Create plots involving sample size, quantile, and confidence level for a nonparametric confidence interval for a quantile.

plotCiNparDesign(x.var = "n", y.var = "conf.level", range.x.var = NULL, 
    n = 25, p = 0.5, conf.level = 0.95, ci.type = "two.sided", 
    lcl.rank = ifelse(ci.type == "upper", 0, 1), 
    n.plus.one.minus.ucl.rank = ifelse(ci.type == "lower", 0, 1), 
    plot.it = TRUE, add = FALSE, n.points = 100, plot.col = "black", 
    plot.lwd = 3 * par("cex"), plot.lty = 1, digits = .Options$digits, 
    cex.main = par("cex"), ..., main = NULL, xlab = NULL, ylab = NULL, 
    type = "l")

Arguments

x.var

character string indicating what variable to use for the x-axis. Possible values are "n" (sample size; the default), "p" (quantile), and "conf.level" (the confidence level).

y.var

character string indicating what variable to use for the y-axis. Possible values are conf.level (confidence level; the default), and "n" (sample size).

range.x.var

numeric vector of length 2 indicating the range of the x-variable to use for the plot. The default value depends on the value of x.var. When x.var="n" the default value is c(2,50). When x.var="p" the default value is c(0.5, 0.99). When x.var="conf.level", the default value is c(0.5, 0.99).

n

numeric scalar indicating the sample size. The default value is n=25. Missing (NA), undefined (NaN), and infinite (Inf, -Inf) values are not allowed. This argument is ignored if either x.var="n" or y.var="n".

p

numeric scalar specifying the quantile. The value of this argument must be between 0 and 1. The default value is p=0.5. The argument is ignored if x.var="p".

conf.level

a scalar between 0 and 1 indicating the confidence level associated with the confidence interval. The default value is conf.level=0.95. This argument is ignored if x.var="conf.level" or y.var="conf.level".

ci.type

character string indicating what kind of confidence interval to compute. The possible values are "two-sided" (the default), "lower", and "upper".

lcl.rank, n.plus.one.minus.ucl.rank

numeric vectors of non-negative integers indicating the ranks of the order statistics that are used for the lower and upper bounds of the confidence interval for the specified quantile(s). When lcl.rank=1 that means use the smallest value as the lower bound, when lcl.rank=2 that means use the second to smallest value as the lower bound, etc. When n.plus.one.minus.ucl.rank=1 that means use the largest value as the upper bound, when n.plus.one.minus.ucl.rank=2 that means use the second to largest value as the upper bound, etc. A value of 0 for lcl.rank indicates no lower bound (i.e., -Inf) and a value of 0 for n.plus.one.minus.ucl.rank indicates no upper bound (i.e., Inf). When
ci.type="upper" then lcl.rank is set to 0 by default, otherwise it is set to 1 by default. When ci.type="lower" then n.plus.one.minus.ucl.rank is set to 0 by default, otherwise it is set to 1 by default.

plot.it

a logical scalar indicating whether to create a plot or add to the existing plot (see add) on the current graphics device. If plot.it=FALSE, no plot is produced, but a list of (x,y) values is returned (see VALUE). The default value is plot.it=TRUE.

add

a logical scalar indicating whether to add the design plot to the existing plot (add=TRUE), or to create a plot from scratch (add=FALSE). The default value is add=FALSE. This argument is ignored if plot.it=FALSE.

n.points

a numeric scalar specifying how many (x,y) pairs to use to produce the plot. There are n.points x-values evenly spaced between range.x.var[1] and
range.x.var[2]. The default value is n.points=100.

plot.col

a numeric scalar or character string determining the color of the plotted line or points. The default value is plot.col="black". See the entry for col in the help file for par for more information.

plot.lwd

a numeric scalar determining the width of the plotted line. The default value is 3*par("cex"). See the entry for lwd in the help file for par for more information.

plot.lty

a numeric scalar determining the line type of the plotted line. The default value is plot.lty=1. See the entry for lty in the help file for par for more information.

digits

a scalar indicating how many significant digits to print out on the plot. The default value is the current setting of options("digits").

cex.main, main, xlab, ylab, type, ...

additional graphical parameters (see par).

Details

See the help files for eqnpar, ciNparConfLevel, and ciNparN for information on how to compute a nonparametric confidence interval for a quantile, how the confidence level is computed when other quantities are fixed, and how the sample size is computed when other quantities are fixed.

Value

plotCiNparDesign invisibly returns a list with components x.var and y.var, giving coordinates of the points that have been or would have been plotted.

References

See the help file for eqnpar.

Author

Steven P. Millard (EnvStats@ProbStatInfo.com)

Note

See the help file for eqnpar.

Examples

  # Look at the relationship between confidence level and sample size for 
  # a two-sided nonparametric confidence interval for the 90'th percentile.

  dev.new()
  plotCiNparDesign(p = 0.9)

  #----------

  # Plot sample size vs. quantile for various levels of confidence:

  dev.new()
  plotCiNparDesign(x.var = "p", y.var = "n", range.x.var = c(0.8, 0.95), 
    ylim = c(0, 60), main = "") 

  plotCiNparDesign(x.var = "p", y.var = "n", conf.level = 0.9, add = TRUE, 
    plot.col = 2, plot.lty = 2) 

  plotCiNparDesign(x.var = "p", y.var = "n", conf.level = 0.8, add = TRUE, 
    plot.col = 3, plot.lty = 3) 

  legend("topleft", c("95%", "90%", "80%"), lty = 1:3, col = 1:3, 
    lwd = 3 * par('cex'), bty = 'n') 

  title(main = paste("Sample Size vs. Quantile for ", 
    "Nonparametric CI for \nQuantile, with ", 
    "Various Confidence Levels", sep=""))

  #==========

  # Clean up
  #---------
  graphics.off()