Pietra ratio (Pietra index), also known as Robin Hood index, Schutz coefficient (Ricci-Schutz index) or half the relative mean deviation, is a good measure of statistical heterogeneity in the context of positive-valued data sets. In this thesis, two novel methods namely "adjusted jackknife empirical likelihood" and "extended jackknife empirical likelihood" are developed from the jackknife empirical likelihood method to obtain interval estimation of the Pietra ratio of a population. The performance of the two novel methods are compared with the jackknife empirical likelihood method, the normal approximation method and two bootstrap methods (the percentile bootstrap method and the bias corrected and accelerated bootstrap method). Simulation results indicate that under both symmetric and skewed distributions, especially when the sample is small, the extended jackknife empirical likelihood method gives the best performance among the six methods in terms of the coverage probabilities and interval lengths of the confidence interval of Pietra ratio; when the sample size is over 20, the adjusted jackknife empirical likelihood method performs better than the other methods, except the extended jackknife empirical likelihood method. Furthermore, several real data sets are used to illustrate the proposed methods.

The variance is the measure of spread from the center. Therefore, how to accurately estimate variance has always been an important topic in recent years. In this paper, we consider a linear regression model which is the most popular model in practice. We use jackknife empirical likelihood method to obtain the interval estimate of variance in the regression model. The proposed jackknife empirical likelihood ratio converges to the standard chi-squared distribution. The simulation study is carried out to compare the jackknife empirical likelihood method and standard method in terms of coverage probability and interval length for the confidence interval of variance from linear regression models. The proposed jackknife empirical likelihood method has better performance. We also illustrate the proposed methods using two real data sets.

In statistics it is of interest to find a better interval estimator of the absolute mean deviation. In this thesis, we focus on using the jackknife, the adjusted and the extended jackknife empirical likelihood methods to construct confidence intervals for the mean absolute deviation of a random variable. The empirical log-likelihood ratio statistics is derived whose asymptotic distribution is a standard chi-square distribution. The results of simulation study show the comparison of the average length and coverage probability by using jackknife empirical likelihood methods and normal approximation method. The proposed adjusted and extended jackknife empirical likelihood methods perform better than other methods for symmetric and skewed distributions. We use real data sets to illustrate the proposed jackknife empirical likelihood methods.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Ruth Childs. Includes bibliographical references.

The primary aim of this research is to shed more light on the issue of model uncertainty in applied econometrics in general and cross-country growth as well as happiness and well-being regressions in particular. Model uncertainty consists of three main types: theory uncertainty, focusing on which principal determinants of economic growth or happiness should be included in a model; heterogeneity uncertainty, relating to whether or not the parameters that describe growth or happiness are identical across countries; and functional form uncertainty, relating to which growth and well-being regressors enter the model linearly and which ones enter nonlinearly. Model averaging methods including Bayesian model averaging and Frequentist model averaging are the main statistical tools that incorporate theory uncertainty into the estimation process. To address functional form uncertainty, a variety of techniques have been proposed in the literature. One suggestion, for example, involves adding regressors that are nonlinear functions of the initial set of theory-based regressors or adding regressors whose values are zero below some threshold and non-zero above that threshold. In recent years, however, there has been a rising interest in using nonparametric framework to address nonlinearities in growth and happiness regressions. The goal of this research is twofold. First, while Bayesian approaches are dominant methods used in economic empirics to average over the model space, I take a fresh look into Frequentist model averaging techniques and propose statistical routines that computationally ease the implementation of these methods. I provide empirical examples showing that Frequentist estimators can compete with their Bayesian peers. The second objective is to use recently-developed nonparametric techniques to overcome the issue of functional form uncertainty while analyzing the variance of distribution of per capita income. Nonparametric paradigm allows for addressing nonlinearities in growth and well-being regressions by relaxing both the functional form assumptions and traditional assumptions on the structure of error terms. / Ph. D.

[pt] A análise fatorial é a denominação atribuída às técnicas estatísticas paramétricas multivariadas utilizadas para estudar o inter- relacionamento entre um conjunto de variáveis observadas. É um processo destinado essencialmente à redução e à sumarização dos dados, tornando-se em vários campos da pesquisa científica uma boa opção para um melhor gerenciamento de informações reais, gerando variáveis remanescentes mais significativas e fáceis de serem trabalhadas. Ainda assim, uma possível limitação da análise fatorial é que não existem testes estatísticos conclusivos ou satisfatoriamente eficazes e que possam ser regularmente empregados, portanto, para a sua significância. Conseqüentemente, é difícil saber se os resultados são meramente acidentais, ou realmente refletem algo significativo. Por esse motivo, esta tese de doutorado visa estabelecer um procedimento inferencial para a análise fatorial utilizando-se de técnicas CIS (Computer Intensive Statistics), tais como o bootstrap e o jackknife, que permitam que a análise fatorial saia do terreno puramente descritivo e ladeando a insuficiência da teoria da distribuição de amostragem que se faz sentir em técnicas multivariadas. / [en] Factor analysis is the denomination attributed to the multivariate parametric statistical techniques used to study the inter- relationship between a set of observed variables. It is a process essentially intended to reduce and summarize data, thus becoming a good option for a better management of real information, generating remainder variables that are more significant and easier to work with, in various fields of scientific research. However, a possible limitation of factor analysis is that there are no conclusive statistical tests regularly employed in testing the hypotheses. Consequently, it is difficult to know if the results are merely accidents, or indeed, reflect something of significance. For this reason, this study intends to establish an inferential procedure for factor analysis, using CIS (Computer Intensive Statistics) techniques, such as the bootstrap and jackknife, which allow factor analysis to pass out of the purely descriptive, solving the problem of the insufficiency of sample distribution theory as seen in multivariate techniques.

