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Olkin & Vaeth (1981) consider a two-way classification model with k rows and p columns in which the residuals (ei1, ..., eip) for row i are independently distributed with a multivariate normal distribution with zero means and common covariance matrix ((ij)). They concentrate their attention particularly on the situation where the row classification corresponds to k subjects, each treated in one of two or more ways; the column classification corresponds to p repetitions, perhaps in time, from each subject, probably resulting in correlated errors. Replication of subjects within treatments enables the elements of the covariance matrix to be estimated from the data, which in turn enables maximum likelihood estimates of the row and column parameters to be computed and likelihood ratio tests to be carried out without having to make assumptions about the form of the covariance matrix. The careful analysis of data of this kind has been the subject of numerous papers, Wishart (1938) perhaps being the first to concentrate on this topic. Despite this, however, the use of erroneous methods in published material is widespread and this provided the stimulus for the publication of our earlier paper (Rowell & Walters, 1976), and also for the present communication. We note here that there is confusion in Olkin & Vaeth's row/column terminology in their worked example: the rows in their tables are referred to as columns in the text, and vice versa. In what follows, when referring to their numerical example, the rows classification will refer to the high/low factor, and the columns classification to the time factor.

Craig (1962) described an application of order statistics from a binomial distribution and gave an approximate expression for the mean value of the minimum of two binomial variables having the same probability of success and the same number of trials. In this note we suggest another approximation for the mean and also for the standard deviation of the minimum, using normal order statistics tabulated by Teichroew (1956).

IN this paper Haldane points out (p. 142) a difference between his results for the mean and variance of x2 in a 2 x n-fold contingency table when the expectation p is fixed and the results obtained by me in my paper (Annals of Eugenics, Vol. VII, part III, p. 211). The difference is that I have (n 1) throughout where Haldane has n. Haldane writes, "my own results would appear to be slightly more accurate than Cochran's", which might, I think, give the impression that both Haldane's results and mine are only approximations. In fact, both results are mathematically exact, the difference between them being one of definition of x2. My paper is almost entirely concerned with the distribution of x2 when the expectation p is not known. In the results which I gave for the distribution of x2 when p is known, I retained the term S (x -x-)2 in the numerator of x2 instead of S (x np)2, to facilitate comparison between this and my other results. Thus my x2 has (n 1) degrees of freedom, whereas Haldane's x2 has n degrees of freedom. Unfortunately I did not emphasize this point in the passage concerned, and as it may have appeared misleading to others besides Haldane, I welcome this opportunity of drawing attention to it. Haldane's x2 is, of course, the one which is normally appropriate in testing the departure from independence when the expectation is known.

SUMMARY The bias of several logit estimators and their corresponding variance estimators is investigated in small samples. Their use in quantal bioassay is similarly explored. The logit transformation has been suggested in the analysis of higher dimensional contingency tables, by Woolf (1954) and many others more recently, and also in estimating the parameters of the logistic function in the quantal bioassay problem (Berkson, 1944, 1953). Various modifications of the logit have been suggested by Berkson (1953), Haldane (1955), Anscombe (1956), Tukey, mentioned by Anscombe (1956), and Hitchcock (1962). Modifications of its usual variance estimator have been proposed by Haldane, Goodman (1964) and Gart (1966). More recently Goodman, in an unpublished paper, has derived several further modifications of his estimator. In this paper we present a numerical comparison of the bias of these estimators and give conditions under which one or the other may be preferred. The use of logits in the quantal bioassay problem is briefly explored with particular reference to the asymptotic results of Hitchcock regarding the bias of the estimators.

Weighting methods are widely used to adjust for covariates in observational studies, sample surveys, and regression settings. In this paper, we study a class of recently proposed weighting methods which find the weights of minimum dispersion that approximately balance the covariates. We call these weights "minimal weights" and study them under a common optimization framework. The key observation is the connection between approximate covariate balance and shrinkage estimation of the propensity score. This connection leads to both theoretical and practical developments. From a theoretical standpoint, we characterize the asymptotic properties of minimal weights and show that, under standard smoothness conditions on the propensity score function, minimal weights are consistent estimates of the true inverse probability weights. Also, we show that the resulting weighting estimator is consistent, asymptotically normal, and semiparametrically efficient. From a practical standpoint, we present a finite sample oracle inequality that bounds the loss incurred by balancing more functions of the covariates than strictly needed. This inequality shows that minimal weights implicitly bound the number of active covariate balance constraints. We finally provide a tuning algorithm for choosing the degree of approximate balance in minimal weights. We conclude the paper with four empirical studies that suggest approximate balance is preferable to exact balance, especially when there is limited overlap in covariate distributions. In these studies, we show that the root mean squared error of the weighting estimator can be reduced by as much as a half with approximate balance., 41 pages

In this paper we consider a location model of the form $Y = m(X) + \varepsilon$, where $m(\cdot)$ is the unknown regression function, the error $\varepsilon$ is independent of the $p$-dimensional covariate $X$ and $E(\varepsilon)=0$. Given i.i.d. data $(X_1,Y_1),\ldots,(X_n,Y_n)$ and given an estimator $\hat m(\cdot)$ of the function $m(\cdot)$ (which can be parametric or nonparametric of nature), we estimate the distribution of the error term $\varepsilon$ by the empirical distribution of the residuals $Y_i-\hat m(X_i)$, $i=1,\ldots,n$. To approximate the distribution of this estimator, Koul and Lahiri (1994) and Neumeyer (2008, 2009) proposed bootstrap procedures, based on smoothing the residuals either before or after drawing bootstrap samples. So far it has been an open question whether a classical non-smooth residual bootstrap is asymptotically valid in this context. In this paper we solve this open problem, and show that the non-smooth residual bootstrap is consistent. We illustrate this theoretical result by means of simulations, that show the accuracy of this bootstrap procedure for various models, testing procedures and sample sizes.

In a recent paper Dette et al. (2014) introduced optimal design problems for dose finding studies with an active control. These authors concentrated on regression models with normal distributed errors (with known variance) and the problem of determining optimal designs for estimating the smallest dose, which achieves the same treatment effect as the active control. This paper discusses the problem of designing active-controlled dose finding studies from a broader perspective. In particular, we consider a general class of optimality criteria and models arising from an exponential family, which are frequently used analyzing count data. We investigate under which circumstances optimal designs for dose finding studies including a placebo can be used to obtain optimal designs for studies with an active control. Optimal designs are constructed for several situations and the differences arising from different distributional assumptions are investigated in detail. In particular, our results are applicable for constructing optimal experimental designs to analyze active-controlled dose finding studies with discrete data, and we illustrate the efficiency of the new optimal designs with two recent examples from our consulting projects.

This paper proposes a unified framework to characterize the rate function of a recurrent event process through shape and size parameters. In contrast to the intensity function, which is the event occurrence rate conditional on the event history, the rate function is the occurrence rate unconditional on the event history, and thus it can be interpreted as a population-averaged count of events in unit time. In this paper, shape and size parameters are introduced and used to characterize the association between the rate function λ(⋅) and a random variable X. Measures of association between X and λ(⋅) are defined via shape- and size-based coefficients. Rate-independence of X and λ(⋅) is studied through tests of shape-independence and size-independence, where the shape- and size-based test statistics can be used separately or in combination. These tests can be applied when X is a covariable possibly correlated with the recurrent event process through λ(⋅) or, in the one-sample setting, when X is the censoring time at which the observation of N(⋅) is terminated. The proposed tests are shape- and size-based, so when a null hypothesis is rejected, the test results can serve to distinguish the source of violation.