This paper considers a multivariate spatial random field, with each component having univariate marginal distributions of the skew-Gaussian type. We assume that the field is defined spatially on the unit sphere embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$, allowing for modeling data available over large portions of planet Earth. This model admits explicit expressions for the marginal and cross covariances. However, the $n$-dimensional distributions of the field are difficult to evaluate, because it requires the sum of $2^n$ terms involving the cumulative and probability density functions of a $n$-dimensional Gaussian distribution. Since in this case inference based on the full likelihood is computationally unfeasible, we propose a composite likelihood approach based on pairs of spatial observations. This last being possible thanks to the fact that we have a closed form expression for the bivariate distribution. We illustrate the effectiveness of the method through simulation experiments and the analysis of a real data set of minimum and maximum temperatures.
In this paper, we propose finite mixtures of multivariate skew Laplace distributions to model both skewness and heavy-tailedness in the heterogeneous data sets. The maximum likelihood estimators for the parameters of interest are obtained by using the EM algorithm. We give a small simulation study and a real data example to illustrate the performance of the proposed mixture model.
This paper develops recurrence relations for integrals that relate the density of multivariate extended skew-normal (ESN) distribution, including the well-known skew-normal (SN) distribution introduced by Azzalini and Dalla-Valle (1996) and the popular multivariate normal distribution. These recursions offer a fast computation of arbitrary order product moments of the multivariate truncated extended skew-normal and multivariate folded extended skew-normal distributions with the product moments as a byproduct. In addition to the recurrence approach, we realized that any arbitrary moment of the …
In this paper, we focus on multivariate doubly truncated first two moments of generalized skew-elliptical (GSE) distributions and derive explicit expressions for them. It includes many useful distributions, for examples, generalized skew-normal (GSN), generalized skew-Laplace (GSLa), generalized skew-logistic (GSLo) and generalized skew student-$t$ (GSSt) distributions, all as special cases. We also give formulas of multivariate doubly truncated expectation and covariance for GSE distributions. As applications, we show the results of multivariate tail conditional expectation (MTCE) and multiva…
In this paper, the multivariate tail covariance (MTCov) for generalized skew-elliptical distributions is considered. Some special cases for this distribution, such as generalized skew-normal, generalized skew student-t, generalized skew-logistic and generalized skew-Laplace distributions, are also considered. In order to test the theoretical feasibility of our results, the MTCov for skewed and non skewed normal distributions are computed and compared. Finally, we give a special formula of the MTCov for generalized skew-elliptical distributions.
This paper mainly focuses on studying the Shannon Entropy and Kullback-Leibler divergence of the multivariate log canonical fundamental skew-normal (LCFUSN) and canonical fundamental skew-normal (CFUSN) families of distributions, extending previous works. We relate our results with other well known distributions entropies. As a byproduct, we also obtain the Mutual Information for distributions in these families. Shannon entropy is used to compare models fitted to analyze the USA monthly precipitation data. Kullback-Leibler divergence is used to cluster regions in Atlantic ocean according to th…
In this paper, we compute doubly truncated moments for the selection elliptical (SE) class of distributions, which includes some multivariate asymmetric versions of well-known elliptical distributions, such as, the normal, Student's t, slash, among others. We address the moments for doubly truncated members of this family, establishing neat formulation for high order moments as well as for its first two moments. We establish sufficient and necessary conditions for the existence of these truncated moments. Further, we propose optimized methods able to deal with extreme setting of the parameters…
An admissible estimator of the eigenvalues of the variance-covariance matrix is given for multivariate normal distributions with respect to the scale-invariant squared error loss.
