On Pearson-Kotz Dirichlet distributions

In this paper, we discuss some basic distributional and asymptotic properties of the Pearson-Kotz Dirichlet multivariate distributions. These distributions, which appear as the limit of conditional Dirichlet random vectors, possess many appealing properties and are interesting from theoretical as well as applied points of view. We illustrate an application concerning the approximation of the joint conditional excess distribution of elliptically symmetric random vectors.     

Semiparametric statistical inference in global random search

The multivariate multiextremal optimization problem is considered. Various statistical procedures based on the use of the asymptotic theory of extreme order statistics are thoroughly described. These procedures are used to infer about the maximal value of a function by its values at random points. A class of global random search methods underlying the procedures is considered. These methods generalize the well-known branch and bound methods. The article is mainly of a survey nature. It also contains new results.     

Maximum entropy principles for disordered spins

Summary We transform nonstationary independent random fields with exponential Radon-Nikodym factors and study the asymptotics of the transformed processes. As applications we deduce conditional limit theorems for such random fields, and we study a Curie-Weiss-type mean-field model of a quenched mixed magnetic crystal. This model has quenched site disorder and frustration but non-random coupling constants. We find a continuous phase transition with critical exponents equal to those of the classical Curie-Weiss theory.     

Gaussian approximation of local empirical processes indexed by functions

Summary. An extended notion of a local empirical process indexed by functions is introduced, which includes kernel density and regression function estimators and the conditional empirical process as special cases. Under suitable regularity conditions a central limit theorem and a strong approximation by a sequence of Gaussian processes are established for such processes. A compact law of the iterated logarithm (LIL) is then inferred from the corresponding LIL for the approximating sequence of Gaussian processes. A number of statistical applications of our results are indicated. Received: 11 January 1995/In revised form: 12 July 1996     

On the Maximum of Some Conditional and Integrated Gaussian Fields and their Statistical Applications

We evaluate upper bounds for the maximal distributions of some Gaussian random fields, which arise in the study of the asymptotic behavior of various two-dimensional empirical processes, with random index. Some of them are generalizations of well-known conditional Brownian fields, while the others are obtained by their integration. We present also some possible statistical applications of our results.     

A one-dimensional version of the random interlacements

We base ourselves on the construction of the two-dimensional random interlacements (Comets et al., 2016) to define the one-dimensional version of the process. For this, we consider simple random walks conditioned on never hitting the origin. We compare this process to the conditional random walk on the ring graph. Our results are the convergence of the vacant set on the ring graph to the vacant set of one-dimensional random interlacements, a central limit theorem for the interlacements’ local time and the convergence in law of the local times of the conditional walk on the ring graph to the interlacements’ local times.     

Limit distributions of random matrices

We study limit distributions of independent random matrices as well as limit joint distributions of their blocks under normalized partial traces composed with classical expectation. In particular, we are concerned with the ensemble of symmetric blocks of independent Hermitian random matrices which are asymptotically free, asymptotically free from diagonal deterministic matrices, and whose norms are uniformly bounded almost surely. This class contains symmetric blocks of unitarily invariant Hermitian random matrices whose asymptotic distributions are compactly supported probability measures on the real line. Our approach is based on the concept of matricial freeness which is a generalization of freeness in free probability. We show that the associated matricially free Gaussian operators provide a unified framework for studying the limit distributions of sums and products of independent rectangular random matrices, including non-Hermitian Gaussian matrices and matrices of Wishart type.     

Central limit theorem for functionals of a generalized self-similar Gaussian process

We consider a class of self-similar, continuous Gaussian processes that do not necessarily have stationary increments. We prove a version of the Breuer–Major theorem for this class, that is, subject to conditions on the covariance function, a generic functional of the process increments converges in law to a Gaussian random variable. The proof is based on the Fourth Moment Theorem. We give examples of five non-stationary processes that satisfy these conditions.     

