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For $y>0$, the Box–Cox transformation isThe value of $\lambda$ can be selected by maximizing its profile likelihood; $\lambda =1$ corresponds to an affine transformation of the original response, while $\lambda =0$ gives a logarithmic transformation.

A ratio translating a background yield in a particle-physics control region into its yield in a signal region. It may be estimated with simulation and calibration measurements. Its uncertainty must include acceptance, response and physics differences between the regions; contaminating backgrounds are subtracted or fitted jointly. A profile likelihood can constrain the control and signal counts together rather than treating the transferred estimate as exact.

The ATLAS experiment and CMS experiment searched proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider at collision energies of $7$ and $8\mathrm{TeV}$. The ATLAS experiment used silicon tracking, a $2\mathrm{T}$ solenoid, liquid-argon electromagnetic calorimeters and an external muon spectrometer. Its July 2012 paper reported a combined local statistical significance of $6.0$ standard deviations near $126.5\mathrm{GeV}$; this paper result is distinct from the initial 4 July announcement.^[ref]

The CMS experiment used silicon tracking in a $3.8\mathrm{T}$ solenoid, lead-tungstate electromagnetic calorimeters and external muon chambers. Electrons combine tracks and particle showers; muons combine tracking and chamber hits; photons supply shower energies and directions. Selected $H\to \gamma \gamma$ and $H\to Z{Z}^{\ast }\to 4\ell$ candidates, with $\ell =e,\mu$, yielded invariant mass peaks. It checked lepton efficiencies with Z boson decays, estimated fake-lepton backgrounds from control samples with relaxed identification, and fitted the smooth diphoton background from data. Its combined local statistical significance was $5.0$ standard deviations near $125\mathrm{GeV}$.^[ref]

The ATLAS experiment compared signal-plus-background and background-only hypotheses with a profile likelihood, accounting for systematic uncertainties and correlations between decay channels. Diphoton and four-lepton candidates gave precise invariant masses; $W{W}^{\ast }$ decays supplied additional evidence with poorer mass reconstruction because of escaping neutrinos. A local p-value concerns one specified mass; scanning masses requires a look-elsewhere effect correction.^[ref]

Two-photon decay excludes spin one under the usual assumptions, but does not prove spin zero. A mass peak does not determine every Higgs boson coupling. Production rates, branching fractions and angular correlations require additional tests.^[ref]

If a statistic T has marginal density depending on a parameter of interest but not on a nuisance parameter, that density gives a likelihood for the interest parameter. It is obtained by integrating out other observed coordinates. In contrast, profile likelihood maximizes the full likelihood over the nuisance parameter. This sampling-statistic construction is different from Bayesian model evidence, which integrates parameters against a prior. No prior is required for a nuisance-free sampling marginal.

A nuisance parameter is a statistical parameter required to specify the distribution of observations but not itself the target of inference. A profile likelihood maximizes over it; Bayesian model evidence integrates over it using a proper prior distribution. These operations differ and need not give the same inference. A baseline hazard in a Cox proportional-hazards model is an infinite-dimensional example.

For conditionally independent paired counts with means ${\lambda }_i$ and ${\lambda }_i{e}^{\beta }$, condition on every pair total $N_i=Y_{i0}+Y_{i1}$. The joint conditional likelihood removes all pair-specific rates, leaving the displayed independent binomial distributions. A zero-total pair contributes no information. With unrestricted fixed baseline rates, this conditional likelihood has the same parameter-dependent part as the ordinary profile likelihood; a specified Gamma–Poisson hierarchical model can retain additional information by imposing structure on those rates.

Let each observation have dimension $p$, and define the sample mean and the divisor-$n$ sample covariance matrix byThe multivariate normal distribution gives the log-likelihoodWriting $y_i-\mu =(y_i-\bar{y})+(\bar{y}-\mu )$ makes the cross terms vanish, and the last sum becomes $n\mathrm{tr}(V^{-1}S)+n(\bar{y}-\mu {)}^T{V}^{-1}(\bar{y}-\mu )$. Since $V$ is a positive-definite matrix, its minimum over the mean is at $\hat{\mu }=\bar{y}$. ConsequentlyWhen $S$ is a positive-definite matrix, $\log \det (V^{-1}S)=\log \det S-\log \det V$. Thuswhere $C^{\prime }$ depends on the data but not on $V$.

