binGroup2 (version 1.3.1)

propCI: Confidence intervals for one proportion in group testing

Description

Calculates point estimates and confidence intervals for a single proportion with group testing data. Methods are available for groups of equal or different sizes.

Usage

propCI(
  x,
  m,
  n,
  pt.method = "mle",
  ci.method,
  conf.level = 0.95,
  alternative = "two.sided",
  maxiter = 100,
  tol = .Machine$double.eps^0.5
)

Value

A list containing:

conf.int

a confidence interval for the proportion.

estimate

the point estimator of the proportion.

pt.method

the method used for point estimation.

ci.method

the method used for confidence interval estimation.

conf.level

the confidence level of the interval.

alternative

the alternative specified by the user.

x

the number of positive groups.

m

the group sizes.

n

the numbers of groups with corresponding group sizes m.

Arguments

x

integer specifying the number of positive groups when groups are of equal size, or a vector specifying the number of positive groups among the n groups tested when group sizes differ. If the latter, this vector must be of the same length as the m and n arguments.

m

integer specifying the common size of groups when groups are of equal size, or a vector specifying the group sizes when group sizes differ. If the latter, this vector must be of the same length as the x and n arguments.

n

integer specifying the number of groups when these groups are of equal size, or a vector specifying the corresponding number of groups of the sizes m when group sizes differ. If the latter, this vector must be of the same length as the x and m arguments.

pt.method

character string specifying the point estimate to compute. Options include "Firth" for the bias-preventative, "Gart" and "bc-mle" for the bias-corrected MLE (where the latter allows for backward compatibility), and "mle" for the MLE.

ci.method

character string specifying the confidence interval to compute. Options include "AC" for the Agresti-Coull interval, "bc-skew-score" for the bias- and skewness-corrected interval, "Blaker" for the Blaker interval, "CP" for the Clopper-Pearson interval, "exact" for the exact interval as given by Hepworth (1996), "lrt" for the likelihood ratio test interval, "score" for the Wilson score interval, "skew-score" for the skewness-corrected interval, "soc" for the second-order corrected interval, and "Wald" for the Wald interval. Note that the Agresti-Coull, Blaker, Clopper-Pearson, and second-order corrected intervals can only be calculated when x, m, and n are given as integers (equal group size case).

conf.level

confidence level of the interval.

alternative

character string defining the alternative hypothesis, either "two.sided", "less", or "greater".

maxiter

the maximum number of steps in the iteration of confidence limits, for use only with the "exact" method when group sizes differ.

tol

the accuracy required for iterations in internal functions, for use with asymptotic intervals when group sizes differ only.

Author

This function is a combination of bgtCI and bgtvs written by Frank Schaarschmidt and pooledBin written by Brad Biggerstaff for the binGroup package. Minor modifications have been made for inclusion of the functions in the binGroup2 package.

Details

Confidence interval methods include the Agresti-Coull (ci.method = "AC"), bias- and skewness-corrected (ci.method = "bc-skew-score"), Blaker (ci.method = "Blaker"), Clopper-Pearson (ci.method = "CP"), exact (ci.method = "exact"), likelihood ratio test (ci.method = "lrt"), Wilson score (ci.method = "score"), skewness-corrected (ci.method = "skew-score"), second-order corrected (ci.method = "soc"), and Wald (ci.method = "Wald") intervals. The Agresti-Coull, Blaker, Clopper-Pearson, and second-order corrected intervals are available only for the equal group size case.

Point estimates available include the MLE (pt.method = "mle"), bias-corrected MLE (pt.method = "Gart" or pt.method = "bc-mle"), and bias-preventative (pt.method = "Firth"). Only the MLE method is available when calculating the Clopper-Pearson, Blaker, Agresti-Coull, second-order corrected, or exact intervals.

Equal group sizes

Computation of confidence intervals for group testing with equal group sizes are described in Tebbs & Bilder (2004) and Schaarschmidt (2007).

