<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE article  PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "http://dtd.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd"><article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en" article-type="research article"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">OJS</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Open Journal of Statistics</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn pub-type="epub">2161-718X</issn><publisher><publisher-name>Scientific Research Publishing</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.4236/ojs.2014.45033</article-id><article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">OJS-48571</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Articles</subject></subj-group><subj-group subj-group-type="Discipline-v2"><subject>PHYSICS &amp; MATHEMATICS</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title-group><article-title>Distribution of the Sample Correlation Matrix and Applications</article-title></title-group><contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Thu</surname><given-names>Pham-Gia</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1"><sup>1</sup></xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="cor1"><sup>*</sup></xref></contrib><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Vartan</surname><given-names>Choulakian</given-names></name><xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1"><sup>1</sup></xref><xref ref-type="corresp" rid="cor1"><sup>*</sup></xref></contrib></contrib-group><aff id="aff1"><addr-line>Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Université de Moncton, Moncton, Canada</addr-line></aff><author-notes><corresp id="cor1">* E-mail:<email>Thu.pham-gia@umoncton.ca(TP)</email>;<email>Vartan.choulakian@umoncton.ca(VC)</email>;</corresp></author-notes><pub-date pub-type="epub"><day>07</day><month>08</month><year>2014</year></pub-date><volume>04</volume><issue>05</issue><fpage>330</fpage><lpage>344</lpage><history><date date-type="received"><day>29</day>	<month>May</month>	<year>2014</year></date><date date-type="rev-recd"><day>5</day>	<month>July</month>	<year>2014</year>	</date><date date-type="accepted"><day>15</day>	<month>July</month>	<year>2014</year></date></history><permissions><copyright-statement>&#169; Copyright  2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. </copyright-statement><copyright-year>2014</copyright-year><license><license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</license-p></license></permissions><abstract><p>For the
case where the multivariate normal population does not have null correlations,
we give the exact expression of the distribution of the sample matrix of
correlations <em>R</em>, with the sample
variances acting as parameters. Also, the distribution of its determinant is
established in terms of Meijer G-functions in the null-correlation case.
Several numerical examples are given, and applications to the concept of system
de- pendence in Reliability Theory are presented.</p></abstract><kwd-group><kwd>Correlation</kwd><kwd> Normal</kwd><kwd> Determinant</kwd><kwd> Meijer G-Function</kwd><kwd> No-Correlation</kwd><kwd> Dependence</kwd><kwd> Component</kwd><kwd> Formatting</kwd><kwd> Style</kwd><kwd> Styling</kwd><kwd> Insert</kwd></kwd-group></article-meta></front><body><sec id="s1"><title>1. Introduction</title><p>The correlation matrix plays an important role in multivariate analysis since by itself it captures the pairwise degrees of relationship between different components of a random vector. Its presence is very visible in Principal Component Analysis and Factor Analysis, where in general, it gives results different from those obtained with the covariance matrix. Also, as a test criterion, it is used to test the independence of variables, or subsets of variables ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref1">1</xref>] , p. 407).</p><p>In a normal distribution context, when the population correlation matrix<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\bcf1f5c0-5efd-4465-9c19-62e549ff870a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the identity matrix, or equivalently, the population covariance matrix <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\98b45158-29ef-4eef-916d-3c3587939840.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is diagonal, i.e.<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\77c328e1-0593-4b7d-ba48-5341d10349e7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the distribution of the sample correlation matrix R is relatively easy to compute, and its determinant has a distribution that can be expressed as a Meijer G-function distribution. But when <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1a2f7189-3cd0-48c7-968b-9e599219495f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> no expression for the density of R is presently available in the literature, and the distribution of its determinant is still unknown, in spite of efforts made by several researchers. We will provide here the closed form expression of the distribution of R, with the sample variances as parameters, hence complementing a result presented by Fisher in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref2">2</xref>] .</p><p>As explained in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref3">3</xref>] , for a random matrix, there are at least three distributions of interest, its “entries distribution” which gives the joint distribution of its matrix entries, its “determinant distribution” and its “latent roots distribution”. We will consider the first two only and note that, quite often, the first distribution is also expressed in terms of the determinant, and can lead to some confusion. In Section 2 we recall some results related to the case where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\35880e87-c951-4209-ad2f-ee57f24cc61e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and establish the new exact expression of the density of R, with the sample variances <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\da00cb5f-7cef-4de8-95e3-dcedf85f46b0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> as parameters, denoted<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2cb7d74f-e640-45d7-9b60-b318ec3a1c03.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. In Section 3, some simulation results are given. The distribution of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\19478bf8-02ba-4201-aa49-2f7dfeb8642c.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the determinant of R, is given in Section 4 for<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2f66ea9a-4718-4199-bc6e-62694a888a08.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Applications of the above results to the concept of dependence within a multi-component system are given in Section 5. Numerical examples are given throughout the latter part of the paper to illustrate the results.</p></sec><sec id="s2"><title>2. Case of the Population Correlation Matrix Not Being Identity</title><sec id="s2_1"><title>2.1. Covariance and Correlation Matrices</title><p>Let us consider a random vector X with mean <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\72308763-8138-41c8-b022-30ae7484ec4a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and covariance matrix<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\91d9b8b5-f66f-4809-ab93-e63c6240d08e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, of the form of a (p &#215; p) symmetric positive definite random matrix</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula624"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8d789aaa-73e9-4589-8c90-2753118e6187.png"/></disp-formula><p>of pairwise covariances between components in the matrix.</p><p>We obtain the population correlation matrix <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\dc0b4fbc-797d-4e6c-85ca-b707636c7bf8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> by diving each <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a778f905-139d-42fb-bed5-ceeddbf76e7f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> by<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\65498664-67ce-457c-ada4-df3d89a15fc3.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Then</p><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\10fa0955-74bb-41d2-9bd9-7d3fe229aa0a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ef63e267-0fa0-4925-86a6-5967d2d44b7f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, is symmetrical, with diagonals<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\65649f4a-1fe8-4a09-bb5f-1aa2e6efbf3c.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ba039fdd-f1f3-4d68-99b2-5890cdcf127f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, i.e.</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula625"><label>.</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\13dddf16-b7a3-4823-ab1b-c8d4a7c3a18b.png"/></disp-formula><p>For a sample of size n of observations from<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8ae800e6-8185-4bc5-a03e-263975e874a2.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the sample mean <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\20ec4e92-a7f4-4e2b-b6c0-20429048b8c1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and the “adjusted sample covariance” matrix</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula626"><label>, (1)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b477d6e9-f0f6-4f05-a8f8-cd723b7b1010.png"/></disp-formula><p>(or matrix of sums of squares and products,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\042d9c2e-ebd8-4092-b91d-bcdd23405432.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>) are independent, with the latter having a Wishart distribution<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\25e106de-20ab-4e08-8943-0327f3cbc613.