For the maximum-likelihood estimator, consider the positive-definite matrix $Q=S^{1/2}{V}^{-1}{S}^{1/2}$, with positive eigenvalues $a_1,\dots ,a_p$. The part of the profile likelihood depending on $V$ is $\frac{n}{2}{\sum }_j(\log a_j-a_j)$. The elementary inequality $\log a-a\le -1$, with equality exactly at $a=1$, shows that the unique maximizing matrix is $Q=I$. HenceThe divisor is $n$, not the unbiased covariance divisor $n-1$. The regularity qualification matters: if $S$ is singular, the displayed logarithm of its determinant is not finite, and no positive-definite covariance maximizes the likelihood. Sending the fitted variance in a null direction of $S$ to zero makes the likelihood unbounded. For a nonsingular normal population, $S$ is positive definite almost surely when $n>p$, which is the setting of the large-sample test.

Partition the statistical parameter as $\theta =(\psi ,\lambda )$, with $\psi$ of interest. For each fixed $\psi$, maximize over the nuisance parameter to obtain ${\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi }$. The profile likelihood and profile log-likelihood areTheir maximizer is the interest component of the joint maximum-likelihood estimator. At a regular nuisance maximum, ${\ell }_p^{\prime }(\psi )={\ell }_{\psi }(\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })$ and its negative Hessian matrix is the Schur complementThe profile likelihood ratio is unchanged by a one-to-one nuisance reparametrization, and transforms naturally under a one-to-one interest reparametrization. Under the regular conditions of Wilks theorem, $2\{{\ell }_p(\hat{\psi })-{\ell }_p({\psi }_0)\}$ has a limiting chi-squared distribution with dimension of $\psi$ degrees of freedom. Profiling is maximization, rather than integration or conditioning; $L_p$ need not be a normalized data density, and nuisance fitting can cause appreciable higher-order distortion.

The modified profile likelihood corrects for nuisance curvature and sample-coordinate distortion. In suitable coordinates $(\hat{\psi },\hat{\lambda },a)$, with $a$ an ancillary statistic, setholding $\hat{\psi },a$ fixed when differentiating the data coordinates. Up to an interest-independent factor, the Barndorff-Nielsen modified profile likelihood isEquivalently, implicit differentiation of the nuisance score equation gives $J_{\psi }=|j_{\lambda \lambda }{|}^{-1}|{\ell }_{\lambda ;\hat{\lambda }}|$, andThe semicolon denotes sample-coordinate differentiation, not a second parameter derivative. In orthogonal coordinates, the Cox-Reid adjusted profile likelihood uses the information adjustment alone; it agrees with this modification when $J_{\psi }=1$, as happens below.

For the Inverse Gaussian distribution, write $s={\sum }_i{y}_i$, $r={\sum }_i{y}_i^{-1}$ and $\bar{y}=s/n$. Terms independent of both parameters can be absorbed into $c(y)$, givingThe nuisance score function isIt is positive below $\bar{y}$ and negative above it. Thus its global maximum isindependent of $\psi$. Put $D=r-n/\bar{y}$. ThenThe nuisance observed information at this fit isSince the constrained nuisance estimator is literally the full nuisance estimator as a function of the data, $J_{\psi }=1$ in the specified sample coordinates. Hence the modified profile likelihood for inverse Gaussian shape isFor $n\ge 2$ and a nonconstant positive sample, the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives $D>0$. The corresponding fits are ${\hat{\psi }}_p=n/D$ and ${\hat{\psi }}_m=(n-1)/D$. A constant sample has $D=0$ and no finite profile maximum; under continuous independent sampling this event has probability zero when $n\ge 2$. In particular, the modified coefficient accounts for the fitted mean nuisance parameter.

