Applications in business, medical and industrial statistics of bi-aspect nonparametric tests for location problems

Abstract.

Starting from the theory of the Nonparametric Combination of Dependent Permutation Tests (Pesarin, 1992, 2001), Marozzi (2002a, b) proposed two bi-aspect nonparametric tests for the two-sample and the multi-sample location problems. These tests are shown by simulation to be remarkably more powerful than the traditional parametric and permutation competitors (which can be seen as uni-aspect tests) under heavy-tailed and skewed distributions. After a brief presentation of the bi-aspect idea to location testing problems, three actual applications are discussed. The first one is a problem of business statistics and deals with the analysis of time for service calls. The second one is in medical statistics and deals with the analysis of the effect of cigarette smoking on maternal airway function during pregnancy. The third one is in industrial statistics and deals with the analysis of the setting of machines that produce steel ball bearings. The bi-aspect testing allows us to draw deeper and more informative inference than that allowed by traditional competitors.