ML estimation for multivariate shock models via an EM algorithm

Multivariate extensions of univariate distributions, though useful, have not been applied in practice mainly due to shortage of inferential procedures caused by numerical complexity. The multivariate Marshall-Olkin distribution is a multivariate extension of the exponential distribution. Its representation as a multivariate shock model makes it appealing for such applications. Unfortunately, ML estimation is not easy and special numerical techniques are needed. In this paper an EM type algorithm based on the multivariate reduction technique is described. The behavior of the algorithm is examined and a numerical example is provided.     

Maximum likelihood estimation of a change-point in the distribution of independent random variables: General multiparameter case

In a sequence ofn independent random variables the pdf changes fromf(x, 0) tof(x, 0 + δv_n⁻¹) after the firstnλ variables. The problem is to estimateλ (0, 1 ), where 0 and δ are unknownd-dim parameters andv_n → ∞ slower thann^1/2. Let_n denote the maximum likelihood estimator (mle) ofλ. Analyzing the local behavior of the likelihood function near the true parameter values it is shown under regularity conditions that ifn_n²(− λ) is bounded in probability asn → ∞, then it converges in law to the timeT_(δjδ)^1/2 at which a two-sided Brownian motion (B.M.) with drift1/2(δ′Jδ)^1/2ton(−∞, ∞) attains its a.s. unique minimum, whereJ denotes the Fisher-information matrix. This generalizes the result for small change in mean of univariate normal random variables obtained by Bhattacharya and Brockwell (1976,Z. Warsch. Verw. Gebiete37, 51–75) who also derived the distribution ofT_μ forμ > 0. For the general case an alternative estimator is constructed by a three-step procedure which is shown to have the above asymptotic distribution. In the important case of multiparameter exponential families, the construction of this estimator is considerably simplified.     

Point estimation for multi-spectral distributed random matrices

In this communication, we consider a p×n random matrix which is normally distributed with mean matrix M and covariance matrix Σ, where the multivariate observation x_i=y_i+?_i with p dimensions on an object consists of two components, the signal y_i with mean vector μ and covariance matrix Σ_s and noise with mean vector zero and covariance matrix Σ_?, then the covariance matrix of x_i and x_j is given by Σ=Cov(x_i,x_j)=Γ⊗(B_|i-j|Σ_s+C_|i-j|Σ_?), where Γ is a correlation matrix; B_|i-j| and C_|i-j| are diagonal constant matrices. The statistical objective is to consider the maximum likelihood estimate of the mean matrix M and various components of the covariance matrix Σ as well as their statistical properties, that is the point estimates of Σ_s,Σ_? and Γ. More importantly, some properties of these estimators are investigated in slightly more general models.     

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.     

Double shrinkage estimation of ratio of scale parameters

The problems of estimating ratio of scale parameters of two distributions with unknown location parameters are treated from a decision-theoretic point of view. The paper provides the procedures improving on the usual ratio estimator under strictly convex loss functions and the general distributions having monotone likelihood ratio properties. In particular,double shrinkage improved estimators which utilize both of estimators of two location parameters are presented. Under order restrictions on the scale parameters, various improvements for estimation of the ratio and the scale parameters are also considered. These results are applied to normal, lognormal, exponential and pareto distributions. Finally, a multivariate extension is given for ratio of covariance matrices.     

Asymptotics for non-parametric likelihood estimation with doubly censored multivariate failure times

This paper considers non-parametric estimation of a multivariate failure time distribution function when only doubly censored data are available, which occurs in many situations such as epidemiological studies. In these situations, each of multivariate failure times of interest is defined as the elapsed time between an initial event and a subsequent event and the observations on both events can suffer censoring. As a consequence, the estimation of multivariate distribution is much more complicated than that for multivariate right- or interval-censored failure time data both theoretically and practically. For the problem, although several procedures have been proposed, they are only ad-hoc approaches as the asymptotic properties of the resulting estimates are basically unknown. We investigate both the consistency and the convergence rate of a commonly used non-parametric estimate and show that as the dimension of multivariate failure time increases or the number of censoring intervals of multivariate failure time decreases, the convergence rate for non-parametric estimate decreases, and is slower than that with multivariate singly right-censored or interval-censored data.     

随机截尾情形下正态分布参数的最大似然估计

设x1,…,xn,y1,…,yn是相互独立的随机变量,其中x1,…,xn服从相同的正态分布N(μ,σ2)或对数正态分布LN(μ,σ2),参数(μ,σ2)未知.我们的观测数据为(ti,δi), i=1,…,n,其中ti=min(xi,yi),δi=I(xi≤yi),这里I(·)为示性函数.基于上述数据,本文的主要结果是论证了(μ,σ2)的最大似然估计(MLE)存在的充要条件是下列条件至少一条满足:(1)有ti＜tj使δi=δj=1;(2)有ti＜tj使δi=1,δj=0.此外,我们还给出了MLE的计算方法和一些算例.     

分组数据情形下对数正态分布参数的最大似然估计

我们研究了分组数据情形下对数正态分布所含参数的最大似然估计存在且唯一的充要条件，进而得到了最大似然估计具有强相合性及收敛速度服从重对数律的结论。     

On Moments of Folded and Truncated Multivariate Normal Distributions

Recurrence relations for integrals that involve the density of multivariate normal distributions are developed. These recursions allow fast computation of the moments of folded and truncated multivariate normal distributions. Besides being numerically efficient, the proposed recursions also allow us to obtain explicit expressions of low-order moments of folded and truncated multivariate normal distributions. Supplementary material for this article is available online.     