For an interest parameter $\psi$ and nuisance parameter $\lambda$, the profile likelihood is $L_p(\psi )=L(\psi ,{\tilde{\lambda }}_{\psi })$, where ${\tilde{\lambda }}_{\psi }$ maximizes the likelihood at fixed $\psi$. Its maximum occurs at the joint maximum-likelihood estimate of $\psi$. It preserves the optimized likelihood ratios for different interest values and is unchanged by one-to-one reparametrization of the nuisance at each fixed $\psi$. It generally is neither a marginal sampling density nor a conditional likelihood, and eliminating nuisance parameters by maximization can introduce appreciable small-sample distortion. Differentiating the constrained score equation gives the curvature formulaat a joint stationary point. The corresponding expected-information expression is the efficient information for the interest parameter. Under the regular conditions of Wilks theorem, twice the profile log-likelihood drop has an asymptotic chi-squared distribution with the dimension of the interest parameter as its degrees of freedom.

For scalar nuisance, the Barndorff-Nielsen modified profile likelihood may be writtenwhere the sample-coordinate derivative holds $\hat{\psi }$ and the ancillary statistic fixed. For vector nuisance the last two quantities are determinants. An equivalent form is ${\ell }_m={\ell }_p+\frac{1}{2}\log |j_{\lambda \lambda }|-\log |{\ell }_{\lambda ;\hat{\lambda }}|$, since differentiating the constrained nuisance score gives ${\ell }_{\lambda ;\hat{\lambda }}=j_{\lambda \lambda }\partial {\tilde{\lambda }}_{\psi }/\partial \hat{\lambda }$. The semicolon denotes differentiation in sample coordinates, not another ordinary parameter derivative. This Jacobian determinant adjustment is essential to the definition.

In the present model setThe log-likelihood is $\ell =-n\log \lambda -\psi {\sum }_i{x}_i-A(\psi )/\lambda$. ConsequentlyThe profile score is $nB/A-{\sum }_i{x}_i$, and its derivative is $-n(C/A-(B/A{)}^2)$. The expression in parentheses is the variance of the fixed design values under positive weights proportional to $Y_i{e}^{-\psi x_i}$. Thus the profile log-likelihood is strictly concave for a nonconstant design. Its score changes from $n{\max }_i{x}_i-{\sum }_i{x}_i>0$ to $n{\min }_i{x}_i-{\sum }_i{x}_i<0$ as $\psi$ goes from $-\infty$ to $+\infty$, giving a unique finite fit. If all $x_i$ coincide, only the mean $\lambda e^{\psi x_i}$ is identifiable and inference on $\psi$ alone is not defined; that exceptional design must be excluded.

The specified ancillary coordinates give $Y_i=\hat{\lambda }\exp (\hat{\psi }{x}_i+a_i)$. At fixed $\hat{\psi },a$, therefore,Meanwhile the constrained observed information isSubstitution provesEquivalently the sample derivative of the nuisance score is ${\ell }_{\lambda ;\hat{\lambda }}=A/({\lambda }^2\hat{\lambda })$, which equals $n/({\tilde{\lambda }}_{\psi }\hat{\lambda })$ at the constrained fit and gives the same cancellation. Thus the modified profile likelihood for exponential regression is proportional to the ordinary profile likelihood. This conclusion uses the given ancillary; no proof of its ancillarity is required.

For parameter of interest $\psi$ and nuisance parameter $\lambda$, the profile likelihood has log form ${\ell }_p(\psi )=\ell (\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })$, where ${\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi }$ is the constrained nuisance maximum. Profiling optimizes over the nuisance dimension but does not account for its local volume or conditioning geometry. The modified profile likelihood corrects this loss.

Use ancillary sample coordinates $(\hat{\psi },\hat{\lambda },a)$, and let $j_{\lambda \lambda }(\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })=-{\ell }_{\lambda \lambda }$ be the nuisance block of observed information. Holding $\hat{\psi },a$ fixed, put $D(\psi )=|\partial {\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi }/\partial \hat{\lambda }|$. The Barndorff-Nielsen modified profile likelihood is, up to data-only factors,This combines a nuisance-information determinant and a data-coordinate Jacobian determinant. Implicit differentiation of ${\ell }_{\lambda }(\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })=0$ gives $\partial {\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi }/\partial \hat{\lambda }=j_{\lambda \lambda }^{-1}{\ell }_{\lambda ;\hat{\lambda }}$, so equivalentlyThe semicolon denotes differentiation in the varying sample coordinate, rather than a parameter derivative. This form also explains the positive adjustment in Question 2: in that canonical conditional problem the mixed sample derivative is data-only, leaving the positive half-log curvature. The adjustment sign cannot be copied between unrelated constructions without tracking their Jacobians.

