9410138 Halloran This career advancement award provides support for research in the areas of mathematical statistics and bio-statistics, concentrating on the understanding and development of statistical inference with particular applications to the analysis of diseases. Particular emphasis is on decision or inference, on testing or estimation, the use of prior information, location and nature of inference and sensitivity of sampling procedure. Development of skill involving statistical computing will play a major role in this activity. Methods such as bootstrap, exploration of posterior distributions and likelihood functions, Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms will be explored. Some of these studies will take place at the University of Minnesota where methods and applications of Bayes and empirical Bayesian methods of inference are being developed. Statistical methods in the analysis of causal inference, especially in studies of spread of infectious diseases and effectiveness of vaccines is an important and highly developed component of the mathematical sciences. This project will continue this effort in the study of disease transmission and designs for vaccine evaluation. ***
