Multivariate generalized S-estimators

In this paper we introduce generalized S-estimators for the multivariate regression model. This class of estimators combines high robustness and high efficiency. They are defined by minimizing the determinant of a robust estimator of the scatter matrix of differences of residuals. In the special case of a multivariate location model, the generalized S-estimator has the important independence property, and can be used for high breakdown estimation in independent component analysis. Robustness properties of the estimators are investigated by deriving their breakdown point and the influence function. We also study the efficiency of the estimators, both asymptotically and at finite samples. To obtain inference for the regression parameters, we discuss the fast and robust bootstrap for multivariate generalized S-estimators. The method is illustrated on a real data example.     

Robust weighted orthogonal regression in the errors-in-variables model

This paper focuses on robust estimation in the structural errors-in-variables (EV) model. A new class of robust estimators, called weighted orthogonal regression estimators, is introduced. Robust estimators of the parameters of the EV model are simply derived from robust estimators of multivariate location and scatter such as the M-estimators, the S-estimators and the MCD estimator. The influence functions of the proposed estimators are calculated and shown to be bounded. Moreover, we derive the asymptotic distributions of the estimators and illustrate the results on simulated examples and on a real-data set.     

Wiener processes with random effects for degradation data

This article studies the maximum likelihood inference on a class of Wiener processes with random effects for degradation data. Degradation data are special case of functional data with monotone trend. The setting for degradation data is one on which n independent subjects, each with a Wiener process with random drift and diffusion parameters, are observed at possible different times. Unit-to-unit variability is incorporated into the model by these random effects. EM algorithm is used to obtain the maximum likelihood estimators of the unknown parameters. Asymptotic properties such as consistency and convergence rate are established. Bootstrap method is used for assessing the uncertainties of the estimators. Simulations are used to validate the method. The model is fitted to bridge beam data and corresponding goodness-of-fit tests are carried out. Failure time distributions in terms of degradation level passages are calculated and illustrated.     

正态分布和瑞利分布混合情形下的参数估计及分类问题

学者往往用单一的分布模拟和拟合杂波,如正态分布、瑞利分布和威布尔分布等。然而在实际中,雷达杂波由多种类型的杂波组成,单一分布通常不能精确刻画雷达杂波规律,因此,应用混合分布模型对雷达杂波数据建模更准确。本文考虑用正态分布和瑞利分布的混合分布拟合杂波,并应用矩估计方法和基于EM算法的极大似然估计方法估计模型参数,最后,应用最大后验概率分类准则验证2种估计方法的分类准确率。通过数据模拟,得出极大似然估计的效果和分类准确率都要优于矩估计的估计效果和分类准确率。     

Maximum likelihood estimation for multivariate skew normal mixture models

This paper provides a flexible mixture modeling framework using the multivariate skew normal distribution. A feasible EM algorithm is developed for finding the maximum likelihood estimates of parameters in this context. A general information-based method for obtaining the asymptotic covariance matrix of the maximum likelihood estimators is also presented. The proposed methodology is illustrated with a real example and results are also compared with those obtained from fitting normal mixtures.     

Conditional and unconditional methods for selecting variables in linear mixed models

In the problem of selecting the explanatory variables in the linear mixed model, we address the derivation of the (unconditional or marginal) Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the conditional AIC (cAIC). The covariance matrices of the random effects and the error terms include unknown parameters like variance components, and the selection procedures proposed in the literature are limited to the cases where the parameters are known or partly unknown. In this paper, AIC and cAIC are extended to the situation where the parameters are completely unknown and they are estimated by the general consistent estimators including the maximum likelihood (ML), the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) and other unbiased estimators. We derive, related to AIC and cAIC, the marginal and the conditional prediction error criteria which select superior models in light of minimizing the prediction errors relative to quadratic loss functions. Finally, numerical performances of the proposed selection procedures are investigated through simulation studies.     

风电功率波动特性的概率分布模型研究

为保证电网安全稳定运行,在大规模风电并网运行控制过程中,准确构建风电出力波动特性的概率分布模型具有重要意义.基于数据驱动的方法,采用加权高斯混合概率分布模型来拟合大规模风电基地的波动特性,模型拟合参数可采用基于期望最大化(Expectation Maximization,EM)的极大似然估计算法来获得,并提出了拟合评价指标来与其它多种概率分布模型进行对比,结果验证了加权高斯混合概率模型的有效性和适用性.     

二元广义Weibull模型(英文)

本文研究了一个二元广义Weibull分布模型,其边缘分布分别是一元广义Weibull分布.利用EM算法,得到了未知参数的极大似然估计和观测Fisher信息矩阵.     

