A new family of decreasing density and hazard quantile functions for modeling time-to-event data

Abstract

In this paper, a convenient and parsimonious family of the quantile functions is proposed for modeling time-to-event data. Detailed mathematical arguments are presented for deriving the explicit expressions of the quantile density, quantile hazard and quantile mean remaining life functions. Their functional properties are also explored. Some important members of the family are provided. A special case, the so-called additive power logarithmic quantile family, is discussed with detailed properties, parameter estimation and application to time-to-event data. Measures of skewness and kurtosis for the proposed quantile function are derived. Important statistical measures useful for reliability analysis are also provided with their explicit expressions. Stochastic ordering, tail weight and order statistics are also discussed. L-moments are explicitly derived for the proposed quantile function. Estimation is approached using the likelihood function and percentiles. A real data set consists of times between occurrence of the coal-mining accidents is analyzed for illustration purposes.