FRIDAY, September 28, 2007
Time: 1:30 - 2:30 PM
Constant Hall 2065

Title: Modeling and Efficient Estimation of Intra-Family Correlations

Roy Sabo
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Old Dominion University

Familial data occur when observations are taken on multiple members of the same family. Due to the relationships between these members, both genetic and by cohabitation, their response variables will likely exhibit some form of dependence. Most of the existing literature models this dependence with an equicorrelated structure. In this talk we will discuss an alternative structure based upon first-order autoregressive correlation. Specifically we will create and compare various estimators based on existing and emerging methods of estimation. Asymptotic and small-sample properties will be discussed, as will hypothesis testing.