Model-free conditional feature screening for ultra-high dimensional right censored data

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the conditional feature screening for ultra-high dimensional right censored data with some previously identified important predictors. A new model-free conditional feature screening approach, conditional correlation rank sure independence screening, has been proposed and investigated theoretically. The suggested conditional screening procedure has several desirable merits. First, it is model free, and thus robust to model misspecification. Second, it has the advantage of robustness of heavy-tailed distributions of the response and the presence of potential outliers in response. Third, it is naturally applicable to complete data when there is no censoring. Through simulation studies, we demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms the CoxCS of Hong et al. under some circumstances. A real dataset is used to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed conditional screening method.