Multivariate Failure Times Regression with a Continuous Auxiliary Covariate

How to take advantage of the available auxiliary covariate information when the primary covariate of interest is not measured is a frequently encountered question in biomedical study. In this paper, we consider the multivariate failure times regression analysis in which the primary covariate is assessed only in a validation set, but a continuous auxiliary covariate for it is available for all subjects in the study cohort. Under the frame of marginal hazard model, we propose to estimate the induced relative risk function in the non-validation set through kernel smoothing method and then obtain an estimated pseudo-partial likelihood function. The proposed estimator which maximizes the estimated pseudo-partial likelihood is shown to be consistent and asymptotically normal. We also give an estimator of the marginal cumulative baseline hazard function. Simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the finite sample performance of our proposed estimator. The proposed method is illustrated by analyzing a heart disease data from the Study of Left Ventricular Dysfunction (SOLVD).     

多元失效时间数据的一般边际半参数危险率模型研究

在生物医学研究中,多元失效时间数据非常常见.该文提出用一般边际半参数危险率回归模型来分析多元失效时间数据.此模型包括了三种常用边际模型:边际比例风险模型、边际加速失效时间模型和边际加速危险模型作为子模型.对于模型中的回归系数,可以通过估计方程的方法来估计它,同时也给出了基准累积危险率函数的估计.得到的估计可以证明是相合的和渐近正态的.     

Nonparametric estimation of multivariate density with direct and auxiliary data and application

We consider the problem of multivariate density estimation, using samples from the distribution of interest as well as auxiliary samples from a related distribution. We assume that the data from the target distribution and the related distribution may occur individually as well as in pairs. Using nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator of the joint distribution, we derive a kernel density estimator of the marginal density. We show theoretically, in a simple special case, that the implied estimator of the marginal density has smaller integrated mean squared error than that of a similar estimator obtained by ignoring dependence of the paired observations. We establish consistency of the marginal density estimator under suitable conditions. We demonstrate small sample superiority of the proposed estimator over the estimator that ignores dependence of the samples, through a simulation study with dependent and non-normal populations. The application of the density estimator in nonparametric classification is also discussed. It is shown that the misclassification probability of the resulting classifier is asymptotically equivalent to that of the Bayes classifier. We also include a data analytic illustration.     

Kernel density estimation for linear processes: Asymptotic normality and optimal bandwidth derivation

The problem of estimating the marginal density of a linear process by kernel methods is considered. Under general conditions, kernel density estimators are shown to be asymptotically normal. Their limiting covariance matrix is computed. We also find the optimal bandwidth in the sense that it asymptotically minimizes the mean square error of the estimators. The assumptions involved are easily verifiable.Supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9403718.     

Estimating hazard ratios in nested case-control studies by mantel-haenszel method

1. IntroductionConsider a follow-up study which is carried out to investigate the association betweenexposure variables and mortality rate in a cohort. In the case where the cohort is of 1argesise, the complete follow-up ndght be too expensive or difficult, and various nested samplingmethod8 have been suggested by Thomas[l], Prenti..[2] 5 Goldstein and Langholzl'] and otherauthors. Most of the authors employ Coxl4] regression mode1 for estimating the hazard ratio8of exposures.Now a well-reco…     

带有辅助信息的多元失效时间数据的估计标准部分似然方法

在许多实际研究中, 由于预算限制, 主协变量值只能对某一个有效集进行准确测量, 但同时对应此主协变量的辅助信息则对全部个体均可以观测. 利用这些辅助协变量的信息有助于提高统计研究的效率. 本文在基于共同基准危险率的边际模型框架下, 我们提出了一些统计推断方法来分析多元失效时间数据. 对于回归参数, 我们提出标准的估计部分似然方程来估计它, 同时也给出了累积基准危险率函数的Breslow 型估计. 得到的估计可以证明是相合的和渐近正态的. 利用模拟分析结果来表明了提出的方法在有限样本下的可行性.     

