Non-ignorable missing covariate data in survival analysis: a case-study of an International Breast Cancer Study Group trial

Summary.  Non-ignorable missing data, a serious problem in both clinical trials and observational studies, can lead to biased inferences. Quality-of-life measures have become increasingly popular in clinical trials. However, these measures are often incompletely observed, and investigators may suspect that missing quality-of-life data are likely to be non-ignorable. Although several recent references have addressed missing covariates in survival analysis, they all required the assumption that missingness is at random or that all covariates are discrete. We present a method for estimating the parameters in the Cox proportional hazards model when missing covariates may be non-ignorable and continuous or discrete. Our method is useful in reducing the bias and improving efficiency in the presence of missing data. The methodology clearly specifies assumptions about the missing data mechanism and, through sensitivity analysis, helps investigators to understand the potential effect of missing data on study results.     

Theoretical consideration of effect of fishing mortality on growth and reproduction of fish populations

Summary An increase in fish mortality due to fishing can theoretically change the growth and reproduction of fish populations from the viewpoint of adaptation. We address the issue of how an iteroparous fish should convert surplus energy into somatic growth and reproduction at each age under given conditions of mortality. A model of life history, which maximizes the net reproductive rate using the discrete maximum principle, is improved employing a new relationship between body weight and surplus energy which we have recently proposed. The model is applied to the North Sea plaicePleuronectes platessa, for which it has been reported that the average length of young fish had increased whereas that of old ones had decreased for some decades. Although the model cannot directly explain the former phenomenon, the two phenomena can be interpreted as a change in the optimal life history due mainly to an increase in mortality.     

Issues in applying recent CPMP ‘Points to Consider’ and FDA guidance documents with biostatistical implications

The International Conference on Harmonisation guideline ‘Statistical Principles for Clinical Trials’ was adopted by the Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products (CPMP) in March 1998, and consequently is operational in Europe. Since then more detailed guidance on selected topics has been issued by the CPMP in the form of ‘Points to Consider’ documents. The intent of these was to give guidance particularly to non‐statistical reviewers within regulatory authorities, although of course they also provide a good source of information for pharmaceutical industry statisticians. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration has recently issued a draft guideline on data monitoring committees. In November 2002 a one‐day discussion forum was held in London by Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (PSI). The aim of the meeting was to discuss how statisticians were responding to some of the issues covered in these new guidelines, and to document consensus views where they existed. The forum was attended by industry, academic and regulatory statisticians. This paper outlines the questions raised, resulting discussions and consensus views reached. It is clear from the guidelines and discussions at the workshop that the statistical analysis strategy must be planned during the design phase of a clinical trial and carefully documented. Once the study is complete the analysis strategy should be thoughtfully executed and the findings reported. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

关于中期财务报告中一体观与独立观运用的几点认识

本文阐述了独立观与一体观在编制中期财务报告中的有关理论基础,并在此基础上讨论了独立观与一体观在中期确认和计量中的比较及其在编制利润表中的差异。     

Estimation of dependence between paired correlated failure times in the presence of covariate measurement error

Summary. In many biomedical studies, covariates are subject to measurement error. Although it is well known that the regression coefficients estimators can be substantially biased if the measurement error is not accommodated, there has been little study of the effect of covariate measurement error on the estimation of the dependence between bivariate failure times. We show that the dependence parameter estimator in the Clayton–Oakes model can be considerably biased if the measurement error in the covariate is not accommodated. In contrast with the typical bias towards the null for marginal regression coefficients, the dependence parameter can be biased in either direction. We introduce a bias reduction technique for the bivariate survival function in copula models while assuming an additive measurement error model and replicated measurement for the covariates, and we study the large and small sample properties of the dependence parameter estimator proposed.     

Conditional Likelihood Estimators for Hidden Markov Models and Stochastic Volatility Models

ABSTRACT.  This paper develops a new contrast process for parametric inference of general hidden Markov models, when the hidden chain has a non-compact state space. This contrast is based on the conditional likelihood approach, often used for ARCH-type models. We prove the strong consistency of the conditional likelihood estimators under appropriate conditions. The method is applied to the Kalman filter (for which this contrast and the exact likelihood lead to asymptotically equivalent estimators) and to the discretely observed stochastic volatility models.     

具有卖空总量限制的多阶段M—SAD投资组合优化

文章提出具有卖空总量限制、阈值约束和V型交易成本的多阶段均值—半绝对偏差（M-SAD）投资组合优化模型。该模型分别运用均值和半绝对偏衡量资产的收益率和风险。由于交易成本的存在,该模型不满足无后效性的动态优化问题。文章将该模型近似为一般动态规划问题,提出一种新的离散迭代方法,并证明该算法是线性收敛的。最后,文章通过实证研究比较分析卖空总量限制和风险偏好系数取不同值时对投资组合最优策略的影响,验证模型和算法的有效性。     

Parameter identification for the discretely observed geometric fractional Brownian motion

This paper deals with the problem of estimating all the unknown parameters of geometric fractional Brownian processes from discrete observations. The estimation procedure is built upon the marriage of the quadratic variation and the maximum likelihood approach. The asymptotic properties of the estimators are provided. Moveover, we compare our derived method with the approach proposed by Misiran et al. [Fractional Black-Scholes models: complete MLE with application to fractional option pricing. In International conference on optimization and control; Guiyang, China; 2010. p. 573–586.], namely the complete maximum likelihood estimation. Simulation studies confirm theoretical findings and illustrate that our methodology is efficient and reliable. To show how to apply our approach in realistic contexts, an empirical study of Chinese financial market is also presented.     

Basu–Dhar bivariate geometric distribution in the presence of covariates and censored data: a Bayesian approach

In this paper, we introduce classical and Bayesian approaches for the Basu–Dhar bivariate geometric distribution in the presence of covariates and censored data. This distribution is considered for the analysis of bivariate lifetime as an alternative to some existing bivariate lifetime distributions assuming continuous lifetimes as the Block and Basu or Marshall and Olkin bivariate distributions. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimators are presented. Two examples are considered to illustrate the proposed methodology: an example with simulated data and an example with medical bivariate lifetime data.