Hazard Rate and Mean Residual Life Functions of Discrete Distributions

• Activity Number: 425
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences
• Author(s): Pushpa Gupta*+
• Companies: Univ of Maine
• Keywords: Hazard Rate ; Mean Residual Life ; Monotonicity

Abstract

PUSHPA L.GUPTA PROFESSOR

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS UNIVERSITY OF MAINE ORONO, ME 04469-5752 USA

ABSTRACT Discrete failure rates arise in various common situations. For example: (1) a device can be monitored only per time period and the observation is taken as the number of time periods successfully completed prior to the failure of the device (2) a piece of equipment may operate in cycles and the data consist of the number of cycles completed prior to failure. Discrete failure rates also arise in several common situations in reliability theory where clock time is not the best scale on which to describe the life time.

In this presentation, we shall discuss techniques for the determination of the monotonicity of the failure rates and mean residual life functions (MRLF) of discrete distributions. This will include monotonic as well as bath tub (upside bath tub) shaped failure rates and MRLF. Several examples will be presented.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To be presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings, Montreal, Canada, 2013