with incomplete demand information and even non‐concave revenue function. A worst‐case performance bound of the policy is established. In a numerical study where demand is driven from real sales data, we find that the average gap between the profits of our proposed policy and the optimal policy is 0.27%, and the maximum gap is 4.6%.