Shannon and Renyi entropies are quantitative measures of uncertainty in a data set. They are developed by Renyi in the context of entropy theory. These measures have been studied in the case of the multivariate t-distributions. We extend these tools to the class of multivariate skew t-distributions and then to more families of finite mixture of multivariate skew t distributions. In particular, by using generalized Holder inequality and some properties of multinomial theorem, we find upper and lower bounds of entropies for these families. An approximate value of these entropies can be calculate…
So far, the pseudo cross-variogram is primarily used as a tool for the structural analysis of multivariate random fields. Mainly applying recent theoretical results on the pseudo cross-variogram, we use it as a cornerstone in the construction of valid covariance models for multivariate random fields. In particular, we extend known univariate constructions to the multivariate case, and generalize existing multivariate models. Furthermore, we provide a general construction principle for conditionally negative definite matrix-valued kernels, which we use to reinterpret previous modeling proposals…
Matrix-valued covariance functions are crucial to geostatistical modeling of multivariate spatial data. The classical assumption of symmetry of a multivariate covariance function is overlay restrictive and has been considered as unrealistic for most of real data applications. Despite of that, the literature on asymmetric covariance functions has been very sparse. In particular, there is some work related to asymmetric covariances on Euclidean spaces, depending on the Euclidean distance. However, for data collected over large portions of planet Earth, the most natural spatial domain is a sphere…
Multivariate processes with long-range dependence properties can be encountered in many fields of application. Two fundamental characteristics in such frameworks are long-range dependence parameters and correlations between component time series. We consider multivariate long-range dependent linear processes, not necessarily Gaussian. We show that the covariances between the wavelet coefficients in this setting are asymptotically Gaussian. We also study the asymptotic distributions of the estimators of the long-range dependence parameter and the long-run covariance by a wavelet-based Whittle p…
In this paper, a new mixture family of multivariate normal distributions, formed by mixing multivariate normal distribution and skewed distribution, is constructed. Some properties of this family, such as characteristic function, moment generating function, and the first four moments are derived. The distributions of affine transformations and canonical forms of the model are also derived. An EM type algorithm is developed for the maximum likelihood estimation of model parameters. We have considered in detail, some special cases of the family, using standard gamma and standard exponential mixt…
There has been a growing interest in providing models for multivariate spatial processes. A majority of these models specify a parametric matrix covariance function. Based on observations, the parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood or variants thereof. While the asymptotic properties of maximum likelihood estimators for univariate spatial processes have been analyzed in detail, maximum likelihood estimators for multivariate spatial processes have not received their deserved attention yet. In this article we consider the classical increasing-domain asymptotic setting restricting the min…
We consider an inference on the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix of a multivariate normal distribution. The family of multivariate normal distributions with a fixed mean is seen as a Riemannian manifold with Fisher information metric. Two submanifolds naturally arises; one is the submanifold given by fixed eigenvectors of the covariance matrix, the other is the one given by fixed eigenvalues. We analyze the geometrical structures of these manifolds such as metric, embedding curvature under $e$-connection or $m$-connection. Based on these results, we study 1) the bias of the sample eigenval…
We give sufficient identifiability conditions for estimating mixing proportions in two-component mixtures of skew normal distributions with one known component. We consider the univariate case as well as two multivariate extensions: a multivariate skew normal distribution (MSN) by Azzalini and Dalla Valle (1996) and the canonical fundamental skew normal distribution (CFUSN) by Arellano-Valle and Genton (2005). The characteristic function of the CFUSN distribution is additionally derived.
We examine the problem of computing multivariate scenarios sets for skewed distributions. Our interest is motivated by the potential use of such sets in the "stress testing" of insurance companies and banks whose solvency is dependent on changes in a set of financial "risk factors". We define multivariate scenario sets based on the notion of half-space depth (HD) and also introduce the notion of expectile depth (ED) where half-spaces are defined by expectiles rather than quantiles. We then use the HD and ED functions to define convex scenario sets that generalize the concepts of quantile and e…
The main objective of this work is to calculate the multivariate double truncated expectation (MDTE) and covariance (MDTCov) for elliptical distributions. We also consider double truncated expectation (DTE) and variance (DTV) for univariate elliptical distributions. The exact expressions of MDTE and MDTCov are derived for some special cases of the family, such as normal, student-$t$, logistic, Laplace and Pearson type VII distributions. As numerical illustration, the DTE, DTV, MDTE and MDTCov for normal distribution are computed in details. Finally, we discuss MDTE and MDTCov of three industry…
The construction of valid and flexible cross-covariance functions is a fundamental task for modeling multivariate space-time data arising from climatological and oceanographical phenomena. Indeed, a suitable specification of the covariance structure allows to capture both the space-time dependencies between the observations and the development of accurate predictions. For data observed over large portions of planet Earth it is necessary to take into account the curvature of the planet. Hence the need for random field models defined over spheres across time. In particular, the associated covari…
We consider estimation of the covariance matrix of a multivariate random vector under the constraint that certain covariances are zero. We first present an algorithm, which we call Iterative Conditional Fitting, for computing the maximum likelihood estimator of the constrained covariance matrix, under the assumption of multivariate normality. In contrast to previous approaches, this algorithm has guaranteed convergence properties. Dropping the assumption of multivariate normality, we show how to estimate the covariance matrix in an empirical likelihood approach. These approaches are then compa…
In this paper, we will discuss the concept of an array variate random variable and introduce a class of skew normal array densities that are obtained through a selection model that uses the array variate normal density as the kernel and the cumulative distribution of the univariate normal distribution as the selection function.
