Testing the Ratio of the Coefficients of Variation for the Inverse Gamma Distributions with an Application to Rainfall Dispersion in Thailand

Main Article Content

Wararit Panichkitkosolkul

Abstract

In Thailand, droughts are regular natural disasters that happen nearly every year due to several factors such as precipitation deficiency, human activity, and global warming. Since annual rainfall amounts fit an inverse gamma (IG) distribution, we consider testing annual rainfall dispersion via the ratio of the coefficients of variation (CVs). Herein, we present three statistics for testing the ratio of the CVs of the IG distributions based on the fiducial quantities (FQ) and the Bayesian methods by the Jeffreys and uniform priors. We evaluated their performances by using Monte Carlo simulations conducted under several shape parameter values for the IG distributions based on empirical type I error rates and powers of the tests. The simulation results reveal that the empirical type I error rates of all test statistics were close to the nominal significance level of 0.05 for all situations. In the case of the power of the test, the test statistics based on the Bayesianmethod by the Jeffreys prior performed better than other test statistics for equal sample sizes. In case of unequal sample sizes, the test statistics based on the Bayesian method by the Jeffreys and uniform priors performed well which based on the hypothesized values of ratio of the CVs.  Furthermore, the efficacies of the proposed test statistics were illustrated by applying them to annual rainfall dispersion in Buriram and Chaiyaphum, Thailand.

Article Details

Section
Articles

References

Abid, S. H. & Al-Hassany, S. A. (2016). On the Inverted Gamma Distributions. International Journal of Systems Science and Applied Mathematics. 1(3): 16-22.

Akaike, H. (1974). A New Look at the Statistical Model Identification. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 19(6): 716-723.

Albatineh, A. N., Boubakari, I. & Kibria, B. M. G. (2017). New Confidence Interval Estimator of the Signal-to-Noise Ratio Based on Asymptotic Sampling Distribution. Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods. 46(2): 574-590.

Bedeian, A. G. & Mossholder, K. W. (2000). On the Use of the Coefficient of Variation as a Measure of Diversity. Organizational Research Methods. 3(3): 285-297.

Calif, R. & Soubdhan, T. (2016). On the Use of the Coefficient of Variation to Measure Spatial and Temporal Correlation of Global Solar Radiation. Renew Energy. 88: 192-199.

Castagliola, P., Celano, G. & Psarakis, S. (2011). Monitoring the Coefficient of Variation Using EWMA Charts. Journal of Quality Technology. 43(3): 249-265.

Dongchu, S. & Keying, Y. (1996). Frequentist Validity of Posterior Quantiles for a Two-Parameter Exponential Family. Biometrika, 83(1): 55-65.

Döring, T. F. & Reckling, M. (2018). Detecting Global Trends of Cereal Yield Stability by Adjusting the Coefficient of Variation. European Journal of Agronomy. 99: 30-36.

Eartheclipse. (2022). What is a Drought?,”. Retrieved April 16, 2022. from https://eartheclipse.

com/natural-disaster/causes-and-effects-of-drought.html.

Faber, D. S. & Korn, H. (1991). Applicability of the Coefficient of Variation Method for Analyzing Synaptic Plasticity. Biophysical Journal. 60(5): 1288-1294.

Gelman, A. (2006). Prior Distributions for Variance Parameters in Hierarchical Models. Bayesian Analysis. 1(3): 515-533.

Glen, A. G. & Leemis, L. M. eds., Computational Probability Applications. Cham: Springer, 2017.

Ihaka, R. & Gentleman, R. (1996). R: A Language for Data Analysis and Graphics. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics. 5(3): 299-314.

Jeffreys, H. (1961). Theory of Probability, 3rd ed. London, England: Oxford University Press.

Kaewprasert, T., Niwitpong, S. A. & Niwitpong, S. (2020). Confidence Interval for Coefficient of Variation of Inverse Gamma Distributions. in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence: Integrated Uncertainty in Knowledge Modelling and Decision Making, Huynh, V. N., Entani, T., Jeenanunta, C., Inuiguchi, M. & Yenradee, P. Eds. Cham: Springer, 2020, 407-418.

Kaewprasert, T., Niwitpong, S. A. & Niwitpong, S. (2023). Confidence Intervals for the Ratio of the Coefficients of Variation of Inverse-Gamma Distributions. Applied Science and Engineering Progress. 16(1): 5660.

Kang, C. W., Lee, M. S., Seong, Y. J. & Hawkins, D. M. (2007). A Control Chart for the Coefficient of Variation. Journal of Quality Technology. 39(2): 151-158.

Krishnamoorthy, K. & Wang, X. (2016). Fiducial Confidence Limits and Prediction Limits for a Gamma Distribution: Censored and Uncensored Cases. Environmetrics, 27(8): 479-493.

Llera, S. & Beckmann, C. F. (2016). Estimating an Inverse Gamma Distribution. Technical report, Radbound University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behavior. ar.Xiv: 1605.01019v2, 2016.

Nairy, K. S. & Rao, K. A. (2003). Tests of Coefficients of Variation of Normal Population. Communications in Statistics - Simulation and Computation. 32: 641-661.

Nationthailand (2022). Nine Hospitals in Provinces Suffer Impact from Drought. Retrieved April 16, 2022. from https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/30380811.

Pattayamail. (2022a). Drought Situation in Chaiyaphum Reaches Crisis Point. Retrieved April 15, 2022 from https://www.pattayamail.com/thailandnews/drought-situation-in-chaiyaphum-reaches-crisis-point-260702.

Pattayamail. (2022b). Buriram Hit By Worst Drought in 50 Years. Retrieved April 16, 2022. from https://www.pattayamail.com/thailandnews/buriram-hit-by-worst-drought-in-50-years-48042.

Reed, G. F., Lynn, F. & Meade, B. D. (2002). Use of Coefficient of Variation in Assessing Variability of Quantitative Assays. Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology. 9(6): 1235-1239.

Srichaiwong, P., Ardwichai, S., Tungchuvong, L. & Kenpahoom, S. (2020). The live weir innovation at Chi river watershed, Chaiyaphum province, Thailand. Bioscience Biotechnology Research Communications. 13(15): 103-107.

Wilson, E. B. & Hilferty, M. M. (1931). The Distribution of Chi-Squares. in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences. 684-688.

Yang, R. & Berger, J. O. (1998). A Catalog of Non-Informative Priors. Retrieved April 11, 2022, from http://www.stats.org.uk/priors/noninformative/YangBerger1998.pdf.