Iterative Estimation of the Extreme Value Index

Let {X_n, n ≥ 1} be a sequence of independent random variables with common continuous distribution function F having finite and unknown upper endpoint. A new iterative estimation procedure for the extreme value index γ is proposed and one implemented iterative estimator is investigated in detail, which is asymptotically as good as the uniform minimum varianced unbiased estimator in an ideal model. Moreover, the superiority of the iterative estimator over its non iterated counterpart in the non asymptotic case is shown in a simulation study.AMS 2000 Subject Classification: 62G32Supported by Swiss National Science foundation.     

A Berry-Esseen theorem for the kernel quantile estimator with application to studying the deficiency of quantile estimators

A Berry-Esseen bound is established for the kernel quantile estimator under various conditions. The results improve an earlier result of Falk (1985,Ann. Statist.,13, 428–433) and rely on the local smoothness of the quantile function. This new Berry-Esseen bound is applied to studying the deficiency of the sample quantile estimator with respect to the kernel quantile estimator. A new result is obtained which is an extension of that in Falk (1985).     

Equilibrated error estimators for discontinuous Galerkin methods

We consider some diffusion problems in domains of ?^d, d = 2 or 3 approximated by a discontinuous Galerkin method with polynomials of any degree. We propose a new a posteriori error estimator based on H(div)‐conforming elements. It is shown that this estimator gives rise to an upper bound where the constant is one up to higher order terms. The lower bound is also established with a constant depending on the aspect ratio of the mesh, the dependence with respect to the coefficients being also traced. The reliability and efficiency of the proposed estimator is confirmed by some numerical tests. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2008     

r-k Class estimation in regression model with concomitant variables

We treat with the r-k class estimation in a regression model, which includes the ordinary least squares estimator, the ordinary ridge regression estimator and the principal component regression estimator as special cases of the r-k class estimator. Many papers compared total mean square error of these estimators. Sarkar (1989, Ann. Inst. Statist. Math., 41, 717–724) asserts that the results of this comparison are still valid in a misspecified linear model. We point out some confusions of Sarkar and show additional conditions under which his assertion holds.     

A projection method of estimation for a subfamily of exponential families

Summary This paper is concerned with estimation for a subfamily of exponential-type, which is a parametric model with sufficient statistics. The family is associated with a surface in the domain of a sufficient statistic. A new estimator, termed a projection estimator, is introduced. The key idea of its derivation is to look for a one-to-one transformation of the sufficient statistic so that the subfamily can be associated with a flat subset in the transformed domain. The estimator is defined by the orthogonal projection of the transformed statistic onto the flat surface. Here the orthogonality is introduced by the inverse of the estimated variance matrix of the statistic on the analogy of Mahalanobis's notion (1936,Proc. Nat. Inst. Sci. Ind.,2, 49–55). Thus the projection estimator has an explicit representation with no iterations. On the other hand, the MLE and classical estimators have to be sought as numerical solutions by some algorithm with a choice of an initial value and a stopping rule. It is shown that the projection estimator is first-order efficient. The second-order property is also discussed. Some examples are presented to show the utility of the estimator.     

Trimmed minimax estimator of a covariance matrix

Summary In the problem of estimating the covariance matrix of a multivariate normal population, James and Stein (Proc. Fourth Berkeley Symp. Math. Statist. Prob.,1, 361–380, Univ. of California Press) obtained a minimax estimator under a scale invariant loss. In this paper we propose an orthogonally invariant trimmed estimator by solving certain differential inequality involving the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix. The estimator obtained, truncates the extreme eigenvalues first and then shrinks the larger and expands the smaller sample eigenvalues. Adaptive version of the trimmed estimator is also discussed. Finally some numerical studies are performed using Monte Carlo simulation method and it is observed that the trimmed estimate shows a substantial improvement over the minimax estimator. The second author's research was supported by NSF Grant Number MCS 82-12968.     

Robustness of Tail Index Estimation

Abstract

The implementation of the Hill estimator, which estimates the heaviness of the tail of a distribution, requires a choice of the number of extreme observations in the tails, r from a sample of size n where 2 ≤ r + 1 ≤ n. This article is concerned with a robust procedure of choosing an optimal r. Thus, an estimation procedure, δ _s , based on the idea of spacing statistics, H^(r) is developed. The proposed decision rule for choosing r under the squared error loss is found to be a simple function of the sample size. The proposed rule is then illustrated across a wide range of data, including insurance claims, currency exchange rate returns, and city size.     

Estimating Functions for Nonlinear Time Series Models

This paper discusses the problem of estimation for two classes of nonlinear models, namely random coefficient autoregressive (RCA) and autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models. For the RCA model, first assuming that the nuisance parameters are known we construct an estimator for parameters of interest based on Godambe's asymptotically optimal estimating function. Then, using the conditional least squares (CLS) estimator given by Tjøstheim (1986, Stochastic Process. Appl., 21, 251–273) and classical moment estimators for the nuisance parameters, we propose an estimated version of this estimator. These results are extended to the case of vector parameter. Next, we turn to discuss the problem of estimating the ARCH model with unknown parameter vector. We construct an estimator for parameters of interest based on Godambe's optimal estimator allowing that a part of the estimator depends on unknown parameters. Then, substituting the CLS estimators for the unknown parameters, the estimated version is proposed. Comparisons between the CLS and estimated optimal estimator of the RCA model and between the CLS and estimated version of the ARCH model are given via simulation studies.     