Asymptotic behaviour of high Gaussian minima

We investigate what happens when an entire sample path of a smooth Gaussian process on a compact interval lies above a high level. Specifically, we determine the precise asymptotic probability of such an event, the extent to which the high level is exceeded, the conditional shape of the process above the high level, and the location of the minimum of the process given that the sample path is above a high level.     

The weak and strong Gaussian probabilistic realization problem

A classification is given of all σ-algebras that make two given σ-algebras conditionally independent in the case that the σ-algebras are generated by finite dimensional Gaussian random variables. In addition a classification is given of all Gaussian measures that have the conditional independence property and such that restricted to a subspace, they coincide with a given measure.     

A CLT concerning critical points of random functions on a Euclidean space

We prove a central limit theorem concerning the number of critical points in large cubes of an isotropic Gaussian random function on a Euclidean space.     

Extremes of conditioned elliptical random vectors

Let {X_n,n?1} be iid elliptical random vectors in R^d,d≥2 and let I,J be two non-empty disjoint index sets. Denote by X_n,I,X_n,J the subvectors of X_n with indices in I,J, respectively. For any a∈R^d such that a_J is in the support of X_1,J the conditional random sample X_n,I|X_n,J=a_J,n≥1 consists of elliptically distributed random vectors. In this paper we investigate the relation between the asymptotic behaviour of the multivariate extremes of the conditional sample and the unconditional one. We show that the asymptotic behaviour of the multivariate extremes of both samples is the same, provided that the associated random radius of X₁ has distribution function in the max-domain of attraction of a univariate extreme value distribution.     

Zariski closure and the dimension of the Gaussian low of the product of random matrices. I

Summary We prove the Central Limit Theorem for products of i.i.d. random matrices. The main aim is to find the dimension of the corresponding Gaussian law. It turns out that ifG is the Zariski closure of a group generated by the support of the distribution of our matrices, and ifG is semi-simple, then the dimension of the Gaussian law is equal to the dimension of the diagonal part of Cartan decomposition ofG.In this article we present a detailed exposition of results announced in [GGu]. For reasons explained in the introduction, this part is devoted to the case ofSL(m, ) group. The general semi-simple Lie group will be considered in the second part of the work.The central limit theorem for products of independent random matrices is our main topic, and the results obtained complete to a large extent the general picture of the subject.The proofs rely on methods from two theories. One is the theory of asymptotic behaviour of products of random matrices itself. As usual, the existence of distinct Lyapunov exponents is the most important fact here. The other is the theory of algebraic groups. We want to point out that algebraic language and methods play a very important role in this paper.In fact, this mixture of methods has already been used for the study of Lyapunov exponents in [GM1, GM2, GR3]. We believe that it is impossible to avoid the algebraic approach if one aims to obtain complete and effective answers to natural problems arising in the theory of products of random matrices.In order also to present the general picture of the subject we describe several results which are well known. Some of these can be proven for stationary sequences of matrices, others are true also for infinite dimensional operators (see e.g. [BL, O, GM2, L, R]). But our main concern is with independent matrices, in which case very precise and constructive statements can be obtained.     

The hyper-Dirichlet process and its discrete approximations: The butterfly model

The aim of this paper is the study of some random probability distributions, called hyper-Dirichlet processes. In the simplest situation considered in the paper these distributions charge the product of three sample spaces, with the property that the first and the last component are independent conditional to the middle one. The law of the marginals on the first two and on the last two components are specified to be Dirichlet processes with the same marginal parameter measure on the common second component. The joint law is then obtained as the hyper-Markov combination, introduced in [A.P. Dawid, S.L. Lauritzen, Hyper-Markov laws in the statistical analysis of decomposable graphical models, Ann. Statist. 21 (3) (1993) 1272-1317], of these two Dirichlet processes. The processes constructed in this way in fact are in fact generalizations of the hyper-Dirichlet laws on contingency tables considered in the above paper. Our main result is the convergence to the hyper-Dirichlet process of the sequence of hyper-Dirichlet laws associated to finer and finer “discretizations” of the two parameter measures, which is proved by means of a suitable coupling construction.     