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Similarly, the correlation matrix <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\56a81c9b-9c99-499c-b26d-5eb9e105cb3a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is obtained from S by using the relations:<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9c55aff8-2639-46db-b70e-5c6912fc8727.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, or<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3e22e743-19c6-4c8f-a8b9-14d7f22d55f4.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ee5c41b9-7191-4ac3-9aea-4f6d2008c0e7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. We also have the relation between determinants:<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\49a39386-3f1b-4476-bbc2-eccf0d8c0949.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and, similarly,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\212a032a-0531-4fa5-a5fd-097c6859f5e7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>It is noted that by considering the usual sample covariance matrix<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\836f7329-7a4a-4e11-bcfc-b82c46c7ad0f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, which is</p><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6cb05555-c1fc-4645-8cde-ac071d206ff7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, we have the relation<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\91811f07-576c-4401-bd2e-c0dfe508544c.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, between the two diagonal elements, but the sample correlation matrix is the same.</p><p>The <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0b929084-dc3c-4b1c-81c9-22fcd969deb3.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> coefficients <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5ebff2de-2545-4349-8f88-0aa826b8d374.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> are (marginally) distributed independently of both the sample and population means [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref2">2</xref>] . It is to be noticed that while R can always be defined from S, the reverse is not true since S has <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ff14dc17-35a6-4b82-9f03-69a356940410.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> independent parameters. This fact explains the differences between results when either R or S is used.</p><p>In the bivariate case, Hotelling’s expression [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref4">4</xref>] clearly shows that the density of r depends only on the population correlation coefficient <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e8a845d9-ba8f-4961-897a-718b536c0dd8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and the sample size n (see Section 4.3) and we will see that, similarly, the density of the sample correlation matrix, with the sample variances as parameters, is dependent on the population variances and the sample size. However, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e1cd4f21-33f2-4018-a989-4a2619037c47.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>are biased estimators of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a2fd981a-cfbd-4cf6-acc3-2475016da731.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and Olkin and Pratt [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref5">5</xref>] have suggested</p><p>using the modified estimator<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c0a9efa8-a252-47c2-b0f8-018dc692fb86.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with a table of corrective multipliers for <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2d5bd06d-7c7f-49b7-9824-62af26538721.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> for convenience.</p></sec><sec id="s2_2"><title>2.2. Some Related Work</title><p>Several efforts have been carried out in the past to obtain the exact form of the density of R for the general case, where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d3a3541d-5d5f-410f-b4b0-81604c34dce2.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1e3c7c33-2880-4505-8a5c-3912359343d7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b6e9d194-1cfc-421b-afd8-3680fa85e258.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. For example, Joarder and Ali [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref6">6</xref>] derived the distribution of R for a class of elliptical models. Ali, Fraser and Lee [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref7">7</xref>] , starting from the identity correlation matrix case, derived the density for the general case when<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fa9c2b2c-34b0-4e0a-91ca-ef41ade799db.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, again by modulating the likelihood ratio to obtain a density of R containing</p><p>the function<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d30a1892-2f0e-47f0-b28c-ef4a646d1f4a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, already used by Fraser ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref8">8</xref>] , p. 196) in the bivariate case. But here, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9b009bac-b698-4689-b7d7-a7b03018a582.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, ex-</p><p>pressed as an infinite series, has a much more complicated expression. Schott ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref9">9</xref>] , p. 408), using<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7f4a96f9-6c0d-46bf-b454-d505fadf4051.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, gives for a first-order approximation for R and the expression of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4df8d071-7560-4fd2-99ed-30128cd78da5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and Kollo and Ruul [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref10">10</xref>] , also using<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\be37df60-c355-4c2f-8631-4dc2722adb2e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, presented a general method for approximating the density of R through another multivariate density, possibly one of higher dimension. Finally, Farrell ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref11">11</xref>] , p. 177) has approached the problem using exterior differential forms. However, no explicit expression for the density of R is given in any of these works, and the question rightly raised is whether that such an expression really exists.</p></sec><sec id="s2_3"><title>2.3. Some New Results</title><p>We begin with the case of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f7436d1a-70be-4593-af7a-32f200a097d6.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Then it can be easily established that the density of R is ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref12">12</xref>] , p. 107):</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula627"><label>(2)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7cd2b1bf-a54c-4576-ad4f-9c90842449d3.png"/></disp-formula><p>By showing that the joint density of the diagonal elements <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\cccbe272-9585-4859-8b92-08904019f77b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> with R, denoted<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\57201008-03b2-4e25-b92c-85e376998f60.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, can be factorized into the product of two densities, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0df4f12f-2560-4a33-8802-ad9bc409c93b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e3f68d12-74fa-4a89-b2f6-4c73a8975f78.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, which has expression (2) above. <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b51ee8be-f3b2-4f44-b63f-bb9e950a4d63.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>and R are hence independent.</p><p>We can also show that (2) is a density, i.e. it integrates to 1 within its definition domain, by using the approach given in Mathai and Haubold ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref13">13</xref>] , p. 421), based on matrix decomposition.</p><p>In what follows, following Kshirsagar’s approach [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref14">14</xref>] , which itself is a variation of Fisher’s [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref2">2</xref>] original method, we establish first the expression of a similar joint distribution, when <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5018f30a-7e14-4cb5-bc9f-b4157d0a4a20.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is not diagonal.</p><sec id="s2_3_1"><title>THEOREM 1:</title><p>Let<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c9e69cd5-f76e-4d09-9c86-4da8cc2e45db.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where we suppose that the population correlation <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c6dc6687-1b09-4bab-a5a1-d656e7c92d63.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and its inverse <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7f9a8844-6bce-40f2-87b2-0f7787e2a4a5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> has <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f9bc7a49-bde6-456a-914d-c6ace95af2a1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> as its diagonal elements. Then the correlation matrix R of a random sample of n observations has its distribution given by:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula628"><label>, (3)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6861a5db-a43f-4668-8441-1e2af0998392.png"/></disp-formula><p>where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9f6054ab-d1bc-4ba2-999a-5e8b523ad7bb.