Fitted-residual orthogonality 2026-10-06
For a full-rank ordinary least squares design matrix, the hat matrix and residual projection satisfy . Hence fitted values and regression residuals are perpendicular as observed vectors. Under isotropic errors their cross-covariance matrix is zero, and under a normal linear model the two vectors are independent.
Normal Q-Q plot 2026-10-14
A normal Q-Q plot compares order statistics with standard normal quantiles . For a normal distribution with , the population quantile function is , so the diagnostic sample relation isThe appropriate reference is a line with an intercept and positive slope, not necessarily the identity line. A line can be fitted through two central sample quantiles; R's
qqline uses the quantile levels and by default. Neither that line nor its fitting rule is part of the definition of a normal Q-Q plot. [ref]https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/stats/html/qqnorm.html. R stats documentation, qqnorm and qqline
To isolate curvature, retain the same 19 plotting positions and construct two more ordered sequences:The are continuous uniform distribution quantiles on , while the apply the hyperbolic sine to the reference quantiles. Both examples are symmetric about zero. At ranks , is approximately and is approximately . Again, these are constructed values rather than random draws or real data.
Read these shapes relative to their central slope. The uniform distribution example has , with derivative ; at the upper endpoint the tangent predicts , while . Its lower end lies above the tangent and its upper end below it: the outer quantiles are compressed. The hyperbolic sine example has ; its tangent predicts at the upper endpoint, while . Its lower end lies below the tangent and its upper end above it: the outer quantiles are stretched. Unequal departures at the two ends can suggest skewness. The direction of these descriptions assumes that reference quantiles are horizontal and observed values vertical. The graphs illustrate finite-range shape differences; a sample pattern cannot establish an asymptotic tail probability law or membership in a heavy-tailed distribution class.
A nearly straight normal Q-Q plot is a diagnostic, not a proof of a normal distribution or a formal hypothesis test. Random statistical samples fluctuate, particularly at extreme order statistics, and apparent curvature depends on sample size, plotting positions and the reference line. A calibrated hypothesis test or uncertainty band requires its own assumptions and must account for parameters estimated from the same observations. Sorting also discards the original observation order: rearranging a time series leaves its Q-Q plot unchanged, so the plot cannot establish independence.
For a normal linear model, R's diagnostic normal Q-Q plot uses standardized regression residuals, also called internally studentized residuals. [ref]
https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/stats/html/plot.lm.html. Maindonald and Maechler, R plot.lm documentation, Details
Even with independent errors, the regression residuals have covariance matrix , where is the hat matrix; fitting parameters generally creates dependencies. Dividing by a shared estimated standard deviation creates further dependence, and the distribution of an internally studentized Gaussian residual is not exactly the standard normal distribution. The normal Q-Q plot therefore helps assess error shape alongside other diagnostics rather than certifying independent normal random variables. Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 41 3 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Expanding the ordinary least squares objective givesFor a nonzero vector , , since the design matrix has matrix rank . The Hessian matrix is therefore positive-definite, and is strictly convex. Solving its normal equations gives the unique least-squares estimator:Indeed, expansion about this stationary point and give , which also proves the global minimum directly.
Define the hat matrix . It is a symmetric matrix and an idempotent linear map, since and , and its image is the column space of . Thus is the orthogonal projection onto the fitted mean space. The fitted values are and the regression residual vector is . Because is also a symmetric matrix and an idempotent linear map,These minimization and projection identities do not need errors with a normal distribution; the normal linear model becomes relevant to the distributional calculations.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 ii Paper 3 5I b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Define the hat matrix . It is symmetric and idempotent, the orthogonal projection onto the column space of . Since ,The covariance is . This normal distribution can be singular when , since all fitted vectors lie in the -dimensional model subspace.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 41 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Minimizing the residual sum of squares gives the least-squares normal equations . Since the design matrix has full column rank, has a matrix inverse, soThe sampling distribution follows because a linear transformation of a multivariate normal distribution is again a multivariate normal distribution. Its expectation is , and its covariance matrix is .
The hat matrix is . It is the orthogonal projection matrix onto the column space of : , and . Thus the regression residuals are , withThis is fitted-residual orthogonality. The vectors are jointly normal, so independence of uncorrelated jointly normal variables strengthens both zero-covariance statements to independence.