In an appropriate orthogonal nuisance formulation, the Cox-Reid adjusted profile likelihood uses ${\ell }_p-\frac{1}{2}\log |j_{\lambda \lambda }|$. It is a useful simpler adjustment, but discarding $D$ is not universally legitimate. For normal data with interest ${\sigma }^2$ and nuisance $\mu$, the constrained and full nuisance fits both equal $\bar{X}$, so $D=1$ and $j_{\mu \mu }=n/{\sigma }^2$. Thusrecovering the residual degrees of freedom and fitted variance ${\sum }_i(X_i-\bar{X}{)}^2/(n-1)$. These adjustments target nuisance-related bias and higher-order likelihood inference; they are approximations to conditional or marginal constructions, not an assertion that profiling has become an exact full sampling density.

A marginal statistical likelihood uses a statistic whose marginal sampling distribution depends on the parameter of interest but does not involve the nuisance parameter. It integrates out other observed coordinates. A profile likelihood instead keeps the full data and, for every fixed interest parameter, fits the nuisance parameter by maximizing the full likelihood. Profiling supplies a likelihood function but usually not a normalized sampling probability density function. Here the marginalization is of data coordinates; Bayesian model evidence averages parameters against a prior and is a separate construction.

Use shape-rate notation for the gamma distribution. The independent sums have $X\sim \mathrm{Gamma}(m,\psi \lambda )$ and $Y\sim \mathrm{Gamma}(n,\lambda )$, so their joint probability density for $x,y>0$ isFor $x=tu$, $y=u$ the absolute Jacobian determinant is u. ThereforeIntegrate u using the gamma integral ${\int }_0^{\infty }{u}^{m+n-1}{e}^{-bu}du=\Gamma (m+n)b^{-(m+n)}$. The lambda factors cancel, leavingThus T gives a nuisance-free marginal likelihood. Discarding only terms independent of psi, its logarithm isThe factor t in the logarithm is required, as in the original PDF.

The full log-likelihood is $m\log \psi +(m+n)\log \lambda -\lambda (\psi x+y)+c(x,y)$. Its lambda derivative vanishes uniquely atThe second derivative in lambda is negative. Substituting this maximum gives ${\ell }_p(\psi )=m\log \psi -(m+n)\log (\psi x+y)+c^{\prime }(x,y)$. Since $\psi x+y=y(1+\psi t)$, it agrees with ${\ell }_m(\psi ;t)$ up to a psi-independent constant. This proves the Gamma-ratio marginal and profile likelihood identity. Their common maximizer is $\hat{\psi }=m/(nt)=my/(nx)$, if an interest-parameter estimate is also wanted.

The profile likelihood for the parameter of interest replaces the nuisance parameter by its constrained best fit: $L_p(\psi )={\sup }_{\lambda }L(\psi ,\lambda )$, with ${\ell }_p(\psi )=\ell (\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })$. It is not in general a normalized sampling density. A conditional likelihood instead uses the sampling law conditional on a statistic carrying the nuisance dependence. In the canonical exponential family here, conditioning on $S$ removes $\lambda$ because the factor involving $\lambda$ is constant over the conditioning fibre.

Let ${\bar{T}}_1=n^{-1}{\sum }_i{\tau }_1(y_i)$ and let the observed $S$ equal $s$. For the cumulant-generating function of ${\tau }_2(Y)$ at fixed $\psi$,The saddlepoint solves $K^{\prime }(\hat{t})=s$, equivalently $d_{\lambda }(\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })=s$ with ${\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi }=\lambda +\hat{t}$. This is also the constrained likelihood equation, since ${\ell }_{\lambda }=n(s-d_{\lambda })$. Assume an interior saddle, $d_{\lambda \lambda }>0$, and the usual smooth nonlattice conditions under which $S$ has a density. Exponential tilting to ${\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi }$ makes $s$ the tilted mean. A local normal approximation gives tilted density $\{n/(2\pi d_{\lambda \lambda }(\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })){\}}^{1/2}$ at that mean; undoing the tilt gives the saddlepoint density approximationThe factor $n^{1/2}$ is for the sample mean, rather than the sum. A transform-based derivation gives the same expression by expanding $K$ to second order at its stationary point.

