Η παρούσα διατριβή εντάσσεται ερευνητικά στην περιοχή της Στατιστικής Θεωρίας Αποφάσεων και ειδικότερα στην (σημειακή) εκτίμηση του ποσοστιαίου σημείου στο μοντέλο της διπαραμετρικής εκθετικής κατανομής. Το πρόβλημα της εκτίμησης του ποσοστιαίου σημείου από τη σκοπιά της Στατιστικής Θεωρίας Αποφάσεων ακολούθησε αυτό της παραμέτρου κλίμακας, ειδικότερα αναφέρουμε το πρόβλημα εκτίμησης της διασποράς κανονικής κατανομής με άγνωστη μέση τιμή από τον Stein (1964). Στην εργασία εκείνη ο Stein απέδειξε ότι, με κριτήριο το μέσο τετραγωνικό σφάλμα, ο βέλτιστος αναλλοίωτος εκτιμητής της διασποράς είναι μη αποδεκτός, κατασκευάζοντας άλλον με μικρότερο μέσο τετραγωνικό σφάλμα. Εν συνεχεία, οι Brewster and Zidek (1974) παρουσίασαν δύο γενικές τεχνικές κατασκευής βελτιωμένων εκτιμητών, εφαρμόσιμες για τυχαία bowl-shaped συνάρτηση ζημίας και αποτελεσματικές, κυρίως όταν η υπό εκτίμηση παράμετρος είναι η παράμετρος κλίμακας και επί πλέον υπάρχει και άλλη άγνωστη παράμετρος. Αντικείμενο της μεταπτυχιακής διατριβής είναι η εκτίμηση του ποσοστιαίου σημείου θεωρώντας ανεξάρτητα τυχαία δείγματα από εκθετικούς πληθυσμούς με την ίδια παράμετρο θέσης και διαφορετική παράμετρο κλίμακας για κάθε πληθυσμό ξεχωριστά. Βασιζόμενοι στην εργασία των Kumar and Sharma (1996) βρίσκουμε εκτιμητή μέγιστης πιθανοφάνειας και αμερόληπτο εκτιμητή ελάχιστης διασποράς για το ποσοστιαίο σημείο από τον πρώτο εκθετικό πληθυσμό και στην συνέχεια εφαρμόζουμε τη τεχνική κατασκευής, βελτιωμένων εκτιμητών, των Brewster and Zidek (1974). Η παρουσίαση των επί μέρους θεμάτων και αποτελεσμάτων της διατριβής αυτής οργανώνεται ως εξής. Στο Κεφάλαιο 1 αναφέρονται κάποια βασικά στοιχεία θεωρίας από τη Μαθηματική Στατιστική, όπως βασικοί ορισμοί και θεωρήματα σχετικά κυρίως με τη συνάρτηση κινδύνου (risk function), τους εκτιμητές (UMVUE), τους εκτιμητές μέγιστης πιθανοφάνειας (MLE) και τους αναλλοίωτους (equivariant) εκτιμητές. Στο Κεφάλαιο 2 ορίζεται η διπαραμετρική εκθετική κατανομή και το ποσοστιαίο σημείο της διπαραμετρικής εκθετική κατανομής, , θετική σταθερά ,από τον πρώτο εκθετικό πληθυσμό, το οποίο στη συνέχεια εκτιμάται από τον εκτιμητή μέγιστης πιθανοφάνειας και από τον εκτιμητή. Στο Κεφάλαιο 3 χρησιμοποιούνται τεχνικές βελτίωσης του εκτιμητή του ποσοστιαίου σημείου. Αρχικά εντοπίζεται ο βέλτιστος εκτιμητής του ποσοστιαίου σημείου στην κλάση των εκτιμητών με κριτήριο το μέσο τετραγωνικό σφάλμα και στη συνέχεια χρησιμοποιείται η τεχνική κατασκευής, βελτιωμένων εκτιμητών, των Brewster and Zidek (1974) όταν και όταν . Τέλος στο Κεφάλαιο 4 αναφέρονται κάποια Λήμματα τα οποία χρησιμοποιούνται σε αποδείξεις προτάσεων της διατριβής. / Estimating quantiles of a selected exponential population from k populations.