Admissible and minimax multiparameter estimation in exponential families

Consider p independent distributions each belonging to the one parameter exponential family with distribution functions absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure. For estimating the natural parameter vector with p ≥ p₀ (p₀ is typically 2 or 3), a general class of estimators dominating the minimum variance unbiased estimator (MVUE) or an estimator which is a known constant multiple of the MVUE is produced under different weighted squared error losses. Included as special cases are some results of Hudson [13] and Berger [5]. Also, for a subfamily of the general exponential family, a class of estimators dominating the MVUE of the mean vector or an estimator which is a known constant multiple of the MVUE is produced. The major tool is to obtain a general solution to a basic differential inequality.     

含趋势项强相依非平稳序列的两个重要分布

{ηn}为平稳标准化正态序列,相关系数r|t-j|=Cov(ηu,ηj),若rnlogn→∞时,Leadbetter[1]等得到了序列最大值的渐近分布.本文考虑非平稳带有趋势项序列{ηn},得到了序列最大值的渐近分布和最大值与部分和的联合渐近分布.     

On a generalized mixture of standard normal and skew normal distributions

Here we propose a new class of distributions as a generalized mixture of standard normal and skew normal distributions (GMNSND) and study some of its properties by deriving its characteristic function, mean, variance, coefficient of skewness etc. Further, certain reliability aspects of GMNSND are studied and a location scale extension of GMNSND is considered. The estimation of the parameters of this extended GMNSND by the method of maximum likelihood is discussed.     

Minimax estimation of a multivariate normal mean under polynomial loss

Let X be an observation from a p-variate (p ≥ 3) normal random vector with unknown mean vector θ and known covariance matrix

. The problem of improving upon the usual estimator of θ, δ⁰(X) = X, is considered. An approach is developed which can lead to improved estimators, δ, for loss functions which are polynomials in the coordinates of (δ ? θ). As an example of this approach, the loss L(δ, θ) = |δ ? θ|⁴ is considered, and estimators are developed which are significantly better than δ⁰. When

is the identity matrix, these estimators are of the form $\text{δ(X) = (1 ? (}\text{b}\text{(d + |X|}{}^2\text{)}\text{))X}$.     

Minimax estimation of a multivariate normal mean under arbitrary quadratic loss

Let X be a p-variate (p ≥ 3) vector normally distributed with mean θ and known covariance matrix

. It is desired to estimate θ under the quadratic loss (δ ? θ)^tQ(δ ? θ), where Q is a known positive definite matrix. A broad class of minimax estimators for θ is developed.     

正态分布在不同先验下的Bayes估计及风险比较

本文讨论在均值未知,方差已知的正态分布情况下通过在共轭先验以及Jeffreys先验二种先验下的Bayes估计问题,在平方损失函数下和线性损失函数下Bayes风险的比较.数据计算可以看出,在Jeffreys先验下的Bayes风险要比在共轭先验下的Bayes风险要大,但是当样本量增大时,两者的后验风险越来越靠近.     

Approximate maximum likelihood estimation in linear regression

The application of the ML method in linear regression requires a parametric form for the error density. When this is not available, the density may be parameterized by its cumulants ( _i ) and the ML then applied. Results are obtained when the standardized cumulants ( _i ) satisfy _i = _i+2/ ₂ ^(i+2)/2 =O(v ⁱ ) asv 0 fori>0.Research financed in part by the Research Center of the Athens University of Economics and Business.     

On the estimation of ordered means of two exponential populations

Let random samples of equal sizes be drawn from two exponential distributions with ordered means _i . The maximum likelihood estimator _i ^* of _i is shown to have a smaller mean square error than that of the usual estimator X_i, for each i=1,2. The asymptotic efficiency of _i ^* relative to X_i has also been found.     

Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Hidden Markov Multivariate Normal Distribution Parameters

Hidden Markov model is widely used in statistical modeling of time, space and state transition data. The definition of hidden Markov multivariate normal distribution is given. The principle of using cluster analysis to determine the hidden state of observed variables is introduced. The maximum likelihood estimator of the unknown parameters in the model is derived. The simulated observation data set is used to test the estimation effect and stability of the method. The characteristic is simple classical statistical inference such as cluster analysis and maximum likelihood estimation. The method solves the parameter estimation problem of complex statistical models.     

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??Hidden Markov model is widely used in statistical modeling of time, space and state transition data. The definition of hidden Markov multivariate normal distribution is given. The principle of using cluster analysis to determine the hidden state of observed variables is introduced. The maximum likelihood estimator of the unknown parameters in the model is derived. The simulated observation data set is used to test the estimation effect and stability of the method. The characteristic is simple classical statistical inference such as cluster analysis and maximum likelihood estimation. The method solves the parameter estimation problem of complex statistical models.     

Information amount and higher-order efficiency in estimation

By means of second-order asymptotic approximation, the paper clarifies the relationship between the Fisher information of first-order asymptotically efficient estimators and their decision-theoretic performance. It shows that if the estimators are modified so that they have the same asymptotic bias, the information amount can be connected with the risk based on convex loss functions in such a way that the greater information loss of an estimator implies its greater risk. The information loss of the maximum likelihood estimator is shown to be minimal in a general set-up. A multinomial model is used for illustration.