The joint log-likelihood is $n\psi {\bar{T}}_1+n\lambda s-nd(\psi ,\lambda )-{\sum }_{i}Q(y_i)$. Subtracting $\log {\hat{f}}_S(s;\psi ,\lambda )$ cancels every appearance of the original $\lambda$, leavingAny change from the ambient density to a conditional density on $S=s$ contributes only a data-dependent Jacobian determinant. Thus, up to a constant independent of $\psi$, the saddlepoint conditional likelihood adjustment isEquivalently $B=\frac{1}{2}\log j_{\lambda \lambda }(\psi ,{\hat{\lambda }}_{\psi })$ up to the constant $-\frac{1}{2}\log n$, where $j_{\lambda \lambda }=n{d}_{\lambda \lambda }$ is the nuisance observed information. The adjustment has a positive sign. The printed exponential-family form alone does not guarantee a density for $S$: for example a continuous $Y$ can have ${\tau }_2(Y)=1_{\{Y>0\}}$. In a lattice case one must approximate the probability mass of the sum instead; the displayed density calculation uses the regular continuous interpretation.

For a regular iid model with a fixed-dimensional interior parameter ${\theta }_0$, identifiability, sufficient differentiability and moment domination, and nonsingular per-observation Fisher information $I({\theta }_0)$, a consistent maximum-likelihood estimator solves the score equation. Expanding it giveswhere $s_{\theta }={\partial }_{\theta }\log f_{\theta }$. The score has mean zero and covariance $I$ under the regularity assumptions. This proves the usual large-sample information bound and asymptotic efficiency within regular parametric inference. The observed curvature $j(\hat{\theta })/n$ and the empirical score covariance consistently estimate $I$ when the model is correctly specified.

For $r$ smooth constraints $h(\theta )=0$ with full-row-rank derivative $H$, the Wald test usesThe likelihood-ratio test and score test, evaluated using the constrained fit and nuisance-adjusted efficient information, have the same first-order chi-square law. A quadratic local likelihood expansion explains their asymptotic equivalence. Profile likelihood supplies inference about a parameter of interest with fitted nuisance parameters, and the corresponding chi-square cutoffs give approximate confidence regions.

These conclusions depend on the stated regularity: parameters at a boundary, nonidentifiability, singular information, changing dimension, or parameter-dependent support can give different rates and limits. Under misspecification, the fitted parameter generally approaches a pseudo-true value and its variance is a sandwich covariance matrix, not simply inverse Fisher information.

Assume the incubation times are independent observations from the same upper-truncated distribution. Conditional on lying below $M$, the gamma distribution density is $g(t;a,s)/G(M;a,s)$ on its support. With $t_{(n)}={\max }_i{t}_i$, the likelihood function isIn particular, the normalizing factor $G(M;a,s{)}^{-n}$ cannot be omitted. On the admissible region the log-likelihood isThe profile likelihood eliminates the nuisance parameters $a,s$ by fitting them separately at each candidate endpoint:For fixed $a,s$ and $M>t_{(n)}$,Equivalently, for $t_{(n)}<M_1<M_2$, every nuisance-parameter fit has $L(a,s,M_1)>L(a,s,M_2)$. Taking suprema shows that $L_p$ is nonincreasing. If the nuisance maximum at $M_2$ is attained and finite, evaluating its maximizing parameters at $M_1$ shows strict decrease there as well. Values below the largest observation are inadmissible. Thus upper-endpoint estimation in a truncated distribution gives the usual boundary estimateThere is a support-convention qualification: the literal strict support $t<M$ excludes $M=t_{(n)}$, so it gives a supremum approached as $M\downarrow t_{(n)}$, rather than an attained maximum-likelihood estimator. Using the equivalent closed-endpoint density convention for a continuous distribution yields the usual boundary estimate above. The argument presumes a meaningful finite nuisance fit; degenerate samples can instead have an unbounded density likelihood. Since $M$ changes the support, regular interior-parameter asymptotic formulas are not automatically applicable.

