ROC analyses are considered under a variety of assumptions concerning the distributions of a measurement $X$ in two populations. These include the binormal model as well as nonparametric models where little is assumed about the form of distributions. The methodology is based on a characterization of statistical evidence which is dependent on the specification of prior distributions for the unknown population distributions as well as for the relevant prevalence $w$ of the disease in a given population. In all cases, elicitation algorithms are provided to guide the selection of the priors. Inferences are derived for the AUC as well as the cutoff $c$ used for classification and the associated error characteristics.
One of the most significant barriers to medication treatment is patients non-adherence to a prescribed medication regimen. The extent of the impact of poor adherence on resulting health measures is often unknown, and typical analyses ignore the time-varying nature of adherence. This paper develops a modeling framework for longitudinally recorded health measures modeled as a function of time-varying medication adherence or other time-varying covariates. Our framework, which relies on normal Bayesian dynamic linear models (DLMs), accounts for time-varying covariates such as adherence and non-dynamic covariates such as baseline health characteristics. Given the inefficiencies using standard inferential procedures for DLMs associated with infrequent and irregularly recorded response data, we develop an approach that relies on factoring the posterior density into a product of two terms; a marginal posterior density for the non-dynamic parameters, and a multivariate normal posterior density of the dynamic parameters conditional on the non-dynamic ones. This factorization leads to a two-stage process for inference in which the non-dynamic parameters can be inferred separately from the time-varying parameters. We demonstrate the application of this model to the time-varying effect of anti-hypertensive medication on blood pressure levels from a cohort of patients diagnosed with hypertension. Our model results are compared to ones in which adherence is incorporated through non-dynamic summaries.
One of the classic concerns in statistics is determining if two samples come from thesame population, i.e. homogeneity testing. In this paper, we propose a homogeneitytest in the context of Functional Data Analysis, adopting an idea from multivariatedata analysis: the data depth plot (DD-plot). This DD-plot is a generalization of theunivariate Q-Q plot (quantile-quantile plot). We propose some statistics based onthese DD-plots, and we use bootstrapping techniques to estimate their distributions.We estimate the finite-sample size and power of our test via simulation, obtainingbetter results than other homogeneity test proposed in the literature. Finally, weillustrate the procedure in samples of real heterogeneous data and get consistent results.
Competing risks data are common in medical studies, and the sub-distribution hazard (SDH) ratio is considered an appropriate measure. However, because the limitations of hazard itself are not easy to interpret clinically and because the SDH ratio is valid only under the proportional SDH assumption, this article introduced an alternative index under competing risks, named restricted mean time lost (RMTL). Several test procedures were also constructed based on RMTL. First, we introduced the definition and estimation of RMTL based on Aalen-Johansen cumulative incidence functions. Then, we considered several combined tests based on the SDH and the RMTL difference (RMTLd). The statistical properties of the methods are evaluated using simulations and are applied to two examples. The type I errors of combined tests are close to the nominal level. All combined tests show acceptable power in all situations. In conclusion, RMTL can meaningfully summarize treatment effects for clinical decision making, and three combined tests have robust power under various conditions, which can be considered for statistical inference in real data analysis.
When a latent shoeprint is discovered at a crime scene, forensic analysts inspect it for distinctive patterns of wear such as scratches and holes (known as accidentals) on the source shoes sole. If its accidentals correspond to those of a suspects shoe, the print can be used as forensic evidence to place the suspect at the crime scene. The strength of this evidence depends on the random match probability---the chance that a shoe chosen at random would match the crime scene prints accidentals. Evaluating random match probabilities requires an accurate model for the spatial distribution of accidentals on shoe soles. A recent report by the Presidents Council of Advisors in Science and Technology criticized existing models in the literature, calling for new empirically validated techniques. We respond to this request with a new spatial point process model for accidental locations, developed within a hierarchical Bayesian framework. We treat the tread pattern of each shoe as a covariate, allowing us to pool information across large heterogeneous databases of shoes. Existing models ignore this information; our results show that including it leads to significantly better model fit. We demonstrate this by fitting our model to one such database.
Arctic sea ice plays an important role in the global climate. Sea ice models governed by physical equations have been used to simulate the state of the ice including characteristics such as ice thickness, concentration, and motion. More recent models also attempt to capture features such as fractures or leads in the ice. These simulated features can be partially misaligned or misshapen when compared to observational data, whether due to numerical approximation or incomplete physics. In order to make realistic forecasts and improve understanding of the underlying processes, it is necessary to calibrate the numerical model to field data. Traditional calibration methods based on generalized least-square metrics are flawed for linear features such as sea ice cracks. We develop a statistical emulation and calibration framework that accounts for feature misalignment and misshapenness, which involves optimally aligning model output with observed features using cutting edge image registration techniques. This work can also have application to other physical models which produce coherent structures.