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Full-Text Articles in Biostatistics

Statistical Approaches Of Gene Set Analysis With Quantitative Trait Loci For High-Throughput Genomic Studies., Samarendra Das Dec 2020

Statistical Approaches Of Gene Set Analysis With Quantitative Trait Loci For High-Throughput Genomic Studies., Samarendra Das

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, gene set analysis has become the first choice for gaining insights into the underlying complex biology of diseases through high-throughput genomic studies, such as Microarrays, bulk RNA-Sequencing, single cell RNA-Sequencing, etc. It also reduces the complexity of statistical analysis and enhances the explanatory power of the obtained results. Further, the statistical structure and steps common to these approaches have not yet been comprehensively discussed, which limits their utility. Hence, a comprehensive overview of the available gene set analysis approaches used for different high-throughput genomic studies is provided. The analysis of gene sets is usually carried out based on …


Modified-Half-Normal Distribution And Different Methods To Estimate Average Treatment Effect., Jingchao Sun Dec 2020

Modified-Half-Normal Distribution And Different Methods To Estimate Average Treatment Effect., Jingchao Sun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three projects related to Modified-Half-Normal distribution and causal inference. In my first project, a new distribution called Modified-Half-Normal distribution was introduced. I explored a few of its distributional properties, the procedures for generating random samples based on Bayesian approaches, and the parameter estimation based on the method of moments. The second project deals with the problem of selection bias of average treatment effect (ATE) if we use the observational data. I combined the propensity score based inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) method and the directed acyclic graph (DAG) to solve this problem. The third project …


Aspects Of Causal Inference., John A. Craycroft Dec 2020

Aspects Of Causal Inference., John A. Craycroft

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Observational studies differ from experimental studies in that assignment of subjects to treatments is not randomized but rather occurs due to natural mechanisms, which are usually hidden from researchers. Yet objectives of the two studies are frequently the same: identify the causal – rather than merely associational – relationship between some treatment or exposure and an outcome. The statistical issues that arise in properly analyzing observational data for this goal are numerous and fascinating, and these issues are encompassed in the domain of causal inference. The research presented in this dissertation explores several distinct aspects of causal inference. This dissertation …


Marginal Methods And Software For Clustered Data With Cluster- And Group-Size Informativeness., Mary Elizabeth Gregg Aug 2020

Marginal Methods And Software For Clustered Data With Cluster- And Group-Size Informativeness., Mary Elizabeth Gregg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Clustered data result when observations have some natural organizational association. In such data, cluster size is defined as the number of observations belonging to a cluster. A phenomenon termed informative cluster size (ICS) occurs when observation outcomes vary in a systematic way related to the cluster size. An additional form of informativeness, termed informative within-cluster group size (IWCGS), arises when the distribution of group-defining categorical covariates within clusters similarly carries information related to outcomes. Standard methods for the marginal analysis of clustered data can produce biased estimates and inference when data have informativeness. A reweighting methodology has been developed that …


Linear Methods For Regression With Small Sample Sizes Relative To The Number Of Variables., Rajesh Sikder Aug 2020

Linear Methods For Regression With Small Sample Sizes Relative To The Number Of Variables., Rajesh Sikder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In data sets where there are a small number of observations but a large number of variables observed for each observation, ordinary least squares estimation cannot be used for regression models. There are many alternative including stepwise regression, penalized methods such as ridge regression and the LASSO, and methods based on derived inputs such as principal components regression and partial least squares regression. In this thesis, these five methods are described. K-fold cross validation is also discussed as a way for determining regularization parameters for each method. The performance of these methods in estimation and prediction is also examined through …


Novel Bayesian Methodology For The Analysis Of Single-Cell Rna Sequencing Data., Michael Sekula May 2020

Novel Bayesian Methodology For The Analysis Of Single-Cell Rna Sequencing Data., Michael Sekula

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology, researchers are able to gain a better understanding of health and disease through the analysis of gene expression data at the cellular-level; however, scRNA-seq data tend to have high proportions of zero values, increased cell-to-cell variability, and overdispersion due to abnormally large expression counts, which create new statistical problems that need to be addressed. This dissertation includes three research projects that propose Bayesian methodology suitable for scRNA-seq analysis. In the first project, a hurdle model for identifying differentially expressed genes across cell types in scRNA-seq data is presented. This model incorporates a correlated random …