We practice some derivations in this lab session

Q1

The negative binomial distribution has probability mass function \[ \mathbb{P}(Y = y) = \binom{y + r - 1}{r - 1} (1 - p)^r p^y, \quad y = 0, 1, \ldots \] Show that \(\mathbb{E}Y = \mu = rp / (1 - p)\) and \(\operatorname{Var} Y = r p / (1 - p)^2\).

Q2

In GLM, the distribution of \(Y\) is from the exponential family of distributions of form \[ f(y \mid \theta, \phi) = \exp \left[ \frac{y \theta - b(\theta)}{a(\phi)} + c(y, \phi) \right]. \] Show that exponential family distributions have mean and variance \[\begin{eqnarray*} \mathbb{E}Y &=& \mu = b'(\theta) \\ \operatorname{Var}Y &=& \sigma^2 = b''(\theta) a(\phi). \end{eqnarray*}\] Thus the function \(b\) determines the moments of \(Y\).

Q3

For GLM, \[\begin{eqnarray*} \ell(\boldsymbol{\beta}) &=& \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{y_i \theta_i - b(\theta_i)}{a(\phi)} + c(y_i, \phi) \\ \nabla \ell(\boldsymbol{\beta}) &=& \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{(y_i - \mu_i) \mu_i'(\eta_i)}{\sigma_i^2} \mathbf{x}_i \\ - \nabla^2 \ell(\boldsymbol{\beta}) &=& \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{[\mu_i'(\eta_i)]^2}{\sigma_i^2} \mathbf{x}_i \mathbf{x}_i^T - \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{(y_i - \mu_i) \mu_i''(\eta_i)}{\sigma_i^2} \mathbf{x}_i \mathbf{x}_i^T \\ & & + \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{(y_i - \mu_i) [\mu_i'(\eta_i)]^2 (d \sigma_i^{2} / d\mu_i)}{\sigma_i^4} \mathbf{x}_i \mathbf{x}_i^T. \end{eqnarray*}\]

Show that for GLMs with canonical links, the second term and third term in the Hessian equation cancel using the fact \[ \frac{d\mu_i}{d \eta_i} = \frac{d\mu_i}{d \theta_i} = \frac{d \, b'(\theta_i)}{d \theta_i} = b''(\theta_i) = \frac{\sigma_i^2}{a(\phi)}. \] Therefore for canonical link the negative Hessian is positive semidefinite and Newton’s algorithm with line search is stable.

\[ - \nabla^2 \ell(\boldsymbol{\beta}) = \sum_{i=1}^n \frac{[\mu_i'(\eta_i)]^2}{\sigma_i^2} \mathbf{x}_i \mathbf{x}_i^T = \mathbf{X}^T \mathbf{W} \mathbf{X} \succeq 0, \]