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The mean residual life at random age and its connection to variability measures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2025

Majid Asadi*
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
Alexandre Berred
Affiliation:
U.F.R. Sciences et Techniques, Université du Havre, Le Havre Cedex, France
*
Corresponding author: Majid Asadi; Email: m.asadi@sci.ui.ac.ir
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Abstract

We consider a nonnegative random variable T representing the lifetime of a system. We discuss the residual lifetime $T_X=(T-X|T \gt X)$, where X denotes the random age of the system. We also discuss the mean residual life (MRL) of T at the random time X. It is shown that the MRL at random age (MRLR) is closely related to some well-known variability measures. In particular, we show that the MRLR can be considered a generalization of Gini’s mean difference (GMD). Under the proportional hazards model, we show that the MRLR gives the extended GMD and the extended cumulative residual entropy as special cases. Then, we provide a decomposition result indicating that the MRLR has a covariance representation. Some comparison results are also established for the MRLs of two systems at random ages.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press.
Figure 0

Figure 1. The plot of MRLR ${\mathbb{E}}_\alpha(T_X)$ as a function α for Weibull (left) and Pareto (right) distributions with shape parameter α with random age distributed as exponential.