We provide a unified approach to a method of estimation of the regression parameter in balanced linear models with a structured covariance matrix that combines a high breakdown point and bounded influence with high asymptotic efficiency at models with multivariate normal errors. Of main interest are linear mixed effects models, but our approach also includes several other standard multivariate models, such as multiple regression, multivariate regression, and multivariate location and scatter. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence of the estimators and corresponding functionals, es…
For multivariate stationary time series many important properties, such as partial correlation, graphical models and autoregressive representations are encoded in the inverse of its spectral density matrix. This is not true for nonstationary time series, where the pertinent information lies in the inverse infinite dimensional covariance matrix operator associated with the multivariate time series. This necessitates the study of the covariance of a multivariate nonstationary time series and its relationship to its inverse. We show that if the rows/columns of the infinite dimensional covariance …
In this paper, we propose a novel variable selection approach in the framework of multivariate linear models taking into account the dependence that may exist between the responses. It consists in estimating beforehand the covariance matrix of the responses and to plug this estimator in a Lasso criterion, in order to obtain a sparse estimator of the coefficient matrix. The properties of our approach are investigated both from a theoretical and a numerical point of view. More precisely, we give general conditions that the estimators of the covariance matrix and its inverse have to satisfy in or…
Analyzing principal components for multivariate data from its spatial sign covariance matrix (SCM) has been proposed as a computationally simple and robust alternative to normal PCA, but it suffers from poor efficiency properties and is actually inadmissible with respect to the maximum likelihood estimator. Here we use data depth-based spatial ranks in place of spatial signs to obtain the orthogonally equivariant Depth Covariance Matrix (DCM) and use its eigenvector estimates for PCA. We derive asymptotic properties of the sample DCM and influence functions of its eigenvectors. The shapes of t…
In this paper, we introduce an asymptotic test procedure to assess the stability of volatilities and cross-volatilites of linear and nonlinear multivariate time series models. The test is very flexible as it can be applied, for example, to many of the multivariate GARCH models established in the literature, and also works well in the case of high dimensionality of the underlying data. Since it is nonparametric, the procedure avoids the difficulties associated with parametric model selection, model fitting and parameter estimation. We provide the theoretical foundation for the test and demonstr…
This paper addresses the problem of finding parametric constraints that ensure the validity of the multivariate Mat{é}rn covariance for modeling the spatial correlation structure of coregionalized variables defined in an Euclidean space. To date, much attention has been given to the bivariate setting, while the multivariate setting has been explored to a limited extent only. The existing conditions often imply severe restrictions on the upper bounds for the collocated correlation coefficients, which makes the multivariate Mat{é}rn model appealing for the case of weak spatial cross-dependence o…
Monitoring several correlated quality characteristics of a process is common in modern manufacturing and service industries. Although a lot of attention has been paid to monitoring the multivariate process mean, not many control charts are available for monitoring the covariance matrix. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the literature on control charts for monitoring the covariance matrix in a multivariate statistical process monitoring (MSPM) framework. It classifies the research that has previously appeared in the literature. We highlight the challenging areas for research and …
In arXiv:0907.0079 by Cator and Lopuhaa, an asymptotic expansion for the MCD estimators is established in a very general framework. This expansion requires the existence and non-singularity of the derivative in a first-order Taylor expansion. In this paper, we prove the existence of this derivative for multivariate distributions that have a density and provide an explicit expression. Moreover, under suitable symmetry conditions on the density, we show that this derivative is non-singular. These symmetry conditions include the elliptically contoured multivariate location-scatter model, in which…
For the family of multivariate probability distributions variously denoted as unified skew-normal, closed skew-normal and other names, a number of properties are already known, but many others are not, even some basic ones. The present contribution aims at filling some of the missing gaps. Specifically, the moments up to the fourth order are obtained, and from here the expressions of the Mardia's measures of multivariate skewness and kurtosis. Other results concern the property of log-concavity of the distribution, and closure with respect to conditioning on intervals.
