Semiparametric Maximum Likelihood for Missing Covariates in Parametric Regression

We consider parameter estimation in parametric regression models with covariates missing at random. This problem admits a semiparametric maximum likelihood approach which requires no parametric specification of the selection mechanism or the covariate distribution. The semiparametric maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) has been found to be consistent. We show here, for some specific models, that the semiparametric MLE converges weakly to a zero-mean Gaussian process in a suitable space. The regression parameter estimate, in particular, achieves the semiparametric information bound, which can be consistently estimated by perturbing the profile log-likelihood. Furthermore, the profile likelihood ratio statistic is asymptotically chi-squared. The techniques used here extend to other models.     

On a Small Sample Adjustment for the Profile Score Function in Semiparametric Smoothing Models

We consider the profile score function in models with smooth and parametric components. If local respectively weighted likelihood estimation is used for fitting the smooth component, the resulting profile likelihood estimate for the parametric component is asymptotically efficient as shown in T. A. Severini and W. H. Wong (1992, Ann. Statist.20, 1768–1802). However, as in solely parametric models the profile score function is not unbiased. We propose a small sample bias adjustment which results by extending the correction suggested in P. McCullagh and R. Tibshirani (1990, J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. B52, 325–344) to the framework of semiparametric models.     

Estimation of semi-varying coefficient model with surrogate data and validation sampling

In this paper, we investigate the estimation of semi-varying coefficient models when the nonlinear covariates are prone to measurement error. With the help of validation sampling, we propose two estimators of the parameter and the coefficient functions by combining dimension reduction and the profile likelihood methods without any error structure equation specification or error distribution assumption. We establish the asymptotic normality of proposed estimators for both the parametric and nonparametric parts and show that the proposed estimators achieves the best convergence rate. Data-driven bandwidth selection methods are also discussed. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the finite sample property of the estimation methods proposed.     

Analysis of Multi-Unit Variance Components Models with State Space Profiles

We apply the Kalman Filter to the analysis of multi-unit variance components models where each unit's response profile follows a state space model. We use mixed model results to obtain estimates of unit-specific random effects, state disturbance terms and residual noise terms. We use the signal extraction approach to smooth individual profiles. We show how to utilize the Kalman Filter to efficiently compute the restricted loglikelihood of the model. For the important special case where each unit's response profile follows a continuous structural time series model with known transition matrix we derive an EM algorithm for the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) estimation of the variance components. We present details for the case where individual profiles are modeled as local polynomial trends or polynomial smoothing splines.     

Large Sample Properties of Mixture Models with Covariates for Competing Risks

We study the large-sample properties of a class of parametric mixture models with covariates for competing risks. The models allow general distributions for the survival times and incorporate the idea of long-term survivors. Asymptotic results are obtained under a commonly assumed independent censoring mechanism and some modest regularity conditions on the survival distributions. The existence, consistency, and asymptotic normality of maximum likelihood estimators for the parameters of the model are rigorously derived under general sufficient conditions. Specific conditions for particular models can be derived from the general conditions for ready check. In addition, a likelihood-ratio statistic is proposed to test various hypotheses of practical interest, and its asymptotic distribution is provided.     

Maximum likelihood inference for the Cox regression model with applications to missing covariates

In this paper, we carry out an in-depth theoretical investigation for existence of maximum likelihood estimates for the Cox model [D.R. Cox, Regression models and life tables (with discussion), Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B 34 (1972) 187–220; D.R. Cox, Partial likelihood, Biometrika 62 (1975) 269–276] both in the full data setting as well as in the presence of missing covariate data. The main motivation for this work arises from missing data problems, where models can easily become difficult to estimate with certain missing data configurations or large missing data fractions. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions for existence of the maximum partial likelihood estimate (MPLE) for completely observed data (i.e., no missing data) settings as well as sufficient conditions for existence of the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) for survival data with missing covariates via a profile likelihood method. Several theorems are given to establish these conditions. A real dataset from a cancer clinical trial is presented to further illustrate the proposed methodology.     

Approximating exponential models

Approximation of parametric statistical models by exponential models is discussed, from the viewpoints of observed as well as of expected likelihood geometry. This extends a construction, in expected geometry, due to Amari. The approximations considered are parametrization invariant and local. Some of them relate to conditional models given exact or approximate ancillary statistics. Various examples are considered and the relation between the maximum likelihood estimators of the original model and the approximating models is studied.Research partly supported by the Danish Science Research Council.     

