Estimation of the number of failures in the Weibull model using the ordinary differential equation

In estimating the number of failures using right truncated grouped data, we often encounter cases that the estimate is smaller than the true one when we use the likelihood principle to conditional probability. In infectious disease spread predictions, the SIR model described by simultaneous ordinary differential equations is commonly used, and it can predict reasonably well the number of infected patients even when the size of observed data is small. We have investigated whether the ordinary differential equation model can estimate the number of failures more accurately than does the likelihood principle under the condition of right truncated grouped data. The positive results are obtained in the Weibull model, similarly to the cases of the SARS, A(H1N1), and FMD.