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Precision (statistics)
In statistics, the precision matrix or concentration matrix is the matrix inverse of the covariance matrix or dispersion matrix, P = \Sigma^. For univariate distributions, the precision matrix degenerates into a scalar precision, defined as the reciprocal of the variance, p = \frac. Other summary statistics of statistical dispersion also called ''precision'' (or ''imprecision'') include the reciprocal of the standard deviation, p = \frac; the standard deviation itself and the relative standard deviation; as well as the standard error and the confidence interval (or its half-width, the margin of error). Usage One particular use of the precision matrix is in the context of Bayesian analysis of the multivariate normal distribution: for example, Bernardo & Smith prefer to parameterise the multivariate normal distribution in terms of the precision matrix, rather than the covariance matrix, because of certain simplifications that then arise. For instance, if both the prior and the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Statistics
Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industrial, or social problem, it is conventional to begin with a statistical population or a statistical model to be studied. Populations can be diverse groups of people or objects such as "all people living in a country" or "every atom composing a crystal". Statistics deals with every aspect of data, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of statistical survey, surveys and experimental design, experiments. When census data (comprising every member of the target population) cannot be collected, statisticians collect data by developing specific experiment designs and survey sample (statistics), samples. Representative sampling assures that inferences and conclusions can reasonably extend from the sample ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Likelihood Function
A likelihood function (often simply called the likelihood) measures how well a statistical model explains observed data by calculating the probability of seeing that data under different parameter values of the model. It is constructed from the joint probability distribution of the random variable that (presumably) generated the observations. When evaluated on the actual data points, it becomes a function solely of the model parameters. In maximum likelihood estimation, the argument that maximizes the likelihood function serves as a point estimate for the unknown parameter, while the Fisher information (often approximated by the likelihood's Hessian matrix at the maximum) gives an indication of the estimate's precision. In contrast, in Bayesian statistics, the estimate of interest is the ''converse'' of the likelihood, the so-called posterior probability of the parameter given the observed data, which is calculated via Bayes' rule. Definition The likelihood function, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normal Distribution
In probability theory and statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. The general form of its probability density function is f(x) = \frac e^\,. The parameter is the mean or expectation of the distribution (and also its median and mode), while the parameter \sigma^2 is the variance. The standard deviation of the distribution is (sigma). A random variable with a Gaussian distribution is said to be normally distributed, and is called a normal deviate. Normal distributions are important in statistics and are often used in the natural and social sciences to represent real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known. Their importance is partly due to the central limit theorem. It states that, under some conditions, the average of many samples (observations) of a random variable with finite mean and variance is itself a random variable—whose distribution c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; ; ; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist, who contributed to many fields in mathematics and science. He was director of the Göttingen Observatory and professor of astronomy from 1807 until his death in 1855. While studying at the University of Göttingen, he propounded several mathematical theorems. As an independent scholar, he wrote the masterpieces '' Disquisitiones Arithmeticae'' and ''Theoria motus corporum coelestium''. Gauss produced the second and third complete proofs of the fundamental theorem of algebra. In number theory, he made numerous contributions, such as the composition law, the law of quadratic reciprocity and the Fermat polygonal number theorem. He also contributed to the theory of binary and ternary quadratic forms, the construction of the heptadecagon, and the theory of hypergeometric series. Due to Gauss' extensive and fundamental contributions to science ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weight Matrix
Weighted least squares (WLS), also known as weighted linear regression, is a generalization of ordinary least squares and linear regression in which knowledge of the unequal variance of observations (''heteroscedasticity'') is incorporated into the regression. WLS is also a specialization of generalized least squares, when all the off-diagonal entries of the covariance matrix of the errors, are null. Formulation The fit of a model to a data point is measured by its residual, r_i , defined as the difference between a measured value of the dependent variable, y_i and the value predicted by the model, f(x_i, \boldsymbol\beta): r_i(\boldsymbol\beta) = y_i - f(x_i, \boldsymbol\beta). If the errors are uncorrelated and have equal variance, then the function S(\boldsymbol\beta) = \sum_i r_i(\boldsymbol\beta)^2, is minimised at \boldsymbol\hat\beta, such that \frac(\hat\boldsymbol\beta) = 0. The Gauss–Markov theorem shows that, when this is so, \hat is a best linear unbiased est ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Identity Matrix
