Exact and Approximate Inferences for Nonlinear Mixed-Effects Models With Missing Covariates
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Nonlinear mixed-effects (NLME) models are popular in many longitudinal studies, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral dynamics, pharmacokinetic analyses, and studies of growth and decay. In practice, covariates in these studies often contain missing data, and so standard complete-data methods are not directly applicable. In this article we propose Monte Carlo parameter-expanded (PX)-EM algorithms for exact and approximate likelihood inferences for NLME models with missing covariates when the missing-data mechanism is ignorable. We allow arbitrary missing-data patterns and allow the covariates to be categorical, continuous, and mixed. The PX-EM algorithm maintains the simplicity and stability of the standard EM algorithm and may converge much faster than EM. The approximate method is computationally more efficient and may be preferable to the exact method when the exact method exhibits convergence problems, such as slow convergence or nonconvergence. It becomes an exact method for linear mixed-effects models and certain NLME models with missing covariates. We also discuss several sampling methods and convergence of the Monte Carlo (PX) EM algorithms. We illustrate the methods using a real data example from the study of HIV viral dynamics and compare the methods via a simulation study.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.029 | 0.161 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".