Order restricted statistical inference and its applications

当你去药房配药时，你有没有想过药物的剂量是否适合你？剂量太低会不会使药物不起作用？剂量会不会太高而引起一些副作用？你有没有想过加拿大卫生部是如何决定批准或拒绝一种新药的？其中一些问题可以通过本研究中的剂量反应和毒性研究来回答。例如，剂量反应研究在II期和III期临床试验中很有用，可以评估药物的疗效和毒性，以确定其有效和安全范围。通常包括零剂量作为对照，与较高剂量进行比较。这自然会导致多重比较。剂量的有序性质建议使用逐步程序和利用这种有序信息来提高统计程序的效率。由于医学、毒理学、工程学和经济学等领域的问题，次序限制下的统计推断一直是一个非常活跃的研究领域。在本研究计划中，我们将开发几种简单有效的方法，利用不同类型的先验排序信息，这些信息自然出现在剂量-反应和毒性研究以及定量生物测定中。

When you go to the pharmacy and fill a prescription up, have you ever wondered if the dose of the drug is right for you? Can the dose be too low so that the drug will not work? Can the dose be too high that it may cause some side effects? Have you ever thought about how Health Canada makes a decision to approve or to reject a new drug? Some of these questions can be answered by dose-response and toxicity studies in this research. For example, dose-response studies are useful in Phase II and Phase III clinical trials to evaluate efficacy and toxicity of a drug in order to determine its effective and safe ranges. A zero dose is generally included as a control against which higher doses are compared. This naturally leads to multiple comparisons. The ordered nature of doses suggests the use of stepwise procedures and the utilization of such ordering information to increase the efficiency of statistical procedures. Statistical inference under order restrictions has been a very active area of research motivated by problems in areas such as medicine, toxicology, engineering and economics. In this research proposal we will develop several simple and effective methods by utilizing different types of prior ordering information which arise naturally in dose-response and toxicity studies, and quantal bioassay.