For the log-transformed location-scale model, let $F_W$ denote the distribution function associated with $f$. The change-of-variables formula for a probability density gives the untruncated density and distribution functionConsequently its upper-truncated likelihood is ${\prod }_{i}p(t_i)/F(M{)}^n$ on the observed support, and the profile likelihood maximizes this over $\alpha ,\sigma ,q$. Restricting to the corresponding subfamilies gives the gamma distribution and lognormal distribution profiles. Write the plotted likelihood ratio asIt measures how well each endpoint fits relative to that model's own best endpoint, after nuisance refitting. It is not a probability density function for $M$ and need not integrate to one. Endpoints whose ratios are near one are relatively compatible with the observations; a rapidly falling profile indicates more information favoring endpoints near the maximum.

All three profiles favor the smallest admissible endpoint, approximately 14 days; their information about larger endpoints differs substantially. Reading the actual PDF legend and curves, the dotted gamma distribution profile falls initially but is nearly flat around $0.60$ from about 18 days onward. The solid generalized log-gamma profile declines much further, to roughly $0.20$ at 19 days and $0.18$ at 21 days. The dashed lognormal distribution profile falls most strongly, to roughly $0.14$ at 18 days and $0.08$ at 21 days. These are graphical readings, not recomputed fits.

Thus the gamma distribution fit gives weak discrimination between moderate and very large endpoints: much of its untruncated mass can already be below these endpoints, making further changes to the truncation have little effect. Over the displayed range, the lognormal distribution fit gives stronger relative evidence against large endpoints, and the more flexible generalized log-gamma fit is intermediate. The solid curve remains close to the dashed curve near the maximum but has appreciably more relative support farther out. The plot shows slowing declines rather than a sharply determined finite upper endpoint; it cannot establish a biological maximum.

Normalization is essential to this comparison. Although the generalized family includes the two special families and therefore has at least as large a raw maximized likelihood at any fixed $M$, its normalization constant can also be larger. Its normalized profile need not lie above the normalized profiles of its submodels. Their individual maxima have all been replaced by one, so this plot alone cannot compare overall goodness of fit or select a family while accounting for extra fitted parameters.

A set $\{M:R(M)\ge c\}$ is a relative-likelihood support set once $c$ is chosen. Turning it into a calibrated confidence interval requires an appropriate sampling argument, simulation or other justified method. In particular, a usual Wilks theorem chi-squared cutoff cannot simply be assumed for this changing-support endpoint problem. The original incubation observations are not supplied here, so numerical refitting or calibrated limits cannot be recovered from the graph alone.

Write $q=n-p$. In this normal linear model, the ordinary least squares criterion is $\Vert Y-Xb{\Vert }^2$. Differentiating with respect to $b$ gives the normal equations for linear least squares, $X^{T}Xb=X^{T}Y$. Full column rank of the design matrix makes $X^{T}X$ invertible, and completing the square proves that the unique minimum isSince $\hat{\beta }=\beta +(X^{T}X{)}^{-1}{X}^Tϵ$, its sampling distribution is the multivariate normal distributionLet $H=X(X^{T}X{)}^{-1}{X}^T$ be the hat matrix. It is symmetric and idempotent with rank $p$, and $HX=X$. The regression residual vector is $(I-H)Y=(I-H)ϵ$, soAn orthogonal projection of a Gaussian vector onto the residual space gives $\mathrm{RSS}/{\sigma }^2\sim {\chi }_q^2$. The residual projection and fitted projection have zero cross-covariance, hence are independent because they are jointly normal. In particular, $s^2$ is an unbiased estimator of ${\sigma }^2$ and is independent of $\hat{\beta }$. The maximum-likelihood estimator of ${\sigma }^2$ instead divides by $n$ and is not unbiased.

For the null hypothesis ${\beta }_1=0$, put $v_{11}=((X^{T}X{)}^{-1}{)}_{11}$. Under that null hypothesis, ${\hat{\beta }}_1/(\sigma \sqrt{v_{11}})$ is standard normal and independent of $q{s}^2/{\sigma }^2$. Therefore the Student t-test usesA two-sided level-$\alpha$ test rejects when $|T|>t_{q,1-\alpha /2}$. The denominator is the estimated standard error of the regression coefficient.

