PARTITION MODELS

Product partition models assume that observations in different components of a random partition of the data are independent given the partition. If the probability distribution of random partitions is in a certain product form prior to making the observations, it is also in product form given the observations. The product model thus provides a convenient machinery for allowing the data to weight the partitions likely to hold; and inference about particular future observations may then be made by first conditioning on the partition, and then averaging over all partitions. This model is applied to fatalities in manned rocket launches, using data from the SOYUZ, APOLLO, SHUTTLE, and post-Challenger SHUTTLE programs in the Soviet Union and the United States. The combination of these data suggest that the chance of a fatality in the next shuttle launch is about.03, after allowing for the possibility that the older programs are of slight relevance to the present shuttle program. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.