The restricted EM algorithm under inequality restrictions on the parameters

One of the most powerful algorithms for maximum likelihood estimation for many incomplete-data problems is the EM algorithm. The restricted EM algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation under linear restrictions on the parameters has been handled by Kim and Taylor (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 430 (1995) 708-716). This paper proposes an EM algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation under inequality restrictions A₀β?0, where β is the parameter vector in a linear model W=Xβ+ε and ε is an error variable distributed normally with mean zero and a known or unknown variance matrix Σ>0. Some convergence properties of the EM sequence are discussed. Furthermore, we consider the consistency of the restricted EM estimator and a related testing problem.     

Estimation of parameters in latent class models using fuzzy clustering algorithms

A mixture approach to clustering is an important technique in cluster analysis. A mixture of multivariate multinomial distributions is usually used to analyze categorical data with latent class model. The parameter estimation is an important step for a mixture distribution. Described here are four approaches to estimating the parameters of a mixture of multivariate multinomial distributions. The first approach is an extended maximum likelihood (ML) method. The second approach is based on the well-known expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. The third approach is the classification maximum likelihood (CML) algorithm. In this paper, we propose a new approach using the so-called fuzzy class model and then create the fuzzy classification maximum likelihood (FCML) approach for categorical data. The accuracy, robustness and effectiveness of these four types of algorithms for estimating the parameters of multivariate binomial mixtures are compared using real empirical data and samples drawn from the multivariate binomial mixtures of two classes. The results show that the proposed FCML algorithm presents better accuracy, robustness and effectiveness. Overall, the FCML algorithm has the superiority over the ML, EM and CML algorithms. Thus, we recommend FCML as another good tool for estimating the parameters of mixture multivariate multinomial models.     

Asymptotic properties of computationally efficient alternative estimators for a class of multivariate normal models

Parameters of Gaussian multivariate models are often estimated using the maximum likelihood approach. In spite of its merits, this methodology is not practical when the sample size is very large, as, for example, in the case of massive georeferenced data sets. In this paper, we study the asymptotic properties of the estimators that minimize three alternatives to the likelihood function, designed to increase the computational efficiency. This is achieved by applying the information sandwich technique to expansions of the pseudo-likelihood functions as quadratic forms of independent normal random variables. Theoretical calculations are given for a first-order autoregressive time series and then extended to a two-dimensional autoregressive process on a lattice. We compare the efficiency of the three estimators to that of the maximum likelihood estimator as well as among themselves, using numerical calculations of the theoretical results and simulations.     

Rates of convergence for minimum contrast estimators

Summary We shall present here a general study of minimum contrast estimators in a nonparametric setting (although our results are also valid in the classical parametric case) for independent observations. These estimators include many of the most popular estimators in various situations such as maximum likelihood estimators, least squares and other estimators of the regression function, estimators for mixture models or deconvolution... The main theorem relates the rate of convergence of those estimators to the entropy structure of the space of parameters. Optimal rates depending on entropy conditions are already known, at least for some of the models involved, and they agree with what we get for minimum contrast estimators as long as the entropy counts are not too large. But, under some circumstances (large entropies or changes in the entropy structure due to local perturbations), the resulting the rates are only suboptimal. Counterexamples are constructed which show that the phenomenon is real for non-parametric maximum likelihood or regression. This proves that, under purely metric assumptions, our theorem is optimal and that minimum contrast estimators happen to be suboptimal.     

Variational Bayesian Generative Topographic Mapping

General finite mixture models are powerful tools for the density-based grouping of multivariate i.i.d. data, but they lack data visualization capabilities, which reduces their practical applicability to real-world problems. Generative topographic mapping (GTM) was originally formulated as a constrained mixture of distributions in order to provide simultaneous visualization and clustering of multivariate data. In its inception, the adaptive parameters were determined by maximum likelihood (ML), using the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. The original GTM is, therefore, prone to data overfitting unless a regularization mechanism is included. In this paper, we define an alternative variational formulation of GTM that provides a full Bayesian treatment to a Gaussian process (GP)-based variation of the model. The generalization capabilities of the proposed Variational Bayesian GTM are assessed in some detail and compared with those of alternative GTM regularization approaches in terms of test log-likelihood, using several artificial and real datasets.     

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The hybrid censoring scheme is a mixture of type-I and type-II censoring schemes. It is a popular censoring scheme in the literature of life data analysis. Mixed exponential distribution (MED) models is a class of favorable models in reliability statistics. Nevertheless, there is no much discussion to focus on parameters estimation for MED models with hybrid censored samples. We will address this problem in this paper. The EM (Expectation-Maximization) algorithm is employed to derive the closed form of the maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs). Finally, Monte Carlo simulations and a real-world data analysis are conducted to illustrate the proposed method.     

