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ASAP3: a batch means procedure for steady-state simulation analysis

Published: 01 January 2005 Publication History

Abstract

We introduce ASAP3, a refinement of the batch means algorithms ASAP and ASAP2, that delivers point and confidence-interval estimators for the expected response of a steady-state simulation. ASAP3 is a sequential procedure designed to produce a confidence-interval estimator that satisfies user-specified requirements on absolute or relative precision as well as coverage probability. ASAP3 operates as follows: the batch size is progressively increased until the batch means pass the Shapiro-Wilk test for multivariate normality; and then ASAP3 fits a first-order autoregressive (AR(1)) time series model to the batch means. If necessary, the batch size is further increased until the autoregressive parameter in the AR(1) model does not significantly exceed 0.8. Next, ASAP3 computes the terms of an inverse Cornish-Fisher expansion for the classical batch means t-ratio based on the AR(1) parameter estimates; and finally ASAP3 delivers a correlation-adjusted confidence interval based on this expansion. Regarding not only conformance to the precision and coverage-probability requirements but also the mean and variance of the half-length of the delivered confidence interval, ASAP3 compared favorably to other batch means procedures (namely, ABATCH, ASAP, ASAP2, and LBATCH) in an extensive experimental performance evaluation.

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cover image ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation
ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation  Volume 15, Issue 1
January 2005
107 pages
ISSN:1049-3301
EISSN:1558-1195
DOI:10.1145/1044322
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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 January 2005
Published in TOMACS Volume 15, Issue 1

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Author Tags

  1. Batch means
  2. confidence interval estimation
  3. inverse Cornish-Fisher expansion
  4. sequential analysis
  5. simulation start-up problem
  6. steady-state simulation

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