Search results for "Parametric"
showing 10 items of 980 documents
A geostatistical approach for dynamic life tables: The effect of mortality on remaining lifetime and annuities
2010
Dynamic life tables arise as an alternative to the standard (static) life table, with the aim of incorporating the evolution of mortality over time. The parametric model introduced by Lee and Carter in 1992 for projected mortality rates in the US is one of the most outstanding and has been used a great deal since then. Different versions of the model have been developed but all of them, together with other parametric models, consider the observed mortality rates as independent observations. This is a difficult hypothesis to justify when looking at the graph of the residuals obtained with any of these methods. Methods of adjustment and prediction based on geostatistical techniques which expl…
Social capital and economic growth in Europe: nonlinear trends and heterogeneous regional effects
2016
After two decades of academic debate on the social capital-growth nexus, discussion still remains open. Most of the literature so far, however, has followed the one-size-its-all approach, neglecting that the great disparities across geographical units might have implications in this relationship. This article analyzes the role of two social capital indicators on the growth of 237 European regions in the period 1995–2007 by implementing a set of both parametric and non- parametric regressions. Whereas the former impose a linear functional form for the parameters, the latter relax this assumption providing a flexible frame in which the functional form is given by the data. The technique also …
Assessing covariate imbalance in meta-analysis studies.
2010
The main goal of meta-analysis is to combine data across studies or data sets to obtain summary estimates. In this paper, the novelty is to propose a statistical tool to assess a possible covariate imbalance in baseline variables to investigate similarity of trials. We conducted the detection of the covariate imbalance, first, through some graphical comparison of the empirical cumulative distribution functions or ECDFs, which are built by putting together arms or trials according to some risk factor, and second, through some non-parametric tests such as the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and the Anderson–Darling tests. To overcome the huge presence of ties, we conducted the statistical tests on perturbe…
Quantile regression via iterative least squares computations
2012
We present an estimating framework for quantile regression where the usual L 1-norm objective function is replaced by its smooth parametric approximation. An exact path-following algorithm is derived, leading to the well-known ‘basic’ solutions interpolating exactly a number of observations equal to the number of parameters being estimated. We discuss briefly possible practical implications of the proposed approach, such as early stopping for large data sets, confidence intervals, and additional topics for future research.
Forward likelihood-based predictive approach for space-time point processes
2011
Dealing with data from a space–time point process, the estimation of the conditional intensity function is a crucial issue even if a complete definition of a parametric model is not available. In particular, in case of exploratory contexts or if we want to assess the adequacy of a specific parametric model, some kind of nonparametric estimation procedure could be useful. Often, for these purposes kernel estimators are used and the estimation of the intensity function depends on the estimation of bandwidth parameters. In some fields, like for instance the seismological one, predictive properties of the estimated intensity function are pursued. Since a direct ML approach cannot be used, we pr…
Equivalence Testing With Particle Size Distribution Data: Methods and Applications in the Development of Inhalative Drugs
2017
ABSTRACTKey criteria of the quality of inhalative drugs are assessed in experiments generating so-called particle size distributions as data. Many experiments of that kind are carried out to demonstrate that necessary modifications to whatever part of the manufacturing process do not substantially change basic characteristics of an inhalable drug product. The equivalence testing procedures we derive for that purpose rely on different models accommodating the specific structure of such data and on different ways of specifying the region of nonrelevant differences. For each hypotheses formulation, three different tests are derived (two parametric and one asymptotically distribution-free proce…
Estimation of orientation characteristic of fibrous material
2001
A new statistical method for estimating the orientation distribution of fibres in a fibre process is suggested where the process is observed in the form of a degraded digital greyscale image. The method is based on line transect sampling of the image in a few fixed directions. A well-known method based on stereology is available if the intersections between the transects and fibres can be counted. We extend this to the case where, instead of the intersection points, only scaled variograms of grey levels along the transects are observed. The nonlinear estimation equations for a parametric orientation distribution as well as a numerical algorithm are given. The method is illustrated by a real…
Hydrokinetic simulations of nanoscopic precursor films in rough channels
2009
We report on simulations of capillary filling of high-wetting fluids in nano-channels with and without obstacles. We use atomistic (molecular dynamics) and hydrokinetic (lattice-Boltzmann) approaches which point out clear evidence of the formation of thin precursor films, moving ahead of the main capillary front. The dynamics of the precursor films is found to obey a square-root law as the main capillary front, z^2(t) ~ t, although with a larger prefactor, which we find to take the same value for the different geometries (2D-3D) under inspection. The two methods show a quantitative agreement which indicates that the formation and propagation of thin precursors can be handled at a mesoscopic…
On a set of data for the membrane potential in a neuron
2006
We consider a set of data where the membrane potential in a pyramidal neuron is measured almost continuously in time, under varying experimental conditions. We use nonparametric estimates for the diffusion coefficient and the drift in view to contribute to the discussion which type of diffusion process is suitable to model the membrane potential in a neuron (more exactly: in a particular type of neuron under particular experimental conditions).
Multivariate nonparametric tests of independence
2005
New test statistics are proposed for testing whether two random vectors are independent. Gieser and Randles, as well as Taskinen, Kankainen, and Oja have introduced and discussed multivariate extensions of the quadrant test of Blomqvist. This article serves as a sequel to this work and presents new multivariate extensions of Kendall's tau and Spearman's rho statistics. Two different approaches are discussed. First, interdirection proportions are used to estimate the cosines of angles between centered observation vectors and between differences of observation vectors. Second, covariances between affine-equivariant multivariate signs and ranks are used. The test statistics arising from these …