The Arctan Power Distribution: Properties, Quantile and Modal Regressions with Applications to Biomedical Data

Abstract

The usefulness of (probability) distributions in the field of biomedical science cannot be underestimated. Hence, several distributions have been used in this field to perform statistical analyses and make inferences. In this study, we develop the arctan power (AP) distribution and illustrate its application using biomedical data. The distribution is flexible in the sense that its probability density function exhibits characteristics such as left-skewedness, right-skewedness, and J and reversed-J shapes. The characteristic of the corresponding hazard rate function also suggests that the distribution is capable of modeling data with monotonic and non-monotonic failure rates. A bivariate extension of the AP distribution is also created to model the interdependence of two random variables or pairs of data. The application reveals that the AP distribution provides a better fit to the biomedical data than other existing distributions. The parameters of the distribution can also be fairly accurately estimated using a Bayesian approach, which is also elaborated. To end the study, the quantile and modal regression models based on the AP distribution provided better fits to the biomedical data than other existing regression models.

Keywords

• quantile regression
• modal regression
• biomedical
• unit distribution
• skewed data