Schur Complement - Applications To Probability Theory and Statistics

Applications To Probability Theory and Statistics

Suppose the random column vectors X, Y live in Rn and Rm respectively, and the vector (X, Y) in Rn+m has a multivariate normal distribution whose variance is the symmetric positive-definite matrix

where A is n-by-n and C is m-by-m.

Then the conditional variance of X given Y is the Schur complement of C in V:

If we take the matrix V above to be, not a variance of a random vector, but a sample variance, then it may have a Wishart distribution. In that case, the Schur complement of C in V also has a Wishart distribution.

Read more about this topic:  Schur Complement

Famous quotes containing the words probability, theory and/or statistics:

    “Legends of prediction are common throughout the whole Household of Man. Gods speak, spirits speak, computers speak. Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.”
    —Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)

    “By the “mud-sill” theory it is assumed that labor and education are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread-mill, is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be—all the better for being blind, that he could not tread out of place, or kick understandingly.... Free labor insists on universal education.”
    —Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    “O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)