Hedges' d, an existing unbiased effect size of the difference between means, assumes the variance equality. However, the assumption of the variance equality is fragile, and is often violated in practical applications. Here, we define e, a new effect size of the difference between means, which does not assume the variance equality. In addition, another novel statistic c is defined as an effect size of the difference between a mean and a known constant. Hedges' g, our c, and e correspond to Student's unpaired two-sample t test, Student's one-sample t test, and Welch's t test, respectively. An R package is also provided to compute these effect sizes with their variance and confidence interval.
We introduce a bootstrap procedure to test the hypothesis $H_o$ that $K+1$ variances are homogeneous. The procedure uses a variance-based statistic, and is derived from a normal-theory test for equality of variances. The test equivalently expressed the hypothesis as $H_o: \mathbfη=( η_1,\ldots,η_{K+1})^T=\mathbf{0}$, where $η_i$'s are log contrasts of the population variances. A box-type acceptance region is constructed to test the hypothesis $H_o$. Simulation results indicated that our method is generally superior to the Shoemaker and Levene tests, and the bootstrapped version of Levene test …
The Savage-Dickey density ratio is a specific expression of the Bayes factor when testing a precise (equality constrained) hypothesis against an unrestricted alternative. The expression greatly simplifies the computation of the Bayes factor at the cost of assuming a specific form of the prior under the precise hypothesis as a function of the unrestricted prior. A generalization was proposed by Verdinelli and Wasserman (1995) such that the priors can be freely specified under both hypotheses while keeping the computational advantage. This paper presents an extension of this generalization when …
When conducting a meta-analysis of standardized mean differences (SMDs), it is common to assume equal variances in the two arms of each study. This leads to Cohen's $d$ estimates for which interpretation is simple. However, this simplicity should not be used as a justification for the assumption of equal variances in situations where evidence may suggest that it is incorrect. Until now, researchers have either used an $F$-test for each individual study as a justification for the equality of variances or perhaps even conveniently ignored such tools altogether. In this paper we propose using a m…
We propose a new methodology for denoising, variance-stabilizing and normalizing signals whose both mean and variance are parameterized by a single unknown varying parameter, such as Poisson or scaled chi-squared. Key to our methodology is the observation that the signed and square-rooted generalized log-likelihood ratio test for the equality of the local means is approximately and asymptotically distributed as standard normal under the null. We use these test statistics within the Haar wavelet transform at each scale and location, referring to them as the likelihood ratio Haar (LRH) coefficie…
Testing the (in)equality of variances is an important problem in many statistical applications. We develop default Bayes factor tests to assess the (in)equality of two or more population variances, as well as a test for whether the population variances equal a specific value. The resulting test can be used to check assumptions for commonly used procedures such as the $t$-test or ANOVA, or test substantive hypotheses concerning variances directly. We show that our Bayes factor fulfills a number of desiderata. Researchers may have directed hypotheses such as $σ_{1}^{2} > σ_{2}^{2}$, they may wan…
This paper introduces a general framework for estimating variance components in the linear mixed models via general unbiased estimating equations, which include some well-used estimators such as the restricted maximum likelihood estimator. We derive the asymptotic covariance matrices and second-order biases under general estimating equations without assuming the normality of the underlying distributions and identify a class of second-order unbiased estimators of variance components. It is also shown that the asymptotic covariance matrices and second-order biases do not depend on whether the re…
University of Bristol（布里斯托大学）；The Alan Turing Institute（艾伦·图灵研究所）；Tokyo Institute of Technology（东京工业大学）；RIKEN（理化学研究所）
Maximum Likelihood Estimators (MLE) has many good properties. For example, the asymptotic variance of MLE solution attains equality of the asymptotic Cram{é}r-Rao lower bound (efficiency bound), which is the minimum possible variance for an unbiased estimator. However, obtaining such MLE solution requires calculating the likelihood function which may not be tractable due to the normalization term of the density model. In this paper, we derive a Discriminative Likelihood Estimator (DLE) from the Kullback-Leibler divergence minimization criterion implemented via density ratio estimation and a St…
We revisit resampling procedures for error estimation in binary classification in terms of U-statistics. In particular, we exploit the fact that the error rate estimator involving all learning-testing splits is a U-statistic. Thus, it has minimal variance among all unbiased estimators and is asymptotically normally distributed. Moreover, there is an unbiased estimator for this minimal variance if the total sample size is at least the double learning set size plus two. In this case, we exhibit such an estimator which is another U-statistic. It enjoys, again, various optimality properties and yi…
This paper aims to test the number of spikes in a generalized spiked covariance matrix, the spiked eigenvalues of which may be extremely larger or smaller than the non-spiked ones. For a high-dimensional problem, we first propose a general test statistic and derive its central limit theorem by random matrix theory without a Gaussian population constraint. We then apply the result to estimate the noise variance and test the equality of the smallest roots in generalized spiked models. Simulation studies showed that the proposed test method was correctly sized, and the power outcomes showed the r…
In many applications, the underlying scientific question concerns whether the variances of $k$ samples are equal. There are a substantial number of tests for this problem. Many of them rely on the assumption of normality and are not robust to its violation. In 1960 Professor Howard Levene proposed a new approach to this problem by applying the $F$-test to the absolute deviations of the observations from their group means. Levene's approach is powerful and robust to nonnormality and became a very popular tool for checking the homogeneity of variances. This paper reviews the original method prop…
