Estimation of Hazard, Density and Survivor Functions for Randomly Censored Data

Maximum likelihood estimation and goodness-of-fit techniques are used within a competing risks framework to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of hazard, density, and survivor functions for randomly right-censored variables. Goodness-of- fit techniques are used to fit distributions to the crude lifetimes, which are used to obtain an estimate of the hazard function, which, in turn, is used to construct the survivor and density functions of the net lifetime of the variable of interest. If only one of the crude lifetimes can be adequately characterized by a parametric model, then semi-parametric estimates may be obtained using a maximum likelihood estimate of one crude lifetime and the empirical distribution function of the other. Simulation studies show that the survivor function estimates from crude lifetimes compare favourably with those given by the product-limit estimator when crude lifetimes are chosen correctly. Other advantages are discussed.     

卡伯拉尔远航印度意义初探

1500-1501年卡伯拉尔率葡萄牙舰队远航印度,堪称地理大发现第一阶段仅次于三大航行的第四大航行。这次远航经过了欧美非亚四大洲,往返行程5.5万公里。卡伯拉尔远航开创了发现、殖民南美大陆和巴西的进程,重新发现了世界第四大岛马达加斯加。从此葡萄牙人在印度辟建商站立足插手,创建商业殖民帝国;同时开始在印度洋上打击摩尔人—穆斯林,由此开辟了反击反包围摩尔人—穆斯林的新战线,实现了当初的一个战略意图,问鼎印度洋霸权。     

异质产品供应链定价控制权与零售商横向兼并效应分析

针对一部线性合约与供应商是否具有绝对定价控制权,比较分析零售商横向兼并集中度提高对消费者福利的影响.结果表明,(1)当供应商具有绝对定价控制权时,零售商横向兼并对消费者产生的影响取决于产品替代性程度大小:若替代性程度较高,则将产生有利影响,反之,将产生不利影响;(2)当供应商没有绝对定价控制权时,零售商横向兼并对消费者产生的影响取决于零售商兼并前的相对定价控制权强弱与兼并后的相对定价控制权增幅大小:若零售商在供应链中处于相对弱势地位,且零售商横向兼并使零售商的定价控制权增幅较大,则兼并将对消费者产生有利影响,否则,将对消费者产生不利影响.     

The competing risks analysis for parallel and series systems using Type-II progressive censoring

Abstract

Recently, the study of the lifetime of systems in reliability and survival analysis in the presence of several causes of failure (competing risks) has attracted attention in the literature. In this paper, series and parallel systems with exponential lifetime for each item of the system are considered. Several causes of failure independently affect lifetime distributions and observations of failure times of the systems are considered under progressive Type-II censored scheme. For series systems, the maximum likelihood estimates of parameters are computed and confidence intervals for parameters of the model are obtained using Fisher information matrix. For parallel systems, the generalized EM algorithm which uses the Newton-Raphson algorithm inside the EM algorithm is used to compute the maximum likelihood estimates of parameters. Also, the standard errors of the maximum likelihood estimates are computed by using the supplemented EM algorithm. The simulation study confirms the good performance of the introduced approach.     

Flexible simulation of competing risks data following prespecified subdistribution hazards

In recent years different approaches for the analysis of time-to-event data in the presence of competing risks, i.e. when subjects can fail from one of two or more mutually exclusive types of event, were introduced. Different approaches for the analysis of competing risks data, focusing either on cause-specific or subdistribution hazard rates, were presented in statistical literature. Many new approaches use complicated weighting techniques or resampling methods, not allowing an analytical evaluation of these methods. Simulation studies often replace analytical comparisons, since they can be performed more easily and allow investigation of non-standard scenarios. For adequate simulation studies the generation of appropriate random numbers is essential. We present an approach to generate competing risks data following flexible prespecified subdistribution hazards. Event times and types are simulated using possibly time-dependent cause-specific hazards, chosen in a way that the generated data will follow the desired subdistribution hazards or hazard ratios, respectively.     

