On the monotonic properties of the residual variance and their applications in reliability (Q1090047)

The residual life of a component of age t denoted by \(X-t| X>t\) is of great interest in actuarial studies, survival analysis and reliability. It is well known that the mean residual life function \(e_ F(t)=E(X- t| X>t)\) determines F uniquely and has been extensively studied in the literature. In this paper the monotonic properties of the residual variance \(\sigma^ 2_ F(t)\) are characterized in terms of the residual coefficient of variation. These characterizations are then used to investigate the behavior of \(\sigma^ 2_ F(t)\) for classes of distributions in reliability. In this connection it has been studied how the aging properties IFR, NBU, NBUE and DMRL of the original distribution are transformed into the aging properties of the distribution of the residual life.