The main goal of this thesis is to develop Bayesian model for studying the influence of
covariate on dependence between random variables. Conditional copula models are flexible tools for modelling complex dependence structures. We construct Bayesian inference for the conditional copula model adapted to regression settings in which the bivariate outcome is continuous or mixed (binary and continuous) and the copula parameter varies with covariate values. The functional relationship between the copula parameter and the covariate is modelled using cubic splines. We also extend our work to additive models which would allow us to handle more than one covariate while keeping the computational burden within reasonable limits. We perform the proposed joint Bayesian inference via adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. The deviance information criterion and cross-validated marginal log-likelihood criterion are employed for three model selection problems: 1) choosing the copula family that best fits the data, 2) selecting the calibration function, i.e., checking if parametric form for copula parameter is suitable and 3) determining the number of independent variables in the additive model. The performance of the estimation and model selection techniques are investigated via simulations and demonstrated on two data sets: 1) Matched Multiple Birth and 2) Burn Injury. In which of interest is the influence of gestational age and maternal age on twin birth weights in the former data, whereas in the later data we are interested in investigating how patient’s age affects the severity of burn injury and the probability of death.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/35948 |
| Date | 12 August 2013 |
| Creators | Sabeti, Avideh |
| Contributors | Craiu, Radu V. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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