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with the sample covariance<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8b485335-97c4-4cf5-85c1-bbc5382a25b4.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\71898832-6e8c-4912-8862-decf2ce68a7d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, serving as parameters.</p><p>PROOF: Let us consider the “adjusted sample covariance matrix” S, given by (1). We know that <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0e9736e7-4897-439c-a112-32ebd6ad0276.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\94216188-a035-4fc3-a4f7-4d54401f286f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with density:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula629"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\47f14cb6-9a95-4949-85f6-bcd8da396fcd.png"/></disp-formula><p>with C being an appropriate constant.</p><p>Our objective is to find the joint density of R with a set of variables <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b0924e82-e313-452c-9967-a8fa1ec61953.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> so that the density of R can be obtained by integrating out the variables<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5d6d1368-822a-4593-9873-c7cab44446d9.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>Let <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7bb2b204-8c5b-4677-93b5-edb34e7bb722.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> be the inverse of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\830426a8-66ef-4043-90b8-cd6263bea3c7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the (population) matrix of correlations, with diagonals<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f9d2901c-b48f-497b-9a7e-d87625f9e039.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\993cc5ff-5200-4328-896c-f8ed3773c547.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>and non-diagonals<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\df0ab6d3-07b0-4a7e-bf43-487008ed0d75.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\56a2e437-9b10-440c-92b0-232da4fd8ec8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d93137c1-37b2-4b3b-aa82-5121d7426255.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. We first transform the <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b2cb62f5-252c-4bf8-a206-247a50b55a8b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> variables<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6af6f946-1bae-454a-9e15-3d2498bff30e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0a6ed9dd-cbcf-45bf-8879-c83fa99adf00.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, into<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\dc331d13-6466-4ce6-b9ce-5feb577ba9b8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Since the</p><p>diagonal <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\be3eb810-6602-4a2c-8e52-2333df78c087.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> remain unchanged, the Jacobian of the transformation from S to <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ef3adb56-a1e3-4476-808a-03fcd184e1cd.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is then <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\971d6627-f972-4e89-8343-d98e5be65d13.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and the new joint density is:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula630"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8c37b97b-a2b9-4241-adf8-0fb23331e545.png"/></disp-formula><p>where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\96fc39fc-df75-44ca-84fa-82cc900f5e90.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a9d03c90-95fa-4649-bf1c-b51b1de54f95.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>We set</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula631"><label>(4)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\913a99a1-6365-4d8b-9bb2-554edf571dc8.png"/></disp-formula><p>with<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\06e2d959-af1b-441f-888c-570657424de2.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and form the symmetric matrix</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula632"><label>, (5)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8b3d99b2-52ac-4c9d-97fa-a2f3285edf14.png"/></disp-formula><p>where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6926f0e1-1e0f-4cb3-9bb5-68d891256edf.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, which depends on S.</p><p>The joint density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\76650b49-d6e2-498e-bd40-785badcef139.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and R is now:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula633"><label>.</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\48f4c43a-30b3-4468-9b47-9f09194a2d13.png"/></disp-formula><p>R and <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\06a91fa6-3625-4799-b061-ce058ab47975.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> are independent only if the above expression can be expressed as the product</p><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a1b71504-be88-4495-8a3f-dd8e58c0cc2a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, which is not the case since <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\49193bc7-36d4-4f23-9f91-dacafa60abad.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> contains<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\800d9806-3ebc-4526-b327-da035749590b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>To integrate out the vector<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fe022212-f534-4b87-8f67-93e3e58bc603.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, we set</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula634"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2523037f-a502-46ac-96d3-0358fc9c9fb2.png"/></disp-formula><p>(This integral is denoted <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2035d891-2210-4201-966a-7cbfdc5b1836.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> by Fisher [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref2">2</xref>] , and by <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a3fe61e7-f329-4ac8-9f80-a9ce3308255d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> by Kshirsagar [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref14">14</xref>] who used the notation <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4bec638d-65dd-4289-8220-24f2c121e8af.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and, in both instances, was left non-computed).</p><p>Hence, if <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\cab1e2a9-e2f3-4ce8-bd98-0e7f5b8c8106.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is constant, as in the case when<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\985c8c62-bf01-4bd4-9b0e-a71b4d8d5b7a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, R would have density</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula635"><label>, (6)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0437702e-8b46-4d37-b1ec-593e2508128c.png"/></disp-formula><p>with<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fd7857b8-b2d4-4156-93a9-5e9d1f0e0f76.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, being the p-gamma function. However, in the general case this is not true.</p><p>Consider the quadratic form:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula636"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9deb4e10-1d5a-4ab7-9b7e-e018b0e0ca21.png"/></disp-formula><p>and</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula637"><label>.</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\92784b72-c3e9-4c54-8aed-a1cacfeced38.png"/></disp-formula><p>Changing to<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\dc104365-d259-40f3-898f-066a4395d349.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, we have</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula638"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b39218b4-e665-490b-822d-6cc9488e4a85.png"/></disp-formula><p>Since each integral is a gamma density in<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\28857410-0fa2-43ec-992b-7a8d43fadf88.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with value<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\544c7344-a4fa-46e8-bfdb-00906a1ae007.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, we obtain</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula639"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e2121150-7e14-42f4-bc32-35a343c5f742.png"/></disp-formula><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\28f7d838-1000-4162-a149-1366f0668abe.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>contains all non-diagonal entries of the sample covariance matrix, and depends on S. We now obtain from (6) expression (3) of Theorem 1. Here, the off-diagonal sample covariance, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\39a22f9e-6e14-42ac-b161-10f5ec39280b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, serve as parameters of this density.</p><p>QED.</p><p>Alternately, using the corresponding correlation coefficients, we have:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula640"><label>, (7)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3f236027-46b7-422c-afb8-311b6ba31050.png"/></disp-formula></sec><sec id="s2_3_2"><title>REMARKS:</title><p>1) For <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\01e257cb-8f20-40c9-b15b-8e5f89fccc0d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> our results given above should reduce to known results, and they do. Indeed, since we now have <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0cfcdadd-5189-4c3f-9824-f288217d0646.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula641"><label>.