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Estimating Equations
In statistics, the method of estimating equations is a way of specifying how the parameters of a statistical model should be estimated. This can be thought of as a generalisation of many classical methods—the method of moments, least squares, and maximum likelihood—as well as some recent methods like M-estimators. The basis of the method is to have, or to find, a set of simultaneous equations involving both the sample data and the unknown model parameters which are to be solved in order to define the estimates of the parameters. Various components of the equations are defined in terms of the set of observed data on which the estimates are to be based. Important examples of estimating equations are the likelihood equations. Examples Consider the problem of estimating the rate parameter, λ of the exponential distribution which has the probability density function: : f(x;\lambda) = \left\{\begin{matrix} \lambda e^{-\lambda x}, &\; x \ge 0, \\ 0, &\; x < 0. \end{matr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistical Model
A statistical model is a mathematical model that embodies a set of statistical assumptions concerning the generation of Sample (statistics), sample data (and similar data from a larger Statistical population, population). A statistical model represents, often in considerably idealized form, the data-generating process. A statistical model is usually specified as a mathematical relationship between one or more random variables and other non-random variables. As such, a statistical model is "a formal representation of a theory" (Herman J. Adèr, Herman Adèr quoting Kenneth A. Bollen, Kenneth Bollen). All Statistical hypothesis testing, statistical hypothesis tests and all Estimator, statistical estimators are derived via statistical models. More generally, statistical models are part of the foundation of statistical inference. Introduction Informally, a statistical model can be thought of as a statistical assumption (or set of statistical assumptions) with a certain property: that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estimation
Estimation (or estimating) is the process of finding an estimate or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. The value is nonetheless usable because it is derived from the best information available.C. Lon Enloe, Elizabeth Garnett, Jonathan Miles, ''Physical Science: What the Technology Professional Needs to Know'' (2000), p. 47. Typically, estimation involves "using the value of a statistic derived from a sample to estimate the value of a corresponding population parameter".Raymond A. Kent, "Estimation", ''Data Construction and Data Analysis for Survey Research'' (2001), p. 157. The sample provides information that can be projected, through various formal or informal processes, to determine a range most likely to describe the missing information. An estimate that turns out to be incorrect will be an overestimate if the estimate exceeds the actual result and an underestimate if the estimate fall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Method Of Moments (statistics)
In statistics, the method of moments is a method of estimation of population parameters. The same principle is used to derive higher moments like skewness and kurtosis. It starts by expressing the population moments (i.e., the expected values of powers of the random variable under consideration) as functions of the parameters of interest. Those expressions are then set equal to the sample moments. The number of such equations is the same as the number of parameters to be estimated. Those equations are then solved for the parameters of interest. The solutions are estimates of those parameters. The method of moments was introduced by Pafnuty Chebyshev in 1887 in the proof of the central limit theorem. The idea of matching empirical moments of a distribution to the population moments dates back at least to Pearson. Method Suppose that the problem is to estimate k unknown parameters \theta_, \theta_2, \dots, \theta_k characterizing the distribution f_W(w; \theta) of the random va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Least Squares
The method of least squares is a standard approach in regression analysis to approximate the solution of overdetermined systems (sets of equations in which there are more equations than unknowns) by minimizing the sum of the squares of the residuals (a residual being the difference between an observed value and the fitted value provided by a model) made in the results of each individual equation. The most important application is in data fitting. When the problem has substantial uncertainties in the independent variable (the ''x'' variable), then simple regression and least-squares methods have problems; in such cases, the methodology required for fitting errors-in-variables models may be considered instead of that for least squares. Least squares problems fall into two categories: linear or ordinary least squares and nonlinear least squares, depending on whether or not the residuals are linear in all unknowns. The linear least-squares problem occurs in statistical regressio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maximum Likelihood
In statistics, maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is a method of estimation theory, estimating the Statistical parameter, parameters of an assumed probability distribution, given some observed data. This is achieved by Mathematical optimization, maximizing a likelihood function so that, under the assumed statistical model, the Realization (probability), observed data is most probable. The point estimate, point in the parameter space that maximizes the likelihood function is called the maximum likelihood estimate. The logic of maximum likelihood is both intuitive and flexible, and as such the method has become a dominant means of statistical inference. If the likelihood function is Differentiable function, differentiable, the derivative test for finding maxima can be applied. In some cases, the first-order conditions of the likelihood function can be solved analytically; for instance, the ordinary least squares estimator for a linear regression model maximizes the likelihood when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
M-estimator
