STA 685 - Biostatistics
Spring 2007

Course (Section)STA 685 (A)
Meeting Time: 800-915 T R
Meeting Location 112 Bachelor Hall
Prerequisites:graduate standing or consent of instructor
ProfessorDr. John Bailer
E-mail: baileraj@muohio.edu
URL: http://www.users.muohio.edu/baileraj
Office (phone)292 Bachelor Hall (529-3538)
Office Hours 930 - 11 T R (other hours by appointment)

Purpose of Course: Introduce statistical techniques used in biostatistics focusing on the analysis of survival (failure time) data.

Course Objectives: Develop skills for analying failure/event time data.

Texts:

Supplemental Texts:

* Articles and other supplemental material may be placed on Blackboard.

Grading:

Straight 90-80-70-60 split for A,B,C,D, respect. Pluses and Minuses will be used for the border of these intervals.

item contribution to letter grade

Exam 120%
Exam 2 20%
Homework 20%
Presentations 10%
Final
30%

Grading comments:

  1. Final exam will be CUMULATIVE.

Presentation comments:

On each Thursday throughout the semester, students will present a 10-15 minute summary of a statistical research papers from the biostatistics/biomedical literature. Your contribution, as both presenter and as a discussant, will contribute to your course grade.

Final Schedule: Friday, May xx, hh:mm a.m.

Attendance Policy:

Do not miss class. Lecture and classroom activities are intended to complement the text and out-of-class activities.

Exam Make-up Policy:

There will be NO make-up exams. If you miss an exam during the semester, then the contribution of this grade to your final grade will be transferred to the Final exam. For example, if you miss Exam 1, then your final exam will now contribute 50% to your course grade.

Dates of interest:

Sept. 1LABOR DAY, no classes
Sept. 2Monday/Tuesday class exchange day (Monday classes meet).
Sept. 16Last day to drop a class without a grade (W).
Oct. 7Last day to drop a course with a grade of W
Oct. 10Mid-term break, no classes
Nov. 26-28Thanksgiving break
Dec. 12Last day of classes


STA 685 Tentative Course Outline

Topic*

Survival distributions and hazard functions [L 1,2,3; A 1,2; C 1]

Nonparametric survival curve estimation

Nonparametric tests of the equality of survival distributions [L 5; C 2.5-2.8]

Commonly-used survival distributions [L 6, 7.4; ]

Parametric tests of the equality of survival distributions [L 9; C 4.4-4.6]

Parametric regression models [A 4; C 4, 6]

Proportional hazards models [L 10.2; A 5; C 3, 7]

Additional topics selected from:

Footnote