Delete-group Jackknife Estimate in Partially Linear Regression Models with Heteroscedasticity

Abstract Consider a partially linear regression model with an unknown vector parameter β,an unknownfunction g(.),and unknown heteroscedastic error variances.Chen,You proposed a semiparametric generalizedleast squares estimator(SGLSE)for β,which takes the heteroscedasticity into account to increase efficiency.Forinference based on this SGLSE,it is necessary to construct a consistent estimator for its asymptotic covariancematrix.However,when there exists within-group correlation, the traditional delta method and the delete-1jackknife estimation fail to offer such a consistent estimator.In this paper, by deleting grouped partial residualsa delete-group jackknife method is examined.It is shown that the delete-group jackknife method indeed canprovide a consistent estimator for the asymptotic covariance matrix in the presence of within-group correlations.This result is an extension of that in[21].     

A Consistent Estimator of the Entropy of Measures and Dynamical Systems

In the paper, a new invariant of measures and dynamical systems, called statentropy, is described. A statistical estimator for statentropy, computed without using auxiliary estimates of measures, is constructed. It is proved that the proposed statistical estimator is consistent under fairly general restrictions. We show that for exact dimensional measures, statentropy coincides with the Hausdorff dimension of the measure, and for ergodic dynamical systems, it coincides with the metric entropy of the map.__________Translated from Matematicheskie Zametki, vol. 77, no. 6, 2005, pp. 903–916.Original Russian Text Copyright ©2005 by E. A. Timofeev.     

Minimum f-divergence estimators and quasi-likelihood functions

Maximum quasi-likelihood estimators have several nice asymptotic properties. We show that, in many situations, a family of estimators, called the minimum f-divergence estimators, can be defined such that each estimator has the same asymptotic properties as the maximum quasi-likelihood estimator. The family of minimum f-divergence estimators include the maximum quasi-likelihood estimators as a special case. When a quasi-likelihood is the log likelihood from some exponential family, Amari's dual geometries can be used to study the maximum likelihood estimator. A dual geometric structure can also be defined for more general quasi-likelihood functions as well as for the larger family of minimum f-divergence estimators. The relationship between the f-divergence and the quasi-likelihood function and the relationship between the f-divergence and the power divergence is discussed.This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant DMS 88-03584.     

A Subsampling Method for the Computation of Multivariate Estimators with High Breakdown Point

Abstract

All known robust location and scale estimators with high breakdown point for multivariate samples are very expensive to compute. In practice, this computation has to be carried out using an approximate subsampling procedure. In this article we describe an alternative subsampling scheme, applicable to both the Stahel-Donoho estimator and the minimum volume ellipsoid estimator, with the property that the number of subsamples required can be substantially reduced with respect to the standard subsampling procedures used in both cases. We also discuss some bias and variability properties of the estimator obtained from the proposed subsampling process.     

Asymptotic theorems for estimating the distribution function under random truncation

Representation theorem and local asymptotic minimax theorem are derived for nonparametric estimators of the distribution function on the basis of randomly truncated data. The convolution-type representation theorem asserts that the limiting process of any regular estimator of the distribution function is at least as dispersed as the limiting process of the product-limit estimator. The theorems are similar to those results for the complete data case due to Beran (1977, Ann. Statist., 5, 400–404) and for the censored data case due to Wellner (1982, Ann. Statist., 10, 595–602). Both likelihood and functional approaches are considered and the proofs rely on the method of Begun et al. (1983, Ann. Statist., 11, 432–452) with slight modifications.Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Columbia Univ.     

Kullback-Leibler Information Consistent Estimation for Censored Data

This paper is intended as an investigation of parametric estimation for the randomly right censored data. In parametric estimation, the Kullback-Leibler information is used as a measure of the divergence of a true distribution generating a data relative to a distribution in an assumed parametric model M. When the data is uncensored, maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) is a consistent estimator of minimizing the Kullback-Leibler information, even if the assumed model M does not contain the true distribution. We call this property minimum Kullback-Leibler information consistency (MKLI-consistency). However, the MLE obtained by maximizing the likelihood function based on the censored data is not MKLI-consistent. As an alternative to the MLE, Oakes (1986, Biometrics, 42, 177–182) proposed an estimator termed approximate maximum likelihood estimator (AMLE) due to its computational advantage and potential for robustness. We show MKLI-consistency and asymptotic normality of the AMLE under the misspecification of the parametric model. In a simulation study, we investigate mean square errors of these two estimators and an estimator which is obtained by treating a jackknife corrected Kaplan-Meier integral as the log-likelihood. On the basis of the simulation results and the asymptotic results, we discuss comparison among these estimators. We also derive information criteria for the MLE and the AMLE under censorship, and which can be used not only for selecting models but also for selecting estimation procedures.     

