100 likes | 261 Views
Discussion of Profs. Robins’ and M ller’s Papers. S.A. Murphy ENAR 2003. Insert Slides commenting on Robins’ Paper. Connection Between Papers. Both are decision problems in which multiple decisions must be made: “Multi-stage Decisions”.
E N D
Discussion of Profs. Robins’ and Mller’s Papers S.A. Murphy ENAR 2003
Connection Between Papers Both are decision problems in which multiple decisions must be made: “Multi-stage Decisions”
Collect information: L1 (Robins) or y1 (Mller) • Choose a treatment (or decision) based on this info a1 (or d1) • Collect more information: L2 (or y2) • Choose an treatment based on info to date a2 (or d2) • And so on….. until time K (or T) • GOAL: Choose a1, a2,…. to maximize • E[u(a1,…aK,L1,….LK+1;)]
Information Used to Achieve Goal • Robins: Random Sample of Observations: • L1, A1, L2, A2, …., AK, LK+1 • (A’s are randomized treatments)
Information Used to Achieve Goal • Mller: Known multivariate distribution of • L1, L2, …., LK+1 • indexed by decisions, a1, a2, …., aK and • + prior for .
A Commonality • The information at time t: • L1, L2, …., Lt • is high dimensional; both authors must use summary statistics, a.k.a. “Feature Extraction” • Open problem: Best methods for Feature Extraction in multi-stage decision problems
Delayed Effects of Decisions • Treatment decision influences Lt and other unobserved individual characteristics: • Robins’ setting: known Lt and other unobserved characteristics may interact with next treatment effect. • Mller’s setting: Optimal decision depends on latent . Lt is used to update the distribution of .
Computational Development • Robins’ and Murphy’s methods: undeveloped with unknown computational issues. • Mller’s, Bayesians, Reinforcement Learning methods: well developed with sophisticated understanding of computational issues.
Interesting Philosophical Note • Statistical analysis should be conducted as if it is a confirmatory trial • versus • Statistical analysis should be conducted as if this trial is part of a sequence of trials with a confirmatory study to follow. • Sequential Experimentation