Rich Ulrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 6/17/03 3:02:20 PM:

>As we have said several times, 
>"Adding one more parameter", if that is what you are 
>doing, gives a nested model, where the F-test is proper 
>and well-known (given:  other assumptions).

I agree & point out that I'm not adding one more parameter, rather,
I'm using a different model.

See Bevington, "Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical
Sciences", McGraw-Hill, 1969. p196 ff.  In particular, p200 ff briefly
discuss the derivation of the nested form to which you refer.

It seems to me that adding one parameter is a special case of using a
different model. Note that I'm not using the special difference form
of the F test; in my case the numerator and denominator are the
reduced chisquares for the two models.

As another example of comparing models, say I'm faced with determining
thermal properties from temperature distribution data in a cooling
sphere. One model is that the temperature distribution is parabolic
while another model is a cosine function; there is only one parameter
in each model. I suggest that the F-test can in fact be used to see if
these two models can be distinguished from the data (to paraphrase R
Dodier, Is the dataset sufficiently large to distinguish between the
two models?).

I agree about the need for independent numerator and denominator.  Is
that requirement somehow relaxed when using the nested model with one
additional parameter approach?

>have a test, so it lends itself to the AIC  or BIC -- those 
>are attempts at borrowing the logic of the 
>(somewhat-similar)  nested tests.  

I looked into the AIC & BIC approaches as soon as you suggested them.
They look useful.  I've not yet seen how one can ascribe a level of
confidence to a difference in AIC measures.  I'd appreciate it if
you'd provide a pointer to such a discussion.

>I think that the AIC and BIC differ mainly in how much 
>they penalize extra degrees of freedom. 
>

PS I find the weight ascribed to additional degrees of freedom in a
chisquare or F-test disquieting. It somehow doesn't seem fair to give
as much weight to an additional data point as one gives to an
additional parameter which operates on all the data.
.
.
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