Some Topics in Missing Data and Adaptive Confidence Intervals

To my baby, my husband and my parents ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to those people who helped me with my doctoral study and my dissertation. First of all, I would like to express my deep thanks to Dr. John D. Kalbfleisch and Dr. Roderick J. Little, my advisors, for their insightful guidance, encouragement, patience and support in the accomplishment of the whole dissertation. I am very grateful to Dr. Michael R. Elliott and Dr. Moulinath Banerjee, my dissertation committee members, for their time and efforts. Personally, I would like to thank my husband Yuezhou Jing, who has always been devoted and supportive. His love and encouragement helped me through every step of my doctoral study. I also want to thank my baby Balwyn Jing, who makes me understand more meanings of life and gives me endless happiness. I am especially grateful to my father Nianli Zhou and my mother Guichun Wang, for sacrificing so much for my education; without them I would never have the opportunity t