An Overview of the Pathway Idea and Its Applications in Statistical and Physical Sciences

Axioms

Nicy Sebastian¹  Seema S. Nair²  Dhannya P. Joseph³ 

[1] St.Thomas’ College, Thrissur P.O., Kerala 680001, India;St. Gregorios College, Pulamon P.O., Kottarakara, Kerala 691531, India; E-Mail:;Kuriakose Elias College, Mannanam P.O., Kottayam, Kerala 686561, India; E-Mail:

关键词: pathway model;    entropy measure;    superstatistics;    Tsallis statistics;    beta family;    generalized gamma;    Dirichlet densities;    λ-criterion;    H- function;    quadratic forms;   

DOI  :  10.3390/axioms4040530

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Pathway idea is a switching mechanism by which one can go from one functional form to another, and to yet another. It is shown that through a parameter α, called the pathway parameter, one can connect generalized type-1 beta family of densities, generalized type-2 beta family of densities, and generalized gamma family of densities, in the scalar as well as the matrix cases, also in the real and complex domains. It is shown that when the model is applied to physical situations then the current hot topics of Tsallis statistics and superstatistics in statistical mechanics become special cases of the pathway model, and the model is capable of capturing many stable situations as well as the unstable or chaotic neighborhoods of the stable situations and transitional stages. The pathway model is shown to be connected to generalized information measures or entropies, power law, likelihood ratio criterion or criterion in multivariate statistical analysis, generalized Dirichlet densities, fractional calculus, Mittag-Leffler stochastic process, Krätzel integral in applied analysis, and many other topics in different disciplines. The pathway model enables one to extend the current results on quadratic and bilinear forms, when the samples come from Gaussian populations, to wider classes of populations.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.