Comparison of Frailty Models for Acute Leukemia Data under Gompertz Baseline Distribution

In this article, we consider two different shared frailty regression models under the assumption of Gompertz as baseline distribution. Mostly assumption of gamma distribution is considered for frailty distribution. To compare the results with gamma frailty model, we consider the inverse Gaussian shared frailty model also. We compare these two models to a real life bivariate survival data set of acute leukemia remission times (Freireich et al., 1963 Freireich, E.J., Gehan, E., Frei, E., Schroeder, L.R., Wolman, I.J., Anbari, R., Burgert, E.O., Mills, S.D., Pinkel, D., Selawry, O.S., Moon, J.H., Gendel, B.R., Spurr, C.L., Storrs, R., Haurani, F., Hoogstraten, B., Lee, S. (1963). The effect of 6-mercaptopurine on the duration of steroid-induced remissions in acute leukemia: a model for evaluation of other potentially useful therapy. Blood 21:699–716.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Analysis is performed using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. Model comparison is made using Bayesian model selection criterion and a well-fitted model is suggested for the acute leukemia data.     

Steady-state Gibbs sampler estimation for lung cancer data

This paper is based on the application of a Bayesian model to a clinical trial study to determine a more effective treatment to lower mortality rates and consequently to increase survival times among patients with lung cancer. In this study, Qian et al. [13 J. Qian, D.K. Stangl, and S. George, A Weibull model for survival data: Using prediction to decide when to stop a clinical trial, in Bayesian Biostatistics, D. Berry and D. Stangl, eds., Marcel Dekker, New York, 1996, pp. 187–205. [Google Scholar]] strived to determine if a Weibull survival model can be used to decide whether to stop a clinical trial. The traditional Gibbs sampler was used to estimate the model parameters. This paper proposes to use the independent steady-state Gibbs sampling (ISSGS) approach, introduced by Dunbar et al. [3 M. Dunbar, H.M. Samawi, R. Vogel, and L. Yu, A more efficient Gibbs sampler estimation using steady state simulation: Application to public health studies, J. Stat. Simul. Comput. 10.1080/00949655.2013.770857.[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]], to improve the original Gibbs sampler in multidimensional problems. It is demonstrated that ISSGS provides accuracy with unbiased estimation and improves the performance and convergence of the Gibbs sampler in this application.     

Selection of Binary Variables and Classification by Boosting

We adopt boosting for classification and selection of high-dimensional binary variables for which classical methods based on normality and non singular sample dispersion are inapplicable. Boosting seems particularly well suited for binary variables. We present three methods of which two combine boosting with the relatively classical variable selection methods developed in Wilbur et al. (2002 Wilbur , J. D. , Ghosh , J. K. , Nakatsu , C. H. , Brouder , S. M. , Doerge , R. W. ( 2002 ). Variable selection in high-dimensional multivariate binary data with application to the analysis of microbial community DNA fingerprints . Biometrics 58 : 378 – 386 . [Google Scholar]). Our primary interest is variable selection in classification with small misclassification error being used as validation of proposed method for variable selection. Two of the new methods perform uniformly better than Wilbur et al. (2002 Wilbur , J. D. , Ghosh , J. K. , Nakatsu , C. H. , Brouder , S. M. , Doerge , R. W. ( 2002 ). Variable selection in high-dimensional multivariate binary data with application to the analysis of microbial community DNA fingerprints . Biometrics 58 : 378 – 386 . [Google Scholar]) in one set of simulated and three real life examples.     

A new estimator of finite population mean based on the dual use of the auxiliary information

When a sufficient correlation between the study variable and the auxiliary variable exists, the ranks of the auxiliary variable are also correlated with the study variable, and thus, these ranks can be used as an effective tool in increasing the precision of an estimator. In this paper, we propose a new improved estimator of the finite population mean that incorporates the supplementary information in forms of: (i) the auxiliary variable and (ii) ranks of the auxiliary variable. Mathematical expressions for the bias and the mean-squared error of the proposed estimator are derived under the first order of approximation. The theoretical and empirical studies reveal that the proposed estimator always performs better than the usual mean, ratio, product, exponential-ratio and -product, classical regression estimators, and Rao (1991 Rao, T.J. (1991). On certail methods of improving ration and regression estimators. Commun. Stat. Theory Methods 20(10):3325–3340.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Singh et al. (2009 Singh, R., Chauhan, P., Sawan, N., Smarandache, F. (2009). Improvement in estimating the population mean using exponential estimator in simple random sampling. Int. J. Stat. Econ. 3(A09):13–18. [Google Scholar]), Shabbir and Gupta (2010 Shabbir, J., Gupta, S. (2010). On estimating finite population mean in simple and stratified random sampling. Commun. Stat. Theory Methods 40(2):199–212.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Grover and Kaur (2011 Grover, L.K., Kaur, P. (2011). An improved estimator of the finite population mean in simple random sampling. Model Assisted Stat. Appl. 6(1):47–55. [Google Scholar], 2014) estimators.     