For the quadratic linear regression, the columns of the design matrix are . The replicated design givesFor , the variance of a fitted regression mean is , henceWriting , this is the quadratic . Its derivative vanishes at ; it decreases before that point and increases afterwards. Therefore the maximum is at , and the minimum is at .
At , and the expected yield is . The unbiased residual variance estimate is . By Cochran's theorem, independently of , giving the Student t confidence intervalThe interval estimates the expected yield, so it uses the variance of a fitted regression mean without an additional future-observation error term. The supplied summary determines the half-width but does not give a numerical value of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 41 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write . In this normal linear model, the ordinary least squares criterion is . Differentiating with respect to gives the normal equations for linear least squares, . Full column rank of the design matrix makes invertible, and completing the square proves that the unique minimum isSince , its sampling distribution is the multivariate normal distributionLet be the hat matrix. It is symmetric and idempotent with rank , and . The regression residual vector is , soAn orthogonal projection of a Gaussian vector onto the residual space gives . The residual projection and fitted projection have zero cross-covariance, hence are independent because they are jointly normal. In particular, is an unbiased estimator of and is independent of . The maximum-likelihood estimator of instead divides by and is not unbiased.
For the null hypothesis , put . Under that null hypothesis, is standard normal and independent of . Therefore the Student t-test usesA two-sided level- test rejects when . The denominator is the estimated standard error of the regression coefficient.
The fitted linear regression includes an intercept and three covariates:Thus , and the residual degrees of freedom are . The fitted conditional mean isEach slope measures a conditional association with the response while the other two covariates are held fixed. Increasing wind speed by one mile per hour corresponds to a fitted decrease of in the concentration units used. Its standard error is , giving and a two-sided p-value of : evidence of a negative conditional association at the 5% level. The temperature slope is per degree Fahrenheit, with standard error , and p-value . The insolation slope is per langley per day, with standard error , and p-value . Neither of these last two conditional effects is significant at 5%; that does not establish that either true slope is zero. These are associations, not a demonstration of causal effects.
The intercept estimates the mean at zero values of all three covariates. Its value has a large standard error , giving and p-value . The zero-covariate combination may be outside the observed range, so this test may have little practical relevance. Every coefficient test uses a Student t-distribution with degrees of freedom.
The reported residual standard deviation measures unexplained variation in concentration units; the subsequent table gives , consistent with after rounding. The five-number residual summary describes the spread, from to , with median . An intercept forces the residual sum to zero, not the residual median. These five numbers alone cannot establish normal errors, constant variance or independence; residual-versus-fitted and quantile-quantile plots would be more informative, and successive days also warrant checking serial dependence. The coefficient of determination means that 65.33% of the sample response sum of squares about its mean is explained by this fit. Its adjusted version iswhich accounts for the number of estimated regression coefficients.
The stepwise selection by the Akaike information criterion searches between the intercept-only model and the specified model with all three main effects. For these Gaussian fits, the printed Akaike information criterion is, up to a constant common to the candidates,The full model has and AIC . Removing insolation increases the residual sum of squares by but decreases AIC to , so that removal is chosen. Removing temperature or wind instead would give AIC or and is worse. In the next step the candidate models include deletions and restoration of insolation. Keeping wind and temperature has the smallest AIC: removing temperature gives , restoring insolation gives , and removing wind gives . Hence the search stops, givingThe accompanying F-tests compare a larger model with a one-parameter reduction: , where is estimated from the larger model. For example, removing insolation gives , equal to the corresponding squared test statistic. Deletions from the second-stage model use in the denominator, whereas restoring insolation uses the full-model denominator. These tests describe the comparisons; they do not determine the AIC choice. In particular, temperature is retained despite its deletion-test p-value . AIC balances fit and complexity, and a stepwise optimum need not be a global optimum over a richer model class. Ordinary coefficient inference after choosing a model does not account for the selection itself.
