Estimation of Survivorship Function Based on Doubly Censored Data with Application to HIV/AIDS

Left censoring concept has been defined in different ways in statistical applications. Turnbull (1974 Turnbull , B. W. ( 1974 ). Nonparametric estimation of a survivorship function with doubly censored data . J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 69 : 169 – 173 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) defines it in a particular way. Whereas in recent literature, especially in epidemiological studies, it has been defined in another way. This difference between the two approaches is the main reason that despite simplicity, Turnbull method cannot be applicable in all cases of doubly censored data. In this article we present a modified Turnbull method for analysis of doubly censored data adequate with recent definition. Comparison has been done with other statistical methods, including imputation estimator, full likelihood-based and conditional likelihood-based approach using Iranian HIV data.     

Free Knot Splines with RJMCMC in Survival Data Analysis

The B-spline representation is a common tool to improve the fitting of smooth nonlinear functions, it offers a fitting as a piecewise polynomial. The regions that define the pieces are separated by a sequence of knots. The main difficulty in this type of modeling is the choice of the number and the locations of these knots. The Reversible Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC) algorithm provides a solution to simultaneously select these two parameters by considering the knots as free parameters. This algorithm belongs to the MCMC techniques that allow simulations from target distributions on spaces of varying dimension. The aim of the present investigation is to use this algorithm in the framework of the analysis of survival time, for the Cox model in particular. In fact, the relation between the hazard ratio function and the covariates being assumed to be log-linear, this assumption is too restrictive. Thus, we propose to use the RJMCMC algorithm to model the log hazard ratio function by a B-spline representation with an unknown number of knots at unknown locations. This method is illustrated with two real data sets: the Stanford heart transplant data and lung cancer survival data. Another application of the RJMCMC is selecting the significant covariates, and a simulation study is performed.     

A New Approach for Testing Periodicity

This article describes testing for periodicity in the presence of FD processes. We propose two approaches for testing the periodicity based on Fisher's test. The first one is performed using the periodogram which has been divided into different parts. The second one is based on the discrete wavelet transform. Properties of the tests are illustrated by means of Monte Carlo simulations.     

A multivariate solution of the multivariate ranking and selection problem

The problem of selection of the best multivariate population is given a new formulation which does not involve reducing the populations to univariate quantities. This formulation's solution is developed for known, and (using the Heteroscedastic Method) also for unknown, variance-covariance matrices. Preference reversals and arbitrary nonlinear preference functions are explicitly allowed in this new theory     

A New Goodness-of-Fit Test Based on the Empirical Characteristic Function

In this article, we present a goodness-of-fit test for a distribution based on some comparisons between the empirical characteristic function c_n(t) and the characteristic function of a random variable under the simple null hypothesis, c₀(t). We do this by introducing a suitable distance measure. Empirical critical values for the new test statistic for testing normality are computed. In addition, the new test is compared via simulation to other omnibus tests for normality and it is shown that this new test is more powerful than others.     

Estimation of the parameters of a regression model with a multivariate t error variable

This paper deals with a regression model for several vari¬ables under the assumption that the errors have a multivariate t-distribution. The parameters of the model, the regression parameters, as well as the scale parameters and the degress of freedom of the error variable are estimated and the estimation procedure is illustrated by a numerical example, Also, the prop¬erties of the estimators and tests for the regression parameters are discussed.     

Construction of orthogonal factorial designs controlling interaction efficiencies

This paper employs some variants of the usual Kronecker product to construct orthogonal factorial designs controlling the interaction efficiencies. The methods suggested have a fairly wide coverage and the resulting designs involve a small number of replicates.     

L1 for the simple linear regression model

By modifying the direct method to solve the overdetermined linear system we are able to present an algorithm for L₁ estimation which appears to be superior computationally to any other known algorithm for the simple linear regression problem.     

Bootstrap method in ranking and slippage problems

In this paper, the bootstrap method of Efron (1979) is given for a ranking and a slippage problem, where the ranking (or slippage) is with respect to the mean of the distributions. The method is also applied to obtain a confidence interval for the largest mean.     

Least significant spacing for ‘one versus the rest’ normal populations

Consider sample means from k(≥2) normal populations where the variances and sample sizes are equal. The problem is to find the ‘least significant difference’ or ‘spacing’ (LSS) between the two largest means, so that if an observed spacing is larger we have confidence 1 - α that the population with largest sample mean also has the largest population mean.

When the variance is known it is shown that the maximum LSS occurs when k = 2, provided a < .2723. In other words, for any value of k we may use the usual (one-tailed) least significant difference to demonstrate that one population has a population mean greater than (or equal to) the rest.

When the variance is estimated bounds are obtained for the confidence which indicate that this last result is approximately correct.