We provide a comprehensive overview of latent Markov (LM) models for the analysis of longitudinal data. The main assumption behind these models is that the response variables are conditionally independent given a latent process which follows a first-order Markov chain. We first illustrate the...

<Para ID="Par1">A method for robust estimation of dynamic mixtures of multivariate distributions is proposed. The EM algorithm is modified by replacing the classical M-step with high breakdown S-estimation of location and scatter, performed by using the bisquare multivariate S-estimator. Estimates are obtained...</para>

Precarious employment is a serious social problem, especially in those countries, such as Italy, where there are limited benefits from social security. We investigate this phenomenon by analysing the initial part of the career of employees starting with unstable contracts for a panel of Italian...

Robust distances are mainly used for the purpose of detecting multivariate outliers. The precise definition of cut-off values for formal outlier testing assumes that the “good” part of the data comes from a multivariate normal population. Robust distances also provide valuable information on...

Classifying agents into subgroups in order to measure the plight of the "poor", "middle class" or "rich" is common place in economics, unfortunately the definition of class boundaries is contentious and beset with problems. Here a technique based on mixture models is proposed for surmounting...

The Forward Search is a powerful general method for detecting anomalies in structured data, whose diagnostic power has been shown in many statistical contexts. However, despite the wealth of empirical evidence in favor of the method, only few theoretical properties have been established...

A new multiple testing procedure, the generalized augmentation procedure (GAUGE), is introduced. The procedure is shown to control the false discovery exceedance and to be competitive in terms of power. It is also shown how to apply the idea of GAUGE to achieve control of other error measures....

A two-component parametric mixture is proposed to model survival after an invasive treatment, when patients may experience different hazards regimes: a risk of early mortality directly related to the treatment and/or the treated condition, and a risk of late death influenced by several exogenous...