Journal of Data Science

Physician performance is critical to caring for patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), who are in life-threatening situations and require high level medical care and interventions. Evaluating physicians is crucial for ensuring a high standard of medical care and fostering continuous performance improvement. The non-randomized nature of ICU data often results in imbalance in patient covariates across physician groups, making direct comparisons of the patients’ survival probabilities for each physician misleading. In this article, we utilize the propensity weighting method to address confounding, achieve covariates balance, and assess physician effects. Due to possible model misspecification, we compare the performance of the propensity weighting methods using both parametric models and super learning methods. When the generalized propensity or the quality function is not correctly specified within the parametric propensity weighting framework, super learning-based propensity weighting methods yield more efficient estimators. We demonstrate that utilizing propensity weighting offers an effective way to assess physician performance, a topic of considerable interest to hospital administrators.

Abstract: The five parameter Kumaraswamy generalized gamma model (Pas coa et al., 2011) includes some important distributions as special cases and it is very useful for modeling lifetime data. We propose an extended version of this distribution by assuming that a shape parameter can take negative values. The new distribution can accommodate increasing, decreasing, bath tub and unimodal shaped hazard functions. A second advantage is that it also includes as special models reciprocal distributions such as the recipro cal gamma and reciprocal Weibull distributions. A third advantage is that it can represent the error distribution for the log-Kumaraswamy general ized gamma regression model. We provide a mathematical treatment of the new distribution including explicit expressions for moments, generating function, mean deviations and order statistics. We obtain the moments of the log-transformed distribution. The new regression model can be used more effectively in the analysis of survival data since it includes as sub models several widely-known regression models. The method of maximum likelihood and a Bayesian procedure are used for estimating the model pa rameters for censored data. Overall, the new regression model is very useful to the analysis of real data.

Abstract: We introduce a new class of the slash distribution using folded normal distribution. The proposed model defined on non-negative measure ments extends the slashed half normal distribution and has higher kurtosis than the ordinary half normal distribution. We study the characterization and properties involving moments and some measures based on moments of this distribution. Finally, we illustrate the proposed model with a simulation study and a real application.

Abstract: The generalized gamma model has been used in several applied areas such as engineering, economics and survival analysis. We provide an extension of this model called the transmuted generalized gamma distribution, which includes as special cases some lifetime distributions. The proposed density function can be represented as a mixture of generalized gamma densities. Some mathematical properties of the new model such as the moments, generating function, mean deviations and Bonferroni and Lorenz curves are provided. We estimate the model parameters using maximum likelihood. We prove that the proposed distribution can be a competitive model in lifetime applications by means of a real data set.

Abstract: Chen, Bunce and Jiang [In: Proceedings of the International Con ference on Computational Intelligence and Software Engineering, pp. 1-4] claim to have proposed a new extreme value distribution. But the formulas given for the distribution do not form a valid probability distribution. Here, we correct their formulas to form a valid probability distribution. For this valid distribution, we provide a comprehensive treatment of mathematical properties, estimate parameters by the method of maximum likelihood and provide the observed information matrix. The flexibility of the distribution is illustrated using a real data set.