Least Squares estimation of two ordered monotone regression curves

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding the Least Squares estimators of two isotonic regression curves $g^\circ_1$ and $g^\circ_2$ under the additional constraint that they are ordered; e.g., $g^\circ_1 \le g^\circ_2$. Given two sets of $n$ data points $y_1, .., y_n$ and $z_1, >...,z_n$ observed at (the same) design points, the estimates of the true curves are obtained by minimizing the weighted Least Squares criterion $L_2(a, b) = \sum_{j=1}^n (y_j - a_j)^2 w^1_j+ \sum_{j=1}^n (z_j - b_j)^2 w^2_j$ over the class of pairs of vectors $(a, b) \in \mathbb{R}^n \times \mathbb{R}^n$ such that $a_1 \le a_2 \le ...\le a_n$, $b_1 \le b_2 \le ...\le b_n$, and $a_i \le b_i, i=1, ...,n$. The characterization of the estimators is established. To compute these estimators, we use an iterative projected subgradient algorithm, where the projection is performed with a "generalized" pool-adjacent-violaters algorithm (PAVA), a byproduct of this work. Then, we apply the estimation method to real data from mechanical engineering.