Skewness and kurtosis are measures used to describe shape characteristics of distributions. In this thesis, we examine the interval estimates about the skewness and kurtosis by using jackknife empirical likelihood (JEL), adjusted JEL, extended JEL, traditional bootstrap, percentile bootstrap, and BCa bootstrap methods. The limiting distribution of the JEL ratio is the standard chi-squared distribution. The simulation study of this thesis makes a comparison of different methods in terms of the coverage probabilities and interval lengths under the standard normal distribution and exponential distribution. The proposed adjusted JEL and extended JEL perform better than the other methods. Finally we illustrate the proposed JEL methods and different bootstrap methods with three real data sets.

The purpose of this research is to examine the bootstrap and jackknife as methods for estimating the variance of the AUC from a study using a complex sampling design and to determine which characteristics of the sampling design effects this estimation. Data from a one-stage cluster sampling design of 10 clusters was examined. Factors included three true AUCs (.60, .75, and .90), three prevalence levels (50/50, 70/30, 90/10) (non-disease/disease), and finally three number of clusters sampled (2, 5, or 7). A simulated sample was constructed for each of the 27 combinations of AUC, prevalence and number of clusters. Estimates of the AUC obtained from both the bootstrap and jackknife methods provide unbiased estimates for the AUC. In general it was found that bootstrap variance estimation methods provided smaller variance estimates. For both the bootstrap and jackknife variance estimates, the rarer the disease in the population the higher the variance estimate. As the true area increased the variance estimate decreased for both the bootstrap and jackknife methods. For both the bootstrap and jackknife variance estimates, as number of clusters sampled increased the variance decreased, however the trend for the jackknife may be effected by outliers. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted by the CDC is a complex survey which implements the use of the one-stage cluster sampling design. A subset of the 2001-2002 NHANES data was created looking only at adult women. A separate logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine if exposure to certain furans in the environment have an effect on abnormal levels of four hormones (FSH, LH, TSH, and T4) in women. Bootstrap and jackknife variance estimation techniques were applied to estimate the AUC and variances for the four logistic regressions. The AUC estimates provided by both the bootstrap and jackknife methods were similar, with the exception of LH. Unlike in the simulated study, the jackknife variance estimation method provided consistently smaller variance estimates than bootstrap. AUC estimates for all four hormones suggested that exposure to furans effects abnormal levels of hormones more than expected by chance. The bootstrap variance estimation technique provided better variance estimates for AUC when sampling many clusters. When only sampling a few clusters or as in the NHANES study where the entire population was treated as a single cluster, the jackknife variance estimation method provides smaller variance estimates for the AUC.

The research deals with bootstrap interval estimation of wildlife population sizes from multiple surveys in the Hluhluwe-Umfolosi Park. The jackknife procedure was also used to provide the standard errors for the survey estimates. The main wildlife speciese studied in the research were the White and Black Rhino. The survey estimates for the wildlife species were obtained using line transect sampling and mark-recapture methods respectively. The bootstrap and jackknife procedures were applied separately to each of the datasets. Bootstrap estimates for each of the time point were obtained and the confidence intervals of the bootstrap estimates were constructed using percentile and standard methods. The coverage probability was assessed using the Monte Carlo simulations. Only the nonparametric bootstrap was applied in this research and the results were compared to the jackknife results. The lengths of the confidence intervals were used to assess the confidence intervals with a shorter confidence interval being more exact. The estimates used for both the bootstrap and jackknife methodology were based on a simple state space model. The discrete state space model used was proposed by Fatti et al (2002). State space models provide a natural framework for estimating and predicting animal population abundance given partial or inexact information. The model takes into account the (unknown) birth rate in the population and all known losses (mortalities and relocations) and gains (introductions) in the population between successive surveys as well as the errors in the survey estimates.

U-statistics generalizes the concept of mean of independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables and is widely utilized in many estimating and testing problems. The standard empirical likelihood (EL) for U-statistics is computationally expensive because of its onlinear constraint. The jackknife empirical likelihood method largely relieves computation burden by circumventing the construction of the nonlinear constraint. In this thesis, we adopt a new jackknife empirical likelihood method to make inference for the general volume under the ROC surface (VUS), which is one typical kind of U-statistics. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to show that the EL confidence intervals perform well in terms of the coverage probability and average length for various sample sizes.