In linear algebra, the identity matrix of size n is the n\times n square matrix with ones on the main diagonal and zeros elsewhere. It has unique properties, for example when the identity matrix represents a geometric transformation, the object remains unchanged by the transformation. In other contexts, it is analogous to multiplying by the number 1. Terminology and notation The identity matrix is often denoted by I_n, or simply by I if the size is immaterial or can be trivially determined by the context. I_1 = \begin 1 \end ,\ I_2 = \begin 1 & 0 \\ 0 & 1 \end ,\ I_3 = \begin 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \end ,\ \dots ,\ I_n = \begin 1 & 0 & 0 & \cdots & 0 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 & \cdots & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 & \cdots & 0 \\ \vdots & \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ 0 & 0 & 0 & \cdots & 1 \end. The term unit matrix has also been widely used, but the term ''identity matrix'' is now standard. The term ''unit matrix'' is ambiguous, because it is also used for a matrix of on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ordinary Least Squares
In statistics, ordinary least squares (OLS) is a type of linear least squares method for choosing the unknown parameters in a linear regression In statistics, linear regression is a statistical model, model that estimates the relationship between a Scalar (mathematics), scalar response (dependent variable) and one or more explanatory variables (regressor or independent variable). A mode ... model (with fixed level-one effects of a linear function of a set of explanatory variables) by the principle of least squares: minimizing the sum of the squares of the differences between the observed dependent variable (values of the variable being observed) in the input dataset and the output of the (linear) function of the independent variable. Some sources consider OLS to be linear regression. Geometrically, this is seen as the sum of the squared distances, parallel to the axis of the dependent variable, between each data point in the set and the corresponding point on the regression ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Generalized Least Squares
In statistics, generalized least squares (GLS) is a method used to estimate the unknown parameters in a Linear regression, linear regression model. It is used when there is a non-zero amount of correlation between the Residual (statistics), residuals in the regression model. GLS is employed to improve efficiency_(statistics), statistical efficiency and reduce the risk of drawing erroneous inferences, as compared to conventional least squares and weighted least squares methods. It was first described by Alexander Aitken in 1935. It requires knowledge of the covariance matrix for the residuals. If this is unknown, estimating the covariance matrix gives the method of feasible generalized least squares (FGLS). However, FGLS provides fewer guarantees of improvement. Method In standard linear regression models, one observes data \_ on ''n'' statistical units with ''k'' − 1 predictor values and one response value each. The response values are placed in a vector,\mathbf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Partial Correlation
In probability theory and statistics, partial correlation measures the degree of association between two random variables, with the effect of a set of controlling random variables removed. When determining the numerical relationship between two variables of interest, using their correlation coefficient will give misleading results if there is another confounding variable that is numerically related to both variables of interest. This misleading information can be avoided by controlling for the confounding variable, which is done by computing the partial correlation coefficient. This is precisely the motivation for including other right-side variables in a multiple regression; but while multiple regression gives unbiased results for the effect size, it does not give a numerical value of a measure of the strength of the relationship between the two variables of interest. For example, given economic data on the consumption, income, and wealth of various individuals, consider the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conditional Independence
In probability theory, conditional independence describes situations wherein an observation is irrelevant or redundant when evaluating the certainty of a hypothesis. Conditional independence is usually formulated in terms of conditional probability, as a special case where the probability of the hypothesis given the uninformative observation is equal to the probability without. If A is the hypothesis, and B and C are observations, conditional independence can be stated as an equality: :P(A\mid B,C) = P(A \mid C) where P(A \mid B, C) is the probability of A given both B and C. Since the probability of A given C is the same as the probability of A given both B and C, this equality expresses that B contributes nothing to the certainty of A. In this case, A and B are said to be conditionally independent given C, written symbolically as: (A \perp\!\!\!\perp B \mid C). The concept of conditional independence is essential to graph-based theories of statistical inference, as it estab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Positive-definite Matrix
In mathematics, a symmetric matrix M with real entries is positive-definite if the real number \mathbf^\mathsf M \mathbf is positive for every nonzero real column vector \mathbf, where \mathbf^\mathsf is the row vector transpose of \mathbf. More generally, a Hermitian matrix (that is, a complex matrix equal to its conjugate transpose) is positive-definite if the real number \mathbf^* M \mathbf is positive for every nonzero complex column vector \mathbf, where \mathbf^* denotes the conjugate transpose of \mathbf. Positive semi-definite matrices are defined similarly, except that the scalars \mathbf^\mathsf M \mathbf and \mathbf^* M \mathbf are required to be positive ''or zero'' (that is, nonnegative). Negative-definite and negative semi-definite matrices are defined analogously. A matrix that is not positive semi-definite and not negative semi-definite is sometimes called ''indefinite''. Some authors use more general definitions of definiteness, permitting the matrices to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
