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Precision Matrix
In statistics, the precision matrix or concentration matrix is the matrix inverse of the covariance matrix or dispersion matrix, P = \Sigma^. For univariate distributions, the precision matrix degenerates into a scalar precision, defined as the reciprocal of the variance, p = \frac. Other summary statistics of statistical dispersion also called ''precision'' (or ''imprecision'') include the reciprocal of the standard deviation, p = \frac; the standard deviation itself and the relative standard deviation; as well as the standard error and the confidence interval (or its half-width, the margin of error). Usage One particular use of the precision matrix is in the context of Bayesian analysis of the multivariate normal distribution: for example, Bernardo & Smith prefer to parameterise the multivariate normal distribution in terms of the precision matrix, rather than the covariance matrix, because of certain simplifications that then arise. For instance, if both the prior and the lik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistics
Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or social problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a statistical model to be studied. Populations can be diverse groups of people or objects such as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal". Statistics deals with every aspect of data, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments.Dodge, Y. (2006) ''The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms'', Oxford University Press. When census data cannot be collected, statisticians collect data by developing specific experiment designs and survey samples. Representative sampling assures that inferences and conclusions can reasonably extend from the sample to the population as a whole. An ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Likelihood Function
The likelihood function (often simply called the likelihood) represents the probability of random variable realizations conditional on particular values of the statistical parameters. Thus, when evaluated on a given sample, the likelihood function indicates which parameter values are more ''likely'' than others, in the sense that they would have made the observed data more probable. Consequently, the likelihood is often written as \mathcal(\theta\mid X) instead of P(X \mid \theta), to emphasize that it is to be understood as a function of the parameters \theta instead of the random variable X. In maximum likelihood estimation, the arg max of the likelihood function serves as a point estimate for \theta, while local curvature (approximated by the likelihood's Hessian matrix) indicates the estimate's precision. Meanwhile in Bayesian statistics, parameter estimates are derived from the converse of the likelihood, the so-called posterior probability, which is calculated via Baye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normal Distribution
In statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. The general form of its probability density function is : f(x) = \frac e^ The parameter \mu is the mean or expectation of the distribution (and also its median and mode), while the parameter \sigma is its standard deviation. The variance of the distribution is \sigma^2. A random variable with a Gaussian distribution is said to be normally distributed, and is called a normal deviate. Normal distributions are important in statistics and are often used in the natural and social sciences to represent real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known. Their importance is partly due to the central limit theorem. It states that, under some conditions, the average of many samples (observations) of a random variable with finite mean and variance is itself a random variable—whose distribution converges to a normal dist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes referred to as the ''Princeps mathematicorum'' () and "the greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had an exceptional influence in many fields of mathematics and science, and he is ranked among history's most influential mathematicians. Also available at Retrieved 23 February 2014. Comprehensive biographical article. Biography Early years Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Brunswick (Braunschweig), in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany), to poor, working-class parents. His mother was illiterate and never recorded the date of his birth, remembering only that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days before the Feast of the Ascension (which occurs 39 days after Easter). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weight Matrix
Weighted least squares (WLS), also known as weighted linear regression, is a generalization of ordinary least squares and linear regression in which knowledge of the variance of observations is incorporated into the regression. WLS is also a specialization of generalized least squares. Introduction A special case of generalized least squares called weighted least squares can be used when all the off-diagonal entries of Ω, the covariance matrix of the residuals, are null; the variances of the observations (along the covariance matrix diagonal) may still be unequal (heteroscedasticity). The fit of a model to a data point is measured by its residual, r_i , defined as the difference between a measured value of the dependent variable, y_i and the value predicted by the model, f(x_i, \boldsymbol\beta): : r_i(\boldsymbol\beta) = y_i - f(x_i, \boldsymbol\beta). If the errors are uncorrelated and have equal variance, then the function : S(\boldsymbol\beta) = \sum_i r_i(\boldsymbol\b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weighted Least Squares
Weighted least squares (WLS), also known as weighted linear regression, is a generalization of ordinary least squares and linear regression in which knowledge of the variance of observations is incorporated into the regression. WLS is also a specialization of generalized least squares. Introduction A special case of generalized least squares called weighted least squares can be used when all the off-diagonal entries of Ω, the covariance matrix of the residuals, are null; the variances of the observations (along the covariance matrix diagonal) may still be unequal ( heteroscedasticity). The fit of a model to a data point is measured by its residual, r_i , defined as the difference between a measured value of the dependent variable, y_i and the value predicted by the model, f(x_i, \boldsymbol\beta): : r_i(\boldsymbol\beta) = y_i - f(x_i, \boldsymbol\beta). If the errors are uncorrelated and have equal variance, then the function : S(\boldsymbol\beta) = \sum_i r_i(\boldsymb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Identity Matrix