The fitted linear regression includes an intercept and three covariates:Thus $n=25$, $p=4$ and the residual degrees of freedom are $21$. 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 $0.527410$ in the concentration units used. Its standard error is $0.224904$, giving $t=-2.345$ and a two-sided p-value of $0.0289$: evidence of a negative conditional association at the 5% level. The temperature slope is $0.124991$ per degree Fahrenheit, with standard error $0.075173$, $t=1.663$ and p-value $0.1112$. The insolation slope is $-0.005259$ per langley per day, with standard error $0.006637$, $t=-0.792$ and p-value $0.4370$. 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 $3.784916$ has a large standard error $7.979647$, giving $t=0.474$ and p-value $0.6402$. 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 $21$ degrees of freedom.

The reported residual standard deviation $s=1.844$ measures unexplained variation in concentration units; the subsequent table gives $\mathrm{RSS}=71.428$, consistent with $s=\sqrt{71.428/21}$ after rounding. The five-number residual summary describes the spread, from $-2.3052$ to $3.4033$, with median $-0.4990$. 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 $R^2=0.6533$ 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 $p=4$ and AIC $34.246$. Removing insolation increases the residual sum of squares by $2.136$ but decreases AIC to $32.982$, so that removal is chosen. Removing temperature or wind instead would give AIC $35.337$ or $38.060$ 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 $33.389$, restoring insolation gives $34.246$, and removing wind gives $37.960$. Hence the search stops, givingThe accompanying F-tests compare a larger model with a one-parameter reduction: $F=\Delta \mathrm{RSS}/s^2$, where $s^2$ is estimated from the larger model. For example, removing insolation gives $2.136/(71.428/21)=0.628$, equal to the corresponding squared test statistic. Deletions from the second-stage model use $73.564/22$ 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 $0.15016$. 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 $T_{\lambda }(y)=(y^{\lambda }-1)/\lambda$ for $\lambda \ne 0$, and $T_0(y)=\log y$. Its profile likelihood refits the linear regression and variance at each $\lambda$ and includes the transformation Jacobian. The graph peaks at roughly $\lambda =0.3$–$0.4$. The approximate 95% likelihood-ratio confidence interval contains values a little below zero through approximately one, using the cutoff ${\ell }_{\max }-{\chi }_{1,0.95}^2/2$. Thus a logarithmic transformation ($\lambda =0$) and a square-root transformation ($\lambda =1/2$) are plausible, while leaving the response on its original scale ($\lambda =1$) 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 $\lambda =1$ lies.

If a department has population $P$, $C_{mpers}$ crimes against persons and $C_{mprop}$ crimes against property, cancellation of the common numerator givesThus $y$ is a property-to-person crime count ratio, not its reciprocal. Both counts must be positive for the printed ratio to be defined.

For the reconstructed 85-row data, fit a normal linear model for the Box–Cox transformation $T_{\lambda }(y)$, including four region contrasts plus Literacy, Donations and Wealth. With $z_i(\lambda )=(y_i^{\lambda }-1)/\lambda$ and $z_i(0)=\ln y_i$, the profile likelihood, up to constants, isThe second term is the transformation's Jacobian determinant; omitting it would incorrectly compare different response scales. Maximization gives $\hat{\lambda }=0.143$, with approximate 95% likelihood-ratio confidence interval $[-0.120,0.406]$. The logarithmic transformation is inside this interval, whereas the raw-scale choice $\lambda =1$ is far outside: the twice-log-likelihood drops at zero and one are $1.14$ and $39.54$, respectively. A log-response model is therefore a simple supported choice.

In the full log model, partial F-tests give $F_{4,77}=13.15$ for Region ($p=3.3\times 10^{-8}$), $F_{1,77}=27.99$ for Wealth ($p=1.1\times 10^{-6}$), and $p=0.786,0.682$ for Literacy and Donations. Dropping Literacy and Donations together gives $F_{2,77}=0.109$ and $p=0.897$. A parsimonious final normal linear model, with C as reference and $W=\mathrm{Wealth}/10$, isThe standard errors in that order are $0.1056,0.1105,0.1158,0.1102,0.1104,0.01539$; residual standard deviation is $0.3212$ on 79 degrees of freedom and $R^2=0.626$. Use residual-versus-fitted and quantile-quantile plots, influence diagnostics and checks for remaining curvature to assess the working Gaussian model; the small p-values alone do not validate its assumptions.

