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Relative Aging of Distributions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2009

Ginger Rowell  and
Kyle Siegrist
Ginger Rowell
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Belmont University, Nashville, Tennessee 37212, rowellg@belmont.edu
Kyle Siegrist
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899siegrist@math.uah.edu
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Abstract

We consider the reliability of one random variable relative to another, when the variables are continuous and take values in an interval [a, b). We give definitions and characterizations for the exponential property and the standard aging properties IFR, IFRA, and NBU. The exponential property defines an equivalence relation on the distributions, and then each of these aging properties defines a partial order on the distributions, modulo the exponential equivalence. We give a set of conditions that must be satisfied for a general aging property to define such a partial order and show that these conditions are not satisfied by the NBUE property. Several parametric families of distributions are considered.

Type
Research Article
Information
Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October 1998 , pp. 469 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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