Estimation of the Mean of a Sensitive Variable in the Presence of Auxiliary Information

Sousa et al. (2010 Sousa , R. , Shabbir , J. , Real , P. C. , Gupta , S. ( 2010 ). Ratio estimation of the mean of a sensitive variable in the presence of auxiliary information . J. Statist. Theor. Prac. 4 ( 3 ): 495 – 507 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) introduced a ratio estimator for the mean of a sensitive variable and showed that this estimator performs better than the ordinary mean estimator based on a randomized response technique (RRT). In this article, we introduce a regression estimator that performs better than the ratio estimator even for modest correlation between the primary and the auxiliary variables. The underlying assumption is that the primary variable is sensitive in nature but a non sensitive auxiliary variable exists that is positively correlated with the primary variable. Expressions for the Bias and MSE (Mean Square Error) are derived based on the first order of approximation. It is shown that the proposed regression estimator performs better than the ratio estimator and the ordinary RRT mean estimator (that does not utilize the auxiliary information). We also consider a generalized regression-cum-ratio estimator that has even smaller MSE. An extensive simulation study is presented to evaluate the performances of the proposed estimators in relation to other estimators in the study. The procedure is also applied to some financial data: purchase orders (a sensitive variable) and gross turnover (a non sensitive variable) in 2009 for a population of 5,336 companies in Portugal from a survey on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) usage.     

Rates of Posterior Convergence for iid Observations

By means of the Hausdorff α-entropy introduced by Xing and Ranneby (2009 Xing , Y. , Ranneby , B. ( 2009 ). Sufficient conditions for Bayesian consistency . J. Statist. Plann. Inference. 139 : 2479 – 2489 . [Google Scholar]), we give two theorems on rates of in-probability convergence of posterior distributions. The result is applied in study of the Bernstein polynomial priors.     

Hartley-Ross Type Estimators for Population Mean Using Known Parameters of Auxiliary Variate

This article proposes Hartley-Ross type unbiased estimators of finite population mean using information on known parameters of auxiliary variate when the study variate and auxiliary variate are positively correlated. The variances of the proposed unbiased estimators are obtained. It has been shown that the proposed estimators are more efficient than the simple mean estimator, usual ratio estimator and estimators proposed by Sisodia and Dwivedi (1981 Sisodia , B. V. S. , Dwivedi , V. K. ( 1981 ). A modified ratio estimator using coefficient of variation of auxiliary variable . J. Indian Soc. Agricultural Statist. 33 ( 1 ): 13 – 18 . [Google Scholar]), Kadilar and Cingi (2006 Kadilar , C. , Cingi , H. ( 2006 ). A new ratio estimator using correlation coefficient . Int. Statist. 1 – 11 . [Google Scholar]), and Kadilar et al. (2007 Kadilar , C. , Candan , M. , Cingi , H. ( 2007 ). Ratio estimators using robust regression . Hacet. J. Math. Statist. 36 ( 2 ): 181 – 188 .[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) under certain realistic conditions. Empirical studies are also carried out to demonstrate the merits of the proposed unbiased estimators over other estimators considered in this article.     

EM-based algorithms for autoregressive models with t-distributed innovations

This paper considers the estimation of parameters of AR(p) models for time series with t-distribution via EM-based algorithms. The paper develops asymptotic properties for the estimation to show that the estimators are efficient. Also testing theory for the estimators is considered. The robustness of the estimators and various tests to deviations from an assumed model is investigated. The study shows that the algorithms have equal estimation efficiency even if the error distribution is miss-specified or perturbed by outliers. Interestingly, the estimators from these algorithms performed better than that of the Modified Maximum Likelihood (MML) considered in Tiku et al. (2000 Tiku, M. L., Wong, W. K., Vaughan, D. C., Bian, G. (2000). Time series models in non-normal situations: Symmetric innovations. Journal of Time Series Analysis, 21: 571–596. [Google Scholar]).     

