Inference and variable selection in semiparametric survival models with censored or missing data

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Millions of people are killed by cancer each year. There are evidences that the survival time of cancer patients depends on many risk factors. Some of the risk factors are obvious and well studied, e.g. smoke habits and alcohol abuse, while many others are hidden in the human's genes and DNAs, which are not easy to observe and handle. In recent years, breakthroughs in biomedical technology have made it possible to obtain hundreds of thousands of gene expression measurements, along with the clinical information about the survival outcomes of patients. In this case, researchers and practitioners are interested in (1) identifying features (or genes, covariates) that are associated with survival, so that they can examine their precise roles, and (2) developing a multivariate model for the relationship between the features and the survival time that can be used to predict survival in a new observation and to identify better treatment strategies for cancers.