For positive responses, the Box–Cox transformation is for , and . Its profile likelihood refits the linear regression and variance at each and includes the transformation Jacobian. The graph peaks at roughly –. The approximate 95% likelihood-ratio confidence interval contains values a little below zero through approximately one, using the cutoff . Thus a logarithmic transformation () and a square-root transformation () are plausible, while leaving the response on its original scale () is at or very near the upper confidence boundary. The broad profile supports considering a mild power transformation; it does not determine a sharply estimated power. The raster does not justify more precise endpoints or a decisive assertion about which side of the boundary lies.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 ii Paper 3 5J Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The ordinary least squares estimate, which is also the maximum-likelihood estimate in this normal linear model, gives the hat matrixIt is the orthogonal projection onto the column space of , so , and . Since , the vector of regression residuals is , with multivariate normal distributionFor , its covariance is , which is generally nonzero. Therefore the regression residuals are generally dependent, even though the original errors are independent random variables.
Fit the model in R, compute its internally studentized residuals with
rstandard(fit), and examine a normal Q-Q plot with qqnorm(rstandard(fit)) and qqline(rstandard(fit)). A plot of these regression residuals against the fitted values helps detect a curved mean pattern or nonconstant variance. Approximate agreement with a straight line in the Q-Q plot, with no systematic residual pattern, supports the assumed error model.Here . The average leverage is , and . Thus most diagonal corrections and most off-diagonal dependences are small when only a few directions have been removed from a large sample. Also estimates accurately when is large. These facts make the visual independent-normal approximation reasonable, though exceptional high-leverage observations still deserve attention.
The approximation is not an exact distributional statement: the distribution of an internally studentized Gaussian residual has when and . In particular these residuals are bounded, rather than exactly distributed according to Student's t-distribution. Formal goodness-of-fit calibration should account for fitting and dependence.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 iii Paper 37 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The least-squares estimator minimizes . Differentiation gives , and the full column rank of makes positive definite. HenceThe fitted values are , where the hat matrix is . The regression residuals are . Since is the orthogonal projection matrix onto the column space of , andThis is a singular multivariate normal distribution supported on the -dimensional orthogonal complement of the column space: its components are generally correlated. The equality puts the fitted vector in that column space, while expresses fitted-residual orthogonality. No residual component lies in an explanatory direction that could improve the least-squares fit.
For the calibration model, write for a reading and for the known amount. The first fit assumes with independent errors. Its residual-versus-fitted plot has systematic changes in group means and an increasing within-group spread. These suggest both a nonlinear mean relationship and heteroscedasticity, rather than the random scatter expected from a satisfactory normal linear model.
The Box–Cox transformation plot is a profile log-likelihood for the power parameter . Its maximum is near ; the horizontal line gives an approximate 95% likelihood-ratio confidence interval, which excludes the untransformed value . Since affine rescaling of the response does not change the fitted mean space, fitting the raw power is equivalent to using with an intercept. The second model isIts residual spread is more even, but observation 17 has a conspicuously negative residual near . This motivates checking for an outlier or recording error. The third fit omits that observation; omission should be justified by that investigation, since choosing exclusions from residuals can affect inference. Some group pattern still remains, so the transformation alone does not certify a perfect model.
At an amount of nanograms, the third fit predicts the transformed meanSimply applying the inverse power gives . The requested expected reading needs bias correction after an inverse transformation, since for nonlinear . With and , a second-order Taylor expansion givesHere the correction uses the residual variance, rather than the variance of the estimated fitted mean. The power-transformed Gaussian model is an approximation for positive readings; the fitted mean is over 31 residual standard deviations above zero, so the negative tail has negligible effect on this local approximation. The ordinary inverse-transformed prediction is therefore essentially at the displayed precision.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 37 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The regression residual vector is , where is the hat matrix. Both and are symmetric idempotent matrices, and . Therefore and the linear image of a multivariate normal vector givesThis multivariate normal distribution is singular, with rank : fitted-residual orthogonality forces . Specifically, and for distinct observations. Thus regression residuals are generally neither independent nor identically distributed, even though the model errors are. Also and is independent of , which justifies the standard errors and exact Student t-tests below.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 30 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Full column matrix rank makes a positive-definite matrix, and its matrix inverse is symmetric. Thus the hat matrix satisfiesAlso and the image of is contained in the column space of . These identities show that is the orthogonal projection matrix onto the column space of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 33 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For the normal linear model, the log-likelihood isThe full column rank of the design matrix makes invertible. Differentiating in gives the normal equations . With the minimized residual sum of squares substituted, differentiation in givesThese are the maximum-likelihood estimators almost surely; almost surely when and . The linear transformation of the multivariate normal distribution yieldsDefine the hat matrix . The fitted values are , the regression residuals are , and . The orthogonal projection has rank and annihilates . By Cochran's theorem,Consequently , with bias . The unbiased estimator isIts square root, the reported residual standard error, estimates ; the assertion of unbiasedness applies to the variance, not generally to its square root.