Η παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή διατριβή εντάσσεται ερευνητικά στην περιοχή της Στατιστικής Θεωρίας Αποφάσεων και ειδικότερα στην εκτίμηση των παραμέτρων στο μοντέλο της διπαραμετρικής εκθετικής κατανομής με παράμετρο θέσης μ και παράμετρο κλίμακος σ. Θεωρούμε ένα δείγμα n τυχαίων μεταβλητών, καθεμία από τις οποίες ακολουθεί την διπαραμετρική εκθετική κατανομή. Λογοκρίνουμε κάποιες αρχικές παρατηρήσεις και έστω ότι τερματίζουμε το πείραμά μας πριν αποτύχουν όλες οι συνιστώσες. Τότε προκύπτει ένα διπλά διακεκομμένο δείγμα διατεταγμένων παρατηρήσεων. Η εκτίμηση των παραμέτρων της διπαραμετρικής εκθετικής κατανομής, γίνεται από το συγκεκριμένο δείγμα. Πρώτα μελετάμε κάποιες βασικές έννοιες της Στατιστικής και της Εκτιμητικής και βρίσκουμε εκτιμητές για τις παραμέτρους. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, βρίσκουμε αμερόληπτο εκτιμητή ελάχιστης διασποράς, εκτιμητή μέγιστης πιθανοφάνειας, εκτιμητή με την μέθοδο των ροπών και τον βέλτιστο αναλλοίωτο εκτιμητή σε συγκεκριμένη κλάση, αντίστοιχα και για τις δύο παραμέτρους. Σαν βελτίωση των προηγούμενων εκτιμητών, ακολουθούν οι εκτιμητές τύπου Stein και, ολοκληρώνοντας, ασχολούμαστε με πρόβλεψη κατά Bayes για μια μελλοντική παρατήρηση / The present master thesis deals with the estimation of the location parameter μ and the scale parameter σ of the two-parameter exponential distribution. A sample n of random variables from the two-parameter exponential distribution is assumed. Part of the initial variables is censored and the experiment is terminated before all the components fail. A doubly censored sample emerges from which the two-parameter exponential distribution's parameters are estimated. First of all, basic Statistics' concepts are studied in order to estimate the parameters. More specifically, the Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimator (MVUE), the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE), the estimator based on the Method of Moments and the best affine equivariant estimator are computed for both the parameters. To improve the previous estimators, the Stein method is used and to conclude the Bayes prediction is used for future observation

ANOVA analysis is a classic tool for multiple comparisons and has been widely used in numerous disciplines due to its simplicity and convenience. The ANOVA procedure is designed to test if a number of different populations are all different. This is followed by usual multiple comparison tests to rank the populations. However, the probability of selecting the best population via ANOVA procedure does not guarantee the probability to be larger than some desired prespecified level. This lack of desirability of the ANOVA procedure was overcome by researchers in early 1950's by designing experiments with the goal of selecting the best population. In this dissertation, a single-stage procedure is introduced to partition k treatments into "good" and "bad" groups with respect to a control population assuming some key parameters are known. Next, the proposed partition procedure is genaralized for the case when the parameters are unknown and a purely-sequential procedure and a two-stage procedure are derived. Theoretical asymptotic properties, such as first order and second order properties, of the proposed procedures are derived to document the efficiency of the proposed procedures. These theoretical properties are studied via Monte Carlo simulations to document the performance of the procedures for small and moderate sample sizes.

