Hyung-Tae Ha

A Viable Alternative to Resorting to Statistical Tables

It is shown in this article that, given the moments of a distribution, any percentage point can be accurately determined from an approximation of the corresponding density function in terms of the product of an appropriate baseline density and a polynomial adjustment. This approach, which is based on a moment-matching technique, is not only conceptually simple but easy to implement. As illustrated by several applications, the percentiles so obtained are in excellent agreement with the tabulated values. Whereas statistical tables, if at all available or accessible, can hardly ever cover all the potentially useful combinations of the parameters associated with a random quantity of interest, the proposed methodology has no such limitation.

Moment-Based Approximations of Probability Mass Functions with Applications Involving Order Statistics

It is shown in this article that a technique that was previously introduced to approximate the density functions of certain continuous random variables can be successfully applied to discrete distributions. The probability mass function approximants are expressed as the product of an appropriate base density function and a polynomial adjustment. A degree selection criterion that is based on the integrated squared difference between approximants of successive degrees is being proposed. The methodology, which is conceptually simple and easily implementable, is applied to a binomial random variable, the largest order statistic in a binomial sample, a Poisson distribution, and two rank-sum test statistics.

On approximating the distribution of indefinite quadratic forms

This paper provides a simple methodology for approximating the distribution of indefinite quadratic forms in normal random variables. It is shown that the density function of a positive definite quadratic form can be approximated in terms of the product of a gamma density function and a polynomial. An extension which makes use of a generalized gamma density function is also considered. Such representations are based on the moments of a quadratic form, which can be determined from its cumulants by means of a recursive formula. After expressing an indefinite quadratic form as the difference of two positive definite quadratic forms, one can obtain an approximation to its density function by means of the transformation of variable technique. An explicit representation of the resulting density approximant is given in terms of a degenerate hypergeometric function. An easily implementable algorithm is provided. The proposed approximants produce very accurate percentiles over the entire range of the distribution. Several numerical examples illustrate the results. In particular, the methodology is applied to the Durbin–Watson statistic which is expressible as the ratio of two quadratic forms in normal random variables. Quadratic forms being ubiquitous in statistics, the approximating technique introduced herewith has numerous potential applications. Some relevant computational considerations are also discussed.

Efficient simulation using saddlepoint approximation for aggregate losses with large frequencies

Aggregate claim amounts with a large claim frequency represent a major concern to automobile insurance companies. In this paper, we show that a new hybrid method to combine the analytical saddlepoint approximation and Monte Carlo simulation can be an efficient computational method. We provide numerical comparisons between the hybrid method and the usual Monte Carlo simulation.

Distribution approximation and modelling via orthogonal polynomial sequences

A general methodology is developed for approximating the distribution of a random variable on the basis of its exact moments. More specifically, a probability density function is approximated by the product of a suitable weight function and a linear combination of its associated orthogonal polynomials. A technique for generating a sequence of orthogonal polynomials from a given weight function is provided and the coefficients of the linear combination are explicitly expressed in terms of the moments of the target distribution. On applying this approach to several test statistics, we observed that the resulting percentiles are consistently in excellent agreement with the tabulated values. As well, it is explained that the same moment-matching technique can be utilized to produce density estimates on the basis of the sample moments obtained from a given set of observations. An example involving a well-known data set illustrates the density estimation methodology advocated herein.

Fourier Series Approximation for the Generalized Baumgartner Statistic

Baumgartner et al. (1998) proposed a novel statistical test for the null hypothesis that two independently drawn samples of data originate from the same population, and Murakami (2006) generalized the test statistic for more than two samples. Whereas the expressions of the exact density and distribution functions of the generalized Baumgartner statistic are not yet found, the characteristic function of its limiting distribution has been obtained. Due to the development of computational power, the Fourier series approximation can be readily utilized to accurately and efficiently approximate its density function based on its Laplace transform. Numerical examples show that the Fourier series method provides an accurate approximation for statistical quantities of the generalized Baumgartner statistic.

Moment-Based Density Approximation Algorithm for Symmetric Distributions

Given the moments of a symmetric random variable, its density and distribution functions can be accurately approximated by making use of the algorithm proposed in this paper. This algorithm is specially designed for approximating symmetric distributions and comprises of four phases. This approach is essentially based on the transformation of variable technique and moment-based density approximants expressed in terms of the product of an appropriate initial approximant and a polynomial adjustment. Probabilistic quantities such as percentage points and percentiles can also be accurately determined from approximation of the corresponding distribution functions. This algorithm is not only conceptually simple but also easy to implement. As illustrated by the first two numerical examples, the density functions so obtained are in good agreement with the exact values. Moreover, the proposed approximation algorithm can provide the more accurate quantities than direct approximation as shown in the last example.

Numerical Comparisons for the Null Distribution of the Bagai Statistic

Bagai et al. (1989) proposed a distribution-free test for stochastic ordering in the competing risk model, and recently Murakami (2009) utilized a standard saddlepoint approximation to provide tail probabilities for the Bagai statistic under finite sample sizes. In the present paper, we consider the Gaussian-polynomial approximation proposed in Ha and Provost (2007) and compare it to the saddlepoint approximation in terms of approximating the percentiles of the Bagai statistic. We make numerical comparisons of these approximations for moderate sample sizes as was done in Murakami (2009). From the numerical results, it was observed that the Gaussianpolynomial approximation provides comparable or greater accuracy in the tail probabilities than the saddlepoint approximation. Unlike saddlepoint approximation, the Gaussian-polynomial approximation provides a simple explicit representation of the approximated density function. We also discuss the details of computations.

Use of Beta-Polynomial Approximations for Variance Homogeneity Test and a Mixture of Beta Variates

Approximations for the null distribution of a test statistic arising in multivariate analysis to test homogeneity of variances and a mixture of two beta distributions by making use of a product of beta baseline density function and a polynomial adjustment, so called beta-polynomial density approximant, are discussed. Explicit representations of density and distribution approximants of interest in each case can easily be obtained. Beta-polynomial density approximants produce good approximation over the entire range of the test statistic and also accommodate even the bimodal distribution using an artificial example of a mixture of two beta distributions.