Improved Estimation of Parameter Matrices in a One-Sample and Two-Sample Problems

In this paper, the problems of estimating the covariance matrix in a Wishart distribution (refer as one-sample problem) and the scale matrix in a multi-variate F distribution (which arise naturally from a two-sample setting) are considered. A new class of estimators which shrink the eigenvalues towards their harmonic mean is proposed. It is shown that the new estimator dominates the best linear estimator under two scale invariant loss functions.     

Comparisons among some estimators in misspecified linear models with multicollinearity

In this paper we deal with comparisons among several estimators available in situations of multicollinearity (e.g., the r-k class estimator proposed by Baye and Parker, the ordinary ridge regression (ORR) estimator, the principal components regression (PCR) estimator and also the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator) for a misspecified linear model where misspecification is due to omission of some relevant explanatory variables. These comparisons are made in terms of the mean square error (mse) of the estimators of regression coefficients as well as of the predictor of the conditional mean of the dependent variable. It is found that under the same conditions as in the true model, the superiority of the r-k class estimator over the ORR, PCR and OLS estimators and those of the ORR and PCR estimators over the OLS estimator remain unchanged in the misspecified model. Only in the case of comparison between the ORR and PCR estimators, no definite conclusion regarding the mse dominance of one over the other in the misspecified model can be drawn.     

Gaining efficiency via weighted estimators for multivariate failure time data

Multivariate failure time data arise frequently in survival analysis. A commonly used technique is the working independence estimator for marginal hazard models. Two natural questions are how to improve the efficiency of the working independence estimator and how to identify the situations under which such an estimator has high statistical efficiency. In this paper, three weighted estimators are proposed based on three different optimal criteria in terms of the asymptotic covariance of weighted estimators. Simplified close-form solutions are found, which always outperform the working independence estimator. We also prove that the working independence estimator has high statistical efficiency, when asymptotic covariance of derivatives of partial log-likelihood functions is nearly exchangeable or diagonal. Simulations are conducted to compare the performance of the weighted estimator and working independence estimator. A data set from Busselton population health surveys is analyzed using the proposed estimators. This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10628104), Fan was also supported by National Institutes of Health (Grant No. R01-GM072611) and Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. DMS-0714554), Zhou was supported by National Natural Science Funds for Distinguisheel Young Scholar (Grant No. 70825004), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10731010, 10628104), the National Basic Research Program (Grant No. 2007CB814902), Creative Research Groups of China (Grant No. 10721101) and Leading Academic Disipline Program, the 10 ^th five year plan of 211 Project for Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (the 3 ^rd phase), Cai was supported by National Institutes of Health (Grant No. R01-HL57444)     

Estimation of parameters in a two-parameter exponential distribution using ranked set sample

In situations where the experimental or sampling units in a study can be easily ranked than quantified, McIntyre (1952,Aust. J. Agric. Res.,3, 385–390) proposed that the mean ofn units based on aranked set sample (RSS) be used to estimate the population mean, and observed that it provides an unbiased estimator with a smaller variance compared to a simple random sample (SRS) of the same sizen. McIntyre's concept ofRSS is essentially nonparametric in nature in that the underlying population distribution is assumed to be completely unknown. In this paper we further explore the concept ofRSS when the population is partially known and the parameter of interest is not necessarily the mean. To be specific, we address the problem of estimation of the parameters of a two-parameter exponential distribution. It turns out that the use ofRSS and its suitable modifications results in much improved estimators compared to the use of aSRS.     

Asymptotics of Huber-Dutter Estimators for Partial Linear Model with Nonstochastic Designs

For partial linear model Y=X~τβ_0 _(g0)(T) εwith unknown β_0∈R~d and an unknown smooth function go, this paper considers the Huber-Dutter estimators of β_0, scale σfor the errors and the function go respectively, in which the smoothing B-spline function is used. Under some regular conditions, it is shown that the Huber-Dutter estimators of β_0 and σare asymptotically normal with convergence rate n~((-1)/2) and the B-spline Huber-Dutter estimator of go achieves the optimal convergence rate in nonparametric regression. A simulation study demonstrates that the Huber-Dutter estimator of β_0 is competitive with its M-estimator without scale parameter and the ordinary least square estimator. An example is presented after the simulation study.     

New estimators of discriminant coefficients as the gradient of log-odds

We consider the problem of estimating the discriminant coefficients, η=∑^1-(θ⁽¹⁾-θ⁽²⁾) based on two independent normal samples fromN _p (θ⁽¹⁾,∑) andN _p (θ⁽²⁾,∑). We are concerned with the estimation of η as the gradient of log-odds between two extreme situations. A decision theoretic approach is taken with the quadratic loss function. We derive the unbiased estimator of the essential part of the risk which is applicable for general estimators. We propose two types of new estimators and prove their dominance over the traditional estimator using this unbiased estimator.