On second-order improved estimation of a gamma scale parameter

This paper concludes our comprehensive study on point estimation of model parameters of a gamma distribution from a second-order decision theoretic point of view. It should be noted that efficient estimation of gamma model parameters for samples ‘not large’ is a challenging task since the exact sampling distributions of the maximum likelihood estimators and its variants are not known. Estimation of a gamma scale parameter has received less attention from the earlier researchers compared to shape parameter estimation. What we have observed here is that improved estimation of the shape parameter does not necessarily lead to improved scale estimation if a natural moment condition (which is also the maximum likelihood restriction) is satisfied. Therefore, this work deals with the gamma scale parameter estimation as a separate new problem, not as a by-product of the shape parameter estimation, and studies several estimators in terms of second-order risk.     

Modified minimax estimation of regression coefficients

Working with the linear regression model (1.1) and having the extraneous information (1.2) about regression coefficients the problem exists how to build estimators (1.3) with the risk (1.4) which enable to utilize the known information in order to reduce their risk as compared with the risk (1.6) of the LSE (1.5). Solution of this problem is known for the positive definite matrix T, namely in form for estimators (1.8) and (1.10).First, it is shown that the proposed estimators (2.6),(2.9) and (2.16) based on psedoinversions of the matrix L represent the solution of the problem of the positive semidefinite matrix T=L'L.Further, the problem of interpretability of estimators in the sense of the inequality (3.1) exists; it is shown that all mentioned estimators are at least partially interpretable in the sense of requirements (3.2) or (3.10).     

A Simulation Study of Predicting Flush Date

For Canada's boreal forest region, the accurate modelling of the timing of the appearance of aspen leaves is important to forest fire management, as it signifies the end of the spring fire season that occurs after snowmelt. This article compares two methods, a midpoint rule and a conditional expectation method used to estimate the true flush date for interval-censored data from a large set of fire-weather stations in Alberta, Canada. The conditional expectation method uses the interval censored kernel density estimator of Braun et al. (2005 Braun , J. , Duchesne , T. , Stafford , J. E. ( 2005 ). Local likelihood density estimation for interval censored data . Canadian Journal of Statistics 33 : 39 – 60 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The methods are compared via simulation, where true flush dates were generated from a normal distribution and then converted into intervals by adding and subtracting exponential random variables. The simulation parameters were estimated from the data set and several scenarios were considered. The study reveals that the conditional expectation method is never worse than the midpoint method, and that there is a significant advantage to this method when the intervals are large. An illustration of the methodology applied to the Alberta data set is also provided.     

A Likelihood-Based Approximation to the Cumulative Distribution Function of the Noncentral t Distribution

Optimal designs for estimating the parameters and also the optimum factor combinations in multiresponse experiments have been considered by various authors. However, till date, in mixture experiments optimum designs have been studied only in the single response case. In this article, attempt has been made to investigate optimum designs for estimating optimum mixing proportions in a multiresponse mixture experiment.     

Estimation of the Memory Parameters of the Fractionally Integrated Separable Spatial Autoregressive (FISSAR(1, 1)) Model: A Simulation Study

In this article, we implement the Regression Method for estimating (d ₁, d ₂) of the FISSAR(1, 1) model. It is also possible to estimate d ₁ and d ₂ by Whittle's method. We also compute the estimated bias, standard error, and root mean square error by a simulation study. A comparison was made between the Regression Method of estimating d ₁ and d ₂ to that of the Whittle's method. It was found in this simulation study that the Regression Method of estimation was better when compare with the Whittle's estimator, in the sense that it had smaller root mean square errors (RMSE) values.     

Penalized Maximum Likelihood Principle for Choosing Ridge Parameter

We consider the problem of choosing the ridge parameter. Two penalized maximum likelihood (PML) criteria based on a distribution-free and a data-dependent penalty function are proposed. These PML criteria can be considered as “continuous” versions of AIC. A systematic simulation is conducted to compare the suggested criteria to several existing methods. The simulation results strongly support the use of our method. The method is also applied to two real data sets.     

