Multiple event times in the presence of informative censoring: modeling and analysis by copulas

Motivated by a breast cancer research program, this paper is concerned with the joint survivor function of multiple event times when their observations are subject to informative censoring caused by a terminating event. We formulate the correlation of the multiple event times together with the time to the terminating event by an Archimedean copula to account for the informative censoring. Adapting the widely used two-stage procedure under a copula model, we propose an easy-to-implement pseudo-likelihood based procedure for estimating the model parameters. The approach yields a new estimator for the marginal distribution of a single event time with semicompeting-risks data. We conduct both asymptotics and simulation studies to examine the proposed approach in consistency, efficiency, and robustness. Data from the breast cancer program are employed to illustrate this research.

     

Has Opposition to Immigration Increased in the United States after the Economic Crisis? An Experimental Approach

We employ two population‐level experiments to accurately measure opposition to immigration before and after the economic crisis of 2008. Our design explicitly addresses social desirability bias, which is the tendency to give responses that are seen favorably by others and can lead to substantial underreporting of opposition to immigration. We find that overt opposition to immigration, expressed as support for a closed border, increases slightly after the crisis. However, once we account for social desirability bias, no significant increase remains. We conclude that the observed increase in anti‐immigration sentiment in the post‐crisis United States is attributable to greater expression of opposition rather than any underlying change in attitudes.     

When Working Hard Is Not Enough for Female and Racial/Ethnic Minority Apprentices in the Highway Trades

Drawing on employment records, qualitative interviews, and a survey, we explore the experiences of apprentices in the highway trades in Oregon. We demonstrate that female and racial/ethnic minority apprentices have lower rates of recruitment and retention and disproportionately face challenges with interpersonal interactions, hiring practices, and supervisory practices. Yet, we find a pervasive narrative that attributes apprentices' success to “hard work,” which contributes to the legitimacy of these inequalities. Consistent with the conceptualization of work organizations as inequality regimes, we argue that the apprenticeship system has policies, practices, and ideologies that are on the surface gender and race/ethnicity neutral, yet lead to the perpetuation of inequalities.     

A new generalized Weibull distribution in income economic inequality curves

Researchers have been developing various extensions and modified forms of the Weibull distribution to enhance its capability for modeling and fitting different data sets. In this note, we investigate the potential usefulness of the new modification to the standard Weibull distribution called odd Weibull distribution in income economic inequality studies. Some mathematical and statistical properties of this model are proposed. We obtain explicit expressions for the first incomplete moment, quantile function, Lorenz and Zenga curves and related inequality indices. In addition to the well-known stochastic order based on Lorenz curve, the stochastic order based on Zenga curve is considered. Since the new generalized Weibull distribution seems to be suitable to model wealth, financial, actuarial and especially income distributions, these findings are fundamental in the understanding of how parameter values are related to inequality. Also, the estimation of parameters by maximum likelihood and moment methods is discussed. Finally, this distribution has been fitted to United States and Austrian income data sets and has been found to fit remarkably well in compare with the other widely used income models.     

Behavioral responses of rural and urban greater white-toothed shrews (Crocidura russula) to sound disturbance

Urban Ecosystems - The development of urban areas imposes challenges that wildlife must adapt to in order to persist in these new habitats. One of the greatest changes brought by urbanization has...     

Inference and Decision Making for 21st-Century Drug Development and Approval

ABSTRACT

The cost and time of pharmaceutical drug development continue to grow at rates that many say are unsustainable. These trends have enormous impact on what treatments get to patients, when they get them and how they are used. The statistical framework for supporting decisions in regulated clinical development of new medicines has followed a traditional path of frequentist methodology. Trials using hypothesis tests of “no treatment effect” are done routinely, and the p-value < 0.05 is often the determinant of what constitutes a “successful” trial. Many drugs fail in clinical development, adding to the cost of new medicines, and some evidence points blame at the deficiencies of the frequentist paradigm. An unknown number effective medicines may have been abandoned because trials were declared “unsuccessful” due to a p-value exceeding 0.05. Recently, the Bayesian paradigm has shown utility in the clinical drug development process for its probability-based inference. We argue for a Bayesian approach that employs data from other trials as a “prior” for Phase 3 trials so that synthesized evidence across trials can be utilized to compute probability statements that are valuable for understanding the magnitude of treatment effect. Such a Bayesian paradigm provides a promising framework for improving statistical inference and regulatory decision making.