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[S] censorReg and left-truncation

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Subject: [S] censorReg and left-truncation
From: C Boudreau <cboudrea@math.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 18:25:27 -0400 (EDT)
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Hi,

        I'm having difficulties using censorReg to estimate the parameters
(shape and scale) of a Weibull distribution. My simulated dataset consists
of left-truncated and right-censored observations from a Weibull
distribution with shape parameter beta=1.5, and scale parameter lambda=1. 
To carry out non-parametric inference with left-truncated and
right-censored observations one can use the coxph in combination with the
survfit; that is,

survfit(coxph(Surv(start, end, status) ~ 1, data=my.data))

        Based on the previous syntax, I used the following line to fit my
parametric Weibull with left-truncated and right-censored observations:

> censorReg(censor(start, end, status)~1, data=my.data)
Call:
censorReg(formula = censor(start, end, status) ~ 1, data = my.data)

Distribution: Weibull 

Coefficients:
 (Intercept) 
  -0.9243332

Dispersion (scale) = 0.7966223
Log-likelihood: -1.534647 

Observations: 100 Total; 15 Censored
Parameters Estimated: 2 

Transforming back to the original parameterization, I get:

lambda = exp(0.9243332) = 2.520187
beta = 1/0.7966223 = 1.2553

        That is, an estimate of beta relatively close to the theoretical
value of 1.5, but a an estimate of lambda far away from the theoretical
value of 1.  However, using Newton-Raphson I get the following estimates: 
lambda = 0.877687 and beta = 1.364497. Both are closer to the theoretical
values. Moreover, the log-likelihood corresponding to lambda = 2.520187
and beta = 1.2553 is -137.9927; compared to -1.534647 with censorReg. 
Also, the log-likelihood corresponding to lambda = 0.877687 and beta =
1.364497 (the estimates from the Newton-Raphson method) is -75.61563. 

        Thus, I don't really know what I'm doing wrong. I'm mainly
wondering about my syntax for censorReg and about my transformation to the
original parameterization, but I couldn't find anything in the S-Plus help
to tell me what is going wrong. 


Thanks
Christian




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       //\  /  \    /__           cboudreau@math.uwaterloo.ca
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