For years I've been angry that Maple isn't capable of formally manipulating random vectors (aka multivariate random variables).
For the record Mathematica does.

The problem I'm concerned with is to create a vector W such that

type(W, RandomVariable)

will return true.
Of course defining W from its components w1, .., wN, where each w is a random variable is easy, even if these components are correlated or, more generally dependent ( the two concepts being equivalent iif all the w are gaussian random variables).
But one looses the property that W is no longer a (multivariate) random variable.
See a simple example here: NoRandomVectorsInMaple.mw

This is the reason why I've developped among years several pieces of code to build a few multivariate random variable (multinormal, Dirichlet, Logistic-Normal, Skew Multivariate Normal, ...).

In the framework of my activities, they are of great interest and the purpose of this post is to share what I have done on this subject by presenting the most classic example: the multivariate gaussian random variable.

My leading idea was (is) to build a package named MVStatistics on the image of the Statistics package but devoted to Multi Variate random variables.
I have already construct such a package aggregating about fifty different procedures. But this latter doesn't merit the appellation of "Maple package" because I'm not qualified to write something like this which would be at the same time perennial, robust, documented, open and conflict-free with the  Statistics package.
In case any of you are interested in pursuing this work (because I'm about to change jobs), I can provide it all the different procedures I built to construct and manipulate multivariate random variables.

To help you understand the principles I used, here is the most iconic example of a multivariate gaussian random variable.
The attached file contains the following procedures

MVNormal
  Constructs a gaussian random vector whose components can be mutually correlated
  The statistics defined in Distribution are: (this list could be extended to other
  statistics, provided they are "recognized" statitics, see at the end of this 
  post):
      PDF
      Mode
      Mean
      Variance
      StandardDeviation = add(s[k]*x[k], k=1..K)
      RandomSample

DispersionEllipse
  Builds and draws the dispersion ellipses of a bivariate gaussia, random vector

DispersionEllipsoid
  Builds and draws the dispersion ellipsoids of a trivariate gaussia, random vector

MVstat
  Computes several statistics of a random vector (Mean, Variance, ...)

Iserlis
  Computes the moments of any order of a gaussian random vector

MVCentralMoment
  Computes the central moments of a gaussian random vector

Conditional
  Builds the conditional random vector of a gaussian random vector wrt some of its components 
  the moments of any order of a gaussian random vector.
  Note: the result has type RandomVariable.

MarginalizeAgainst
  Builds the marginal random vector of a gaussian random vector wrt some of its components 
  the moments of any order of a gaussian random vector.
  Note: the result has type RandomVariable.

MardiaNormalityTest
  The multi-dimensional analogue of the Shapiro-Wilks normality test

HZNormalityTest
  Henze-Zirkler test for Multivariate Normality

MVWaldWolfowitzTest
  A multivariate version of the non-parametrix Wald-Folfowitz test

Do not hesitate to ask me any questions that might come to mind.
In particular, as Maple introduces limitations on the type of some attributes (for instance Mean  must be of algebraic type), I've been forced to lure it by transforming vector or matrix quantities into algebraic ones.
An example is

Mean = add(m[k]*x[k], k=1..K)

where m[k] is the expectation of the kth component of this random vector.
This implies using the procedure MVstat to "decode", for instance, what Mean returns and write it as a vector.

MultivariateNormal.mw

About the  statistics ths Statistics:-Distribution constructor recognizes:
To get them one can do this (the Normal distribution seems to be the continuous one with the most exhaustive list os statistics):

restart
with(Statistics):
X := RandomVariable(Normal(a, b)):
attributes(X);
      protected, RandomVariable, _ProbabilityDistribution

map(e -> printf("%a\n", e), [exports(attributes(X)[3])]):
Conditions
ParentName
Parameters
CharacteristicFunction
CDF
CGF
HodgesLehmann
Mean
Median
MGF
Mode
PDF
RousseeuwCrouxSn
StandardDeviation
Support
Variance
CDFNumeric
QuantileNumeric
RandomSample
RandomSampleSetup
RandomVariate
MaximumLikelihoodEstimate

Unfortunately it happens that for some unknown reason a few statistics cannot be set by the user.
This is for instance the case of Parameters serious consequences in certain situations.
Among the other statistics that cannot be set by the user one finds:

  • ParentName,
  • QuantileNumeric  whose role is not very clear, at least for me, but which I suspect is a procedure which "inverts" the CDF to give a numerical estimation of a quantile given its probability.
    If it is so accessing  QuantileNumeric would be of great interest for distributions whose the quantiles have no closed form expressions.
  • CDFNumeric  (same remark as above)

Finally, the statistics Conditions, which enables defining the conditions the elements of Parameters must verify are not at all suited for multivariate random variables.
It is for instance impossible to declare that the variance matrix (or the correlation matrix) is a square symmetric positive definite matrix).


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