The Behrens-Fisher Problem is a classical statistical problem. It is to test the equality of the means of two normal populations using two independent samples, when the equality of the population variances is unknown. Linnik (1968) has shown that this problem has no exact fixed-level tests based on the complete sufficient statistics. However, exact conventional solutions based on other statistics and approximate solutions based the complete sufficient statistics do exist. Existing methods are mainly asymptotic tests, and usually don't perform well when the variances or sample sizes differ a lo…
We present a novel approach to test for heteroscedasticity of a non-stationary time series that is based on Gini's mean difference of logarithmic local sample variances. In order to analyse the large sample behaviour of our test statistic, we establish new limit theorems for U-statistics of dependent triangular arrays. We derive the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic under the null hypothesis of a constant variance and show that the test is consistent against a large class of alternatives, including multiple structural breaks in the variance. Our test is applicable even in the case …
In this paper we consider some hypothesis tests within a family of Wishart distributions, where both the sample space and the parameter space are symmetric cones. For such testing problems, we first derive the joint density of the ordered eigenvalues of the generalized Wishart distribution and propose a test statistic analog to that of classical multivariate statistics for testing homoscedasticity of covariance matrix. In this generalization of Bartlett's test for equality of variances to hypotheses of real, complex, quaternion, Lorentz and octonion types of covariance structures.
In this article we derive the best possible upper bound for $E[\max{X_i}-\min_i{X_i}]$ under given means and variances on $n$ random variables $X_i$. The random vector $(X_1,...,X_n)$ is allowed to have any dependence structure, provided $E X_i=μ_i$ and $Var X_i=σ_i^2$, $0<σ_i<\infty$. We provide an explicit characterization of the $n$-variate distributions that attain the equality (extremal random vectors), and the tight bound is compared to other existing results. Key words and phrases: Range; Dependent Observations; Tight Expectation Bounds; Extremal Random Vectors; Probability Matrices; Ch…
Statistical techniques are used in all branches of science to determine the feasibility of quantitative hypotheses. One of the most basic applications of statistical techniques in comparative analysis is the test of equality of two population means, generally performed under the assumption of normality. In medical studies, for example, we often need to compare the effects of two different drugs, treatments or preconditions on the resulting outcome. The most commonly used test in this connection is the two sample $t$-test for the equality of means, performed under the assumption of equality of …
Recently, a generalized test approach is proposed by Sadooghi-alvandi et al. (2016) and a fiducial approach is proposed by Xu and Li (2018) to test the equality of coefficients in several regression models with unequal variances. In this paper, it is shown that the considered quantities in these approaches are identically distributed and therefore, these approaches are same. Also, this result satisfies for the one-way ANOVA problem.
Cluster randomized trials with measurements at baseline can improve power over post-test only designs by using difference in difference designs. However, subjects may be lost to follow-up between the baseline and follow-up periods. While equations for sample size and variance have been developed assuming no loss to follow-up ("cohort") and completely different subjects at baseline and follow-up ("cross-sectional") difference in difference designs, equations have yet to be developed when some subjects are observed in both periods ("mixture" designs). We present a general equation for calculatin…
In the analysis of observational studies, inverse probability weighting (IPW) is commonly used to consistently estimate the average treatment effect (ATE) or the average treatment effect in the treated (ATT). The variance of the IPW ATE estimator is often estimated by assuming the weights are known and then using the so-called "robust" (Huber-White) sandwich estimator, which results in conservative standard error (SE) estimation. Here it is shown that using such an approach when estimating the variance of the IPW ATT estimator does not necessarily result in conservative SE estimates. That is, …
It is often of interest to combine available estimates of a similar quantity from multiple data sources. When the corresponding variances of each estimate are also available, a model should take into account the uncertainty of the estimates themselves as well as the uncertainty in the estimation of variances. In addition, if there exists a strong association between estimates and their variances, the correlation between these two quantities should also be considered. In this paper, we propose a bivariate hierarchical Bayesian model that jointly models the estimates and their estimated variance…
We propose a class of two-sample statistics for testing the equality of proportions and the equality of survival functions. We build our proposal on a weighted combination of a score test for the difference in proportions and a Weighted Kaplan-Meier statistic-based test for the difference of survival functions. The proposed statistics are fully non-parametric and do not rely on the proportional hazards assumption for the survival outcome. We present the asymptotic distribution of these statistics, propose a variance estimator and show their asymptotic properties under fixed and local alternati…
We study principal components analyses in multivariate random and mixed effects linear models, assuming a spherical-plus-spikes structure for the covariance matrix of each random effect. We characterize the behavior of outlier sample eigenvalues and eigenvectors of MANOVA variance components estimators in such models under a high-dimensional asymptotic regime. Our results show that an aliasing phenomenon may occur in high dimensions, in which eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the MANOVA estimate for one variance component may be influenced by the other components. We propose an alternative proce…