Sparse Steinian Covariance Estimation

We consider a new method for sparse covariance matrix estimation which is motivated by previous results for the so-called Stein-type estimators. Stein proposed a method for regularizing the sample covariance matrix by shrinking together the eigenvalues; the amount of shrinkage is chosen to minimize an unbiased estimate of the risk (UBEOR) under the entropy loss function. The resulting estimator has been shown in simulations to yield significant risk reductions over the maximum likelihood estimator. Our method extends the UBEOR minimization problem by adding an ?₁ penalty on the entries of the estimated covariance matrix, which encourages a sparse estimate. For a multivariate Gaussian distribution, zeros in the covariance matrix correspond to marginal independences between variables. Unlike the ?₁-penalized Gaussian likelihood function, our penalized UBEOR objective is convex and can be minimized via a simple block coordinate descent procedure. We demonstrate via numerical simulations and an analysis of microarray data from breast cancer patients that our proposed method generally outperforms other methods for sparse covariance matrix estimation and can be computed efficiently even in high dimensions.     

A more powerful test identifying the change in mean of functional data

An existence of change point in a sequence of temporally ordered functional data demands more attention in its statistical analysis to make a better use of it. Introducing a dynamic estimator of covariance kernel, we propose a new methodology for testing an existence of change in the mean of temporally ordered functional data. Though a similar estimator is used for the covariance in finite dimension, we introduce it for the independent and weakly dependent functional data in this context for the first time. From this viewpoint, the proposed estimator of covariance kernel is more natural one when the sequence of functional data may possess a change point. We prove that the proposed test statistics are asymptotically pivotal under the null hypothesis and consistent under the alternative. It is shown that our testing procedures outperform the existing ones in terms of power and provide satisfactory results when applied to real data.     

Multivariate extreme value distributions for stationary Gaussian sequences

Under weak regularity conditions of the covariance sequence, it is shown that the joint limiting distribution of the maxima on each coordinate of a stationary Gaussian multivariate sequence is that of independent random variables with marginal Gumbel distributions.     

Asymptotic Improvement of the Usual Confidence Set in a Multivariate Normal Distribution with Unknown Variance

We consider confidence sets for the mean of a multivariate normal distribution with unknown covariance matrix of the formσ²I. The coverage probability of the usual confidence set is shown to be improved asymptotically by centering at a shrinkage estimator.     

Statistical inference in a panel data semiparametric regression model with serially correlated errors

We consider a panel data semiparametric partially linear regression model with an unknown vector β of regression coefficients, an unknown nonparametric function g(·) for nonlinear component, and unobservable serially correlated errors. The correlated errors are modeled by a vector autoregressive process which involves a constant intraclass correlation. Applying the pilot estimators of β and g(·), we construct estimators of the autoregressive coefficients, the intraclass correlation and the error variance, and investigate their asymptotic properties. Fitting the error structure results in a new semiparametric two-step estimator of β, which is shown to be asymptotically more efficient than the usual semiparametric least squares estimator in terms of asymptotic covariance matrix. Asymptotic normality of this new estimator is established, and a consistent estimator of its asymptotic covariance matrix is presented. Furthermore, a corresponding estimator of g(·) is also provided. These results can be used to make asymptotically efficient statistical inference. Some simulation studies are conducted to illustrate the finite sample performances of these proposed estimators.     

Rate optimal estimation with the integration method in the presence of many covariates

For multivariate regressors, integrating the Nadaraya–Watson regression smoother produces estimators of the lower-dimensional marginal components that are asymptotically normally distributed, at the optimal rate of convergence. Some heuristics, based on consistency of the pilot estimator, suggested that the estimator would not converge at the optimal rate of convergence in the presence of more than four covariates. This paper shows first that marginal integration with its internally normalized counterpart leads to rate-optimal estimators of the marginal components. We introduce the necessary modifications and give central limit theorems. Then, it is shown that the method apply also to more general models, in particular we discuss feasible estimation of partial linear models. The proofs reveal that the pilot estimator shall over-smooth the variables to be integrated, and, that the resulting estimator is itself a lower-dimensional regression smoother. Hence, finite sample properties of the estimator are comparable to those of low-dimensional nonparametric regression. Further advantages when starting with the internally normalized pilot estimator are its computational attractiveness and better performance (compared to its classical counterpart) when the covatiates are correlated and nonuniformly distributed. Simulation studies underline the excellent performance in comparison with so far known methods.     

Efficient simulation of tail probabilities of sums of correlated lognormals

We consider the problem of efficient estimation of tail probabilities of sums of correlated lognormals via simulation. This problem is motivated by the tail analysis of portfolios of assets driven by correlated Black-Scholes models. We propose two estimators that can be rigorously shown to be efficient as the tail probability of interest decreases to zero. The first estimator, based on importance sampling, involves a scaling of the whole covariance matrix and can be shown to be asymptotically optimal. A further study, based on the Cross-Entropy algorithm, is also performed in order to adaptively optimize the scaling parameter of the covariance. The second estimator decomposes the probability of interest in two contributions and takes advantage of the fact that large deviations for a sum of correlated lognormals are (asymptotically) caused by the largest increment. Importance sampling is then applied to each of these contributions to obtain a combined estimator with asymptotically vanishing relative error.     