For the paper-strength analysis, let be the measured percentage and . Both normal linear models use independent errors of common variance . Their mean functions are for
lm1, and for lm2, with separately fitted coefficients. The reported residual standard errors are and , respectively.For
lm1, the estimated conditional expectation at a new percentage isThe original data mean must be used for centering the new percentage; its numerical value is not supplied in the excerpt. Because , the two columns of this design matrix are orthogonal, and . Hence the coefficient standard errors in the output giveThis estimates uncertainty in the mean. Predicting an individual future batch would additionally require the new-error variance, estimated by .To compare the nested normal linear models, test against within the quadratic model. The Student t-test statistic isIts two-sided p-value is . Equivalently is a partial F-test statistic with null distribution . Reject the linear restriction and prefer
lm2 at the 5% level. Its residual spread is much smaller; the increase in the coefficient of determination from to supports the same conclusion, although the test is the relevant complexity-adjusted comparison.For regression diagnostics, inspect regression residuals against fitted means and hardwood percentage for omitted curvature, a scale-location plot for nonconstant variance, and a quantile-quantile plot against the normal distribution for departures from the error assumption. Check unusual observations using regression leverage and Cook's distance, and examine residuals in collection or batch order if dependence is plausible. Independence and a common variance require substantive justification as well as these plots; a small p-value for a polynomial term does not itself check the error model.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 33 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The ordinary least squares objective has gradient . The normal equation therefore givesThe Gram matrix is a positive-definite matrix because has full column rank. More explicitly, for any ,since . This proves that the displayed solution is the unique global minimum.
The fitted values are , where the hat matrix isThe inverse of the symmetric matrix is symmetric, so . Multiplication gives . Thus is the orthogonal projection onto the column space of the design matrix.
The regression residual vector is with . Consequently , , and the residual sum of squares isBy fitted-residual orthogonality, . Using , the cross-covariance matrix isBoth vectors are jointly normal, so they are also independent by independence of uncorrelated jointly normal variables. The zero covariance calculation itself only needs the common error variance and lack of error correlations.
For the first wind fit, let be wind velocity and electrical output. The simple linear regression is , with independent . It has two fitted mean parameters and residual degrees of freedom. The missing analysis of variance entries are therefore velocity degrees of freedom , velocity mean square , and residual degrees of freedom . The residual mean square is , and , consistent with the printed value after rounding.
Because the model includes a regression intercept, the coefficient of determination is the explained sum of squares divided by the total centered sum of squares:A large coefficient of determination does not rule out a wrong mean function. In the PDF's first residual-versus-fitted plot, residuals are negative at both ends and positive in the middle. This curved pattern agrees with the visibly flattening output-versus-velocity relationship and motivates a polynomial regression with a quadratic term.
The second wind model is , again with independent common-variance normal errors. Its fitted mean is . The line marked (A) is a two-sided Student t-test of against , conditional on retaining the intercept and linear term. Under the null hypothesis,Its two-sided p-value is . This is far below , so reject a purely linear mean in favour of the quadratic fit. Equivalently, the extra-term nested-model F-test has and null law .
The third fit is a reciprocal-predictor regression, , with estimated mean . It has two mean parameters rather than the quadratic model's three. Its residual standard error is smaller, versus , and its coefficient of determination is larger, versus . The corresponding residual sums of squares are approximately and . The reciprocal fit is preferable on both these fit measures and parsimony. The two models are not nested, so an ordinary extra-term F-test between them is inappropriate. On the common normal-error likelihood, the difference also favours the third model.