Holding Region fixed, worsening wealth rank by ten positions multiplies the fitted conditional median ratio by $e^{-0.08539}=0.918$. Relative to C at the same wealth rank, the fitted median multipliers are $1.081$ for E, $1.375$ for N, $0.563$ for S and $1.212$ for W. Region and wealth rank explain much of the variation; Literacy and Donations add little once those terms are included. These are associations in the reconstructed dataset. Back-transforming the fitted log mean gives a conditional median under lognormal errors; estimating an original-scale mean requires bias correction after an inverse transformation. Also, the public archive's metadata describe some historical measures differently from the exam wording, so the fitted Donations effect is interpreted only on its recorded scale.

Write $\Omega ={\Sigma }^{-1}$ for a positive-definite matrix. Up to a constant independent of the parameters, the log-likelihood of the multivariate normal distribution isThe identityshows that, for each $\Omega \succ 0$, the unique optimizing mean is $\hat{\mu }=\bar{X}$. Using the matrix trace to rewrite the first quadratic sum, the profile likelihood isTherefore maximum likelihood estimation of the precision matrix, whenever the maximum exists, is exactlyThis is the profile likelihood for a Gaussian precision matrix. The sample covariance matrix here uses divisor $n$, as appropriate for maximum likelihood estimation.

There is an important rank qualification in the printed assumptions. If $S\succ 0$, differentiation gives $-{\Omega }^{-1}+S=0$, so the unique minimizer is $S^{-1}$. Uniqueness follows because the negative log-determinant is a strictly convex function on the positive-definite matrices. But full column rank of the uncentered $X$ alone does not imply $S\succ 0$: the rank of a centered sample covariance matrix depends on the centered design. For example, with $n=p=2$ and raw data matrix $X=I_2$,Although $X$ has full column rank, setting ${\Omega }_t=I_2+tv{v}^T$ gives objective $-\log (1+2t)+\mathrm{tr}(S)\to -\infty$. Thus an unpenalized maximizer need not exist under the literal raw-rank assumption. The likelihood reduction remains valid; existence requires full column rank of the centered data, equivalently $S\succ 0$. For the nonsingular Gaussian model this holds almost surely when $n>p$.

Use the entrywise-penalty convention for the Graphical Lasso:The sum is the entrywise matrix L1 norm. Its Graphical-Lasso Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions areHere $Z$ is symmetric; its nonzero-entry values are $\mathrm{sgn}({\hat{\Omega }}_{\lambda ,rs})$, and its zero-entry values are any numbers in $[-1,1]$. These are the subgradient optimality condition for this convex optimization problem. Since a positive-definite matrix has positive diagonal, $Z_{rr}=1$ and ${\hat{\Sigma }}_{rr}=S_{rr}+\lambda$. Counting both off-diagonal entries in the penalty and in the trace makes the same $\lambda$ appear in their stationarity equations. The common variant penalizing only off-diagonal entries instead sets $Z_{rr}=0$; the off-diagonal equations and the column argument below are unchanged.

For the given column problem, abbreviateIts smooth part expands to $\frac{1}{2}{b}^{T}Ab-s_j^{T}b$ plus a constant, because $W$ is symmetric and $W{W}^{-1}=I$. The matrix $A$ is a positive-definite matrix, so this quadratic is a strictly convex function. Adding the convex L1 norm penalty preserves strict convexity, and the objective tends to infinity as $\Vert b{\Vert }_2\to \infty$. The minimizer $b^{\ast }$ exists and is unique. Its Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions are

We identify that minimizer directly from the precision matrix. Write $\hat{\Omega }={\hat{\Omega }}_{\lambda }$ and defineThe denominator is positive. The off-diagonal part of column $j$ of $\hat{\Sigma }\hat{\Omega }=I$ givesOn the other hand, the off-diagonal Graphical-Lasso Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions readBecause ${\hat{\Omega }}_{jj}>0$, the coordinates of $\tilde{b}$ have the opposite signs from those of ${\hat{\Omega }}_{-j,j}$ and vanish at exactly the same positions. The subgradient of the absolute value therefore satisfiesIt follows thatThese are exactly the Lasso column problem's Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions. Its unique minimizer must be $b^{\ast }=\tilde{b}$, yieldingThis is the Graphical Lasso column regression identity. The minus sign is essential: it converts the precision-entry subgradient into the regression-coefficient subgradient. The argument uses the inverse identity directly, so it does not require proving the supplied block inverse formula.