Unequal group sizes

While the exact method is available when group sizes differ, the algorithm becomes computationally very expensive if the number of different groups, n, becomes larger than three. See Hepworth (1996) for additional details on the exact method and other methods for constructing confidence intervals in group testing situations. For computational details and simulation results of the remaining methods, see Biggerstaff (2008). See Hepworth & Biggerstaff (2017) for recommendations on the best point estimator methods.

References

Biggerstaff2008binGroup2

Hepworth1996binGroup2

Hepworth2017binGroup2

Schaarschmidt2007binGroup2

Tebbs2004binGroup2

See Also

propDiffCI for confidence intervals for the difference of proportions in group testing, gtTest for hypothesis tests in group testing, gtPower for power calculations in group testing, and binom.test for an exact confidence interval and test.

Other estimation functions: designEst(), designPower(), gtPower(), gtTest(), gtWidth(), propDiffCI()

Examples

# Example from Tebbs and Bilder (2004):
#   3 groups out of 24 test positively; 
#   each group has a size of 7.
# Clopper-Pearson interval:
propCI(x = 3, m = 7, n = 24, ci.method = "CP", 
       conf.level = 0.95, alternative = "two.sided")
      
# Clopper-Pearson interval with the bias-corrected 
#   MLE (\kbd{pt.method = "Gart"}). 
propCI(x = 3, m = 7, n = 24, pt.method = "Gart", 
       ci.method = "CP", conf.level = 0.95, 
       alternative = "two.sided")
      
# One-sided Clopper-Pearson interval:
propCI(x = 3, m = 7, n = 24, ci.method = "CP", 
       conf.level = 0.95, alternative = "less")
       
# Blaker interval:
propCI(x = 3, m = 7, n = 24, ci.method = "Blaker", 
       conf.level = 0.95, alternative = "two.sided")
      
# Wilson score interval: 
propCI(x = 3, m = 7, n = 24, ci.method = "score", 
       conf.level = 0.95, alternative = "two.sided")

# Calculate confidence intervals with a group size of 1. 
#   These match those found using the binom.confint() 
#   function from the binom package.
propCI(x = 4, m = 1, n = 10, pt.method = "mle", 
       ci.method = "AC")
propCI(x = 4, m = 1, n = 10, pt.method = "mle", 
       ci.method = "score")
propCI(x = 4, m = 1, n = 10, pt.method = "mle", 
       ci.method = "Wald")

# Example from Hepworth (1996, table 5):
#   1 group out of 2 tests positively with 
#   groups of size 5; also, 
#   2 groups out of 3 test positively with 
#   groups of size 2.
propCI(x = c(1,2), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact") 

# Bias-preventative point estimate (\kbd{pt.method = "Firth"}) 
#   with an exact confidence interval.
propCI(x = c(1,2), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), 
       pt.method = "Firth", ci.method = "exact") 

# Recalculate the example given in
#   Hepworth (1996), table 5:
propCI(x = c(0,0), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(0,1), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(0,2), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(0,3), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(1,0), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(1,1), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(1,2), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(1,3), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(2,0), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(2,1), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(2,2), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")
propCI(x = c(2,3), m = c(5,2), n = c(2,3), ci.method = "exact")

# Example with multiple groups of various sizes: 
#   0 out of 5 groups test positively with 
#   groups of size 1 (individual testing);
#   0 out of 5 groups test positively with 
#   groups of size 5;
#   1 out of 5 groups test positively with 
#   groups of size 10; and
#   2 out of 5 groups test positively with 
#   groups of size 50.
x1 <- c(0, 0, 1, 2)
m1 <- c(1, 5, 10, 50)
n1 <- c(5, 5, 5, 5)
propCI(x = x1, m = m1, n = n1, pt.method = "Gart", 
       ci.method = "skew-score")
propCI(x = x1, m = m1, n = n1, pt.method = "Gart", 
       ci.method = "score")

# Reproducing estimates from Table 1 in
#   Hepworth & Biggerstaff (2017):
propCI(x = c(1, 2), m = c(20, 5), n = c(8, 8), 
       pt.method = "Firth", ci.method = "lrt")
propCI(x = c(7, 8), m = c(20, 5), n = c(8, 8), 
       pt.method = "Firth", ci.method = "lrt")