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Recurrence relations for integrals that involve the density of multivariate normal distributions are developed. These recursions allow fast computation of the moments of folded and truncated multivariate normal distributions. Besides being numerically efficient, the proposed recursions also allow us to obtain explicit expressions of low-order moments of folded and truncated multivariate normal distributions. Supplementary material for this article is available online.

Mixtures of factor analyzers (MFA) based on the restricted skew normal distribution (rMSN) have emerged as a flexible tool to handle asymmetrical high-dimensional data with heterogeneity. However, the rMSN distribution is oft-criticized a lack of sufficient ability to accommodate potential skewness arisen from more than one feature space. This paper presents an alternative extension of MFA by assuming the unrestricted skew normal (uMSN) distribution for the component factors. In particular, the proposed mixtures of unrestricted skew normal factor analyzers (MuSNFA) can simultaneously capture multiple directions of skewness and deal with the occurrence of missing values or nonresponses. Under the missing at random (MAR) mechanism, we develop a computationally feasible expectation conditional maximization (ECM) algorithm for computing the maximum likelihood estimates of model parameters. Practical aspects related to model-based clustering, prediction of factor scores and imputation of missing values are also discussed. The utility of the proposed methodology is illustrated with the analysis of simulated and real datasets.

Multiple researchers have proposed skew random fields derived from multivariate skew distributions, yet the consistency of these fields has been questioned. Mahmoudian (2018) and Saber et al. (2018) have put forth alternative suggestions to address these concerns. In our study, we identify that the random fields outlined by Mahmoudian (2018) continue to demonstrate consistency issues, suggesting a flaw in their definition. Finally we propose a skew random field and apply it to spatial prediction.

Simulation from the truncated multivariate normal distribution in high dimensions is a recurrent problem in statistical computing and is typically only feasible by using approximate Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. We propose a minimax tilting method for exact independently and identically distributed data simulation from the truncated multivariate normal distribution. The new methodology provides both a method for simulation and an efficient estimator to hitherto intractable Gaussian integrals. We prove that the estimator has a rare vanishing relative error asymptotic property. Numerical experiments suggest that the scheme proposed is accurate in a wide range of set-ups for which competing estimation schemes fail. We give an application to exact independently and identically distributed data simulation from the Bayesian posterior of the probit regression model.

For random samples of size n obtained from p-variate normal distributions, we consider the classical likelihood ratio tests (LRT) for their means and covariance matrices in the high-dimensional setting. These test statistics have been extensively studied in multivariate analysis, and their limiting distributions under the null hypothesis were proved to be chi-square distributions as n goes to infinity and p remains fixed. In this paper, we consider the high-dimensional case where both p and n go to infinity with p/n → y ∈ (0, 1]. We prove that the likelihood ratio test statistics under this assumption will converge in distribution to normal distributions with explicit means and variances. We perform the simulation study to show that the likelihood ratio tests using our central limit theorems outperform those using the traditional chisquare approximations for analyzing high-dimensional data.

In this study, we derive the characteristic function of the multivariate folded normal distribution, a distribution that arises when the magnitudes—but not the signs—of a normally distributed random vector are of interest. The folded normal distribution is widely applicable across various fields. Thus, obtaining an analytical expression for its characteristic function is pivotal in understanding its fundamental properties. Moreover, this allows one to facilitate numerical evaluations of complex distributions involving linear combinations of absolute values of dependent normal variables. The derivation is based on a novel expression of the moment generating function, formulated using the cumulative distribution function of the multivariate normal distribution. To validate our findings, we present two examples using our MATLAB implementation. We compare the characteristic function for the sum of the absolute values of elements of a multivariate normal vector with the simulated empirical counterpart. Additionally, we derive the second mixed moment of the bivariate folded normal distribution from the moment generating function, demonstrating its agreement with known theoretical expressions.

This book provides a solution to the ecological inference problem, which has plagued users of statistical methods for over seventy-five years: How can researchers reliably infer individual-level behavior from aggregate (ecological) data? In political science, this question arises when individual-level surveys are unavailable (for instance, local or comparative electoral politics), unreliable (racial politics), insufficient (political geography), or infeasible (political history). This ecological inference problem also confronts researchers in numerous areas of major significance in public policy, and other academic disciplines, ranging from epidemiology and marketing to sociology and quantitative history. Although many have attempted to make such cross-level inferences, scholars agree that all existing methods yield very inaccurate conclusions about the world. In this volume, Gary King lays out a unique--and reliable--solution to this venerable problem. King begins with a qualitative overview, readable even by those without a statistical background. He then unifies the apparently diverse findings in the methodological literature, so that only one aggregation problem remains to be solved. He then presents his solution, as well as empirical evaluations of the solution that include over 16,000 comparisons of his estimates from real aggregate data to the known individual-level answer. The method works in practice. King's solution to the ecological inference problem will enable empirical researchers to investigate substantive questions that have heretofore proved unanswerable, and move forward fields of inquiry in which progress has been stifled by this problem.

In this paper, we solve the Fokker–Planck equation of the multivariate Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process to obtain its probability density function. This approach allows us to ascertain the distribution without solving it analytically. We find that, at any moment in time, the process has a multivariate normal distribution. We obtain explicit formulae of mean, covariance, and cross-covariance matrix. Moreover, we obtain its mean-reverting condition and the long-term distribution.

The use of the first two moments of the truncated multivariate Student-t distribution has attracted increasing attention from a wide range of applications. This paper develops recurrence relations for integrals that involve the density of multivariate Student-t distributions. The proposed techniques allow for fast computation of arbitrary-order product moments of folded and truncated multivariate Student-t distributions and offer explicit expressions of low-order moments of folded and truncated multivariate Student-t distributions. A real data example containing positive censored responses is applied to illustrate the effectiveness and importance of the proposed methods. An R MomTrunc package is developed and publicly available on the CRAN repository.