Unified multivariate survival model with a surviving fraction: an application to a Brazilian customer churn data

In this paper we propose a new lifetime model for multivariate survival data in presence of surviving fractions and examine some of its properties. Its genesis is based on situations in which there are m types of unobservable competing causes, where each cause is related to a time of occurrence of an event of interest. Our model is a multivariate extension of the univariate survival cure rate model proposed by Rodrigues et al. [37 J. Rodrigues, V.G. Cancho, M. de Castro, and F. Louzada-Neto, On the unification of long-term survival models, Statist. Probab. Lett. 79 (2009), pp. 753–759. doi: 10.1016/j.spl.2008.10.029[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]. The inferential approach exploits the maximum likelihood tools. We perform a simulation study in order to verify the asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood estimators. The simulation study also focus on size and power of the likelihood ratio test. The methodology is illustrated on a real data set on customer churn data.     

A Proportional Hazards Regression Model for the Subdistribution with Covariates‐adjusted Censoring Weight for Competing Risks Data

With competing risks data, one often needs to assess the treatment and covariate effects on the cumulative incidence function. Fine and Gray proposed a proportional hazards regression model for the subdistribution of a competing risk with the assumption that the censoring distribution and the covariates are independent. Covariate‐dependent censoring sometimes occurs in medical studies. In this paper, we study the proportional hazards regression model for the subdistribution of a competing risk with proper adjustments for covariate‐dependent censoring. We consider a covariate‐adjusted weight function by fitting the Cox model for the censoring distribution and using the predictive probability for each individual. Our simulation study shows that the covariate‐adjusted weight estimator is basically unbiased when the censoring time depends on the covariates, and the covariate‐adjusted weight approach works well for the variance estimator as well. We illustrate our methods with bone marrow transplant data from the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. Here, cancer relapse and death in complete remission are two competing risks.     

论动因竞争对语序自由度的影响——以Hawkins长度顺序和可移动原则为例

流行于语言学教科书中的一个观点是:语序的自由度跟形态丰富程度成正比。这种观点有很大的局限。引入类型学“动因竞争”这个概念来讨论Hawkins提出的影响名词短语修饰语语序的“可移动原则”和“长度顺序原则”,可以得出结论:语序动因的运用程度是影响语序自由度的重要因素,只是该因素长期被忽视了,而“语序动因运用规律”则可说明此问题。     

The time‐dependent “cure‐death” model investigating two equally important endpoints simultaneously in trials treating high‐risk patients with resistant pathogens

A variety of primary endpoints are used in clinical trials treating patients with severe infectious diseases, and existing guidelines do not provide a consistent recommendation. We propose to study simultaneously two primary endpoints, cure and death, in a comprehensive multistate cure‐death model as starting point for a treatment comparison. This technique enables us to study the temporal dynamic of the patient‐relevant probability to be cured and alive. We describe and compare traditional and innovative methods suitable for a treatment comparison based on this model. Traditional analyses using risk differences focus on one prespecified timepoint only. A restricted logrank‐based test of treatment effect is sensitive to ordered categories of responses and integrates information on duration of response. The pseudo‐value regression provides a direct regression model for examination of treatment effect via difference in transition probabilities. Applied to a topical real data example and simulation scenarios, we demonstrate advantages and limitations and provide an insight into how these methods can handle different kinds of treatment imbalances. The cure‐death model provides a suitable framework to gain a better understanding of how a new treatment influences the time‐dynamic cure and death process. This might help the future planning of randomised clinical trials, sample size calculations, and data analyses.     

零售企业自有品牌研究述评

在竞争激烈的零售业,自有品牌一直是近些年一个重要的话题。当前,自有品牌的研究主要集中在制造企业、零售企业和消费者三个方面,消费者为何选择自有品牌而不是制造商品牌、消费者的购买行为和特征、零售企业的自有品牌发展战略是研究中的热点话题。未来的研究应该更关注零售企业与制造企业的合作、自有品牌的品牌形象和价值以及自有品牌的社会价值、社会成本等因素。