风险非同质时索赔次数的分布拟合及其EM算法

本文运用EM算法,对于风险非同质时索赔次数的分布,分别给出了离散型多元风险模型,混合两伽玛模型参数的极大似然估计的迭代公式,并将其应用到一个实际问题中去,效果较好。     

A skew–normal mixture of joint location,scale and skewness models

Normal mixture regression models are one of the most important statistical data analysis tools in a heterogeneous population. When the data set under consideration involves asymmetric outcomes, in the last two decades, the skew normal distribution has been shown beneficial in dealing with asymmetric data in various theoretic and applied problems. In this paper, we propose and study a novel class of models: a skew–normal mixture of joint location,scale and skewness models to analyze the heteroscedastic skew–normal data coming from a heterogeneous population. The issues of maximum likelihood estimation are addressed. In particular, an Expectation–Maximization(EM) algorithm for estimating the model parameters is developed. Properties of the estimators of the regression coefficients are evaluated through Monte Carlo experiments. Results from the analysis of a real data set from the Body Mass Index(BMI) data are presented.     

Moderate deviations of generalized method of moments and empirical likelihood estimators

This paper studies moderate deviation behaviors of the generalized method of moments and generalized empirical likelihood estimators for generalized estimating equations, where the number of equations can be larger than the number of unknown parameters. We consider two cases for the data generating probability measure: the model assumption and local contaminations or deviations from the model assumption. For both cases, we characterize the first-order terms of the moderate deviation error probabilities of these estimators. Our moderate deviation analysis complements the existing literature of the local asymptotic analysis and misspecification analysis for estimating equations, and is useful to evaluate power and robust properties of statistical tests for estimating equations which typically involve some estimators for nuisance parameters.     

Maximum likelihood estimation in the multi-path change-point problem

Maximum likelihood estimators of the parameters of the distributions before and after the change and the distribution of the time to change in the multi-path change-point problem are derived and shown to be consistent. The maximization of the likelihood can be carried out by using either the EM algorithm or results from mixture distributions. In fact, these two approaches give equivalent algorithms. Simulations to evaluate the performance of the maximum likelihood estimators under practical conditions, and two examples using data on highway fatalities in the United States, and on the health effects of urea formaldehyde foam insulation, are also provided.This work was supported in part by the Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada, and the Fonds pour la Formation de chercheurs et l'aide à la Recherche Gouvernment du Québec.Lawrence Joseph is also a member of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics of McGill University.     

On the comparison of the pre-test and shrinkage phi-divergence test estimators for the symmetry model of categorical data

The estimation problem of the parameters in a symmetry model for categorical data has been considered for many authors in the statistical literature (for example, Bowker (1948) [1], Ireland et al. (1969) [2], Quade and Salama (1975) [3], Cressie and Read (1988) [4], Menéndez et al. (2005) [5]) without using uncertain prior information. It is well known that many new and interesting estimators, using uncertain prior information, have been studied by a host of researchers in different statistical models, and many papers have been published on this topic (see Saleh (2006) [9] and references therein). In this paper, we consider the symmetry model of categorical data and we study, for the first time, some new estimators when non-sample information about the symmetry of the probabilities is considered. The decision to use a “restricted” estimator or an “unrestricted” estimator is based on the outcome of a preliminary test, and then a shrinkage technique is used. It is interesting to note that we present a unified study in the sense that we consider not only the maximum likelihood estimator and likelihood ratio test or chi-square test statistic but we consider minimum phi-divergence estimators and phi-divergence test statistics. Families of minimum phi-divergence estimators and phi-divergence test statistics are wide classes of estimators and test statistics that contain as a particular case the maximum likelihood estimator, likelihood ratio test and chi-square test statistic. In an asymptotic set-up, the biases and the risk under the squared loss function for the proposed estimators are derived and compared. A numerical example clarifies the content of the paper.     

Analysis of variance and linear contrasts in experimental design with generalized secant hyperbolic distribution

We consider one-way classification model in experimental design when the errors have generalized secant hyperbolic distribution. We obtain efficient and robust estimators for block effects by using the modified maximum likelihood estimation (MML) methodology. A test statistic analogous to the normal-theory F statistic is defined to test block effects. We also define a test statistic for testing linear contrasts. It is shown that test statistics based on MML estimators are efficient and robust. The methodology readily extends to unbalanced designs.