Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fx x
(, ,
,
x
)
=
CF xFx
(
( ,
(),
,();
F x
θ
)
(2.2)
12
n
11
22
n
n
where θ is a vector of copula parameters describing the dependence among X 1 , X 2 , …, X n .
The dimension of this vector varies with copula types from 1 × 1 to 1 × 0.5 n ( n − 1). For the
Gaussian and t copulas, the number of copula parameters is 0.5 n ( n − 1), which is the same
as the number of the correlation coefficient pairs in a multivariate normal distribution dis-
cussed in Chapter 1 . If C is an n -dimensional copula and F 1 ( x 1 ), F 2 ( x 2 ), …, F n ( x n ) are mar-
ginal CDFs, then the function F ( x 1 , x 2 , …, x n ) defined by Equation 2.2 is a joint CDF with
marginal distributions F 1 ( x 1 ), F 2 ( x 2 ), …, F n ( x n ).
Sklar's theorem essentially states that the joint CDF of X can be expressed in terms of a
copula function and its marginal CDFs. In other words, fitting a joint CDF to measured data
using copulas involves two steps: (1) determining the best-fit marginal distributions for all
individual random variables, and (2) identifying the copula that provides the best fit to the
measured dependence structure from a set of candidate copulas. The above two steps can be
carried out separately, allowing different marginal distributions and dependence structures
to be incorporated into a multivariate distribution. This advantage underlying the copula
approach is critical since the processes of determining the marginal distributions and the
correlation structure in a multivariate distribution are decoupled.
The joint PDF of X can be derived from the joint CDF of X . Basically, the joint PDF is the
derivative of the joint CDF (or the joint CDF is the integration function of the joint PDF).
By taking derivatives of Equation 2.2 , the joint PDF of X , f ( x 1 , x 2 , …, x n ), can be obtained
as (e.g., McNeil et al. 2005)
n
n
CF xFx
(( ),
( ,
,
F x
( ;)
θ
Fx
x
()
11 22
11
nn
nn
i
i
fx x
(, ,
,
x
)
=
12
n
Fx
()
F
(
x
)
i
i
=
1
n
=
DF xFx
(( ),
( ,
,
F x
( ;)
θ
f x
()
(2.3)
11 22
nn
i
i
i
=
1
where DCFx Fx
is a copula density function,
=∂
n
(( ),
( ,
,
Fx
( ;)
θ
Fx
()
…∂
Fx
()
11 22
nn
11
nn
which is the derivative of a copula function C . fx
=∂ ∂ is the marginal PDF of X i
for i = 1, 2, …, n . By introducing u i = F i ( x i ), the copula function C ( F 1 ( x 1 ), F 2 ( x 2 ), …, F n ( x n ); θ)
and the copula density function D ( F 1 ( x 1 ), F 2 ( x 2 ), …, F n ( x n ); θ) can be rewritten as C ( u 1 , u 2 ,
…, u n ; θ) and D ( u 1 , u 2 , …, u n ; θ), respectively. Note that U i = F i ( X i ) is a standard uniform
random variable. This is because the CDF of U i can be expressed as
()
Fx
()
x
i
i
i
i
i
PU
(
≤= ≤= ≤
uPFX
)
(( )
uPXFu
)
(
1
(
))
=
F Fu
(
1
(
))
=
u
(2.4)
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
It is clear from Equation 2.4 that the CDF of U i is equal to u i . Thus, U i is indeed a stan-
dard uniform random variable that is bounded on the interval of [0, 1].
Since the focus of this chapter is the modeling of the bivariate distribution of shear
strength parameters, the copula theory involving two variables (i.e., n = 2) is introduced in
detail from hereon. According to Sklar's theorem, the bivariate CDF of two random vari-
ables X 1 and X 2 , F ( x 1 , x 2 ), can be given by
Fx
(, )
xCFx
=
(
( ,
Fx
(); )
θ
=
Cu
(
,
u
; )
θ
(2.5)
12
11
22
12
 
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