Transformed Logit Confidence Intervals for Small Populations in Single Capture–Recapture Estimation

The good performance of logit confidence intervals for the odds ratio with small samples is well known. This is true unless the actual odds ratio is very large. In single capture–recapture estimation the odds ratio is equal to 1 because of the assumption of independence of the samples. Consequently, a transformation of the logit confidence intervals for the odds ratio is proposed in order to estimate the size of a closed population under single capture–recapture estimation. It is found that the transformed logit interval, after adding .5 to each observed count before computation, has actual coverage probabilities near to the nominal level even for small populations and even for capture probabilities near to 0 or 1, which is not guaranteed for the other capture–recapture confidence intervals proposed in statistical literature. Thus, given that the .5 transformed logit interval is very simple to compute and has a good performance, it is appropriate to be implemented by most users of the single capture–recapture method.     

Modifications of the Empirical Likelihood Interval Estimation with Improved Coverage Probabilities

The empirical likelihood (EL) technique has been well addressed in both the theoretical and applied literature in the context of powerful nonparametric statistical methods for testing and interval estimations. A nonparametric version of Wilks theorem (Wilks, 1938 Wilks , S. S. ( 1938 ). The large-sample distribution of the likelihood ratio for testing composite hypotheses . Annals of Mathematical Statistics 9 : 60 – 62 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) can usually provide an asymptotic evaluation of the Type I error of EL ratio-type tests. In this article, we examine the performance of this asymptotic result when the EL is based on finite samples that are from various distributions. In the context of the Type I error control, we show that the classical EL procedure and the Student's t-test have asymptotically a similar structure. Thus, we conclude that modifications of t-type tests can be adopted to improve the EL ratio test. We propose the application of the Chen (1995 Chen , L. ( 1995 ). Testing the mean of skewed distributions . Journal of the American Statistical Association 90 : 767 – 772 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) t-test modification to the EL ratio test. We display that the Chen approach leads to a location change of observed data whereas the classical Bartlett method is known to be a scale correction of the data distribution. Finally, we modify the EL ratio test via both the Chen and Bartlett corrections. We support our argument with theoretical proofs as well as a Monte Carlo study. A real data example studies the proposed approach in practice.     

An EM and a Stochastic Version of the EM Algorithm for Nonparametric Hidden Semi-Markov Models

The Hidden semi-Markov models (HSMMs) were introduced to overcome the constraint of a geometric sojourn time distribution for the different hidden states in the classical hidden Markov models. Several variations of HSMMs were proposed that model the sojourn times by a parametric or a nonparametric family of distributions. In this article, we concentrate our interest on the nonparametric case where the duration distributions are attached to transitions and not to states as in most of the published papers in HSMMs. Therefore, it is worth noticing that here we treat the underlying hidden semi-Markov chain in its general probabilistic structure. In that case, Barbu and Limnios (2008 Barbu , V. , Limnios , N. ( 2008 ). Semi-Markov Chains and Hidden Semi-Markov Models Toward Applications: Their Use in Reliability and DNA Analysis . New York : Springer . [Google Scholar]) proposed an Expectation–Maximization (EM) algorithm in order to estimate the semi-Markov kernel and the emission probabilities that characterize the dynamics of the model. In this article, we consider an improved version of Barbu and Limnios' EM algorithm which is faster than the original one. Moreover, we propose a stochastic version of the EM algorithm that achieves comparable estimates with the EM algorithm in less execution time. Some numerical examples are provided which illustrate the efficient performance of the proposed algorithms.     

A Shrinkage Estimation of Central Subspace in Sufficient Dimension Reduction

Sliced regression is an effective dimension reduction method by replacing the original high-dimensional predictors with its appropriate low-dimensional projection. It is free from any probabilistic assumption and can exhaustively estimate the central subspace. In this article, we propose to incorporate shrinkage estimation into sliced regression so that variable selection can be achieved simultaneously with dimension reduction. The new method can improve the estimation accuracy and achieve better interpretability for the reduced variables. The efficacy of proposed method is shown through both simulation and real data analysis.