Piecewise exponential estimator of the survivor function

Abstract

A method for estimating the survivor function of a life distribution from a set of censored data is presented. The method is illustrated and it is explained how to calculate the survivor function from a censored data set. The estimator is compared with the well-known Kaplan-Meier estimator, using a set of data observed in a real engineering situation. The advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>