We present a Bayesian approach for analysis of competing risks survival data with masked causes of failure. This approach is often used to assess the impact of covariates on the hazard functions when the failure time is exactly observed for some subjects but only known to lie in an interval of time for the remaining subjects. Such data, known as partly interval-censored data, usually result from periodic inspection in production engineering. In this study, Dirichlet and Gamma processes are assumed as priors for masking probabilities and baseline hazards. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique is employed for the implementation of the Bayesian approach. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated with simulated and production engineering applications.

In the studies that involve competing risks, somehow, masking issues might arise. That is, the cause of failure for some subjects is only known as a subset of possible causes. In this study, a Bayesian analysis is developed to assess the effect of risks factor on the Cumulative Incidence Function (CIF) by adopting the proportional subdistribution hazard model. Simulation is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed model and it shows that the model is feasible for the possible applications.

Masked issues can emerge when dealing with competing risk data. Such issues are exemplified by the cause of a particular failure not being directly exhibited for all units to observe but only proven to be a subset of possible causes of failure. For assessing the impact of explanatory variables (covariates) on the cumulative incidence function (CIF), a process of Bayesian analysis is discussed in this paper. The symmetry assumption is not imposed on the masking probabilities and independent Dirichlet priors assigned to them. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique is utilized to implement the Bayesian analysis. The effectiveness of the developed model is tested via numerical studies, including simulated and real data sets.

Bayesian analysis for masked data under competing risk frameworks is studied for the purpose of assessing the impact of covariates on the hazard functions when the failure time is exactly observed for some subjects but only known to lie in an interval of time for the remaining subjects. Such data, known as partly interval-censored data, usually result from periodic inspection. Dirichlet and Gamma processes are assumed as priors for masking probabilities and baseline hazards. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) technique is employed for the implementation of the Bayesian approach. The effectiveness of the proposed model is tested through numerical studies, including simulated and real data sets.