</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7e802813-f1d3-4302-a29e-55469206799c.png"/></disp-formula><p>Hence,</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula642"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\780a13ae-009c-4d13-b18c-0d7a8a6db7e1.png"/></disp-formula><p>as in (2) since we now have<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c2d4ac8e-0f84-4710-a4af-dcc5f0235add.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>Here, only the value of p needs to be known and this explains why expression (2) depends only on n and p. Also, as pointed out by Muirhead ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref15">15</xref>] , p. 148), if we do not suppose normality, the same results can be obtained under some hypothesis.</p><p>2) Expression (3) can be interpreted as the density of R when <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\104e9790-fb96-4939-8676-a153e8de90e9.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> are known, and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c8f196ff-dc07-4d82-bcee-6faab9f2d67a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, is a set of constant sample covariances. But when this set is considered as a random vector, with a certain distribution, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e79af670-9268-48bd-9bc6-c5618a9f50f1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>is called mixture distribution, defined in two steps:</p><p>a) <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\aa261a31-d054-411d-9695-b547a5889eac.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>has an (known or unknown) distribution<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c01f26d0-0648-492a-8c20-690717b5d023.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, i.e.<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8a11e990-cde6-445c-9b4a-eb3fa86eab26.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>b) (R;<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a3f36f29-585e-466f-8c54-86bd8c721ba4.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>) has the density given by (3), denoted<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a1e6a673-5d24-4908-b5d8-c82704dc06e0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>The distribution of R is then<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\dc01664d-5bea-4170-8558-63d5ebee7182.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where * denotes the mixture operation.</p><p>However, a closed form for this mixture is often difficult to obtain.</p><p>Alternately, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\bca5d699-5629-41a5-aa62-92f4066f4775.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>could be<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\29d2db1a-b43a-498e-9462-c2cd74e2ff79.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\74d1beb7-2d18-4c0e-bfdc-6f3aab271dad.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> being the density of the diagonal sample variances <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\77b9ef5c-2a75-4df1-9149-1b1fe9c7e258.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></p><p>and off-diagonal sample correlations, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5d094525-abb9-4de6-ac57-4aeb773f36b8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>while <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\59fe1b44-b10a-4e21-b300-8d6a19b77a64.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is given by (7).</p><p>3) We have, using (3), and the relation <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2537ad6c-b875-414d-80fe-ad3d49f0d406.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> the following equivalent expression, where  <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\24899850-bd58-4b2f-bea6-ee3a8b6179de.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula643"><label>. (8)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\310e8cbd-d596-4ecb-aee3-a197b007ee2e.png"/></disp-formula><p>Expression (8) gives the positive numerical value of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\03e9bd89-2a22-47a6-b9f3-7b7e01701a83.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> upon knowledge of the value of S. It will serve to set up simulation computations in Section 3. However, it also shows that <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\69a6af60-a370-4a85-9273-18fbb8ed2368.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> can be defined with S, and when S has a certain distribution the values of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3320be7a-46c1-43a6-91d1-7049ed48bfcf.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> are completely determined with that distribution. This highlights again the fact that, in statistics, using R or S can lead to different results, as mentioned previously.</p></sec></sec><sec id="s2_4"><title>2.4. Other Known Results</title><p>1) The distribution of the sample coefficient of correlation in the bivariate normal case can be determined fairly directly when integrating out <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3ee0fda0-12ce-463d-ba8e-552dc83156e9.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\304ac75c-7133-4f78-b1b3-cda7e2a55164.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and this fact is mentioned explicitly by Fisher ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref2">2</xref>] , p. 4), who stated: “This, however, is not a feasible path for more than two variables.” In the bivariate case,</p><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3c71fcdc-eabe-427c-a113-f6b9ae6bf075.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and has been well-studied by several researchers, using different approaches and, as early as 1915, Fisher [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref16">16</xref>] gave its density as:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula644"><label>(9)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\bce8c501-1ef5-4a9a-8dc0-4c77de814dcd.png"/></disp-formula><p>Using geometric arguments, with <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\751b6c96-a6cc-4608-8a71-32922db538df.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> being the population coefficient of correlation. We refer to ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref17">17</xref>] , p. 524-534) for more details on the derivation of the above expression. Other equivalent expressions, reportedly as numerous as 52, were obtained by other researchers, such as Hotelling [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref4">4</xref>] , Sawkins [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref18">18</xref>] , Ali et al. [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref7">7</xref>] .</p><p>2) Using Equation (3) on the sample correlation matrix<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f9bf2318-8d93-43e4-a0f9-a99f5f69b786.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, obtained from the sample covariance matrix</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula645"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\07c972ab-4969-4c04-8873-e6a2e32e71b4.png"/></disp-formula><p>Together with p = 2, we can also arrive at one of these forms (see also Section 4.3, where the determinant of R provides a more direct approach).</p><p>3) Although Fisher [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref2">2</xref>] did not give the explicit form of the integral <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9c2e0104-a958-4b46-b681-3e0016d1be41.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> above, he included several inter-</p><p>esting results on<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3c70d8fe-da85-497b-9ee8-110aae1dad20.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, as a function of the sample size n and coefficients<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fb0c037f-e37d-480e-b25e-e048c250a24b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. For</p><p>example, in the case all<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d831d108-4da5-44af-bac0-10dba6623ad0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\360bf4c4-5fd4-447b-aa1a-8c09f8161948.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the generalized volume in the p(p − 1)/2-dimension space of the region of integration for r<sub>ij</sub> is found to be a function of p, having a maximum at p = 6. In the case all<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2f49fff3-5c72-4979-a8fc-74679fa1bdb6.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the expressions of the partial derivatives of Log<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\333965f0-851a-4cac-9ed5-5c06711875d0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> w.r.t. <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4161213a-6455-4b34-8537-a4c60323e644.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>can be obtained, and so are the mixed derivatives.</p><p>For the case n = 2, and p = 3, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5b07e162-fde6-4d26-b077-7b261acaa6c3.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>has an interesting geometrical interpretation as<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e1a84b49-bdea-426c-8fb3-cb11642dad41.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where</p><p>V = generalized volume defined by <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\05e9839d-e118-470f-84b3-7c1fb802a719.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and D is the volume defined by the p unit vectors in a transformation where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\53f3cc2a-baa7-4d20-9979-71044d375a7d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> are the cosines of the angles between pairs of edges.