����ά���ݱ߼ʾ�����Ȼ����ɸѡ����

The additive model is a more flexible nonparametric statistical model which allows a data-analytic transform of the covariates.When the number of covariates is big and grows exponentially with the sample size the urgent issue is to reduce dimensionality from high to a moderate scale. In this paper, we propose and investigate marginal empirical likelihood screening methods in ultra-high dimensional additive models. The proposed nonparametric screening method selects variables by ranking a measure of the marginal empirical likelihood ratio evaluated at zero to differentiate contributions of each covariate given to a response variable. We show that, under some mild technical conditions, the proposed marginal empirical likelihood screening methods have a sure screening property and the extent to which the dimensionality can be reduced is also explicitly quantified. We also propose a data-driven thresholding and an iterative marginal empirical likelihood methods to enhance the finite sample performance for fitting sparse additive models. Simulation results and real data analysis demonstrate the proposed methods work competitively and performs better than competitive methods in error of a heteroscedastic case.     

Covariate Transformation Diagnostics for Generalized Linear Models

Transformations of covariates are commonly applied in regression analysis. When a parametric transformation family is used, the maximum likelihood estimate of the transformation parameter is often sensitive to minor perturbations of the data. Diagnostics are derived to assess the influence of observations on the covariate transformation parameter in generalized linear models. Three numerical examples are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed diagnostics.     

EMPIRICAL LIKELIHOOD RATIO CONFIDENCE INTERVALS FOR VARIOUS DIFFERENCES OF TWO POPULATIONS

Recently the empirical likelihood has been shown to be very useful in nonparametric models. Qin combined the empirical likelihood thought and the parametric likelihood method to construct confidence intervals for the difference of two population means in a semiparametric model. In this paper, we use the empirical likelihood thought to construct confidence intervals for some differences of two populations in a nonparametric model. A version of Wilks' theorem is developed.     

Clustering Based on a Multilayer Mixture Model

In model-based clustering, the density of each cluster is usually assumed to be a certain basic parametric distribution, for example, the normal distribution. In practice, it is often difficult to decide which parametric distribution is suitable to characterize a cluster, especially for multivariate data. Moreover, the densities of individual clusters may be multimodal themselves, and therefore cannot be accurately modeled by basic parametric distributions. This article explores a clustering approach that models each cluster by a mixture of normals. The resulting overall model is a multilayer mixture of normals. Algorithms to estimate the model and perform clustering are developed based on the classification maximum likelihood (CML) and mixture maximum likelihood (MML) criteria. BIC and ICL-BIC are examined for choosing the number of normal components per cluster. Experiments on both simulated and real data are presented.     

信用传染违约Aalen加性风险模型

本文考虑了基于加性风险模型的信用风险违约预报模型,不但考虑了宏观因素和公司个体因素,并且通过引入行业因素来刻画公司间可能存在的不同于宏观因素的信用传染效应,由此克服了以往模型对违约相关性的低估.本文在参数加性风险模型下给出极大似然估计及渐近性,提出两种估计方法并比较二者表现,得到最优权估计更加有效.同时本文还考虑了半参数的风险模型,并基于鞅的估计方程得到其估计及渐近性,均得到不错的结果.     

Semi-empirical likelihood ratio confidence intervals for the difference of two sample means

We all know that we can use the likelihood ratio statistic to test hypotheses and construct confidence intervals in full parametric models. Recently, Owen (1988,Biometrika,75, 237–249; 1990,Ann. Statist.,18, 90–120) has introduced the empirical likelihood method in nonparametric models. In this paper, we combine these two likelihoods together and use the likelihood ratio to construct confidence intervals in a semiparametric problem, in which one model is parametric, and the other is nonparametric. A version of Wilks's theorem is developed.     

Joint modeling of failure time data with transformation model and longitudinal data when covariates are measured with errors

Semiparametric transformation models provide a class of flexible models for regression analysis of failure time data. Several authors have discussed them under different situations when covariates are timeindependent (Chen et al., 2002; Cheng et al., 1995; Fine et al., 1998). In this paper, we consider fitting these models to right-censored data when covariates are time-dependent longitudinal variables and, furthermore, may suffer measurement errors. For estimation, we investigate the maximum likelihood approach, and an EM algorithm is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed method is appropriate for practical application, and an illustrative example is provided.     

Model-Based Recursive Partitioning

Recursive partitioning is embedded into the general and well-established class of parametric models that can be fitted using M-type estimators (including maximum likelihood). An algorithm for model-based recursive partitioning is suggested for which the basic steps are: (1) fit a parametric model to a dataset; (2) test for parameter instability over a set of partitioning variables; (3) if there is some overall parameter instability, split the model with respect to the variable associated with the highest instability; (4) repeat the procedure in each of the daughter nodes. The algorithm yields a partitioned (or segmented) parametric model that can be effectively visualized and that subject-matter scientists are used to analyzing and interpreting.     