Η παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή διατριβή εντάσσεται ερευνητικά στην περιοχή της Στατιστικής Θεωρίας Αποφάσεων και ειδικότερα στην εκτίμηση των παραμέτρων στο μοντέλο της διπαραμετρικής εκθετικής κατανομής με παράμετρο θέσης μ και παράμετρο κλίμακος σ. Θεωρούμε το πρόβλημα εκτίμησης των παραμέτρων κλίμακας μ και θέσης σ, όταν μ≤c, όπου c είναι μία γνωστή σταθερά. Αποδεικνύουμε ότι σε σχέση με το κριτήριο του Μέσου Τετραγωνικού Σφάλματος (ΜΤΣ), οι βέλτιστοι αναλλοίωτοι εκτιμητές των μ και σ, είναι μη αποδεκτοί όταν μ≤c, και προτείνουμε βελτιωμένους. Επίσης συγκρίνουμε του εκτιμητές αυτούς σε σχέση με το κριτήριο του Pitman. Επιπλέον, προτείνουμε εκτιμητές που είναι καλύτεροι από τους βέλτιστους αναλλοίωτους εκτιμητές, όταν μ≤c, ως προς την συνάρτηση ζημίας LINEX. Τέλος, η θεωρία που αναπτύσσεται εφαρμόζεται σε δύο ανεξάρτητα δείγματα προερχόμενα από εκθετική κατανομή. / The present master thesis deals with the estimation of the location parameter μ and the scale parameter σ of the two-parameter exponential distribution. We consider the problem of estimation of locasion parameter μ and the scale parameter σ, when it is known apriori that μ≤c, where c is a known constant. We establish that with respect to the mean square error (mse) criterion the best affine estimators of μ and σ in the absence of information μ≤c are inadmissible and we propose estimators which are better than these estimators. Also, we compare these estimators with respect to the Pitman Nearness criterion. We propose estimators which are better than the standard estimators in the unrestricted case with respect to the suitable choise of LINEX loss. Finally, the theory developed is applied to the problem of estimating the location and scale parameters of two exponential distributions when the location parameters are ordered.

Tratar a função de verossimilhança perfilada como uma verossimilhança genuína pode levar a alguns problemas, como, por exemplo, inconsistência e ineficiência dos estimadores de máxima verossimilhança. Outro problema comum refere-se à aproximação usual da distribuição da estatística da razão de verossimilhanças pela distribuição qui-quadrado, que, dependendo da quantidade de parâmetros de perturbação, pode ser muito pobre. Desta forma, torna-se importante obter ajustes para tal função. Vários pesquisadores, incluindo Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994), Cox e Reid (1987,1992), McCullagh e Tibshirani (1990) e Stern (1997), propuseram modificações à função de verossimilhança perfilada. Tais ajustes consistem na incorporação de um termo à verossimilhança perfilada anteriormente à estimação e têm o efeito de diminuir os vieses da função escore e da informação. Este trabalho faz uma revisão desses ajustes e das aproximações para o ajuste de Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994) descritas em Severini (2000a). São apresentadas suas derivações, bem como suas propriedades. Para ilustrar suas aplicações, são derivados tais ajustes no contexto da família exponencial biparamétrica. Resultados de simulações de Monte Carlo são apresentados a fim de avaliar os desempenhos dos estimadores de máxima verossimilhança e dos testes da razão de verossimilhanças baseados em tais funções. Também são apresentadas aplicações dessas funções de verossimilhança em modelos não pertencentes à família exponencial biparamétrica, mais precisamente, na família de distribuições GA0(alfa,gama,L), usada para modelar dados de imagens de radar, e no modelo de Weibull, muito usado em aplicações da área da engenharia denominada confiabilidade, considerando dados completos e censurados. Aqui também foram obtidos resultados numéricos a fim de avaliar a qualidade dos ajustes sobre a verossimilhança perfilada, analogamente às simulações realizadas para a família exponencial biparamétrica. Vale mencionar que, no caso da família de distribuições GA0(alfa,gama,L), foi avaliada a aproximação da distribuição da estatística da razão de verossimilhanças sinalizada pela distribuição normal padrão. Além disso, no caso do modelo de Weibull, vale destacar que foram derivados resultados distribucionais relativos aos estimadores de máxima verossimilhança e às estatísticas da razão de verossimilhanças para dados completos e censurados, apresentados em apêndice. / The profile likelihood function is not genuine likelihood function, and profile maximum likelihood estimators are typically inefficient and inconsistent. Additionally, the null distribution of the likelihood ratio test statistic can be poorly approximated by the asymptotic chi-squared distribution in finite samples when there are nuisance parameters. It is thus important to obtain adjustments to the likelihood function. Several authors, including Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994), Cox and Reid (1987,1992), McCullagh and Tibshirani (1990) and Stern (1997), have proposed modifications to the profile likelihood function. They are defined in a such a way to reduce the score and information biases. In this dissertation, we review several profile likelihood adjustments and also approximations to the adjustments proposed by Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994), also described in Severini (2000a). We present derivations and the main properties of the different adjustments. We also obtain adjustments for likelihood-based inference in the two-parameter exponential family. Numerical results on estimation and testing are provided. We also consider models that do not belong to the two-parameter exponential family: the GA0(alfa,gama,L) family, which is commonly used to model image radar data, and the Weibull model, which is useful for reliability studies, the latter under both noncensored and censored data. Again, extensive numerical results are provided. It is noteworthy that, in the context of the GA0(alfa,gama,L) model, we have evaluated the approximation of the null distribution of the signalized likelihood ratio statistic by the standard normal distribution. Additionally, we have obtained distributional results for the Weibull case concerning the maximum likelihood estimators and the likelihood ratio statistic both for noncensored and censored data.