</p></sec></sec><sec id="s3"><title>3. Some Computation and Simulation Results</title><sec id="s3_1"><title>3.1. Simulations Related to R</title><p>A matrix equation such as (3) can be difficult to visualize numerically, especially when the dimensions are high, i.e.<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\94d0e0fe-7bb3-4cc9-aeb9-d40dd7657206.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Ideally, to illustrate (7), a figure giving <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a6f00fc2-7688-4fb4-9afa-3365e8fce360.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> in function of the matrix R itself is most informative, but, naturally, impossible to obtain. One question we can investigate is how the values of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\79368427-1724-4fe0-94ba-5558dbaf95e8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> distributed, for a normal model<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4cbb6565-b666-4814-a676-54db25f558fa.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>? Simulation using (8) can provide some information on this distribution in some specific cases. For example, we can start from the (4 &#215; 4) population covariance matrix</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula646"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a2764fbb-3373-4199-9247-88876d29f017.png"/></disp-formula><p>taken from our analysis of Fisher’s iris data [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref19">19</xref>] . It concerns the Setosa iris variety, with x<sub>1</sub> = sepal length, x<sub>2</sub> = sepal with, x<sub>3</sub> = petal length and x<sub>4</sub> = petal width. It gives the population correlation matrix</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula647"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\799b0ae2-9a5b-4020-8a1c-45d38ba27159.png"/></disp-formula><p>where all<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b07b9a25-9f34-4569-be31-f77f0e8b4a4d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. We generate 10,000 samples of 100 observations each from<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\172842c9-6f02-4a33-9da1-3702082f05bc.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, which give 10,000 values of the covariance matrix S, which, in turn, give matrix values for R, scalar values for <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\53e44df0-1829-472d-b6be-488e3b6de637.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and, finally, positive scalar values for<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\39e00606-cf1d-4fed-b740-6042c8283fcb.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, as given by (8). Recall that for X normal S has a Wishart distribution<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9b1ee991-4045-49ff-ac92-c3a51a26fef5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig1">Figure 1</xref> gives the corresponding histogram, which shows that values of W are distributed along a unimodal density, denoted by<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6cf333aa-b29d-4329-ac1f-dbcea580d114.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with a very small variation interval, i.e. most of its values are concentrated around the mode.</p><p>Note: A special approach to graphing distributions of covariance matrices, using the principle of decomposing a matrix into scale parameters and correlations, is presented in: Tokuda, T., Goodrich, B., Van Mechelen, I., Gelman, A. and Tuerlinckx, F., Visualizing Distributions of Covariance Matrices (Document on the Internet).</p><p>It is also mentioned there that for the Inverted Wishart case, with <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\72a86a14-7496-444f-8d56-5907e2efc7f0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> degrees of freedom, then</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula648"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e7d3bc5c-86e4-4864-8a8d-a0e3b646d442.png"/></disp-formula><p>where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1330a415-1534-4c43-a2c1-0c859c8eaa6f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is the i-th principal sub-matrix of R, obtained by removing row and column i (p. 12).</p></sec><sec id="s3_2"><title>3.2. Simulations Related to <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\744b48e4-a29d-4344-9729-f80e6fc05558.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></title><p>Similarly, the same application above gives the approximate simulated distribution of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b32c7962-6deb-4df4-b6e6-cb3b193ccbe0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> presented in <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig2">Figure 2</xref>. We can see that it is a unimodal density which depends on the correlation coefficients<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\907feeb7-c567-4a6a-87a3-ab92c68d551f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>Using expression (7), which exhibits explicitely r<sub>ij</sub>, and replacing r<sub>ij</sub> by the corrected value<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d262ccd9-d711-4ca4-b930-fbabbd606d25.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>,</p><p>the unbiased estimator of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d8586319-eef8-4388-a66e-9eb7853aa75f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, we obtain<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b0127ff0-7599-4caf-9f25-c833a0b3900e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. However, since an unbiased estimator of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\091ca873-103e-49cd-85bc-09419ac480e5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is still to be found we cannot use neither <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d2ecf9d9-7d4d-4729-b6e6-62eab6379c19.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> nor <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a315e1c9-4f51-41aa-8fb4-df289834d6b8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> as point-estimate of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8163fb20-755a-4daf-afb0-176b81654d0c.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig2">Figure 2</xref> gives the simulated distributions of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c83cfefc-715d-49f1-a6f9-76b9aac87485.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\05db7b04-3b42-4289-af9c-dabfeade53fc.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. We can see that the two approximate densities are different, and the density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6b44bd7f-ea0d-4582-909e-74ac675afb61.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> has higher mean and median, resulting in a shift to the right. But, again, the two variation intervals are very small.</p></sec><sec id="s3_3"><title>3.3. Expression of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\80ad7fec-f4eb-4b0c-9909-ba20c13249f0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></title><p>In the proof of Theorem 1, we have established that</p><fig id="fig1"><label>Figure 1</label><caption><p> Simulated density of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5ec32dce-0546-4f91-a3d6-32806b50baf5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></p></caption><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e89be9f4-a727-4946-aca1-c94aa3a365c8.png"/></fig><fig id="fig2"><label>Figure 2</label><caption><p> Simulated densities of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c08fddb1-2362-466d-ba25-02f17b7e7c33.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\da3ad368-c37d-4db2-9970-3cf1406cfca1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></p></caption><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e6032d46-6b13-488e-807e-ba791de8ac08.png"/></fig><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula649"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\793ad24d-0b6a-4267-970a-c792a26f47b6.png"/></disp-formula><p>Using the above matrix<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d31be289-3eee-4c68-a071-43ce3600e3c5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, for a simulated sample, say</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula650"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7080ba71-2bf8-4392-91dc-f189ed1b8101.png"/></disp-formula><p>we compute directly the left side by numerical integration, and the right side by using the algebraic expression. The results are extremely close to each other, with both around the numerical value 1.238523012 &#215; 10<sup>5</sup>.<sup></sup></p></sec></sec><sec id="s4"><title>4. Distribution of<img src="htmlimages\2-1240369x\3acd6005-88a1-4e52-963e-47767751e19e.png" width="37.5" height="51.875" />, the Determinant of R</title><p>First, let det(R) be denoted by<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a2e16aad-76c8-4e79-8c3d-44a71d585c51.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. In this case<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2995fea2-5c5e-45fe-bfe7-05e5d235a862.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, this distribution is very complex and no related result is known when<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e973c015-3290-40fc-af17-69f0aec66daa.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Nagar and Castaneda [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref20">20</xref>] , for example, established some results in the general case, for p = 2.</p><p>Theoretically, we can obtain the density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5646f0bd-dc78-4317-9ec2-c4d379175985.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> from (3) by applying the transformation<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8d2e402b-ce2c-4ff9-bc37-f9c4a75256bd.