Neither lower residual sum of squares nor a higher coefficient of determination establishes adequate assumptions. The quadratic residual-versus-fitted plot removes the original pronounced curvature; the reciprocal plot also has no comparably obvious mean trend. The low-output residuals appear somewhat more spread out, so check scale-location plots and residuals against velocity for heteroscedasticity. Q-Q plots assess normality; residuals against observation order assess serial dependence; regression leverage and Cook's distance identify influential observations. Further cross-validation, replicate observations at comparable velocities, and prediction errors would help choose between their extrapolation behaviours. Both fitted shapes should be judged principally over the observed positive-velocity range.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 206 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The fitted values are , so the hat matrix isIt is symmetric, andIt fixes every vector in the column space of , and annihilates its orthogonal complement. Thus is the orthogonal projection onto that column space, has matrix rank and trace , and is the complementary orthogonal projection. ConsequentlySince , the covariance matrix between the regression residual vector and the coefficient estimate isThese quantities have a joint normal distribution, so they are also independent, a stronger conclusion than zero covariance.
Now has mean zero. Using the expectation of a quadratic form,Thus the maximum-likelihood estimator hasThe unbiased alternative isThe orthogonal projection of a Gaussian vector also yields , explaining the residual degrees of freedom.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 1 5J iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The dashed curves are contours of constant Cook's distance, labelled 0.5 and 1, in the plot of standardized residual against regression leverage. Writing for the diagonal of the hat matrix, for the residual variance estimate, and for the number of fitted coefficients,Thus a contour has . On the actual PDF plot, observation 579 has leverage about 0.084 and standardized residual about , lying beyond the contour and below in influence magnitude, approximately to from the plotted coordinates. It is unusually light relative to its fitted log-weight and potentially influential because deleting it can materially change fitted coefficients. It warrants checking, not automatic deletion. The solid smooth red curve is distinct from the dashed Cook's distance contours.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ib Paper 1 19H a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Minimizing gives the normal equations . Full column rank makes invertible, soWith the hat matrix , the residual is . The symmetric projection has rank , henceand the latter estimator is unbiased.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 218 6 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For the residual-versus-fitted plot, compute fitted values and regression residuals ; the plotted point is .
For the normal Q-Q plot, let be the hat matrix for the full three-column design matrix and let . Form the standardized regression residualsand order them as . R plots against , where are its plotting positions. For , ; is the standard normal distribution function. This standardization is specified in R's diagnostic-plot documentation.
The original PDF shows a residual cloud around zero without compelling systematic curvature or a clear funnel, and a Q-Q pattern approximately following the reference line. Observations 81 and 83 are conspicuous positive tail points, with a smaller lower-tail departure. The plots show no decisive violation of linearity, constant variance or normality, but the extreme residuals merit inspection. They do not test independence across observations and cannot establish that all model assumptions hold.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 3 5J c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The hat matrix is an orthogonal projection of rank , so is an orthogonal projection of rank . Because is a standard multivariate normal distribution vector, Cochran's theorem givesThus . Substituting this into the preceding formula gives the Distribution of the Akaike information criterion in a normal linear model:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 ib Paper 3 18H ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Letbe the hat matrix. Thendepends only on the orthogonal projection , whiledepends only on the orthogonal residual projection .
The random vectors and are jointly multivariate normal, and their cross-covariance isUncorrelated jointly Gaussian vectors are independent. Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 1 13J i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Writewhere and are independent, centered, and have covariance matrix . ThenThe deterministic term is orthogonal in expectation to the two centered random terms, and the random terms are independent. Since the hat matrix is a symmetric idempotent projection of rank ,while . ThereforeIn this bias-variance decomposition for linear prediction, is squared model bias, is variance from fitting coefficients, and is irreducible noise in the future response. Enlarging the model tends to reduce the first term while increasing the fitted-model variance, which is the bias-variance tradeoff.
Standardized regression residual Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
In a normal linear model, the th regression residual has variance , where is a diagonal entry of the hat matrix. Replacing by the residual standard deviation gives the standardized residual used in the normal Q-Q plot of R's linear-model diagnostic plots.
