For a multinormal distribution with an unknown dispersion matrix, union-intersection (UI) tests for the mean against one-sided alternatives are considered. The null distribution of the UI test statistic is derived and its power monotonicity properties are studied. A Stain-type two-stage procedure is proposed to eliminate some of the inherent drawbacks of such tests. Some comparisons are also made with some recently proposed alternative conditional likelihood ratio tests. Academic PressAMS 1991 subject classifications: 62H15, 62L10.

For a general class of unipolar, rotationally symmetric distributions on the multi-dimensional unit spherical surface, a characterization of locally best rotation-invariant test statistics is exploited in the construction of locally best rotation-invariant rank tests for modal location. Allied statistical distributional problems are appraised, and in the light of these assessments, asymptotic relative efficiency of a class of rotation-invariant rank tests (with respect to some of their parametric counterparts) is studied. Finite sample permutational distributional perspectives are also appraised.

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The estimation of the covariance matrix or the multivariate components of variance is considered in the multivariate linear regression models with effects being fixed or random. In this paper, we propose a new method to show that usual unbiased estimators are improved on by the truncated estimators. The method is based on the Stein-Haff identity, namely the integration by parts in the Wishart distribution, and it allows us to handle the general types of scale-equivariant estimators as well as the general fixed or mixed effects linear models.

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