background: in the case of sensitive questions such as number of alcoholics known, majority of respondents might give an answer of zero. poisson regression model (p) is the standard tool to analyze count data. however, p provides poor fit in the case of zero inflated counts, when over-dispersion exists. therefore, the questions to be addressed are to compare performance of alternative count reg...

We consider multi-state capture-recapture-recovery data where observed individuals are recorded in a set of possible discrete states. Traditionally, the Arnason-Schwarz model has been fitted to such data where the state process is modeled as a first-order Markov chain, though second-order models have also been proposed and fitted to data. However, low-order Markov models may not accurately repr...

Mathematical models have been used to understand the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases and to assess the impact of intervention strategies. Traditional mathematical models usually assume a homogeneous mixing in the population, which is rarely the case in reality. Here, we construct a new transmission function by using as the probability density function a negative binomial distributi...

A large study conducted at two southeastern US hospitals from October 2007 through October 2008 sought to identify predictive variables for successful intravenous catheter (IV) insertion, a crucial procedure that is potentially difficult and time consuming in young children. The data was collected on a sample of 592 children that received a total of 1,195 attempts to start peripheral IV cathete...