Asymptotics for dependent Bernoulli random variables

This paper considers a sequence of Bernoulli random variables which are dependent in a way that the success probability of a trial conditional on the previous trials depends on the total number of successes achieved prior to the trial. The paper investigates almost sure behaviors for the sequence and proves the strong law of large numbers under weak conditions. For linear probability functions, the paper also obtains the strong law of large numbers, the central limit theorems and the law of the iterated logarithm, extending the results by James et al. (2008).     

Neighborhood radius estimation for variable-neighborhood random fields

We consider random fields defined by finite-region conditional probabilities depending on a neighborhood of the region which changes with the boundary conditions. To predict the symbols within any finite region, it is necessary to inspect a random number of neighborhood symbols which might change according to the value of them. In analogy with the one-dimensional setting we call these neighborhood symbols the context associated to the region at hand. This framework is a natural extension, to d-dimensional fields, of the notion of variable length Markov chains introduced by Rissanen [24] in his classical paper. We define an algorithm to estimate the radius of the smallest ball containing the context based on a realization of the field. We prove the consistency of this estimator. Our proofs are constructive and yield explicit upper bounds for the probability of wrong estimation of the radius of the context.     

Qualitative inequalities for squared partial correlations of a Gaussian random vector

We describe various sets of conditional independence relationships, sufficient for qualitatively comparing non-vanishing squared partial correlations of a Gaussian random vector. These sufficient conditions are satisfied by several graphical Markov models. Rules for comparing degree of association among the vertices of such Gaussian graphical models are also developed. We apply these rules to compare conditional dependencies on Gaussian trees. In particular for trees, we show that such dependence can be completely characterised by the length of the paths joining the dependent vertices to each other and to the vertices conditioned on. We also apply our results to postulate rules for model selection for polytree models. Our rules apply to mutual information of Gaussian random vectors as well.     

The characterizations of a semicircle law by the certain freeness in a C*-probability space

In usual probability theory, various characterizations of the Gaussian law have been obtained. For instance, independence of the sample mean and the sample variance of independently identically distributed random variables characterizes the Gaussian law and the property of remaining independent under rotations characterizes the Gaussian random variables. In this paper, we consider the free analogue of such a kind of characterizations replacing independence by freeness. We show that freeness of the certain pair of the linear form and the quadratic form in freely identically distributed noncommutative random variables, which covers the case for the sample mean and the sample variance, characterizes the semicircle law. Moreover we give the alternative proof for Nica's result that the property of remaining free under rotations characterizes a semicircular system. Our proof is more direct and straightforward one. Received: 12 February 1997 / Revised version: 16 June 1998     

Conditional limiting distribution of Type III elliptical random vectors

In this paper we consider elliptical random vectors in R^d,d≥2 with stochastic representation RAU where R is a positive random radius independent of the random vector U which is uniformly distributed on the unit sphere of R^d and A∈R^d×d is a non-singular matrix. When R has distribution function in the Weibull max-domain of attraction we say that the corresponding elliptical random vector is of Type III. For the bivariate set-up, Berman [Sojurns and Extremes of Stochastic Processes, Wadsworth & Brooks/ Cole, 1992] obtained for Type III elliptical random vectors an interesting asymptotic approximation by conditioning on one component. In this paper we extend Berman's result to Type III elliptical random vectors in R^d. Further, we derive an asymptotic approximation for the conditional distribution of such random vectors.     

Asymptotics of R-, MD- and LAD-estimators in linear regression models with long range dependent errors

Summary This paper establishes the uniform closeness of a weighted residual empirical process to its natural estimate in the linear regression setting when the errors are Gaussian, or a function of Gaussian random variables, that are strictly stationary and long range dependent. This result is used to yield the asymptotic uniform linearity of a class of rank statistics in linear regression models with long range dependent errors. The latter result, in turn, yields the asymptotic distribution of the Jaeckel (1972) rank estimators. The paper also studies the least absolute deviation and a class of certain minimum distance estimators of regression parameters and the kernel type density estimators of the marginal error density when the errors are long range dependent.Research of this author was partly supported by the NSF grant: DMS-9102041