A Note on the Prior Distributions of Weibull Parameters for the Reliability Function

In Bayesian Inference it is often desirable to have a posterior density reflecting mainly the information from sample data. To achieve this purpose it is important to employ prior densities which add little information to the sample. We have in the literature many such prior densities, for example, Jeffreys (1967 Jeffreys , H. ( 1967 ). Theory of Probability , 3rd rev. ed. . London : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]), Lindley (1956 Lindley , D. V. ( 1956 ). On a measure of the information provided by an experiment . Ann. Mathemat. Statist. 27 : 986 – 1005 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); (1961 Lindley , D. V. ( 1961 ). The use of prior probability distributions in statistical inference and decisions . In: Neyman , J. , ed. Proceedings of the Fourth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability . Vol. 1. Berkeley : University of California Press , pp. 453 – 468 . [Google Scholar]), Hartigan (1964 Hartigan , J. ( 1964 ). Invariant priors distributions . Ann. Mathemat. Statist. 35 : 836 – 845 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Bernardo (1979 Bernardo , J. M. ( 1979 ). Reference posterior distributions for Bayesian inference . J. Roy. Statist. Soc. 41 ( 2 ): 113 – 147 . [Google Scholar]), Zellner (1984 Zellner , A. ( 1984 ). Maximal Data Information Prior Distributions, Basic Issues in Econometrics . Chicago : University of Chicago Press . [Google Scholar]), Tibshirani (1989 Tibshirani , R. ( 1989 ). Noninformative priors for one parameters of many . Biometrika 76 : 604 – 608 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), etc. In the present article, we compare the posterior densities of the reliability function by using Jeffreys, the maximal data information (Zellner, 1984 Zellner , A. ( 1984 ). Maximal Data Information Prior Distributions, Basic Issues in Econometrics . Chicago : University of Chicago Press . [Google Scholar]), Tibshirani's, and reference priors for the reliability function R(t) in a Weibull distribution.     

Maximum Value of Hotelling's T 2 Statistics Based on the Successive Differences Covariance Matrix Estimator

In statistical process control applications, the multivariate T ² control chart based on Hotelling's T ² statistic is useful for detecting the presence of special causes of variation. In particular, use of the T ² statistic based on the successive differences covariance matrix estimator has been shown to be very effective in detecting the presence of a sustained step or ramp shift in the mean vector. However, the exact distribution of this statistic is unknown. In this article, we derive the maximum value of the T ² statistic based on the successive differences covariance matrix estimator. This distributional property is crucial for calculating an approximate upper control limit of a T ² control chart based on successive differences, as described in Williams et al. (2006 Williams , J. D. , Woodall , W. H. , Birch , J. B. , Sullivan , J. H. ( 2006 ). On the distribution of T ² statistics based on successive differences . J. Qual. Technol. 38 : 217 – 229 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).     

Population Attributable Fraction as a Measure of Heritability in Dichotomous Twin Data

In many genetic analyses of dichotomous twin data, odds ratios have been used to test hypotheses on heritability and shared common environment effects of a given disease (Lichtenstein et al., 2000 Lichtenstein , P. , Holm , N. , Verkasalo , P. , Iliadou , A. , Kaprio , J. , Koskenvuo , M. , Pukkala , E. , Skytthe , A. , Hemminki , K. ( 2000 ). Environmental and heritable factors in the causation of cancer . New England Journal of Medicine 343 : 78 – 85 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Ahlbom et al., 1997 Ahlbom , A. , Lichtenstein , P. , Malmström , H. , Feychting , M. , Hemminki , K. , Pedersen , N. L. ( 1997 ). Cancer in twins: genetic and nongenetic familial risk factors . Journal of the National Cancer Institute 89 : 287 – 93 . [Google Scholar]; Ramakrishnan et al., 1992 Ramakrishnan , V. , Goldberg , J. , Henderson , W. , Elsen , S. , True , W. , Lyons , M. , Tsuang , M. ( 1992 ). Elementary methods for the analysis of dichotomous outcomes in unselected samples of twins . Genetic Epidemiology 9 : 273 – 287 . [Google Scholar], 4). However, estimates of these two effects have not been dealt with in the literature. In epidemiology, the attributable fraction (AF), a function of the odds ratio and the prevalence of the risk factor has been used to describe the contribution of a risk factor to a disease in a given population (Leviton, 1973 Leviton , A. ( 1973 ). Definitions of attributable risk . American Journal of Epidemiology 98 : 231 . [Google Scholar]). In this article, we adapt the AF to quantify the heritability and the shared common environment. Twin data on cancer, gallstone disease and phobia are used to illustrate the applicability of the AF estimate as a measure of heritability.     

