Competing risks model for clustered data based on the subdistribution hazards with spatial random effects

In some applications, the clustered survival data are arranged spatially such as clinical centers or geographical regions. Incorporating spatial variation in these data not only can improve the accuracy and efficiency of the parameter estimation, but it also investigates the spatial patterns of survivorship for identifying high-risk areas. Competing risks in survival data concern a situation where there is more than one cause of failure, but only the occurrence of the first one is observable. In this paper, we considered Bayesian subdistribution hazard regression models with spatial random effects for the clustered HIV/AIDS data. An intrinsic conditional autoregressive (ICAR) distribution was employed to model the areal spatial random effects. Comparison among competing models was performed by the deviance information criterion. We illustrated the gains of our model through application to the HIV/AIDS data and the simulation studies.KEYWORDS: Competing risks, subdistribution hazard, cumulative incidence function, spatial random effect, Markov chain Monte Carlo     

Women’s Decision to Divorce in Light of Failure in Marital Status and Dignity

In Iranian society, divorce, as an instability index of family, has been on the increase over the last decade. In particular, this separation is fraught with considerable difficulties for wives with children. The overall aim of this study is to investigate the nature of the process of deciding to separate by the divorced women despite having children. Resting on the grounded theory method, this study was conducted among 20 divorced women with children in the city of Tehran. The findings show that having a child is not a determining factor for the women to remain married; rather, what determines the separation of women with children is experiencing a status loss within their marital life, an experience that originates from losing her status after a woman has gotten married. Of course, women’s agency within the domain of family disintegration happens when they have the ability to overcome social fears and also have economic support. Through this course of events, although children are of enormous importance for the mothers, they are temporarily neglected while the mothers, for a short period, think primarily of saving themselves. Making their final decision to get separated leads to reactivating the role of their children; then, the mothers proceed to make the optimal decision.     

Some bounds related to Harris family of distributions

As a lifetime distribution, Harris family of distributions are applied to the lifetime of a series system with random number of components. In this paper, properties of various ageing classes of mixtures of Harris family of distributions, where the tilt parameter of a Harris distribution is taken as a random variable, are studied. We obtain an upper bound for maximum error in evaluating its reliability function. Two bounds are also presented for survival function and expectation of the mixed Harris family. We also provide some interesting bounds for its residual survival function. Our results generalize several previous findings in this connection. Some illustrative examples are also provided.     

Sexual Dynamics of Iranian Remarried Women in Blended Families: A Qualitative Study on Remarried Women’s Life

Despite the indispensable importance of the sexual relationship to the family dynamics, there has never been a study on remarried Iranian women in blended families. For the purpose of this study, 52 divorced women, who married for the second time, were interviewed. The data were codified line by line using thematic content analysis. Six main themes were identified from the interviews: (a) intrapersonal effects, (b) interpersonal effects, (c) attachment-based sexual relationships, (d) a new start, (e) family-related stress, and (f) pregnancy-related issues. Many of these women reported they were still thinking about their previous relationship and were influenced especially by how their ex-husband evaluated their body image. These findings presented a relatively clear image of the impact of remarriage on the sexuality of Iranian remarried women in blended families. These findings suffer from some constraints, such as generalizing of the data due to the small sample size.     

Perceived Cultural Distance in Healthcare in Immigrant Intercultural Medical Encounters

This article responds to the paucity of empirical research on the impact of patient-provider ethno-cultural distance and providers' cultural competence on the quality of healthcare service in migrant intercultural medical encounters in Australia. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 447 patients, consisting of 195 Caucasian and 252 non-Caucasian patients from six outpatient clinics in New South Wales, Australia. Structural equation modelling was used for data analysis. The findings demonstrated that cultural distance is an influential factor in perceived quality of outpatient care. Caucasian and non-Caucasian patients' perception of cultural distance between their physicians and themselves affected their service quality ratings of their physicians' professionalism, empathy and expertise. This is the first study on healthcare service quality in outpatient clinics in Australia for Caucasian and non-Caucasian patients. Policy implications suggest intervention strategies and the need for cultural competence education in medical and health curricula in medical schools and clinical practices.     

American option pricing under double Heston stochastic volatility model: simulation and strong convergence analysis

In this work, we investigate the double Heston model dynamics which is defined by two independent variance processes with non-Lipschitz diffusions. Next, it is analysed the strong convergence of the volatility processes of the double Heston model. Then, we examine the LSM algorithm to determine the American style option price in the double Heston model. Besides, by performing the antithetic simulation in the original LSM algorithm, we aim to accelerate the algorithm. The accuracy and speed of two algorithms are studied and at last, by some numerical results illustrate the accuracy of the proposed algorithms and examine the effect of the different parameters of the model on the value of the option.     

Reliability estimation in a multicomponent stress–strength model under generalized half-normal distribution based on progressive type-II censoring

In this paper, based on progressively Type-II censored samples, the problem of estimation of multicomponent stress–strength reliability under generalized half-normal (GHN) distribution is considered. The reliability of a k-component stress-strength system is estimated when both stress and strength variates are assumed to have a GHN distribution with various cases of same and different shape and scale parameters. Different methods such as the maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) and Bayes estimation are discussed. The expectation maximization algorithm and approximate maximum likelihood methods are proposed to compute the MLE of reliability. The Lindley's approximation method, as well as Metropolis–Hastings algorithm, are applied to compute Bayes estimates. The performance of the proposed procedures is also demonstrated via a Monte Carlo simulation study and an illustrative example.     

A fractional version of the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross interest rate model and pricing double barrier option with Hurst index H∈(23,1)

In this work, we study the existence and uniqueness of the solution to a fractional version of the Cox–Ingersoll–Ross (fCIR) stochastic differential equation. The strong convergence of this equation is analyzed and according to it’s framework, we obtain the price of the double barrier option under transaction cost. Finally, we verify the effect of the parameters of the model on the value of the option.