title: Reliability analysis using an exponential power model with bathtub-shaped failure rate function: a Bayes study.
abstract: Models with bathtub-shaped hazard function have been widely accepted in the field of reliability and medicine and are particularly useful in reliability related decision making and cost analysis. In this paper, the exponential power model capable of assuming increasing as well as bathtub-shape, is studied. This article makes a Bayesian study of the same model and simultaneously shows how posterior simulations based on Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms can be straightforward and routine in R. The study is carried out for complete as well as censored data, under the assumption of weakly-informative priors for the parameters. In addition to this, inference interest focuses on the posterior distribution of non-linear functions of the parameters. Also, the model has been extended to include continuous explanatory variables and R-codes are well illustrated. Two real data sets are considered for illustrative purposes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Aligarh Muslim University, 202002 Aligarh, India.
authors.forename: Romana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shehla
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Aligarh Muslim University, 202002 Aligarh, India.
authors.forename: Athar Ali
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Khan
keywords: Bayesian; Exponential power distribution; Laplace approximation; LaplacesDemon; Marginal posterior density; R