Modelling Crime Data Using the Non-Stationary Bivariate Integer-Valued Autoregressive (BINAR(1)) Models with Poisson-Lindley (PL) Innovations

BackgroundGroup sequential designs are increasingly employed to allow trials to stop early with statistical rigor. While existing work focuses on intention-to-treat effect on clinical endpoints, the properties of mediation analysis (commonly conducted in psychological trials to understand a causal mechanism) remain unknown under group sequential designs.MethodsConsidering a group sequential design with one interim analysis for early stopping for efficacy, we conduct a simulation study to evaluate existing analysis techniques when the treatment effect on a continuous outcome is partially or fully mediated by a continuous intermediate variable measuring a casual mechanism. We study the probability of rejecting the null hypotheses on the total effect (i.e., intention-to-treat effect), direct effect and indirect effect, respectively. We examine the bias of maximum likelihood estimator for these effects. We investigate if the penalized (and conditional) maximum likelihood estimator has smaller bias than the maximum likelihood estimator when a trial stopped (did not stop) early.ResultsThe presence of an intermediate variable reduces the power of a group sequential design when sample size calculation ignores the causal mechanism, though type I error control remains unaffected. The maximum likelihood estimator is unbiased only for the mediator-outcome path, impacting the properties of mediation analysis since existing methods typically rely on it to estimate the pathways. The penalized maximum likelihood estimator for other pathways has similar bias to the stage-one maximum likelihood estimator, while the conditional maximum likelihood estimator shows negligible or smaller bias than the usual maximum likelihood estimator for estimating the total and the direct effects only.ConclusionsMediation analysis needs additional consideration in group sequential designs. As with fixed trial designs, the sample size calculation of group sequential designs should account for the total variability underlying a causal mechanism when the treatment effect is hypothesized to be mediated by an intermediate variable, or risk the overall power to detect an intention-to-treat (total) effect being lower than the nominal value. We suggest reporting several estimators and acknowledging that they may be biased for some mediation pathways. More research is needed to develop methods for the analysis of indirect effect under group sequential designs.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-025-02714-y.

The Rasch model is one of the most prominent item response models. In this article, different item parameter estimation methods for the Rasch model are systematically compared through a comprehensive simulation study: Different alternatives of joint maximum likelihood (JML) estimation, different alternatives of marginal maximum likelihood (MML) estimation, conditional maximum likelihood (CML) estimation, and several limited information methods (LIM). The type of ability distribution (i.e., nonnormality), the number of items, sample size, and the distribution of item difficulties were systematically varied. Across different simulation conditions, MML methods with flexible distributional specifications can be at least as efficient as CML. Moreover, in many situations (i.e., for long tests), penalized JML and JML with ε adjustment resulted in very efficient estimates and might be considered alternatives to JML implementations currently used in statistical software. Moreover, minimum chi-square (MINCHI) estimation was the best-performing LIM method. These findings demonstrate that JML estimation and LIM can still prove helpful in applied research.

In cluster-specific studies, ordinary logistic regression and conditional logistic regression for binary outcomes provide maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and conditional maximum likelihood estimator (CMLE), respectively. In this paper, we show that CMLE is approaching to MLE asymptotically when each individual data point is replicated infinitely many times. Our theoretical derivation is based on the observation that a term appearing in the conditional average log-likelihood function is the coefficient of a polynomial, and hence can be transformed to a complex integral by Cauchy’s differentiation formula. The asymptotic analysis of the complex integral can then be performed using the classical method of steepest descent. Our result implies that CMLE can be biased if individual weights are multiplied with a constant, and that we should be cautious when assigning weights to cluster-specific studies.

An order-preserving property of the maximum likelihood estimates for the Rasch model

It has been known for several years that conditional and mixture maximum likelihood estimates do agree for the dichotomous Rasch model (RM). This equivalence may be attained by a sufficient number of mixing components in a specifically restricted latent-class model. Because the principle of such a semiparametric approach is a general one (Kiefer & Wolfowitz, 1956), it also applies to some other models of the Rasch type having simple sufficient statistics. Exact equivalence regarding the parameter estimates can be shown, for example, for the linear logistic test model, a RM with linearly constrained item parameters, and for the polytomous RM; only almost equivalence is found for the mixed RM. As formal proofs of these results are difficult, the presentation focuses on numerical examples demonstrating the said (almost) equivalence.

Conditional likelihood inference in a heteroscedastic functional measurement error model

A new First-Order mixture integer-valued threshold autoregressive process based on binomial thinning and negative binomial thinning

Flexible binomial AR(1) processes using copulas

This paper introduces a non-negative integer-valued autoregressive (INAR) process with seasonal structure of first order, which is an extension of the standard INAR(1) model proposed by Al-Osh and Alzaid [First-order integer-valued autoregressive (INAR(1)) process. J Time Ser Anal. 1987;8:261–275]. The main properties of the model are derived such as its stationarity and autocorrelation function (ACF), among others. The conditional least squares and conditional maximum likelihood estimators of the model parameters are studied and their asymptotic properties are established. Some detailed discussion is dedicated to the case where the marginal distribution of the process is Poisson. A Monte Carlo experiment is conducted to evaluate and compare the performances of these estimators for finite sample sizes. The standard Yule–Walker approach is also considered for comparison purposes. The empirical results indicate that, in general, the conditional maximum likelihood estimator presents much better performance in terms of bias and mean square error. The model is illustrated using a real data set.