Profile empirical likelihood for parametric and semiparametric models

This paper introduces a profile empirical likelihood and a profile conditionally empirical likelihood to estimate the parameter of interest in the presence of nuisance parameters respectively for the parametric and semiparametric models. It is proven that these methods propose some efficient estimators of parameters of interest in the sense of least-favorable efficiency. Particularly, for the decomposable semiparametric models, an explicit representation for the estimator of parameter of interest is derived from the proposed nonparametric method. These new estimations are different from and more efficient than the existing estimations. Some examples and simulation studies are given to illustrate the theoretical results. The first author is supported by NNSF projects (10371059 and 10171051) of China. The second author is supported by a grant from The Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (#HKU7060/04P). The third author is supported by the University Research Committee of the University of Hong Kong and a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. HKU7323/01M).     

Testing for Constant Nonparametric Effects in General Semiparametric Regression Models with Interactions

We consider the problem of testing for a constant nonparametric effect in a general semiparametric regression model when there is a potential for interaction between the parametrically and nonparametrically modeled variables. The work was originally motivated by a unique testing problem in genetic epidemiology (Chatterjee et al., 2006) that involved a typical generalized linear model but with an additional term reminiscent of the Tukey 1-degree-of-freedom formulation, and their interest was in testing for main effects of the genetic variables, while gaining statistical power by allowing for a possible interaction between genes and the environment. Later work (Maity et al., 2009) involved the possibility of modeling the environmental variable nonparametrically, but they focused on whether there was a parametric main effect for the genetic variables. In this paper, we consider the complementary problem, where the interest is in testing for the main effect of the nonparametrically modeled environmental variable. We derive a generalized likelihood ratio test for this hypothesis, show how to implement it, and provide evidence that our method can improve statistical power when compared to standard partially linear models with main effects only. We use the method for the primary purpose of analyzing data from a case-control study of colorectal adenoma.     

Quasi profile and directed likelihoods from estimating functions

Frequently, corresponding to a given estimating equation it would be desirable to have a scalar combinant having parametric derivative equal to the estimating function since such a combinant may serve as a quasi log likelihood. In general this cannot be achieved but it is nevertheless possible to define a quasi profile log likelihood and also a quasi directed likelihood, for an arbitrary one-dimensional parameter of interest and with the standard kind of distributional limit behaviour.     

Bayesian Synthetic Likelihood

Having the ability to work with complex models can be highly beneficial. However, complex models often have intractable likelihoods, so methods that involve evaluation of the likelihood function are infeasible. In these situations, the benefits of working with likelihood-free methods become apparent. Likelihood-free methods, such as parametric Bayesian indirect likelihood that uses the likelihood of an alternative parametric auxiliary model, have been explored throughout the literature as a viable alternative when the model of interest is complex. One of these methods is called the synthetic likelihood (SL), which uses a multivariate normal approximation of the distribution of a set of summary statistics. This article explores the accuracy and computational efficiency of the Bayesian version of the synthetic likelihood (BSL) approach in comparison to a competitor known as approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) and its sensitivity to its tuning parameters and assumptions. We relate BSL to pseudo-marginal methods and propose to use an alternative SL that uses an unbiased estimator of the SL, when the summary statistics have a multivariate normal distribution. Several applications of varying complexity are considered to illustrate the findings of this article. Supplemental materials are available online. Computer code for implementing the methods on all examples is available at https://github.com/cdrovandi/Bayesian-Synthetic-Likelihood.     

Pairwise likelihood inference for multivariate ordinal responses with applications to customer satisfaction

A common practice in customer satisfaction analysis is to administer surveys where subjects are asked to express opinions on a number of statements, or satisfaction scales, by use of ordered categorical responses. Motivated by this application, we propose a pseudo‐likelihood approach to estimate the dependence structure among multivariate categorical variables. As it is commonly carried out in this area, we assume that the responses are related to latent continuous variables that are truncated to induce categorical responses. A Gaussian likelihood is assumed for the latent variables leading to the so‐called ordered probit model. Because the calculation of the exact likelihood is computationally demanding, we adopt an approximate solution based on pairwise likelihood. To asses the performance of the approach, simulation studies are conducted comparing the proposed method with standard likelihood methods. A parametric bootstrap approach to evaluate the variance of the maximum pairwise likelihood estimator is proposed and discussed. An application to customer satisfaction survey is performed showing the effectiveness of the approach in the presence of covariates and under other generalizations of the model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.