Likelihood and conditional likelihood inference for generalized additive mixed models for clustered data

Lin and Zhang (J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. B 61 (1999) 381) proposed the generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) as a framework for analysis of correlated data, where normally distributed random effects are used to account for correlation in the data, and proposed to use double penalized quasi-likelihood (DPQL) to estimate the nonparametric functions in the model and marginal likelihood to estimate the smoothing parameters and variance components simultaneously. However, the normal distributional assumption for the random effects may not be realistic in many applications, and it is unclear how violation of this assumption affects ensuing inferences for GAMMs. For a particular class of GAMMs, we propose a conditional estimation procedure built on a conditional likelihood for the response given a sufficient statistic for the random effect, treating the random effect as a nuisance parameter, which thus should be robust to its distribution. In extensive simulation studies, we assess performance of this estimator under a range of conditions and use it as a basis for comparison to DPQL to evaluate the impact of violation of the normality assumption. The procedure is illustrated with application to data from the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS).     

Characterization of host-lattice emission and energy transfer in BaMgAl10O17:Eu

Host-lattice emission, energy transfer and degradation processes are characterized in undoped and Eu-doped BaMgAl₁₀O₁₇. Undoped BaMgAl₁₀O₁₇ exhibits a broad emission centered at 265 nm when excited at wavelengths shorter than 190 nm. This emission is assigned to exciton recombination at Ba-O groups in the cation layer of the lattice. The emission exhibits excellent overlap with the excitation band of Eu²⁺ in this host, providing a means of host-to-activator energy transfer in the doped phosphor. The exciton emission is relatively stable to thermal damage, but undergoes a peak shift and significant decrease in intensity after exposure to VUV radiation. Heating of VUV-damaged materials in air leads to some repair of the spectral properties.     

Infrared absorption and reflectivity of double perovskite Sr2FeWO6

In this work we present temperature dependent infrared reflectivity and absorption of Sr₂FeWO₆ between 700 and 17 K measured from 40 to 10000 cm⁻¹. The reflectivity spectra show well defined phonon bands peaking at 143, 227, 377 and 625 cm⁻¹ assigned to overlapping vibrational modes split from those active in cubic perovskite. We have also verified that this compound is structurally stable in the whole temperature range and that its optical gap at ∼750 cm⁻¹ (95 meV) undergoes only a minor high temperature decrease ascribed to new thermally accessible levels.     

F-H实验仪与光栅光谱仪连用观测253.7nm谱线

通过F-H实验仪和光栅光谱仪的连用，可实时观测汞原子从6s6s1So态激发到6s6sSP1态，退激时，辐射出能量为4．9eV的光量子，其波长为253．7nm．     

Inner Radius of Univalence for a Strongly Starlike Domain

 The inner radius of univalence of a domain D with Poincaré density ρ _D is the possible largest number σ such that the condition ∥ S _f ∥ _D  = sup _{w∈ D} ρ _D (w) ⁻²∥ S _f (z) ∥ ≤ σ implies univalence of f for a nonconstant meromorphic function f on D, where S _f is the Schwarzian derivative of f. In this note, we give a lower bound of the inner radius of univalence for strongly starlike domains of order α in terms of the order α. The author was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Grant-in-Aid for Encouragement of Young Scientists, 11740088. A part of this work was carried out during his visit to the University of Helsinki under the exchange programme of scientists between the Academy of Finland and the JSPS. Received November 26, 2001; in revised form September 24, 2002 Published online May 9, 2003     

1H and 13C NMR assignments of abietane diterpenes from Aegiphila lhotzkyana

An NMR study of one new and several known abietane diterpenes isolated from the roots of Aegiphila lhotzkyana is described. In addition to 1D NMR, several 2D shift‐correlated NMR pulse sequences (¹H–¹H‐COSY, NOESY, HMQC and HMBC) were used to establish all the structures, and unambiguously perform the ¹H and ¹³C chemical shift assignments of the new natural diterpene and three derivatives, the NMR data for which have not been reported previously. Revision of current data assignment for teuvincenone H is also suggested. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

π1-classification of real arrangements with up to eight lines

One of the open questions in the geometry of line arrangements is to what extent does the incidence lattice of an arrangement determine its fundamental group. Line arrangements of up to 6 lines were recently classified by K.M. Fan (Michigan Math. J. 44(2) (1997) 283), and it turns out that the incidence lattice of such arrangements determines the projective fundamental group. We use actions on the set of wiring diagrams, introduced in (Garber et al. (J. Knot Theory Ramf.), to classify real arrangements of up to 8 lines. In particular, we show that the incidence lattice of such arrangements determines both the affine and the projective fundamental groups.     

Asymptotic properties of computationally efficient alternative estimators for a class of multivariate normal models

Parameters of Gaussian multivariate models are often estimated using the maximum likelihood approach. In spite of its merits, this methodology is not practical when the sample size is very large, as, for example, in the case of massive georeferenced data sets. In this paper, we study the asymptotic properties of the estimators that minimize three alternatives to the likelihood function, designed to increase the computational efficiency. This is achieved by applying the information sandwich technique to expansions of the pseudo-likelihood functions as quadratic forms of independent normal random variables. Theoretical calculations are given for a first-order autoregressive time series and then extended to a two-dimensional autoregressive process on a lattice. We compare the efficiency of the three estimators to that of the maximum likelihood estimator as well as among themselves, using numerical calculations of the theoretical results and simulations.     

Ihara zeta functions of digraphs

After defining and exploring some of the properties of Ihara zeta functions of digraphs, we improve upon Kotani and Sunada’s bounds on the poles of Ihara zeta functions of undirected graphs by considering digraphs whose adjacency matrices are directed edge matrices.