The problem of time delay estimation (TDE) in the presence ofzero mean white Gaussian noise is addressed. A novel and efficient algorithm for obtaining Conditional Maximum Likelihood (CML) estimates of delays, attenuation factors and the number of paths from a transmitter to a receiver is introduced. This approach is quite suitable for the cases in which time delay difference is less than the duration of signal autocorrelation.

The authors present polynomial-based Newton algorithms for maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of the parameters of multiple exponential signals in noise. This formulation can be used in the estimation, for example, of the directions of arrival of multiple noise-corrupted narrowband plane waves using uniform linear arrays and the frequencies of multiple noise-corrupted complex sine waves. The algorithms offer rapid convergence and exhibit the computation efficiency associated with the polynomial approach. Compact, closed-form expressions are presented for the gradients and Hessians. Various model assumptions concerning the statistics of the underlying signals are considered. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the algorithms' performance.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Hybrid censoring schemes are commonly used in life-testing experiments to reduce the experimental time and the cost. A Type-II progressive hybrid censoring scheme (PHCS) was introduced by Kundu and Joarder (Comput Stat Data Anal 50:2509–2528, 2006) that combines progressive Type-II censoring and Type-I censoring. In this paper, we consider the statistical inference of a two-parameter exponential distribution under the Type-II PHCS. The conditional maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of the model parameters and their joint and marginal conditional moment generating functions are derived. Based on these exact conditional moments, bias-reduced estimators are proposed and their distributions are discussed. Confidence intervals of the model parameters based on exact and asymptotic distributions of the MLEs and bias-reduced estimators are developed. The performances of the point and interval estimation procedures are evaluated and compared through exact calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. Recommendations are made based on these results and an illustrative example is presented.

A new estimator of the common odds ratio in one-to-one matched case-control studies is proposed. The connection between this estimator and the James-Stein estimating procedure is highlighted through the argument of estimating functions. Comparisons are made between this estimator, the conditional maximum likelihood estimator, and the estimator ignoring the matching in terms of finite sample bias, mean squared error, coverage probability, and length of confidence interval. In many situations, the new estimator is found to be more efficient than the conditional maximum likelihood estimator without being as biased as the estimator that ignores matching. The extension to multiple risk factors is also outlined.

In 1985, Miettinen and Nurminen proposed asymptotic likelihood‐based methods for the interval estimation of risk differences, risk ratios and risk‐odds ratios. In the present study, with the use of simulated coverage probabilities in small samples, the actual confidence coefficients of all three of the proposed interval estimates for unstratified data were determined in a comparison with the usual ones. Rated against the 95% coverage probability, the likelihood methods that use restricted maximum likelihood estimators accurately attained the nominal level. The recommended limits also apportioned fairly equal error rates for both tails. The customary intervals performed less successfully. For simple risk differences the estimated confidence probabilities failed to reach the 95% level. For the differences in log‐transformed risks, the tail probabilities of the confidence intervals were disparately allocated, and the method was occasionally incomputable. For the difference in logit‐transformed risks, the uncorrected Woolf intervals were at times fallible and somewhat conservative in comparison to the likelihood ratio‐based intervals. Modification of the conservative Cornfield limits for the risk‐odds ratio greatly improved the accuracy of the likelihood score‐based procedure. With sparse‐stratified data the likelihood score approach produced a biased estimate of the risk‐odds ratio, which for matched pairs equals the square of the exact, conditional maximum likelihood estimate.

Repeated testing in a group sequential trial can result in bias in the maximum likelihood estimate of the unknown parameter of interest. Many authors have therefore proposed adjusted point estimation procedures, which attempt to reduce such bias. Here, we describe nine possible point estimators within a common general framework for a two-stage group sequential trial. We then contrast their performance in five example trial settings, examining their conditional and marginal biases and residual mean square error. By focusing on the case of a trial with a single interim analysis, additional new results aiding the determination of the estimators are given. Our findings demonstrate that the uniform minimum variance unbiased estimator, whilst being marginally unbiased, often has large conditional bias and residual mean square error. If one is concerned solely about inference on progression to the second trial stage, the conditional uniform minimum variance unbiased estimator may be preferred. Two estimators, termed mean adjusted estimators, which attempt to reduce the marginal bias, arguably perform best in terms of the marginal residual mean square error. In all, one should choose an estimator accounting for its conditional and marginal biases and residual mean square error; the most suitable estimator will depend on relative desires to minimise each of these factors. If one cares solely about the conditional and marginal biases, the conditional maximum likelihood estimate may be preferred provided lower and upper stopping boundaries are included. If the conditional and marginal residual mean square error are also of concern, two mean adjusted estimators perform well.