Bayesian Hierarchical Mixed Effects Analysis of Time Non-Homogeneous Markov Chains

The present study used a hierarchical Bayesian approach was used to develop a mixed effect model to describe the transitional behavior of subjects in time nonhomogeneous Markov chains. The posterior distributions of model parameters were not in analytically tractable forms; subsequently, a Gibbs sampling method was used to draw samples from full conditional posterior distributions. The proposed model was implemented with real data.