Series Approximation Methods In Statistics

This book was originally compiled for a course I taught at the University of Rochester in the fall of 1991, and is intended to give advanced graduate students in statistics an introduction to Edgeworth and saddlepoint approximations, and related techniques. Many other authors have also written monographs on this subject, and so this work is narrowly focused on two areas not recently discussed in theoretical text books. These areas are, first, a rigorous consideration of Edgeworth and saddlepoint expansion limit theorems, and second, a survey of the more recent developments in the field. In presenting expansion limit theorems I have drawn heavily 011 notation of McCullagh (1987) and on the theorems presented by Feller (1971) on Edgeworth expansions. For saddlepoint notation and results I relied most heavily on the many papers of Daniels, and a review paper by Reid (1988). Throughout this book I have tried to maintain consistent notation and to present theorems in such a way as to make a few theoretical results useful in as many contexts as possible. This was not only in order to present as many results with as few proofs as possible, but more importantly to show the interconnections between the various facets of asymptotic theory. Special attention is paid to regularity conditions. The reasons they are needed and the parts they play in the proofs are both highlighted.

Asymptotic techniques have long been important in statistical inference; these techniques remain important in the age of fast computing because some exact answers are still either conceptually unavailable or practically out of reach. This book presents theoretical results relevant to Edgeworth and saddlepoint expansions to densities and distribution functions. It provides examples of their application in some simple, and in a few complicated, settings. Numerical and asymptotic assessments of accuracy are presented. Variants of these expansions, including much of modern likelihood theory, are discussed. Applications to lattice distributions are extensively treated.

A pioneering monograph on tensor methods applied to distributional problems arising in statistics, this work begins with the study of multivariate moments and cumulants. An invaluable reference for graduate students and professional statisticians. 1987 edition.

Since its introduction in 1972, Stein’s method has offered a completely novel way of evaluating the quality of normal approximations. Through its characterizing equation approach, it is able to provide approximation error bounds in a wide variety of situations, even in the presence of complicated dependence. Use of the method thus opens the door to the analysis of random phenomena arising in areas including statistics, physics, and molecular biology. Though Stein's method for normal approximation is now mature, the literature has so far lacked a complete self contained treatment. This volume contains thorough coverage of the method’s fundamentals, includes a large number of recent developments in both theory and applications, and will help accelerate the appreciation, understanding, and use of Stein's method by providing the reader with the tools needed to apply it in new situations. It addresses researchers as well as graduate students in Probability, Statistics and Combinatorics.

This broad text provides a complete overview of most standard statistical methods, including multiple regression, analysis of variance, experimental design, and sampling techniques. Assuming a background of only two years of high school algebra, this book teaches intelligent data analysis and covers the principles of good data collection. * Provides a complete discussion of analysis of data including estimation, diagnostics, and remedial actions * Examples contain graphical illustration for ease of interpretation * Intended for use with almost any statistical software * Examples are worked to a logical conclusion, including interpretation of results * A complete Instructor's Manual is available to adopters

The mathematical theory of ondelettes (wavelets) was developed by Yves Meyer and many collaborators about 10 years ago. It was designed for ap proximation of possibly irregular functions and surfaces and was successfully applied in data compression, turbulence analysis, image and signal process ing. Five years ago wavelet theory progressively appeared to be a power ful framework for nonparametric statistical problems. Efficient computa tional implementations are beginning to surface in this second lustrum of the nineties. This book brings together these three main streams of wavelet theory. It presents the theory, discusses approximations and gives a variety of statistical applications. It is the aim of this text to introduce the novice in this field into the various aspects of wavelets. Wavelets require a highly interactive computing interface. We present therefore all applications with software code from an interactive statistical computing environment. Readers interested in theory and construction of wavelets will find here in a condensed form results that are somewhat scattered around in the research literature. A practioner will be able to use wavelets via the available software code. We hope therefore to address both theory and practice with this book and thus help to construct bridges between the different groups of scientists. This te. xt grew out of a French-German cooperation (Seminaire Paris Berlin, Seminar Berlin-Paris). This seminar brings together theoretical and applied statisticians from Berlin and Paris. This work originates in the first of these seminars organized in Garchy, Burgundy in 1994.

These notes represent our summary of much of the recent research that has been done in recent years on approximations and bounds that have been developed for compound distributions and related quantities which are of interest in insurance and other areas of application in applied probability. The basic technique employed in the derivation of many bounds is induc tive, an approach that is motivated by arguments used by Sparre-Andersen (1957) in connection with a renewal risk model in insurance. This technique is both simple and powerful, and yields quite general results. The bounds themselves are motivated by the classical Lundberg exponential bounds which apply to ruin probabilities, and the connection to compound dis tributions is through the interpretation of the ruin probability as the tail probability of a compound geometric distribution. The initial exponential bounds were given in Willmot and Lin (1994), followed by the nonexpo nential generalization in Willmot (1994). Other related work on approximations for compound distributions and applications to various problems in insurance in particular and applied probability in general is also discussed in subsequent chapters. The results obtained or the arguments employed in these situations are similar to those for the compound distributions, and thus we felt it useful to include them in the notes. In many cases we have included exact results, since these are useful in conjunction with the bounds and approximations developed.