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with differential<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c42ece8b-90b0-4e5f-b1ae-fc4ecabf8f06.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, but the expression obtained quickly becomes intractable. Only in the case of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\eb20bcff-662a-49bb-a30c-081dee537449.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> that we can derive some analytical results on<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ca53a83a-297a-4d2d-b62f-51c477bbdb32.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, as presented in the next section. Gupta and Nagar [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref21">21</xref>] established some results for the case of a mixture of normal models, but again under the hypothesis of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\28a8e94f-2f9d-45c8-9f0d-05d9130bf9f5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><sec id="s4_1"><title>4.1. Density of the Determinant <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b4bb43cd-bc7f-4a71-a0dc-91f6004108ac.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></title><p>When considering Meijer G-functions and their extensions, Fox’s H-functions [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref22">22</xref>] , for <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\11681e6c-1ebd-4416-8a6b-c050e739e7b4.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> the density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8a59c72e-3a24-4920-a32d-eec90b094912.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> can be expressed in closed forms, as are those of other related multivariate statistics [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref23">23</xref>] . Let us recall that</p><p>the Meijer function<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f7a1e4f0-5991-45ad-996c-48205d4d5cfe.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and the Fox function<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1915c968-a618-4434-bbf5-dbf7d14bfcda.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, are defined as follows: <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ef7353cd-2772-49ba-8248-780b7c58b813.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>is</p><p>the integral along the complex contour L of a rational expression of Gamma functions</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula651"><label>(10)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a96cc809-74db-4cb4-ae39-37b443a15560.png"/></disp-formula><p>It is a special case, when <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ead31789-b04f-46d9-9925-c6bbb196722a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\19ad68d2-623f-42fa-9365-d1d6f1198d76.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, of Fox’s H-function, defined as:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula652"><label>.</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\735aa1f6-3f5c-4ee8-a630-7ac031150c61.png"/></disp-formula><p>Under some fairly general conditions on the poles of the gamma functions in the numerator, the above integrals exist.</p><p>THEOREM 2: When<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e23b32de-1365-43eb-9fd2-cb6a1e038527.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, for a random sample of size n from<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\43757519-9504-4352-a1eb-7aea79966154.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b3950a68-4049-442a-8fc0-e02390cbe785.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> depends only on n and p:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula653"><label>. (11)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0bf4bd25-4961-4aad-8ad8-2c1f4947d118.png"/></disp-formula><sec id="s4_1_1"><title>PROOF:</title><p>From (2) the moments of order t of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f84130b6-d8d4-4a96-94a6-c63e8a2ae2dd.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> are:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula654"><label>, (12)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6387225e-f783-43f2-b37f-507dd3a230a9.png"/></disp-formula><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\41f6adb2-c2a6-4e88-aaa6-b8053b28b7a1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, which is a product of moments of order t of independent beta variables. Upon identification of (12) with</p><p>these products, we can see that<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4f290fe3-8cc4-497f-9407-f4cd376bf539.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f8551c08-9f5e-4ead-a40b-490dc6cdd850.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c5b5b8e7-b275-409b-95fb-37713725943a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Using [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref23">23</xref>] ,</p><p>the product of k independent betas, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fb9bd6ea-5786-4708-a951-972bd29e6d3e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, has as density</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula655"><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\59f56cb5-4700-48ad-91db-2dece2d60b5f.png"/></disp-formula><p>Hence, we have here, the density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\70a4060c-d89a-472e-9db6-ac86bbc37fea.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> as:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula656"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b1cefab3-7443-4709-bf2d-931fb0833c7c.png"/></disp-formula><p>where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1beacbef-3a77-4f47-b2be-92cf12b05835.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fb7883ec-a7e5-4784-8d1e-3bd26ea073f1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\01d05cdb-fba1-4dbb-9de2-ddecddee85a0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d2054de2-f4d6-4efa-b4aa-ed0ee971a6eb.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\351fd342-bb9e-489c-a1ac-21d17e76bccc.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\548c7117-9c15-4e05-aaa1-d86043590ae2.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>And, hence, we obtain:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula657"><label>(13)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f494baaa-062f-40c4-8beb-3e93df3a8850.png"/></disp-formula><p>QED.</p><p>The density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c47dadac-46c1-421f-b215-5e4368f83453.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> can easily be computed and graphed, and percentiles of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ea3eef3a-8cea-4be3-84f8-067d609f79e8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> can be determined numerically. For example, for p = 4, n = 8. The 2.5<sup>th</sup> and 97.5<sup>th</sup> percentiles can be found to be 0.04697 and 0.7719 respectively.</p></sec></sec><sec id="s4_2"><title>4.2. Product and Ratio</title><p>Let <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7d18c12e-cd19-492c-952b-a6422746bee9.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\014d3b2b-1aaa-4543-9de9-ae5511d55ee0.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> be two independent correlation matrices, obtained from 2 populations, each with zero population correlation coefficients. The determinant of their product is also a G-function distribution, and its density can be obtained. This result is among those which extend relations obtained in the univariate case by Pham-Gia and Turkkan [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref24">24</xref>] , and also has potential applications in several domains.</p><p>THEOREM 3: Let <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0d3a981c-ed1b-420a-9daa-46cdee9014d8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\54b7efb6-88c0-4646-b7b8-f464cf598d7b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> be two independent random samples from <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ea688204-1e8f-44d7-8c94-9ca6eec6f472.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\adb2dced-d177-44bd-9d45-8ba20154168e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> respectively, both <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e58adc09-7190-4b54-ac27-13da1f023993.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> being diagonal. Then the determinant <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6dfc7f12-4d2f-4f19-82fe-dea8ef77129d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> of the product <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7b7d3c94-d591-4729-b5c6-221da2bab2a3.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> of the two correlation matrices <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e99b55cf-93e1-47fb-bd99-63ece31c4daa.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d66f5c2b-551d-4c39-96ba-46263202bf1b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> has density:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula658"><label>, (14)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\dfb34854-b8fc-47b6-8c4b-2f2328debebb.png"/></disp-formula><p>where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\93c4f2d6-4ff9-4d1b-a25d-3fe2feb0fd09.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b1c9ecd6-497e-4a95-a601-363c07507732.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>PROOF: Immediate by using multiplication of G-densities presented in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref23">23</xref>] .</p><p>QED.</p><p><xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig3">Figure 3</xref> shows the density of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\508bd8ff-a11b-4b0d-aac2-7287eb8767ac.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, for<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e04f32cd-38f2-4c4d-aa21-74050ef9e714.