Confidence Intervals for the Coefficient of Quartile Variation of a Zero-inflated Lognormal Distribution

There are many types of skewed distribution, one of which is the lognormal distribution that is positively skewed and may contain true zero values. The coefficient of quartile variation is a statistical tool used to measure the dispersion of skewed and kurtosis data. The purpose of this study is to establish confidence and credible intervals for the coefficient of quartile variation of a zero-inflated lognormal distribution. The proposed approaches are based on the concepts of the fiducial generalized confidence interval, and the Bayesian method. Coverage probabilities and expected lengths were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed approaches via Monte Carlo simulation. The results of the simulation studies show that the fiducial generalized confidence interval and the Bayesian based on uniform and normal inverse Chi-squared priors were appropriate in terms of the coverage probability and expected length, while the Bayesian approach based on Jeffreys' rule prior can be used as alternatives. In addition, real data based on the red cod density from a trawl survey in New Zealand is used to illustrate the performances of the proposed approaches. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01289 Full Text: PDF

A Bayesian Approach for Estimation of Coefficients of Variation of Normal Distributions

The coefficient of variation is widely used as a measure of data precision. Confidence intervals for a single coefficient of variation when the data follow a normal distribution that is symmetrical and the difference between the coefficients of variation of two normal populations are considered in this paper. First, the confidence intervals for the coefficient of variation of a normal distribution are obtained with adjusted generalized confidence interval (adjusted GCI), computational, Bayesian, and two adjusted Bayesian approaches. These approaches are compared with existing ones comprising two approximately unbiased estimators, the method of variance estimates recovery (MOVER) and generalized confidence interval (GCI). Second, the confidence intervals for the difference between the coefficients of variation of two normal distributions are proposed using the same approaches, the performances of which are then compared with the existing approaches. The highest posterior density interval was used to estimate the Bayesian confidence interval. Monte Carlo simulation was used to assess the performance of the confidence intervals. The results of the simulation studies demonstrate that the Bayesian and two adjusted Bayesian approaches were more accurate and better than the others in terms of coverage probabilities and average lengths in both scenarios. Finally, the performances of all of the approaches for both scenarios are illustrated via an empirical study with two real-data examples.

Standardized likelihood ratio test for comparing several log-normal means and confidence interval for the common mean

Standardized likelihood ratio test (SLRT) for testing the equality of means of several log-normal distributions is proposed. The properties of the SLRT and an available modified likelihood ratio test (MLRT) and a generalized variable (GV) test are evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation and compared. Evaluation studies indicate that the SLRT is accurate even for small samples, whereas the MLRT could be quite liberal for some parameter values, and the GV test is in general conservative and less powerful than the SLRT. Furthermore, a closed-form approximate confidence interval for the common mean of several log-normal distributions is developed using the method of variance estimate recovery, and compared with the generalized confidence interval with respect to coverage probabilities and precision. Simulation studies indicate that the proposed confidence interval is accurate and better than the generalized confidence interval in terms of coverage probabilities. The methods are illustrated using two examples.