McMASTER UNIVERSITY STATISTICS SEMINAR

Week of March 4 - 9, 2001

SPEAKER:	Aaron Childs Department of Mathematics & Statistics, McMaster University
TITLE:	"Testing for Homogeneity in the Multinomial and Multivariate Hypergeometric Distributions using Inverse Sampling"
DAY:	Wednesday, March 7, 2001
TIME:	3:30 p.m. [Tea & cookies in BSB-202 at 3:00 p.m.]
PLACE:	BSB-108

SUMMARY

In this talk I will first review an alternative to the standard chi-square test for homogeneity in a multinomial population. The test is based on order statistics and inverse sampling. Then I will introduce a new test and explain how the Dirichlet I, J, C, and D functions can be used to calculate Type I error, power, and expected sample size. Generalizations to the multivariate hypergeometric distribution will also be discussed.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Aaron Childs has an undergraduate degree and Master's degree in Mathematics, and Ph.D. in statistics (1996) both from McMaster. During that time, he won the Governor General's Academic Medal, as well as the Graduate Students Association (GSA) Excellence in Teaching Award. He was a professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia for 3 years, and returned to McMaster in September 1999. He has taught a wide variety of courses in both mathematics and statistics. They include introductory statistics, statistical methods/biostatistics, mathematical statistics, stochastic processes, multivariate analysis, probability theory, real analysis, abstract algebra, number theory, calculus, linear algebra, measure and probability.

REFERENCES

The references below, suggested by the speaker as useful background for this talk, have been placed on reserve at Thode Library (STATS 770: Statistics Seminar).

Panchapakesan, S, Childs, A., Humphrey, H., and Balakrishnan, N (1998). Some inverse sampling procedures to test for homogeneity in a multinomial distribution. In: Handbook of Statistics - 17: Order Statistics: Applications (Eds., N. Balakrishnan and C.R. Rao), 401-427, Elsevier Science, North-Holland, Amsterdam.

Sobel, M., Uppuluri, V.R.R. and Frankowski, K. (1977). Dirichlet Distribution-Type 1. Selected Tables in Mathematical Statistics 4. American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island.

Sobel, M., Uppuluri, V.R.R. and Frankowski, K. (1985). Dirichlet Integrals Type 2 and their application. Selected Tables in Mathematical Statistics 9. American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island.