In linear algebra, the identity matrix of size n is the n\times n square matrix with ones on the main diagonal and zeros elsewhere. Terminology and notation The identity matrix is often denoted by I_n, or simply by I if the size is immaterial or can be trivially determined by the context. I_1 = \begin 1 \end ,\ I_2 = \begin 1 & 0 \\ 0 & 1 \end ,\ I_3 = \begin 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end ,\ \dots ,\ I_n = \begin 1 & 0 & 0 & \cdots & 0 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 & \cdots & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 & \cdots & 0 \\ \vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & \cdots & 1 \end. The term unit matrix has also been widely used, but the term ''identity matrix'' is now standard. The term ''unit matrix'' is ambiguous, because it is also used for a matrix of ones and for any unit of the ring of all n\times n matrices. In some fields, such as group theory or quantum mechanics, the identity matrix is sometimes denoted by a boldface one, \mathbf, or called "id" (short for identity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ordinary Least Squares
In statistics, ordinary least squares (OLS) is a type of linear least squares method for choosing the unknown parameters in a linear regression model (with fixed level-one effects of a linear function of a set of explanatory variables) by the principle of least squares: minimizing the sum of the squares of the differences between the observed dependent variable (values of the variable being observed) in the input dataset and the output of the (linear) function of the independent variable. Geometrically, this is seen as the sum of the squared distances, parallel to the axis of the dependent variable, between each data point in the set and the corresponding point on the regression surface—the smaller the differences, the better the model fits the data. The resulting estimator can be expressed by a simple formula, especially in the case of a simple linear regression, in which there is a single regressor on the right side of the regression equation. The OLS estimator is con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generalized Least Squares
In statistics, generalized least squares (GLS) is a technique for estimating the unknown parameters in a linear regression model when there is a certain degree of correlation between the residuals in a regression model. In these cases, ordinary least squares and weighted least squares can be statistically inefficient, or even give misleading inferences. GLS was first described by Alexander Aitken in 1936. Method outline In standard linear regression models we observe data \_ on ''n'' statistical units. The response values are placed in a vector \mathbf = \left( y_, \dots, y_ \right)^, and the predictor values are placed in the design matrix \mathbf = \left( \mathbf_^, \dots, \mathbf_^ \right)^, where \mathbf_ = \left( 1, x_, \dots, x_ \right) is a vector of the ''k'' predictor variables (including a constant) for the ''i''th unit. The model forces the conditional mean of \mathbf given \mathbf to be a linear function of \mathbf, and assumes the conditional variance of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Partial Correlation
In probability theory and statistics, partial correlation measures the degree of association between two random variables, with the effect of a set of controlling random variables removed. When determining the numerical relationship between two variables of interest, using their correlation coefficient will give misleading results if there is another confounding variable that is numerically related to both variables of interest. This misleading information can be avoided by controlling for the confounding variable, which is done by computing the partial correlation coefficient. This is precisely the motivation for including other right-side variables in a multiple regression; but while multiple regression gives unbiased results for the effect size, it does not give a numerical value of a measure of the strength of the relationship between the two variables of interest. For example, given economic data on the consumption, income, and wealth of various individuals, consider th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conditional Independence
In probability theory, conditional independence describes situations wherein an observation is irrelevant or redundant when evaluating the certainty of a hypothesis. Conditional independence is usually formulated in terms of conditional probability, as a special case where the probability of the hypothesis given the uninformative observation is equal to the probability without. If A is the hypothesis, and B and C are observations, conditional independence can be stated as an equality: :P(A\mid B,C) = P(A \mid C) where P(A \mid B, C) is the probability of A given both B and C. Since the probability of A given C is the same as the probability of A given both B and C, this equality expresses that B contributes nothing to the certainty of A. In this case, A and B are said to be conditionally independent given C, written symbolically as: (A \perp\!\!\!\perp B \mid C). The concept of conditional independence is essential to graph-based theories of statistical inference, as it establ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Positive-definite Matrix
In mathematics, a symmetric matrix M with real entries is positive-definite if the real number z^\textsfMz is positive for every nonzero real column vector z, where z^\textsf is the transpose of More generally, a Hermitian matrix (that is, a complex matrix equal to its conjugate transpose) is positive-definite if the real number z^* Mz is positive for every nonzero complex column vector z, where z^* denotes the conjugate transpose of z. Positive semi-definite matrices are defined similarly, except that the scalars z^\textsfMz and z^* Mz are required to be positive ''or zero'' (that is, nonnegative). Negative-definite and negative semi-definite matrices are defined analogously. A matrix that is not positive semi-definite and not negative semi-definite is sometimes called indefinite. A matrix is thus positive-definite if and only if it is the matrix of a positive-definite quadratic form or Hermitian form. In other words, a matrix is positive-definite if and only if it d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
