AN ALGORITHMIC APPROACH TO BAYESIAN LINEAR MODEL CALCULATIONS

A framework is described for organizing and understanding the computations necessary to obtain the posterior mean of a vector of linear effects in a normal linear model, conditional on the parameters that determine covariance structure. The approach has two major uses; firstly, as a pedagogical tool in the derivation of formulae, and secondly, as a practical tool for developing computational strategies without needing complicated matrix formulae that are often unwieldy in complex hierarchical models. The proposed technique is based upon symbolic application of the sweep operator SWP to an appropriate tableau of means and covariances. The method is illustrated with standard linear model specifications, including the so-called mixed model, with both fixed and random effects.     

COVARIANCE MODELS FOR LATTICE DATA

Given observations on an m × n lattice, approximate maximum likelihood estimates are derived for a family of models including direct covariance, spatial moving average, conditional autoregressive and simultaneous autoregressive models. The approach involves expressing the (approximate) covariance matrix of the observed variables in terms of a linear combination of neighbour relationship matrices, raised to a power. The structure is such that the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix are independent of the parameters of interest. This result leads to a simple Fisher scoring type algorithm for estimating the parameters. The ideas are illustrated by fitting models to some remotely sensed data.     

Analysis of growth curve data by using cubic smoothing splines

Longitudinal data frequently arises in various fields of applied sciences where individuals are measured according to some ordered variable, e.g. time. A common approach used to model such data is based on the mixed models for repeated measures. This model provides an eminently flexible approach to modeling of a wide range of mean and covariance structures. However, such models are forced into a rigidly defined class of mathematical formulas which may not be well supported by the data within the whole sequence of observations. A possible non-parametric alternative is a cubic smoothing spline, which is highly flexible and has useful smoothing properties. It can be shown that under normality assumption, the solution of the penalized log-likelihood equation is the cubic smoothing spline, and this solution can be further expressed as a solution of the linear mixed model. It is shown here how cubic smoothing splines can be easily used in the analysis of complete and balanced data. Analysis can be greatly simplified by using the unweighted estimator studied in the paper. It is shown that if the covariance structure of random errors belong to certain class of matrices, the unweighted estimator is the solution to the penalized log-likelihood function. This result is new in smoothing spline context and it is not only confined to growth curve settings. The connection to mixed models is used in developing a rough testing of group profiles. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the techniques proposed.     

Moderate Deviation Principles for Empirical Covariance in the Neighbourhood of the Unit Root

In this paper, we consider the linear autoregressive model with varying coefficients θ_n∈[0,1). When θ_n tending to the unit root, the moderate deviation principle for empirical covariance is discussed, and as statistical applications, we provide the moderate deviation estimates of the least square and the Yule–Walker estimators of the parameter θ_n.     

A useful approach to identify the multicollinearity in the presence of outliers

The presence of outliers in the data sets affects the structure of multicollinearity which arises from a high degree of correlation between explanatory variables in a linear regression analysis. This affect could be seen as an increase or decrease in the diagnostics used to determine multicollinearity. Thus, the cases of outliers reduce the reliability of diagnostics such as variance inflation factors, condition numbers and variance decomposition proportions. In this study, we propose to use a robust estimation of the correlation matrix obtained by the minimum covariance determinant method to determine the diagnostics of multicollinearity in the presence of outliers. As a result, the present paper demonstrates that the diagnostics of multicollinearity obtained by the robust estimation of the correlation matrix are more reliable in the presence of outliers.     

Heteroskedasticity-consistent interval estimators

The linear regression model is commonly used in applications. One of the assumptions made is that the error variances are constant across all observations. This assumption, known as homoskedasticity, is frequently violated in practice. A commonly used strategy is to estimate the regression parameters by ordinary least squares and to compute standard errors that deliver asymptotically valid inference under both homoskedasticity and heteroskedasticity of an unknown form. Several consistent standard errors have been proposed in the literature, and evaluated in numerical experiments based on their point estimation performance and on the finite sample behaviour of associated hypothesis tests. We build upon the existing literature by constructing heteroskedasticity-consistent interval estimators and numerically evaluating their finite sample performance. Different bootstrap interval estimators are also considered. The numerical results favour the HC4 interval estimator.     

Maximum likelihood estimation for the generalized poisson distribution

The generalized Poisson distribution;containing two

parameters and studied by many researchers; describes the distribution of busy periods under a queueing system and has very interesting properties; The probabilities for successive classes depend upon the previous occurrences; The problem of admissible maximum likelihood estimators for for the parameters Is discussed and a necessary and sufficient condition is derived for which unique admissible maximum likelihood estimators exist; The first; order terms in the biases; variances and the covariance of these maximum likelihood estimators are obtained.     

Matrix mean square error comparisons based on a certain covariance structure

For two given estimators of a parameter vector the covariance structure of their difference is used to compare them in terms of their mean square error matrices. The results obtained are applied to the covariance adjustment technique and regression     

Non–zero inflated modified power series distributions

In this paper, we study the class of inflated modified power series distributions (IMPSD) where inflation occurs at any of the support points. This class include among other the generalized Poisson, the generalized negative binomial, the generalized logarithmic series and the lost games distributions. We give expressions for the moments, factorial moments and central moments of the IMPSD. The maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters of the IMPSD and the variance – covariance matrix of the estimators is obtained. We derive these estimators and their information matrices for mentioned above particular members of IMPSD class. The second part of this paper deals with the distribution of sum of independent and identically distributed random variables taking values s, s+1. s + 2, …, s ≥ 0, with modified power series distributions inflated at the point s.     

Testing the equality of several covariance matrices

Using a new approach based on Meijer G-functions and computer simulation, we numerically compute the exact null distribution of the modified-likelihood ratio statistic used to test the hypothesis that several covariances matrices of normal distributions are equal. Small samples of different sizes are considered, and for the case of two matrices, we introduce a new test based on determinants, with the null distribution of its criterion also fully computable. Comparisons with published results show the accuracy of our approach, which is proved to be more flexible and adaptable to different cases.