Penalized maximum likelihood inference under the mixture cure model in sparse data
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: When a study sample includes a large proportion of long-term survivors, mixture cure (MC) models that separately assess biomarker associations with long-term recurrence-free survival and time to disease recurrence are preferred to proportional-hazards models. However, in samples with few recurrences, standard maximum likelihood can be biased. OBJECTIVE AND METHODS: We extend Firth-type penalized likelihood (FT-PL) developed for bias reduction in the exponential family to the Weibull-logistic MC, using the Jeffreys invariant prior. Via simulation studies based on a motivating cohort study, we compare parameter estimates of the FT-PL method to those by ML, as well as type 1 error (T1E) and power obtained using likelihood ratio statistics. RESULTS: In samples with relatively few events, the Firth-type penalized likelihood estimates (FT-PLEs) have mean bias closer to zero and smaller mean squared error than maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs), and can be obtained in samples where the MLEs are infinite. Under similar T1E rates, FT-PL consistently exhibits higher statistical power than ML in samples with few events. In addition, we compare FT-PL estimation with two other penalization methods (a log-F prior method and a modified Firth-type method) based on the same simulations. DISCUSSION: Consistent with findings for logistic and Cox regressions, FT-PL under MC regression yields finite estimates under stringent conditions, and better bias-and-variance balance than the other two penalizations. The practicality and strength of FT-PL for MC analysis is illustrated in a cohort study of breast cancer prognosis with long-term follow-up for recurrence-free survival.
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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 | 0.021 | 0.111 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
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".