We consider the problem of estimating the mean vector of a p-variate normal $(θ,Σ)$ distribution under invariant quadratic loss, $(δ-θ)'Σ^{-1}(δ-θ)$, when the covariance is unknown. We propose a new class of estimators that dominate the usual estimator $δ^0(X)=X$. The proposed estimators of $θ$ depend upon X and an independent Wishart matrix S with n degrees of freedom, however, S is singular almost surely when p>n. The proof of domination involves the development of some new unbiased estimators of risk for the p>n setting. We also find some relationships between the amount of domination and t…
We employ a general Monte Carlo method to test composite hypotheses of goodness-of-fit for several popular multivariate models that can accommodate both asymmetry and heavy tails. Specifically, we consider weighted L2-type tests based on a discrepancy measure involving the distance between empirical characteristic functions and thus avoid the need for employing corresponding population quantities which may be unknown or complicated to work with. The only requirements of our tests are that we should be able to draw samples from the distribution under test and possess a reasonable method of esti…
We provide a unified approach to S-estimation in balanced linear models with structured covariance matrices. Of main interest are S-estimators for linear mixed effects models, but our approach also includes S-estimators in several other standard multivariate models, such as multiple regression, multivariate regression, and multivariate location and scatter. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence of S-functionals and S-estimators, establish asymptotic properties such as consistency and asymptotic normality, and derive their robustness properties in terms of breakdown point and influ…
Asymptotic distribution for the proportional covariance model under multivariate normal distributions is derived. To this end, the parametrization of the common covariance matrix by its Cholesky root is adopted. The derivations are made in three steps. First, the asymptotic distribution of the maximum likelihood estimators of the proportionality coefficients and the Cholesky inverse root of the common covariance matrix is derived by finding the information matrix and its inverse. Next, the asymptotic distributions for the case of the Cholesky root of the common covariance matrix and finally fo…
Skew-symmetric densities recently received much attention in the literature, giving rise to increasingly general families of univariate and multivariate skewed densities. Most of those families, however, suffer from the inferential drawback of a potentially singular Fisher information in the vicinity of symmetry. All existing results indicate that Gaussian densities (possibly after restriction to some linear subspace) play a special and somewhat intriguing role in that context. We dispel that widespread opinion by providing a full characterization, in a general multivariate context, of the inf…
The Behrens-Fisher problem is a well-known hypothesis testing problem in statistics concerning two-sample mean comparison. In this article, we confirm one conjecture in Eaton and Olshen (1972), which provides stochastic bounds for the multivariate Behrens-Fisher test statistic under the null hypothesis. We also extend their results on the stochastic ordering of random quotients to the arbitrary finite dimensional case. This work can also be seen as a generalization of Hsu (1938) that provided the bounds for the univariate Behrens-Fisher problem. The results obtained in this article can be used…
We consider the problem of estimating covariance and precision matrices, and their associated discriminant coefficients, from normal data when the rank of the covariance matrix is strictly smaller than its dimension and the available sample size. Using unbiased risk estimation, we construct novel estimators by minimizing upper bounds on the difference in risk over several classes. Our proposal estimates are empirically demonstrated to offer substantial improvement over classical approaches.
We define the minimum covariance determinant functionals for multivariate location and scatter through trimming functions and establish their existence at any multivariate distribution. We provide a precise characterization including a separating ellipsoid property and prove that the functionals are continuous. Moreover, we establish asymptotic normality for both the location and covariance estimator and derive the influence function. These results are obtained in a very general multivariate setting.
