Estimation for a Family of Lifetime Distributions by Transformation Method
Surinder Kumar and Prem Lata Gautam*
Department of Statistics, School for Physical and Decision Sciences, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, India
E-mail: surinderntls@gmail.com; premgautm61@gmail.com
Corresponding Author
Received 15 March 2021; Accepted 15 July 2021; Publication 23 August 2021
For a Family of lifetime distributions proposed by Chaturvedi and Singh (2008) [6]. The problem of estimating , which is defined as the probability that a system survives until time t and , which represents the stress-strength model are revisited. In order to obtain the maximum likelihood estimators (MLE’S), uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimators (UMVUS’S), interval estimators and the Bayes estimators for the considered model. The technique of transformation method is used.
Keywords: Family of lifetime distributions, uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator, maximum likelihood estimator, confidence interval, bayes estimator.
The reliability of an item or system can be defined as a function of time ‘t’ i.e, , which defines the failure free operation of items/components until time ‘t’. One another important measure of reliability under the stress-strength model is , which represents the reliability of an item or system for the random strength Y and random stress X.
A lot of work has been done in the literature on the point estiamtion of R. For a brief review literature one may refer to Pugh (1963) [12], Basu (1964) [3], Church and Harris (1970) [8], Enis and Geisser (1971) [10], Downton (1973) [9], Tong (1974) [19], Kelly et al. (1976) [11], Sinha and Kale (1980) [15], Sathe and Shah (1981) [14], Chao (1982) [4], Awad and Gharraf (1986) [2], Chaturvedi and Surinder (1999) [7], Rezaei et al. (2010) [13], Chaturvedi and Pathak (2012) [5], Surinder and Mayank(2014) [18], Surinder and Mukesh (2015) [16] and Surinder and Mukesh (2016) [17].
Chaturvedi and Singh (2008) [6] derived a family of lifetime distributions with the help of Weibull distribution. Let the random variable X follows a family of lifetime distributions, then the pdf is presented as
| (1) |
Here, is a function of and may also depend on the parameters a and . may be vector valued. represents the derivative of with respect to .
The presented model (1) covers the following lifetime distributions as specific cases:
1. For and a=0, we get the one-parameter exponential distribution.
2. For and a=0, we get the Weibull distribution.
3. For and a=0, we get the Rayleigh distribution.
4. For and a=0, we get the Burr distribution.
5. For , we get the Pareto distribution.
6. For and a=0, we get the Lomax distribution.
7. For and a=0, we get the Burr distribution with scale parameter .
8. For and a=0, we get the modified Weibull distribution.
9. For , we get the generalised Pareto distribution.
10. For and a=0, we get the linear exponential distribution.
11. For and a=0, we get the generalised power Weibull distribution.
12. For and a=0, we get the Gompertz distribution.
13. For and a=0, we get the Chen distribution.
14. For , we get the two-parameter exponential distribution.
In the following theorem, MLE of R is derived through the transformation method
Theorem 1: The MLE of is
| (2) |
where, and
Proof: Let the random variable X follows a Family of lifetime distribution with pdf
| (3) |
For the given equation (3), let us consider the transformation . Then the distribution become
| (4) |
where, .
Now, let us consider Y be a random variable with pdf
| (5) |
Similarly, let us take the transformation and , we get
| (6) |
Let t and z be two independent random variable which follows exponential distribution (4) and (6) with parameters and , respectively, where and . The relaibility model is
After solving, we get
| (7) |
On replacing the and by their MLE’S i.e, and . The MLE of is
where, and . Finally, MLE of is
where, and .
Hence, the theorem follows.
1. Implication
Here, we consider the different cases for the distributions to obtain the MLE of given in (2)
| Values of parameters for The MLE of | |
| Distributions | Values of Parameter |
| The one-parameter exponential distribution | and |
| Weibull distribution | and |
| for | |
| Rayleigh distribution | and |
| Burr distribution | and |
| for | |
| Pareto distribution | and |
| Lomax distribution | and |
| for | |
| Burr distribution with scale parameter | and |
| for | |
| The modified Weibull distribution | and |
| for | |
| The generalised | |
| Pareto distribution | |
| for , | |
| The linear exponential distribution | |
| for and | |
| The generalised power Weibull distribution | and |
| and | |
| The Gompertz distribution | and |
| Chen distribution | and |
| The two-parameter exponential distribution | and |
In the following theorem, UMVUE of R is derived through the transformation method
Theorem 2: The UMVUE of is
| (8) |
where, and .
Proof: Considering the transfomation and , we have the transform Equations (4) and (6). To obtain the measure of reliabilIty estimate , we required to obtain the UMVUE of and i.e, and respectively, which is given by
| (9) |
and
| (10) |
Now to obtain UMVUE of R we have,
| let |
Now consider the case . Let , for solving the integral assuming i.e., and .
In a same manner, we tackle the case when :
The UMVUE of is obtained by substituting and .
Hence, the theorem follows.
2. Implication
Here, we consider the different cases for the distributions to obtain the UMVUE
of given in (4)
| Values of parameters for The UMVUE of | |
| Distributions | Values of Parameter |
| The one-parameter exponential distribution | and |
| Weibull distribution | and for |
| Rayleigh distribution | and |
| Burr distribution | and |
| for | |
| Pareto distribution | and |
| Lomax distribution | and |
| for | |
| Burr distribution with scale parameter | and |
| for | |
| The modified Weibull distribution | and |
| for | |
| The generalised Pareto distribution | |
| for , | |
| The linear exponential distribution | |
| for and | |
| The generalised power | and |
| Weibull distribution | and |
| The Gompertz distribution | and |
| Chen distribution | and |
| The two-parameter exponential distribution | and |
In the following theorem, confidence interval of R is derived through the transformation method
Theorem 3: The confidence interval of is
| (11) |
where, and .