Tratar a função de verossimilhança perfilada como uma verossimilhança genuína pode levar a alguns problemas, como, por exemplo, inconsistência e ineficiência dos estimadores de máxima verossimilhança. Outro problema comum refere-se à aproximação usual da distribuição da estatística da razão de verossimilhanças pela distribuição qui-quadrado, que, dependendo da quantidade de parâmetros de perturbação, pode ser muito pobre. Desta forma, torna-se importante obter ajustes para tal função. Vários pesquisadores, incluindo Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994), Cox e Reid (1987,1992), McCullagh e Tibshirani (1990) e Stern (1997), propuseram modificações à função de verossimilhança perfilada. Tais ajustes consistem na incorporação de um termo à verossimilhança perfilada anteriormente à estimação e têm o efeito de diminuir os vieses da função escore e da informação. Este trabalho faz uma revisão desses ajustes e das aproximações para o ajuste de Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994) descritas em Severini (2000a). São apresentadas suas derivações, bem como suas propriedades. Para ilustrar suas aplicações, são derivados tais ajustes no contexto da família exponencial biparamétrica. Resultados de simulações de Monte Carlo são apresentados a fim de avaliar os desempenhos dos estimadores de máxima verossimilhança e dos testes da razão de verossimilhanças baseados em tais funções. Também são apresentadas aplicações dessas funções de verossimilhança em modelos não pertencentes à família exponencial biparamétrica, mais precisamente, na família de distribuições GA0(alfa,gama,L), usada para modelar dados de imagens de radar, e no modelo de Weibull, muito usado em aplicações da área da engenharia denominada confiabilidade, considerando dados completos e censurados. Aqui também foram obtidos resultados numéricos a fim de avaliar a qualidade dos ajustes sobre a verossimilhança perfilada, analogamente às simulações realizadas para a família exponencial biparamétrica. Vale mencionar que, no caso da família de distribuições GA0(alfa,gama,L), foi avaliada a aproximação da distribuição da estatística da razão de verossimilhanças sinalizada pela distribuição normal padrão. Além disso, no caso do modelo de Weibull, vale destacar que foram derivados resultados distribucionais relativos aos estimadores de máxima verossimilhança e às estatísticas da razão de verossimilhanças para dados completos e censurados, apresentados em apêndice. / The profile likelihood function is not genuine likelihood function, and profile maximum likelihood estimators are typically inefficient and inconsistent. Additionally, the null distribution of the likelihood ratio test statistic can be poorly approximated by the asymptotic chi-squared distribution in finite samples when there are nuisance parameters. It is thus important to obtain adjustments to the likelihood function. Several authors, including Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994), Cox and Reid (1987,1992), McCullagh and Tibshirani (1990) and Stern (1997), have proposed modifications to the profile likelihood function. They are defined in a such a way to reduce the score and information biases. In this dissertation, we review several profile likelihood adjustments and also approximations to the adjustments proposed by Barndorff-Nielsen (1983,1994), also described in Severini (2000a). We present derivations and the main properties of the different adjustments. We also obtain adjustments for likelihood-based inference in the two-parameter exponential family. Numerical results on estimation and testing are provided. We also consider models that do not belong to the two-parameter exponential family: the GA0(alfa,gama,L) family, which is commonly used to model image radar data, and the Weibull model, which is useful for reliability studies, the latter under both noncensored and censored data. Again, extensive numerical results are provided. It is noteworthy that, in the context of the GA0(alfa,gama,L) model, we have evaluated the approximation of the null distribution of the signalized likelihood ratio statistic by the standard normal distribution. Additionally, we have obtained distributional results for the Weibull case concerning the maximum likelihood estimators and the likelihood ratio statistic both for noncensored and censored data.