Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

"Conclusions from studies vary regarding the association of weight loss among obese people and measures of health and/or mortality. Total weight loss for individuals in a population may be a combination of intentional weight loss (IWL) and unintentional weight loss (UWL). Among people who have no intention to lose weight, the total weight loss observed is UWL. Among people who have intention to lose weight, the total weight loss is assumed to be UWL and IWL. Note that total weight loss among subjects intending to lose weight is observable but IWL itself is not and, therefore, the latent variable that is of interest. This research reformulates Coffey et al. (2005) using the potential outcomes frame work which help to clarify nonestimable quantities, in particular, tighten bounds for nonestimable correlation parameter and a causal parameter in a linear model under certain assumptions. Also, the positive definiteness requirement of a correlation matrix with covariate(s) is helpful in order to tighten the bounds for nonestimable quantities, and this is demonstrated using the mice data example from Coffey et al. (2005). A parametric bootstrap is used to investigate sampling variability of estimated bounds for the causal parameter. Finally, a matched pairs design is considered in order to get more information for a nonestimable parameter. Three data examples are considered; a data set from an experiment on eye treatments, the mice data set, and a data set from a study on twins. With the mice data set, the base line weight is used to assign mice to matched pairs. Some pairs are created from mice in different treatment groups, and other pairs from mice in the same treatment group. The latter helps to assess "quality of matching" --Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Gadbury, Gary L.

Committee Member(s)

Le, Vy Khoi
Samaranayake, V. A.
Bryant, Richard
Wen, Xuerong

Department(s)

Mathematics and Statistics

Degree Name

Ph. D. in Mathematics

Sponsor(s)

National Institutes of Health (U.S.)

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Fall 2008

Pagination

viii, 81 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 77-80).

Rights

© 2008 Thidaporn Supapakorn, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Weight loss -- Mathematical models

Thesis Number

T 9463

Print OCLC #

354854616

Electronic OCLC #

244566448

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Included in

Mathematics Commons

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