The stochastic approximation version of EM (SAEM) proposed by Delyon et al. (1999) is a powerful alternative to EM when the E-step is intractable. Convergence of SAEM toward a maximum of the observed likelihood is established when the unobserved data are simulated at each iteration under the conditional distribution. We show that this very restrictive assumption can be weakened. Indeed, the results of Benveniste et al. for stochastic approximation with markovian perturbations are used to establish...

The stochastic approximation version of EM (SAEM) proposed by Delyon et al. (1999) is a powerful alternative to EM when the E-step is intractable. Convergence of SAEM toward a maximum of the observed likelihood is established when the unobserved data are simulated at each iteration under the conditional distribution. We show that this very restrictive assumption can be weakened. Indeed, the results of Benveniste et al. for stochastic approximation with Markovian perturbations are used to establish...

This paper is devoted to computational problems related to Markov chains (MC) on a finite state space. We present formulas and bounds for characteristics of MCs using directed forest expansions given by the Matrix Tree Theorem. These results are applied to analysis of direct methods for solving systems of linear equations, aggregation algorithms for nearly completely decomposable MCs and the Markov chain Monte Carlo procedures.

The dyadic diaphony is a quantitative measure for the irregularity of distribution of a sequence in the unit cube. In this paper we give formulae for the dyadic diaphony of digital $(0,s)$-sequences over ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$, $s=1,2$. These formulae show that for fixed $s\in \{1,2\}$, the dyadic diaphony has the same values for any digital $(0,s)$-sequence. For $s=1$, it follows that the dyadic diaphony and the diaphony of special digital $(0,1)$-sequences are up to a constant the same. We give the exact asymptotic order of the dyadic diaphony of digital...

A model which consists of a predator and two prey species is presented. The prey compete for the same limited resource (food). The predator preys on both prey species but with different severity. We show that the coexistence of all three species is possible in a mean-field approach, whereas from Monte Carlo simulation it follows that the stochastic fluctuations drive one of the prey populations into extinction.

En el artículo se hace una revisión del problema de Behrens-Fisher, discutiendo los fundamentos inferenciales asociados a la dificultad de su resolución y exponiendo las soluciones prácticas más comunes, juntamente con una nueva solución basada en conceptos de geometría diferencial. A continuación, se realiza un estudio crítico de una investigación biomédica en donde las verdaderas probabilidades de error son distintas de las supuestas debido a que se ignoran probables diferencias entre las varianzas....

The goal of this contribution is to introduce some approaches to uncertainty modeling in a way accessible to non-specialists. Elements of the Monte Carlo method, polynomial chaos method, Dempster-Shafer approach, fuzzy set theory, and the worst (case) scenario method are presented.

The minimum variance unbiased, the maximum likelihood, the Bayes, and the naive estimates of the reliability function of a normal distribution are studied. Their asymptotic normality is proved and asymptotic expansions for both the expectation and the mean squared error are derived. The estimates are then compared using the concept of deficiency. In the end an extensive Monte Carlo study of the estimates in small samples is given.

The shape parameter of the Topp-Leone distribution is estimated from classical and Bayesian points of view based on Type I censored samples. The maximum likelihood and the approximate maximum likelihood estimates are derived. The Bayes estimate and the associated credible interval are approximated by using Lindley's approximation and Markov Chain Monte Carlo using the importance sampling technique. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to compare the performances of the proposed methods. Real and...

In this note we propose an exact simulation algorithm for the solution of (1)$$\mathrm{d}{X}_t=\mathrm{d}{W}_t+\overline{b}\left(X_t\right)\mathrm{d}t,X_0=x,$$d X t = d W t + b̅ ( X t ) d t,   X 0 = x, where $\overline{b}$b̅is a smooth real function except at point 0 where $\overline{b}(0+)\ne \overline{b}(0-)$b̅(0 + ) ≠ b̅(0 −) . The main idea is to sample an exact skeleton of Xusing an algorithm deduced from the convergence of the solutions of the skew perturbed equation (2)$$\mathrm{d}{X}_t^{\beta }=\mathrm{d}{W}_t+\overline{b}\left(X_t^{\beta }\right)\mathrm{d}t+\beta \mathrm{d}{L}_t^0\left(X^{\beta }\right),X_0=x$$d X t β = d W t + b̅ ( X t β ) d t + β d L t 0 ( X β ) ,   X 0 = x towardsX solution of (1) as β ≠ 0 tends to 0. In this note, we show that this convergence...