Nested case-control analysis with general additive-multiplicative hazard models

This paper discusses the nested case-control analysis under a class of general additive-multiplicative hazard models which includes the Cox model and the additive hazard model as special cases.A pseudo...     

Estimating a Distribution Function for Censored Time Series Data

Consider a long term study, where a series of dependent and possibly censored failure times is observed. Suppose that the failure times have a common marginal distribution function, but they exhibit a mode of time series structure such as α-mixing. The inference on the marginal distribution function is of interest to us. The main results of this article show that, under some regularity conditions, the Kaplan–Meier estimator enjoys uniform consistency with rates, and a stochastic process generated by the Kaplan–Meier estimator converges weakly to a certain Gaussian process with a specified covariance structure. Finally, an estimator of the limiting variance of the Kaplan–Meier estimator is proposed and its consistency is established.     

Corrected-loss estimation for Error-in-Variable partially linear model

We consider an Error-in-Variable partially linear model where the covariates of linear part are measured with error which follows a normal distribution with a known covariance matrix. We propose a corrected-loss estimation of the covariate effect. The proposed estimator is asymptotically normal. Simulation studies are presented to show that the proposed method performs well with finite samples, and the proposed method is applied to a real data set.     

Wavelet-based analysis of non-Gaussian long-range dependent processes and estimation of the hurst parameter

In this contribution, the statistical performance of the wavelet-based estimation procedure for the Hurst parameter is studied for non-Gaussian long-range dependent processes obtained from point transformations of Gaussian processes. The statistical properties of the wavelet coefficients and the estimation performance are compared both for processes having the same covariance but different marginal distributions and for processes having the same covariance and same marginal distributions but obtained from different point transformations, analyzed using mother wavelets with different number of vanishing moments. It is shown that the reduction of the dependence range from long to short by increasing the number of vanishing moments, observed for Gaussian processes, and at the origin of the popularity of the wavelet-based estimator, does not hold in general for non-Gaussian processes. Crucially, it is also observed that the Hermite rank of the point transformation impacts significantly the statistical properties of the wavelet coefficients and the estimation performance and also that processes having identical marginal distributions and covariance function can yet yield significantly different estimation performance. These results are interpreted in the light of central and noncentral limit theorems that are fundamental when dealing with long-range dependent processes. Moreover, it will be shown that, on condition that estimation is performed using a range of scales restricted to the coarsest practically available, an approximate, yet analytical and simple to use in practice, formula can be proposed for the evaluation of the variance of the wavelet-based estimator of the Hurst parameter.     

Asymptotic efficiency of the two-stage estimation method for copula-based models

For multivariate copula-based models for which maximum likelihood is computationally difficult, a two-stage estimation procedure has been proposed previously; the first stage involves maximum likelihood from univariate margins, and the second stage involves maximum likelihood of the dependence parameters with the univariate parameters held fixed from the first stage. Using the theory of inference functions, a partitioned matrix in a form amenable to analysis is obtained for the asymptotic covariance matrix of the two-stage estimator. The asymptotic relative efficiency of the two-stage estimation procedure compared with maximum likelihood estimation is studied. Analysis of the limiting cases of the independence copula and Fréchet upper bound help to determine common patterns in the efficiency as the dependence in the model increases. For the Fréchet upper bound, the two-stage estimation procedure can sometimes be equivalent to maximum likelihood estimation for the univariate parameters. Numerical results are shown for some models, including multivariate ordinal probit and bivariate extreme value distributions, to indicate the typical level of asymptotic efficiency for discrete and continuous data.     

Jackknifing in generalized linear models

In a generalized linear model, the jackknife estimator of the asymptotic covariance matrix of the maximum likelihood estimator is shown to be consistent. The corresponding jackknife studentized statistic is asymptotically normal. In addition, these results remain true even if there exist unequal dispersion parameters in the model. On the other hand, the variance estimator and the studentized statistic based on the standard method (substitution and linearization) do not enjoy this robustness property against the presence of unequal dispersion parameters.This research was supported by an Operating Grant from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.