Proof: From the Theorem 1, the MLE of R is or . As we know and follows Gamma distribution with parameters and , respectively. For Confidence Interval of R, we must obtain the exact distribution of the variable
| (12) |
Let and and observe that and have gamma distribution with the parameters and respectively. New set of varible is .
On taking and expressing the old variable in terms of new ones . The Jacobian of transformation is . The joint pdf of and
| (13) |
Intergrating out , we have the maginal distribution of
Here, has a beta distribution with the known parameters and . So we have, for any
| (14) |
where, is the incomplete beta function. After calculation for the conection of and , we have the pivotal quantity
where, and .
If c and d in (14) are such that for a given
then,
| (15) |
After solving the equation (15) for R.
The above equation is valid for any values of and , large or small.
Hence the theorem follows.
3. Implication
Here, we consider the different cases for the distributions to obtain the
Confidence Interval of given in (11)
| Values of parameters for The Confidence Integral of | |
| Distributions | Values of Parameter |
| The one-parameter exponential distribution | and |
| Weibull distribution | and |
| Rayleigh distribution | and |
| Burr distribution | and |
| Pareto distribution | and |
| Lomax distribution | and |
| , for | |
| Burr distribution with scale parameter | and |
| and | |
| The modified Weibull distribution | and |
| and | |
| The generalised Pareto distribution | and |
| and | |
| The linear exponential distribution | and |
| and | |
| The generalised power | and |
| Weibull distribution | and |
| The Gompertz distribution | and |
| and | |
| Chen distribution | and |
| The two-parameter exponential distribution | and |
In the following theorem, Bayes estimator of R is derived through the Transformation method
Theorem 4: The Bayes estimator of R is
| (16) |
where is the hypergeometric series and .
Proof: Let us consider and be the independent samples from the pdfs (4) and (6). Here considering the conjugate prior, inverse gamma distributions for and with the parameters , , and , , respectively. Prior is
| (17) |
The likelihood is
| (18) |
Applying Bayes formula and using (17) and (18). The posterior density of is
| (19) |
Evidently the posterior risk is also the product of gamma pdfs with the updated parameters
where, and are the sample means.
For posterior pdf of R, we consider a one-to-one transformation with the inverse . The Jacobian of transformation is . The joint posterior density of R and becomes
| (20) |
where .
Intergrating the (20) for
| (21) |
where, is the normalizing coefficient. For the Baye estimator we have
| (22) |
Using the (21) and solving (22), we obtain the bayes estimator of R
where, is the hypergeometric series.
For the Bayes estimator , replacing the parameters as
Hence, the theorem follows.
4. Implication
Here, we consider the different cases for the distributions to obtain the Bayes
estimators of given in (16)
| Values of parameters for The Bayes estimators of | |
| Distributions | Values of Parameter |
| The one-parameter exponential | |
| distribution | |
| Weibull distribution | |
| Rayleigh distribution | |
| Burr distribution | |
| Pareto distribution | |
| Lomax distribution | , |
| Burr distribution with scale parameter | , |
| The modified Weibull distribution | , |
| The generalised Pareto distribution | |
| The linear exponential distribution | |
| The generalised power | |
| Weibull distribution | |
| The Gompertz distribution | , |
| Chen distribution | |
| The two-parameter exponential distribution | |
The Family of lifetime distribution is used in order to obtained the MLES, UMVUES, Confidence intervals and Bayes estimators of R for the various distributions. Initially, the generalized expressions for obtaining the MLES, UMVUES, Confidence intervals and Bayes estimators of R are obtained, then the estimator of the corresponding distributions are simply obtained by just replacing their respective parameters. For example, consider the following examples:-
Example 1 – Consider the Weibull distribution
Let be a random sample from WE() and
be a random sample from WE(). Amiri
et al. (2013) [1] obtained the MLE and UMVUE of R for Weibull distribution,
which is given as
and the UMVUE of is
where, and are the sufficient statistics for the and .
Example 2 – Consider the Burr distribution
Let be a Burr random variable with parameters (p, b) and is another Burr
random variable with parameters (a, b). Awad and Gharraf (1986) [2] obtained
the MLE and UMVUE of R for Burr distribution, which is given as
and the UMVUE of is
where, and
Example 3 – Consider the generalized Pareto distribution
Suppose be a random sample from GP() and
be a random sample from GP(). Rezaei et al.
(2010) [13] obtained the MLE and UMVUE of R for generalized Pareto
distribution, which is given as
and the UMVUE of is
where, and
Remarks: All the above Example 1–3 are the specific cases of our generalized expressions. Thus, in this study we have suggested a very simple and approved method i.e, transformation method for obtaining the MLES, UMVUES, Confidence intervals and Bayes estimators of R for the different distributions.
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Surinder Kumar, Head, Dept. of Statistics, BBAU (A central University), Lucknow – India. He is having 26 years research experience in various research fields of Statistics such as Sequential Analysis, Reliability Theory, Business Statistics and Bayesian Inference. Prof. Kumar has published more than 60 research publications in various journals of national and international repute.
Prem Lata Gautam, Dept. of Statistics, BBAU (A Central University) Lucknow, India. She has research experiences of 6 years and has also published 6 research articles in various reputed journals in the field of Sequential analysis, Bayesian estimation and Reliability theory and wholesome knowledge of many softwares and language like R Software, Mathematica and Fortron.
Journal of Reliability and Statistical Studies, Vol. 14, Issue 2 (2021), 393–414.
doi: 10.13052/jrss0974-8024.1422
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