In statistics, M-estimators are a broad class of extremum estimators for which the objective function is a sample average. Both non-linear least squares and maximum likelihood estimation are special cases of M-estimators. The definition of M-estimators was motivated by robust statistics, which contributed new types of M-estimators. The statistical procedure of evaluating an M-estimator on a data set is called M-estimation. 48 samples of robust M-estimators can be found in a recent review study. More generally, an M-estimator may be defined to be a zero of an estimating function. This estimating function is often the derivative of another statistical function. For example, a maximum-likelihood estimate is the point where the derivative of the likelihood function with respect to the parameter is zero; thus, a maximum-likelihood estimator is a critical point of the score function. In many applications, such M-estimators can be thought of as estimating characteristics of the popula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Likelihood Equations
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 Bayes' ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exponential Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the exponential distribution is the probability distribution of the time between events in a Poisson point process, i.e., a process in which events occur continuously and independently at a constant average rate. It is a particular case of the gamma distribution. It is the continuous analogue of the geometric distribution, and it has the key property of being memoryless. In addition to being used for the analysis of Poisson point processes it is found in various other contexts. The exponential distribution is not the same as the class of exponential families of distributions. This is a large class of probability distributions that includes the exponential distribution as one of its members, but also includes many other distributions, like the normal, binomial, gamma, and Poisson distributions. Definitions Probability density function The probability density function (pdf) of an exponential distribution is : f(x;\lambda) = \begin \lambda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Probability Density Function
In probability theory, a probability density function (PDF), or density of a continuous random variable, is a function whose value at any given sample (or point) in the sample space (the set of possible values taken by the random variable) can be interpreted as providing a ''relative likelihood'' that the value of the random variable would be close to that sample. Probability density is the probability per unit length, in other words, while the ''absolute likelihood'' for a continuous random variable to take on any particular value is 0 (since there is an infinite set of possible values to begin with), the value of the PDF at two different samples can be used to infer, in any particular draw of the random variable, how much more likely it is that the random variable would be close to one sample compared to the other sample. In a more precise sense, the PDF is used to specify the probability of the random variable falling ''within a particular range of values'', as opposed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sample Mean
The sample mean (or "empirical mean") and the sample covariance are statistics computed from a Sample (statistics), sample of data on one or more random variables. The sample mean is the average value (or mean, mean value) of a sample (statistics), sample of numbers taken from a larger Statistical population, population of numbers, where "population" indicates not number of people but the entirety of relevant data, whether collected or not. A sample of 40 companies' sales from the Fortune 500 might be used for convenience instead of looking at the population, all 500 companies' sales. The sample mean is used as an estimator for the population mean, the average value in the entire population, where the estimate is more likely to be close to the population mean if the sample is large and representative. The reliability of the sample mean is estimated using the standard error, which in turn is calculated using the variance of the sample. If the sample is random, the standard error fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Median
In statistics and probability theory, the median is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as "the middle" value. The basic feature of the median in describing data compared to the mean (often simply described as the "average") is that it is not skewed by a small proportion of extremely large or small values, and therefore provides a better representation of a "typical" value. Median income, for example, may be a better way to suggest what a "typical" income is, because income distribution can be very skewed. The median is of central importance in robust statistics, as it is the most resistant statistic, having a breakdown point of 50%: so long as no more than half the data are contaminated, the median is not an arbitrarily large or small result. Finite data set of numbers The median of a finite list of numbers is the "middle" number, when those numbers are list ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consistent Estimator
In statistics, a consistent estimator or asymptotically consistent estimator is an estimator—a rule for computing estimates of a parameter ''θ''0—having the property that as the number of data points used increases indefinitely, the resulting sequence of estimates converges in probability to ''θ''0. This means that the distributions of the estimates become more and more concentrated near the true value of the parameter being estimated, so that the probability of the estimator being arbitrarily close to ''θ''0 converges to one. In practice one constructs an estimator as a function of an available sample of size ''n'', and then imagines being able to keep collecting data and expanding the sample ''ad infinitum''. In this way one would obtain a sequence of estimates indexed by ''n'', and consistency is a property of what occurs as the sample size “grows to infinity”. If the sequence of estimates can be mathematically shown to converge in probability to the true value '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
