Abstract #302166

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JSM 2003 Abstract #302166
Activity Number: 206
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Tuesday, August 5, 2003 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
Sponsor: Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences
Abstract - #302166
Title: The Exact Confidence Interval for a Normal Distribution Coefficient of Variation
Author(s): Steve P. Verrill*+ and Patricia Lebow
Companies: SWST and U.S. Forest Products Laboratory
Address: 842 Sauk Ridge Trail, Madison, WI, 53717-1185,
Keywords: coefficient of variation ; normal distribution ; confidence bounds
Abstract:

In a 1996 American Statistician paper, Vangel discusses approximate methods for obtaining confidence intervals on normal distribution coefficients of variation. He notes that an exact approach is available, but states that it is "computationally cumbersome." We review the exact approach and describe web resources that greatly ease any computational difficulties. We also demonstrate that the approximate approaches do not perform as well as the exact approach for large coefficients of variation and small sample sizes. In a 2002 paper in the Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Wong and Wu take a small sample asymptotic inference approach to the coefficient of variation confidence interval problem. We show that in some cases appropriate modifications of their approach lead to superefficient confidence bounds.

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