Call for submissions on composite likelihood methods
Karen Li
Call for submissions on a special issue in composite likelihood
methods
Dear all,
Likelihood-based inference has been highly successful in scientific
discovery throughout the years. Recently, the composite likelihood
approach has drawn a good deal of attention as a tool for statistical
inference especially in dealing with high-dimensional data. Composite
likelihoods are constructed as the product of conditional and/or
marginal likelihoods, which themselves are just part of the full
likelihood specification. (Such objective functions have been
described by a variety of names in the literature, such as pseudo-
likelihood, pairwise likelihood, and marginal likelihood.)
Use of this methodology occurs in a variety of scientific fields
including, among others, environmental science, neuro-imaging and
micro-array experiments. The statistical challenges that lead one to
consider composite likelihood include the computational complexity of
the joint likelihood, the need to specify the joint likelihood in the
absence of sufficient knowledge regarding the random mechanism, and so
forth. This approach, when utilized properly, has the advantages of
easing the computational burden and reducing the impacts of nuisance
parameters while maintaining high statistical efficiency.
A special issue of Statistica Sinica has been planned that will
highlight statistical topics under the framework of composite
likelihood that are either methodologically- or theoretically-
oriented. Submissions preferably will provide either methodological or
theoretical advances in the use of composite likelihood for scientific
inference. Priority will be given to papers that are assessed to be,
statistically and scientifically speaking, the most innovative,
comprehensive, and of interest to a wide readership.
Papers submitted to the special issue will be reviewed according to
the regular procedure of the journal. Accepted papers will appear in a
single issue of Statistica Sinica, scheduled for 2010. Please contact
Bruce Lindsay (b...@psu.edu ) for questions on the suitability of your
paper(s). Submissions must be made online through the journal site at
http://www.stat.sinica.edu.tw/statistica/
Please use the LaTeX article template, also available at the above
site, for preparing your manuscript submission. The deadline for
submission is September 30, 2009. Authors wishing to receive email
alerts as the deadline approaches may contact the editorial assistant,
Patty Hubbard (phub...@jhsph.edu ) or Karen Li
(Ka...@stat.sinica.edu.tw ).
Sincerely yours,
Guest
Editors:
Bruce Lindsay (Chair), Pennsylvania State University (b...@psu.edu)
Nancy Reid, University of Toronto (re...@utstat.utoronto.edu)
Kung-Yee Liang, Johns Hopkins University (kyl...@jhsph.edu)