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Probit Model
In statistics, a probit model is a type of regression where the dependent variable can take only two values, for example married or not married. The word is a portmanteau, coming from ''probability'' + ''unit''. The purpose of the model is to estimate the probability that an observation with particular characteristics will fall into a specific one of the categories; moreover, classifying observations based on their predicted probabilities is a type of binary classification model. A probit model is a popular specification for a binary response model. As such it treats the same set of problems as does logistic regression using similar techniques. When viewed in the generalized linear model framework, the probit model employs a probit link function. It is most often estimated using the maximum likelihood procedure, such an estimation being called a probit regression. Conceptual framework Suppose a response variable ''Y'' is ''binary'', that is it can have only two possible o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), 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 statistical survey, surveys and experimental design, experiments. When census data (comprising every member of the target population) cannot be collected, statisticians collect data by developing specific experiment designs and survey sample (statistics), samples. Representative sampling assures that inferences and conclusions can reasonably extend from the sample ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maximum Likelihood
In statistics, maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is a method of estimating the parameters of an assumed probability distribution, given some observed data. This is achieved by maximizing a likelihood function so that, under the assumed statistical model, the observed data is most probable. The 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, 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 the random errors are assumed to have normal distributions with the same variance. From the perspective of Bayesian inference, ML ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Truncated Normal Distribution
In probability and statistics, the truncated normal distribution is the probability distribution derived from that of a normally distributed random variable by bounding the random variable from either below or above (or both). The truncated normal distribution has wide applications in statistics and econometrics. Definitions Suppose X has a normal distribution with mean \mu and variance \sigma^2 and lies within the interval (a,b), \text \; -\infty \leq a < b \leq \infty . Then conditional on has a truncated normal distribution. Its , , for , is given by and by otherwise. Here, |
Bayesian Linear Regression
Bayesian linear regression is a type of conditional modeling in which the mean of one variable is described by a linear combination of other variables, with the goal of obtaining the posterior probability of the regression coefficients (as well as other parameters describing the distribution of the regressand) and ultimately allowing the out-of-sample prediction of the regressand (often labelled y) '' conditional on'' observed values of the regressors (usually X). The simplest and most widely used version of this model is the ''normal linear model'', in which y given X is distributed Gaussian. In this model, and under a particular choice of prior probabilities for the parameters—so-called conjugate priors—the posterior can be found analytically. With more arbitrarily chosen priors, the posteriors generally have to be approximated. Model setup Consider a standard linear regression problem, in which for i = 1, \ldots, n we specify the mean of the conditional distributio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prior Distribution
A prior probability distribution of an uncertain quantity, simply called the prior, is its assumed probability distribution before some evidence is taken into account. For example, the prior could be the probability distribution representing the relative proportions of voters who will vote for a particular politician in a future election. The unknown quantity may be a parameter of the model or a latent variable rather than an observable variable. In Bayesian statistics, Bayes' rule prescribes how to update the prior with new information to obtain the posterior probability distribution, which is the conditional distribution of the uncertain quantity given new data. Historically, the choice of priors was often constrained to a conjugate family of a given likelihood function, so that it would result in a tractable posterior of the same family. The widespread availability of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, however, has made this less of a concern. There are many ways to constru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gibbs Sampling
In statistics, Gibbs sampling or a Gibbs sampler is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for sampling from a specified multivariate distribution, multivariate probability distribution when direct sampling from the joint distribution is difficult, but sampling from the Conditional probability distribution, conditional distribution is more practical. This sequence can be used to approximate the joint distribution (e.g., to generate a histogram of the distribution); to approximate the marginal distribution of one of the variables, or some subset of the variables (for example, the unknown parameters or latent variables); or to compute an integral (such as the expected value of one of the variables). Typically, some of the variables correspond to observations whose values are known, and hence do not need to be sampled. Gibbs sampling is commonly used as a means of statistical inference, especially Bayesian inference. It is a randomized algorithm (i.e. an algorithm that makes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generalized Least Squares
In statistics, generalized least squares (GLS) is a method used to estimate the unknown parameters in a Linear regression, linear regression model. It is used when there is a non-zero amount of correlation between the Residual (statistics), residuals in the regression model. GLS is employed to improve efficiency_(statistics), statistical efficiency and reduce the risk of drawing erroneous inferences, as compared to conventional least squares and weighted least squares methods. It was first described by Alexander Aitken in 1935. It requires knowledge of the covariance matrix for the residuals. If this is unknown, estimating the covariance matrix gives the method of feasible generalized least squares (FGLS). However, FGLS provides fewer guarantees of improvement. Method In standard linear regression models, one observes data \_ on ''n'' statistical units with ''k'' − 1 predictor values and one response value each. The response values are placed in a vector,\mathbf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Probability Density Function
In probability theory, a probability density function (PDF), density function, or density of an absolutely continuous random variable, is a Function (mathematics), 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 equal 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. More precisely, the PDF is used to specify the probability of the random variable falling ''within ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asymptotic Distribution
In mathematics and statistics, an asymptotic distribution is a probability distribution that is in a sense the limiting distribution of a sequence of distributions. One of the main uses of the idea of an asymptotic distribution is in providing approximations to the cumulative distribution functions of statistical estimators. Definition A sequence of distributions corresponds to a sequence of random variables ''Zi'' for ''i'' = 1, 2, ..., I . In the simplest case, an asymptotic distribution exists if the probability distribution of ''Zi'' converges to a probability distribution (the asymptotic distribution) as ''i'' increases: see convergence in distribution. A special case of an asymptotic distribution is when the sequence of random variables is always zero or ''Zi'' = 0 as ''i'' approaches infinity. Here the asymptotic distribution is a degenerate distribution, corresponding to the value zero. However, the most usual sense in which the term asymptotic distribution is used arises ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concave Function
In mathematics, a concave function is one for which the function value at any convex combination of elements in the domain is greater than or equal to that convex combination of those domain elements. Equivalently, a concave function is any function for which the hypograph is convex. The class of concave functions is in a sense the opposite of the class of convex functions. A concave function is also synonymously called concave downwards, concave down, convex upwards, convex cap, or upper convex. Definition A real-valued function f on an interval (or, more generally, a convex set in vector space) is said to be ''concave'' if, for any x and y in the interval and for any \alpha \in ,1/math>, :f((1-\alpha )x+\alpha y)\geq (1-\alpha ) f(x)+\alpha f(y) A function is called ''strictly concave'' if :f((1-\alpha )x+\alpha y) > (1-\alpha ) f(x)+\alpha f(y) for any \alpha \in (0,1) and x \neq y. For a function f: \mathbb \to \mathbb, this second definition merely states that for ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Efficiency (statistics)
In statistics, efficiency is a measure of quality of an estimator, of an experimental design, or of a hypothesis testing procedure. Essentially, a more efficient estimator needs fewer input data or observations than a less efficient one to achieve the Cramér–Rao bound. An ''efficient estimator'' is characterized by having the smallest possible variance, indicating that there is a small deviance between the estimated value and the "true" value in the L2 norm sense. The relative efficiency of two procedures is the ratio of their efficiencies, although often this concept is used where the comparison is made between a given procedure and a notional "best possible" procedure. The efficiencies and the relative efficiency of two procedures theoretically depend on the sample size available for the given procedure, but it is often possible to use the asymptotic relative efficiency (defined as the limit of the relative efficiencies as the sample size grows) as the principal comparison ... [...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] |