Multivariate $\operatorname {COGARCH}(1,1)$ processes are introduced as a continuous-time models for multidimensional heteroskedastic observations. Our model is driven by a single multivariate Lévy process and the latent time-varying covariance matrix is directly specified as a stochastic process in the positive semidefinite matrices. After defining the $\operatorname {COGARCH}(1,1)$ process, we analyze its probabilistic properties. We show a sufficient condition for the existence of a stationary distribution for the stochastic covariance matrix process and present criteria ensuring the finite…
The paper deals with multivariate Gaussian random fields defined over generalized product spaces that involve the hypertorus. The assumption of Gaussianity implies the finite dimensional distributions to be completely specified by the covariance functions, being in this case matrix valued mappings. We start by considering the spectral representations that in turn allow for a characterization of such covariance functions. We then provide some methods for the construction of these matrix valued mappings. Finally, we consider strategies to evade radial symmetry (called isotropy in spatial statist…
The distance covariance of Székely, et al. [23] and Székely and Rizzo [21], a powerful measure of dependence between sets of multivariate random variables, has the crucial feature that it equals zero if and only if the sets are mutually independent. Hence the distance covariance can be applied to multivariate data to detect arbitrary types of non-linear associations between sets of variables. We provide in this article a basic, albeit rigorous, introductory treatment of the distance covariance. Our investigations yield an approach that can be used as the foundation for presentation of this imp…
Modelling multivariate systems is important for many applications in engineering and operational research. The multivariate distributions under scrutiny usually have no analytic or closed form. Therefore their modelling employs a numerical technique, typically multivariate simulations, which can have very high dimensions. Random Orthogonal Matrix (ROM) simulation is a method that has gained some popularity because of the absence of certain simulation errors. Specifically, it exactly matches a target mean, covariance matrix and certain higher moments with every simulation. This paper extends th…
A 2022 paper arXiv:2009.10305v4 introduced the notion of true positive and negative skewness for continuous random variables via Fréchet $p$-means. In this work, we find novel criteria for true skewness, establish true skewness for the Weibull, Lévy, skew-normal, and chi-squared distributions, and discuss the extension of true skewness to discrete and multivariate settings. Furthermore, some relevant properties of the $p$-means of random variables are established.
We propose three measures of mutual dependence between multiple random vectors. All the measures are zero if and only if the random vectors are mutually independent. The first measure generalizes distance covariance from pairwise dependence to mutual dependence, while the other two measures are sums of squared distance covariance. All the measures share similar properties and asymptotic distributions to distance covariance, and capture non-linear and non-monotone mutual dependence between the random vectors. Inspired by complete and incomplete V-statistics, we define the empirical measures and…
For a multivariate normal distribution, the sparsity of the covariance and precision matrices encodes complete information about independence and conditional independence properties. For general distributions, the covariance and precision matrices reveal correlations and so-called partial correlations between variables, but these do not, in general, have any correspondence with respect to independence properties. In this paper, we prove that, for a certain class of non-Gaussian distributions, these correspondences still hold, exactly for the covariance and approximately for the precision. The …
University of Toronto（多伦多大学）；Institute for Aerospace Studies（航空航天研究所）
This short note reviews so-called Natural Gradient Descent (NGD) for multivariate Gaussians. The Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) is derived for several different parameterizations of Gaussians. Careful attention is paid to the symmetric nature of the covariance matrix when calculating derivatives. We show that there are some advantages to choosing a parameterization comprising the mean and inverse covariance matrix and provide a simple NGD update that accounts for the symmetric (and sparse) nature of the inverse covariance matrix.
The covariance structure of multivariate functional data can be highly complex, especially if the multivariate dimension is large, making extensions of statistical methods for standard multivariate data to the functional data setting challenging. For example, Gaussian graphical models have recently been extended to the setting of multivariate functional data by applying multivariate methods to the coefficients of truncated basis expansions. However, a key difficulty compared to multivariate data is that the covariance operator is compact, and thus not invertible. The methodology in this paper …
Although there is ample work in the literature dealing with skewness in the multivariate setting, there is a relative paucity of work in the matrix variate paradigm. Such work is, for example, useful for modelling three-way data. A matrix variate skew-t distribution is derived based on a mean-variance matrix normal mixture. An expectation-conditional maximization algorithm is developed for parameter estimation. Simulated data are used for illustration.
Hallin and Ley [Bernoulli 18 (2012) 747-763] investigate and fully characterize the Fisher singularity phenomenon in univariate and multivariate families of skew-symmetric distributions. This paper proposes a refined analysis of the (univariate) problem, showing that singularity can be more or less severe, inducing $n^{1/4}$ ("simple singularity"), $n^{1/6}$ ("double singularity"), or $n^{1/8}$ ("triple singularity") consistency rates for the skewness parameter. We show, however, that simple singularity (yielding $n^{1/4}$ consistency rates), if any singularity at all, is the rule, in the sens…
The need to test whether two random vectors are independent has spawned a large number of competing measures of dependence. We are interested in nonparametric measures that are invariant under strictly increasing transformations, such as Kendall's tau, Hoeffding's D, and the more recently discovered Bergsma--Dassios sign covariance. Each of these measures exhibits symmetries that are not readily apparent from their definitions. Making these symmetries explicit, we define a new class of multivariate nonparametric measures of dependence that we refer to as Symmetric Rank Covariances. This new cl…
