A simple test of symmetry about an unknown median

A simple test statistic for testing symmetry of a distribution function about an unknown value is presented. The asymptotic distributions under symmetry and asymmetry are derived. Using the normal as a “calibration” distribution, the critical values of the test are calculated by Monte Carlo methods. Comparisons with other tests indicate that this procedure performs well.     

Approximate and exact distributions of rank tests for balanced incomplete block designs

Judges rank k out of t objects according to m replic ations of abasic balanced incomplete block design with bblocks. In Alvo and Cabilio(1991),it is shown that the Durbin test, which is the usual test in this situation, can be written in terms of Spearman correlations between the blocks, and using a Kendall correlation, they generated a new statistic for this situation.This Kendall tau based statistic has a richer support than the Durbin statistic, and is at least as efficient.In the present paper,exact and simulation based tables are generated for both statistics, and various approximations to these null distributions are considered and compared.     

Bayesian estimation of the difference between two proportions

This paper is concerned with the problem of allocating a fixed number of trials between two independent binomial populations with unknown success probabilities θ₁ and θ₂, in order to estimate θ₁ - θ₂ with squared error loss. Introducing independent beta priors on θ₁ and θ₂, a heuristic allocation procedure is introduced and compared both with the optimal and with the best fixed allocation procedure. Numerical and asymptotic results of these comparisons are given and seem to indicate that there are situations when the best fixed allocation procedure performs almost as well as the optimal procedure.     

Average rank correlation statistics in the presence of ties

The problem of n judges ranking r objects is considered in the situation where ties are permitted. Asymtotic distributions under the null hypothesis of complete randomness in the rankings are derived for the test statistics of average rank correlations between all pairs of ranking where the rank correlations are measured either by Spearman rho or Kendall tau. The relative efficeincies of these average rank correlatins are derived using approximate Bahadur slope and limiting pitman efficiency, and in both cases the Kendall statistic is shown to be more efficient. Some interpretatins of these and related results are also given.     

General scores statistics on ranks in the analysis of unbalanced designs

The authors consider the situation of incomplete rankings in which n judges independently rank k_i ∈ {2, …, t} objects. They wish to test the null hypothesis that each judge picks the ranking at random from the space of k_i! permutations of the integers 1, …, k_i. The statistic considered is a generalization of the Friedman test in which the ranks assigned by each judge are replaced by real‐valued functions a(j, k_i), 1 ≤ j ≤ k_i ≤ t of the ranks. The authors define a measure of pairwise similarity between complete rankings based on such functions, and use averages of such similarities to construct measures of the level of concordance of the judges' rankings. In the complete ranking case, the resulting statistics coincide with those defined by Hájek & ?idák (1967, p. 118), and Sen (1968). These measures of similarity are extended to the situation of incomplete rankings. A statistic is derived in this more general situation and its properties are investigated.     

Rank correlation methods for missing data

The subject of rank correlation has had a rich history. It has been used in numerous applications in tests for trend and for independence. However, little has been said about how to define rank correlation when the data are incomplete. The practice has often been to ignore missing observations and to define rank correlation for the smaller complete record. We propose a new class of measures of rank correlation which are based on a notion of distance between incomplete rankings. There is the potential for a significant increase in efficiency over the approach which ignores missing observations as demonstrated by a specific case.     

ON THE SEQUENTIAL ESTIMATION OF THE PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS

Let x₁ x₂, x₃,be a sequence of independent Bernoulli trials with common success probability p . We consider the problem of estimation of p using a sequential Bayes theoretic approach when the cost per observation is c , and the loss of estimation is squared error loss. A heuristic procedure is suggested, a bound on its Bayes risk is computed, and asymptotic results are exhibited.     

Nonparametric confidence intervals for location in time series data

We extend the confidence interval construction procedure for location for symmetric iid data using the one-sample Wilcoxon signed rank statistic (T⁺) to stationary time series data. We propose a normal approximation procedure when explicit knowledge of the underlying dependence structure/distribution is unknown. By conducting extensive simulations from linear and nonlinear time series models, we show that the extended procedure is a strong contender for use in the construction of confidence intervals in time series analysis. Finally we demonstrate real application implementations in two case studies.     

A comparison of approximations to the distribution of average kendall tau

The average Kendall tau test for the null hypothesis of compLete randomness in n judges' rankings of r objects was introduced by Ehrenberg (1952). The superior efficiency of this test. as measured by approximate Bahadur slope has been established by Alva, Cabilio, and Feigin (1982).

The purpose of this paper is first to provide further justification for the use of this test, and second to compare the accuracy of the asymptotic distribution to other app roxtmations to the null distribution for small values of r and n. In the process we generate tables for this exact dis tribution for r=3 and n=3(1)19, r=4 and n=3(1)9, r=5 and n=3(1)5.