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\98461bb9-a998-4e8f-ab37-09378d16f49e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b477cff1-8436-4b83-ba97-16e87b06db79.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8833607f-8642-40bf-b371-4dbdd29fc9b9.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>Using again results presented in [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref23">23</xref>] we can similarly derive the density of the ratio <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\61c75625-8768-44f0-887f-4142ca48f31a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> in terms of G-functions. Its expression is not given here to save space but is available upon request.</p></sec><sec id="s4_3"><title>4.3. Particular Cases</title><p>1) Bivariate normal case: a) for the bivariate case we have<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\27fb1d5f-9b21-456d-8014-17335b4f7b79.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and when <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fa7a4c8b-d2ce-4f1e-b962-ee4029a8863f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is zero, we have from (11) the density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\141fc5c6-02d1-4646-bf5a-f8dcaaf40134.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> as</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula659"><label>,</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9fb8b8c5-2f09-4d87-be88-ad8103e450f2.png"/></disp-formula><p>which is the G-function form of the beta<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\18b23a92-6f21-49e9-89c0-e45f683b92f5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Hence, the distribution of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\55ebbf1c-c9a9-4b3e-914a-7f600db3799a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is:<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ffdeb511-1f7c-43cf-8547-9aaf2a88ae62.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1fd872f8-fa81-4056-a67c-cb504ceaa91d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and the density of r is:</p><fig id="fig3"><label>Figure 3</label><caption><p> Density of product of independent correlation determinants</p></caption><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4ac961ef-1cf6-4739-a361-af1facb75b3c.png"/></fig><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula660"><label>, (15)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\45a16ef4-5b0e-4f9f-8ff2-86eff42cb689.png"/></disp-formula><p>for<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\59a959fc-afbb-419b-a2a1-bf40750849bc.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Testing <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4e4cff38-8bf0-4676-97b1-a0eccabe9ac9.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is much simpler when using Student’s t-distribution, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b2a8cbd7-a377-4348-acd8-ecb2a1caf040.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and is covered in most textbooks.</p><p>Pitman [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref25">25</xref>] has given an interesting distribution-free test when<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3e6b3e3f-0a4b-45cd-8503-aac458dbdf65.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>2) When <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f99e99ea-6ecf-4720-b82e-a3c6ce69b999.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> Hotelling ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref4">4</xref>] ) gave the density of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0bfd0a09-d917-4ce9-8776-6c09b7a963d8.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> as:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula661"><label>(16)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6963b487-2d65-46f8-965f-57dcd11c8d77.png"/></disp-formula><p>where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e4bb566d-c870-427a-940a-fb6c4a18b7ae.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is Gauss hypergeometric function with parameters <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9ff6ce91-6e8d-487e-aa5e-92ae7bb49055.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and c.</p><p>3) Mixture of Normal Distributions: With X coming now from the mixture:<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9890a7fa-43a6-4b41-ae48-8540c0d94799.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>,</p><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4b21ddce-8ba3-4fd3-906c-f370acb73036.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, Gupta and Nagar [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref21">21</xref>] consider<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\39904005-023f-478f-af58-7b2a57952512.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and give the density of W in terms of Meijer</p><p>G-functions, but for the case <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a962abf3-79f8-4498-83d5-dfe3c5ee4a72.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> only. The complicated form of this density contains the hypergeometric function<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d309b22e-3ae4-44e9-8b71-f2d027b3d468.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, as expected.</p><p>For the bivariate case, Nagar and Castaneda [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref20">20</xref>] established the density of r and gave its expression for both cases, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ffc871ee-a668-45fa-b64b-b603c8cc1991.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c915d1b2-dd2b-474c-a9e8-309eb4da9e9a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. In the first case the density of r, when only one population is considered, reduces to the expression obtained by Hotelling [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref4">4</xref>] above.</p></sec></sec><sec id="s5"><title>5. Dependence between Components of a Random Vector</title><sec id="s5_1"><title>5.1. Dependence and <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\cd4ef244-2fe3-4a6f-8d08-76f57bb1cd3c.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></title><p>Correlation is useful in multiple regression analysis, where it is strongly related to collinearity. As an example of how individual correlation coefficients are used in regression, the variance inflation factor (VIF), well adopted now in several statistical softwares, measures how much the variance of a coefficient is increased by collinearity, or in other words, how much of the variation in one independent variable is explained by the others. For the j-th variable, <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e5c67be1-c5f9-4b46-a271-fed971621fc3.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>is the j-th diagonal element of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d489b7dd-4c75-4997-ba75-21ab59e9eb6e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. We know that it equals<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\18c6c336-7bb9-4ffd-8685-eed6170d1143.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1e735bd7-90e4-49e7-ab1d-985190b60efc.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> being the multiple correlation of the j-th variable regressed on the remaining <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\9c2cb1d1-a04e-4f16-8385-3597fa933451.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> others.</p><p>When all correlation measures are considered together, measuring intercorrelation by a single number has been approached in different ways by various authors. Either the value of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\cbd6a1fb-cf19-4cc0-a2ce-5d61a4b33252.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> or those of its latent roots can be used. Rencher ([<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref26">26</xref>] , p. 21) mentions six of these measures, among them<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\cb0e6499-9900-443a-97c9-e38d1fe02d9f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\4e0076f3-754e-4744-8852-7e7b7631e3bd.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is an observed value of R, and takes the value 1 if the variables are independent, and 0 if there is an exact linear dependence. But since the exact distribution of R is not available this sample measure is rather of descriptive type and no formal inferential process has really been developed.</p><p>Although the notion of independence between different components of a system is of widespread use in the study of the system structure, reliability and performance, its complement, the notion of dependence has been a difficult one to deal with. There are several dependence concepts, as explained by Jogdev [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref27">27</xref>] , but using the covariance matrix between different components in a joint distribution remains probably the most direct approach. Other more theoretical approaches, are related to the relations between marginal and joint distributions, and Joe [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref28">28</xref>] can be consulted on these approaches. Still, other aspects of dependence are explored in Bertail et al. [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref29">29</xref>] . But two random variables can have zero correlation while being dependent. Hence, no-correlation and independence are two different concepts, as pointed out in Drouet Mari and Kotz [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref30">30</xref>] . Furthermore, for two independent events, the product of their probabilities gives the probability of the intersection event, which is not necessarily the case for two non-correlated events. Fortunately, these two concepts are equivalent, when the underlying population is supposed normal, a hypothesis that we will suppose in this section.