Bayesian inference of longitudinal Markov binary regression models with t-link function

In this paper, we present the longitudinal Markov binary regression model with t-link function when its transition order is known or unknown. It is assumed that logit or probit models are considered in binary regression models. Here, t-link function can be used for more flexibility instead of the probit model since the t distribution approaches to normal distribution as the degree of freedom goes to infinity. A Markov regression model is considered because of the longitudinal data of each individual data set. We propose Bayesian method to determine the transition order of Markov regression model. In particular, we use the deviance information criterion (DIC) (Spiegelhalter et al., 2002) of possible models in order to determine the transition order of the Markov binary regression model if the transition order is known; however, we compute and compare their posterior probabilities if unknown. In order to overcome the complicated Bayesian computation, our proposed model is reconstructed by the ideas of Albert and Chib (1993), Kuo and Mallick (1998), and Erkanli et al. (2001). Our proposed method is applied to the simulated data and real data examined by Sommer et al. (1984). Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to determine the optimal model are used assuming that the transition order of the Markov regression model are known or unknown. Gelman and Rubin's method (1992) is also employed to check the convergence of the Metropolis Hastings algorithm.