An Asymmetric Kernel Estimator of Density Function for Stationary Associated Sequences

Here, we apply the smoothing technique proposed by Chaubey et al. (2007 Chaubey , Y. P. , Sen , A. , Sen , P. K. ( 2007 ). A new smooth density estimator for non-negative random variables. Technical Report No. 1/07. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada . [Google Scholar]) for the empirical survival function studied in Bagai and Prakasa Rao (1991 Bagai , I. , Prakasa Rao , B. L. S. ( 1991 ). Estimation of the survival function for stationary associated processes . Statist. Probab. Lett. 12 : 385 – 391 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for a sequence of stationary non-negative associated random variables.The derivative of this estimator in turn is used to propose a nonparametric density estimator. The asymptotic properties of the resulting estimators are studied and contrasted with some other competing estimators. A simulation study is carried out comparing the recent estimator based on the Poisson weights (Chaubey et al., 2011 Chaubey , Y. P. , Dewan , I. , Li , J. ( 2011 ). Smooth estimation of survival and density functions for a stationary associated process using poisson weights . Statist. Probab. Lett. 81 : 267 – 276 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) showing that the two estimators have comparable finite sample global as well as local behavior.     

Searching effective rotation patterns for population median using exponential type estimators in two-occasion rotation sampling

ABSTRACT

The present article is an attempt to explore the rotation patterns using exponential ratio type estimators for the estimation of finite population median at current occasion in two occasion rotation sampling. Properties of the proposed estimators including the optimum replacement strategies have been elaborated. The proposed estimators have been compared with sample median estimator when there is no matching from previous occasion as well with the ratio type estimator proposed by Singh et al. (2007 Singh, H.P., Tailor, R., Singh, S., Kim, Jong-Min. (2007). Quintile estimation in successive sampling. J. Kor. Stat. Soc. 36(4):543–556. [Google Scholar]) for second quantile. The behaviors of the proposed estimators are justified by empirical interpretations and validated by means of simulation study with the help of some natural populations.     

The Restricted and Unrestricted Two-Parameter Estimators

In this article, we introduce a new two-parameter estimator by grafting the contraction estimator into the modified ridge estimator proposed by Swindel (1976 Swindel , B. F. ( 1976 ). Good ridge estimators based on prior information . Commun. Statist. Theor. Meth. A5 : 1065 – 1075 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This new two-parameter estimator is a general estimator which includes the ordinary least squares, the ridge, the Liu, and the contraction estimators as special cases. Furthermore, by setting restrictions Rβ = r on the parameter values we introduce a new restricted two-parameter estimator which includes the well-known restricted least squares, the restricted ridge proposed by Groß (2003 Groß , J. ( 2003 ). Restricted ridge estimation . Statist. Probab. Lett. 65 : 57 – 64 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the restricted contraction estimators, and a new restricted Liu estimator which we call the modified restricted Liu estimator different from the restricted Liu estimator proposed by Kaç?ranlar et al. (1999 Kaç?ranlar , S. , Sakall?o?lu , S. , Akdeniz , F. , Styan , G. P. H. , Werner , H. J. ( 1999 ). A new biased estimator in linear regression and a detailed analysis of the widely-analysed dataset on Portland cement . Sankhya Ser. B., Ind. J. Statist. 61 : 443 – 459 . [Google Scholar]). We also obtain necessary and sufficient condition for the superiority of the new two-parameter estimator over the ordinary least squares estimator and the comparison of the new restricted two-parameter estimator to the new two-parameter estimator is done by the criterion of matrix mean square error. The estimators of the biasing parameters are given and a simulation study is done for the comparison as well as the determination of the biasing parameters.     

Asymptotic normality of the local linear estimation of the conditional density for functional time-series data

This article focuses on the conditional density of a scalar response variable given a random variable taking values in a semimetric space. The local linear estimators of the conditional density and its derivative are considered. It is assumed that the observations form a stationary α-mixing sequence. Under some regularity conditions, the joint asymptotic normality of the estimators of the conditional density and its derivative is established. The result confirms the prospect in Rachdi et al. (2014 Rachdi, M., A. Laksaci, J. Demongeot, A. Abdali, and F. Madani. 2014. Theoretical and practical aspects of the quadratic error in the local linear estimation of the conditional density for functional data. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 73 :53–68.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and can be applied in time-series analysis to make predictions and build confidence intervals. The finite-sample behavior of the estimator is investigated by simulations as well.     