</p></sec><sec id="s5_2"><title>5.2. Inner Dependence of a System</title><p>When considering only two variables, several measures of dependence have also been suggested in the literature (Lancaster [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref31">31</xref>] ), and especially in system reliability (Hoyland and Rausand [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref32">32</xref>] ), but a joint measure of the degree of dependence between several components of a random vector, or within a system<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5730a0b7-48a6-4a1f-8790-9643c7d47ea4.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, or inner dependence of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\6ab274bc-3722-4262-968a-d02295d21f77.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, denoted by<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\766d655a-df4c-4337-aa84-3f0e18ac9196.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, is still missing. We approach this dependence concept here by way of the correlation matrix, where a single measure attached to it would reflect the overall degree of dependence. This concept has been presented first in Bekker, Roux and Pham-Gia [<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="scirp.48571-ref33">33</xref>] , to which we refer for more details. It is defined as<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ff467102-7d97-4113-87d1-0aeb208e422b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, with<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\bb995fc9-0427-4650-87b4-586aeb3e7572.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. The measure of independence within the system is then</p><p><inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b4998a85-fca5-4033-9380-20ce2d6f0b94.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, estimated by<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0de3e474-5a13-41e1-9e27-8d3281c1546d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\2fa6b710-40e0-4c33-97b0-5a0150767dde.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is a point estimation of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\661bf593-d1b3-42b0-97af-78e0897a3e13.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> based on R, the correlation</p><p>matrix associated with a sample of n observations of the p-component system. In the general case this estimation question is still unresolved, except for the binormal case,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f321ba29-1f79-4344-9aa8-929770f23f40.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. We then have<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\eec7393e-0652-4770-8edf-60cef93321af.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, and<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5cd42459-ce9f-45c7-bdbd-e50d5d4c8f6f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\d9dc3dd3-3535-468e-bed6-27f4572b9789.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is the coefficient of correlation with its estimation well known, depending on either <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\dbaaf48f-2bfc-4e9f-aa8c-76409c7b77b1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is supposed to be zero or not. The associated sample measure being<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f413f4c9-d234-4df7-b26b-bda8ec510096.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, it is of interest to study the distribution of the sample inner dependence<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\3b7bf9cf-541e-4f5c-92f8-4c417b94f62d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, based on a sample of n observations of the system.</p><p>In the language of Reliability Theory, a p-component normal system is fully statistically independent when the <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\c8623b36-03fb-47b1-8faa-17bfc7f898dd.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> correlation coefficients <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\b6a6186b-e881-4ade-b811-8ef9f1016980.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> of its components are all zero. We have:</p><p>THEOREM 4: 1) Let the fully statistically independent system <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7cc6d4ca-3a09-461c-ac80-f79deb41bf6a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> have p components with a joint normal distribution with<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ca2624ed-af49-4986-9c88-8f19b1d3345e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, where<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\792cd4b3-8a95-4bf1-9045-8387fffaaec2.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p><p>a) Then the distribution of the sample coefficient of inner dependence <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\769c19d7-31e0-48bd-8474-39e92a518adf.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula662"><label>(17)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f2c2fa54-140e-44d8-8d8d-5aaec404dc7a.png"/></disp-formula><p>b) For the two-component case (p = 2), we have:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula663"><label>(18)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\0d608912-7a4f-4a09-b0f6-6936c8d97076.png"/></disp-formula><p>2) For a non-fully independent two-component binormal system<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\1b065698-40a7-4961-a7eb-d8f70f131c3d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, for<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\760cdfff-59c1-4d86-93c0-77a731e15485.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>:</p><disp-formula id="scirp.48571-formula664"><label>(19)</label><inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\e429e113-ad7d-4898-87ec-9ad05f51ff71.png"/></disp-formula><p>where <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\21be738a-0495-4506-8c23-0c60c481798e.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\fb32e31f-ad26-44ea-89df-705e353aac07.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> is Gauss hypergeometric function.</p><p>PROOF: a) For<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\7cd8a549-f4fb-4261-bb05-fb25f3e5d58d.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, the density of<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\cb267f75-1b97-451b-8d86-feb82bcedfb4.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, as given by (17), is obtained from (11) by a change of variable. <xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig4">Figure 4</xref> gives the density of the sample coefficient of inner dependence<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\dab55eea-c65d-4bb8-93d0-57c450db32c1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, for n = 10 and p = 4.</p><p>Expression (18) is obtained from (15) by the change of variable<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8e67bc75-d041-459d-a659-a1ae3a28d6dd.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Again, the density of d, as given by (19), can be derived from (16) by considering the same change of variable. QED.</p><p>Numerical computations give<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5b2288bb-3f66-4f8e-998d-74ff03de7d6b.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>. Estimation of <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\ce3d8530-3819-496a-baca-557567d043f7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> from <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a005a32c-e694-4367-a0c0-0693cacbfad1.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> now follows the same principles as <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\63ab021b-a6b9-4a6f-ab05-46aaf665b0e7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> from r.</p><p><xref ref-type="fig" rid="fig5">Figure 5</xref> gives the density<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\f5af142b-75cb-4102-a221-2bda67bd8c4a.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>, as given by (19), for n = 8, p = 2,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\a52adb06-dcd9-49ca-8376-16ab5e21a6f5.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula>.</p></sec></sec><sec id="s6"><title>6. Conclusion</title><p>In this article we have established an original expression for the density of the correlation matrix, with the sample variances as parameters, in the case of the multivariate normal population with non-identity population correlation matrix. We have, furthermore, established the expression of the distribution of the determinant of that random matrix in the case of identity population correlation matrix, and computed its value. Applications are</p><fig id="fig4"><label>Figure 4</label><caption><p> Density (17) for sample coefficient of inner depen- dence <inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\5555cbd5-0af8-4de7-a499-a7573adb98f7.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula> (normal system with four components, n = 10, p = 4)</p></caption><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\09dda4f0-e115-42f8-82e1-82fcbef712b7.png"/></fig><fig id="fig5"><label>Figure 5</label><caption><p> Density (19) of sample measure of a binormal system dependence,<inline-formula><inline-graphic xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\8c1659a2-5801-4777-9d4e-dc27715c442f.png" xlink:type="simple"/></inline-formula></p></caption><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://file.scirp.org/Html/htmlimages\2-1240369x\213dfb2b-bd98-4555-a5a2-432809e3e6d8.png"/></fig><p>made to the dependence among p components of a system. 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