A Multiple Imputation Approach to the Analysis of Current Status Data with the Additive Hazards Model

This article discusses regression analysis of current status data, which occur in many fields including cross-sectional studies, demographical investigations, and tumorigenicity experiments (Keiding, 1991 Keiding , N. ( 1991 ). Age-specific incidence and prevalence: a statistical perspective (with discussion) . J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. A 154 : 371 – 412 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Sun 2006 Sun , J. ( 2006 ). The Statistical Analysis of Interval-Censored Failure Time Data . New York : Springer-Verlag . [Google Scholar]). For the problem, we focus on the situation where the survival time of interest can be described by the additive hazards model and a multiple imputation approach is presented for inference. A major advantage of the approach is its simplicity and it can be easily implemented by using the existing software packages for right-censored failure time data. Extensive simulation studies are conducted and indicate that the approach performs well for practical situations and is comparable to the existing methods. The methodology is applied to a set of current status data arising from a tumorigenicity experiment and the model checking is discussed.     

A stepwise approach for the purely periodic interaction spline model

The basic idea of an interaction spline model was presented in Barry (1983). The general interaction spline models were proposed by Wahba (1986). The purely periodic spline model, a special case of the general interaction spline models, is considered in this paper. A stepwise approach using generalized cross validation (GCV) for fitting the model is proposed. Based on the nice orthogonality properties of the purely periodic functions, the stepwise approach is a promising method for the interaction spline model. The approach can also be generalized to the non-purely-periodic spline models. But this is no done here.     

Exact confidence bounds for an exponential parameter under hybrid censoring

Consider a life testing experiment in which n units are put on test, successive failure times are recorded, and the observation is terminated either at a specified number r of failures or a specified time T whichever is reached first. This mixture of type I and type II censoring schemes, called hybrid censoring, is of wide use. Under this censoring scheme and the assumption of an exponential life distribution, the distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of the mean life θ is derived. It is then used to construct an exact lower confidence bound for θ.     

Exact confidence bounds for an exponential parameter under hybrid censoring

Consider a life testing experiment in which n units are put on test, successive failure times are recorded, and the observation is terminated either at a specified number r of failures or a specified time T whichever is reached first. This mixture of type I and type II censoring schemes, called hybrid censoring, is of wide use. Under this censoring scheme and the assumption of an exponential life distribution, the distribution of the maximum likelihood estimator of the mean life 6 is derived. It is then used to construct an exact lower confidence bound for θ.     

Extension of two-sided test to multiple treatment trials

In a two-treatment trial, a two-sided test is often used to reach a conclusion, Usually we are interested in doing a two-sided test because of no prior preference between the two treatments and we want a three-decision framework. When a standard control is just as good as the new experimental treatment (which has the same toxicity and cost), then we will accept both treatments. Only when the standard control is clearly worse or better than the new experimental treatment, then we choose only one treatment. In this paper, we extend the concept of a two-sided test to the multiple treatment trial where three or more treatments are involved. The procedure turns out to be a subset selection procedure; however, the theoretical framework and performance requirement are different from the existing subset selection procedures. Two procedures (exclusion or inclusion) are developed here for the case of normal data with equal known variance. If the sample size is large, they can be applied with unknown variance and with the binomial data or survival data with random censoring.     

P-value adjustment for multiple binary endpoints

The p-value-based adjustment of individual endpoints and the global test for an overall inference are the two general approaches for the analysis of multiple endpoints. Statistical procedures developed for testing multivariate outcomes often assume that the multivariate endpoints are either independent or normally distributed. This paper presents a general approach for the analysis of multivariate binary data under the framework of generalized linear models. The generalized estimating equations (GEE) approach is applied to estimate the correlation matrix of the test statistics using the identity and exchangeable working correlation matrices with the model-based as well as robust estimators. The objectives of the approaches are the adjustment of p-values of individual endpoints to identify the affected endpoints as well as the global test of an overall effect. A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to evaluate the overall family wise error (FWE) rates of the single-step down p-value adjustment approach from two adjustment methods to three global test statistics. The p-value adjustment approach seems to control the FWE better than the global approach Applications of the proposed methods are illustrated by analyzing a carcinogenicity experiment designed to study the dose response trend for 10 tumor sites, and a developmental toxicity experiment with three malformation types: external, visceral, and skeletal.     

Economic-statistical design of X ¥ charts for non-normal data by considering quality loss

When the X ¥ control chart is used to monitor a process, three parameters should be determined: the sample size, the sampling interval between successive samples, and the control limits of the chart. Duncan presented a cost model to determine the three parameters for an X ¥ chart. Alexander et al. combined Duncan's cost model with the Taguchi loss function to present a loss model for determining the three parameters. In this paper, the Burr distribution is employed to conduct the economic-statistical design of X ¥ charts for non-normal data. Alexander's loss model is used as the objective function, and the cumulative function of the Burr distribution is applied to derive the statistical constraints of the design. An example is presented to illustrate the solution procedure. From the results of the sensitivity analyses, we find that small values of the skewness coefficient have no significant effect on the optimal design; however, a larger value of skewness coefficient leads to a slightly larger sample size and sampling interval, as well as wider control limits. Meanwhile, an increase on the kurtosis coefficient results in an increase on the sample size and wider control limits.     

Geometric ergodicity of nonlinear autoregressive models with changing conditional variances

The authors give easy‐to‐check sufficient conditions for the geometric ergodicity and the finiteness of the moments of a random process x_t = ?(x_t‐1,…, x_t‐p) + ?_tσ(x_t‐1,…, x_t‐q) in which ?: R^p → R, σ R^q → R and (?_t) is a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables. They deduce strong mixing properties for this class of nonlinear autoregressive models with changing conditional variances which includes, among others, the ARCH(p), the AR(p)‐ARCH(p), and the double‐threshold autoregressive models.     

理论创新:人类学民族学学科发展的新进路

本文就人类学民族学理论及其分支学科的基础理论创新作了简要的论述。以例证形式提出了人类学民族学哲学理论缺失、"田野调查"研究范式老化及我国生态人类学研究重心等问题。上述问题的存在,充分证明了人类学民族学及其分支学科的基础理论研究跟不上当下社会所面临的理论需求和指导。学科的基础理论创新是学术的一个增长点,是促进人类学民族学创新的新路径。