Note on posterior inference for the Bingham distribution

The properties of high-dimensional Bingham distributions have been studied by Kume and Walker (2014 Kume, A., and S. G. Walker. 2014. On the Bingham distribution with large dimension. Journal of Multivariate Analysis 124:345–52.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Fallaize and Kypraios (2016 Fallaize, C. J., and T. Kypraios. 2016. Exact Bayesian inference for the Bingham distribution. Statistics and Computing 26:349–60.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) propose the Bayesian inference for the Bingham distribution and they use developments in Bayesian computation for distributions with doubly intractable normalizing constants (Møller et al. 2006 Møller, J., A. N. Pettitt, R. Reeves, and K. K. Berthelsen. 2006. An efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo method for distributions with intractable normalising constants. Biometrika 93 (2):451–458.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Murray, Ghahramani, and MacKay 2006 Murray, I., Z. Ghahramani, and D. J. C. MacKay. 2006. MCMC for doubly intractable distributions. In Proceedings of the 22nd annual conference on uncertainty in artificial intelligence (UAI-06), 359–66. AUAI Press. [Google Scholar]). However, they rely heavily on two Metropolis updates that they need to tune. In this article, we propose instead a model selection with the marginal likelihood.     

A Bayesian control chart for a common coefficient of variation

By using the medical data analyzed by Kang et al. (2007 Kang, C.W., Lee, M.S., Seong, Y.J., Hawkins, D.M. (2007). A control chart for the coefficient of variation. J. Qual. Technol. 39(2):151–158.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), a Bayesian procedure is applied to obtain control limits for the coefficient of variation. Reference and probability matching priors are derived for a common coefficient of variation across the range of sample values. By simulating the posterior predictive density function of a future coefficient of variation, it is shown that the control limits are effectively identical to those obtained by Kang et al. (2007 Kang, C.W., Lee, M.S., Seong, Y.J., Hawkins, D.M. (2007). A control chart for the coefficient of variation. J. Qual. Technol. 39(2):151–158.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for the specific dataset they used. This article illustrates the flexibility and unique features of the Bayesian simulation method for obtaining posterior distributions, predictive intervals, and run-lengths in the case of the coefficient of variation. A simulation study shows that the 95% Bayesian confidence intervals for the coefficient of variation have the correct frequentist coverage.     

Ratio-Cum-Product Type Exponential Estimator of Finite Population Mean in Stratified Random Sampling

This article addresses the problem of estimating the finite population mean in stratified random sampling using auxiliary information. Motivated by Singh (1967 Singh , M. P. ( 1967 ). Ratio cum product method of estimation . Metrika 12 : 34 – 42 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Bahl and Tuteja (1991 Bahl , S. , Tuteja , R. K. ( 1991 ). Ratio and product type exponential estimator . Inform. Optimiz. Sci. 12 ( 1 ): 159 – 163 .[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) a ratio-cum-product type exponential estimator has been suggested and its bias and mean squared error have been derived under large sample approximation. Suggested estimator has been compared with usual unbiased estimator of population mean in stratified random sampling, combined ratio estimator, combined product estimator, ratio and product type exponential estimator of Singh et al. (2008 Singh , R. , Kumar , M. , Singh , R. D. , Chaudhary , M. K. ( 2008 ). Exponential ratio type estimators in stratified random sampling. Presented in International Symposium on Optimisation and Statistics (I.S.O.S) at A.M.U., Aligarh, India, during 29–31 Dec . [Google Scholar]). Conditions under which suggested estimator is more efficient than other considered estimators have been obtained. A numerical illustration is given in support of the theoretical findings.     

More on the two-parameter estimation in the restricted regression

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we introduce a new restricted two-parameter (RTP) estimator for the vector of parameters in a linear model when additional linear restrictions on the parameter vector are assumed to hold. We show that our new biased estimator is superior in the matrix mean square error criterion to the restricted ridge estimator proposed by Groß (2003 Groß, J. (2003). Restricted ridge estimation. Stat. Probab. Lett. 65:57–64.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), restricted Liu estimator introduced by Kaçiranlar et al. (1999 Kaçiranlar, S., Sakall?oglus, S., Akdeniz, F., Styan, G.P.H., Werner, H.J. (1999). A new biased estimator in linear regression and a detailed analysis of the widely-analysed dataset on Portland cement. Sankhya Ser. B., Ind. J. Stat. 61:443–459. [Google Scholar]), and RTP estimator introduced by Özkale and Kaçiranlar (2007 Özkale, M., Kaçiranlar, S. (2007). The restricted and unrestricted two-parameter estimators. Commun. Stat. Theory Methods 36:2707–2725.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). A numerical example and a Monte Carlo simulation have been analyzed to illustrate some of the theoretical results.