Other Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

A Data-Driven Multi-Regime Approach For Predicting Real-Time Energy Consumption Of Industrial Machines., Abdulgani Kahraman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on methods for improving energy consumption prediction performance in complex industrial machines. Working with real-world industrial machines brings several challenges, including data access, algorithmic bias, data privacy, and the interpretation of machine learning algorithms. To effectively manage energy consumption in the industrial sector, it is essential to develop a framework that enhances prediction performance, reduces energy costs, and mitigates air pollution in heavy industrial machine operations. This study aims to assist managers in making informed decisions and driving the transition towards green manufacturing. The energy consumption of industrial machinery is substantial, and the recent increase in CO2 …

Utilizing New Technologies To Measure Therapy Effectiveness For Mental And Physical Health, Jonathan Ossie

Dissertations

Mental health is quickly becoming a major policy concern, with recent data reporting increasing and disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, increased substance abuse, and elevated suicidal ideation. One specific population that is especially high risk for these issues is the military community because military conflict, deployment stressors, and combat exposure contribute to the risk of mental health problems.

Although several pharmacological approaches have been employed to combat this epidemic, their efficacy is mixed at best, which has led to novel nonpharmacological approaches. One such approach is Operation Surf, a nonprofit that provides nature-based programs advocating the restorative …

A Bayesian Programming Approach To Car-Following Model Calibration And Validation Using Limited Data, Franklin Abodo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traffic simulation software is used by transportation researchers and engineers to design and evaluate changes to roadway networks. Underlying these simulators are mathematical models of microscopic driver behavior from which macroscopic measures of flow and congestion can be recovered. Many models are intended to apply to only a subset of possible traffic scenarios and roadway configurations, while others do not have any explicit constraint on their applicability. Work zones on highways are one scenario for which no model invented to date has been shown to accurately reproduce realistic driving behavior. This makes it difficult to optimize for safety and other …

Impact Of Loss To Follow-Up And Time Parameterization In Multiple-Period Cluster Randomized Trials And Assessing The Association Between Institution Affiliation And Journal Publication, Jonathan Moyer

Doctoral Dissertations

Difference-in-difference cluster randomized trials (CRTs) use baseline and post-test measurements. Standard power equations for these trials assume no loss to follow-up. We present a general equation for calculating treatment effect variance in difference-in-difference CRTs, with special cases assuming loss to follow-up with replacement of lost participants and loss to follow-up with no replacement but retaining the baseline measurements of all participants. Multiple-period CRTs can represent time as continuous using random coefficients (RC) or categorical using repeated measures ANOVA (RM-ANOVA) analytic models. Previous work recommends the use of RC over RM-ANOVA for CRTs with more than two periods because RC exhibited …

Realtime Event Detection In Sports Sensor Data With Machine Learning, Mallory Cashman

Honors Theses and Capstones

Machine learning models can be trained to classify time series based sports motion data, without reliance on assumptions about the capabilities of the users or sensors. This can be applied to predict the count of occurrences of an event in a time period. The experiment for this research uses lacrosse data, collected in partnership with SPAITR - a UNH undergraduate startup developing motion tracking devices for lacrosse. Decision Tree and Support Vector Machine (SVM) models are trained and perform with high success rates. These models improve upon previous work in human motion event detection and can be used a reference …

Writing At The Horizon: How Producing Imagined Narratives Affects Mood, David Yu-Zhong Liang

Senior Projects Fall 2021

The present study explores the effect of three different writing activities and their subsequent effects on participant mood. Writing has been of particular interest for psychologists due to its use in interventions aimed at working through traumatic or stressful periods, and recent research has begun to explore the use of narrative in placing traumatic events and experiences in greater context. However, purely therapeutic, intervention-based writing exercises exclude a large amount of more expressive, imagined creations and narratives, which may have the capacity to reorient, contextualize, and otherwise positively affect a person’s mood. This study investigates whether employing the imagination may …

Global Warming Statistical Analysis, Jared Skinner

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper will investigate global warming and its effects on natural disasters. I will review the historic movements of climate change and activism, as well as the current discussions surrounding global warming. Secondly, I will examine various datasets, paying attention to the severity and frequency of specific natural disasters. I will then touch briefly on the topic of catastrophe modeling as it relates to the increased risk and losses associated with the discussed natural disasters and how those put the problem of global warming in a framework which financial and government institutions can grasp. I will also be analyzing economic …

Building A Better Risk Prevention Model, Steven Hornyak

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

This presentation chronicles the work of Houston County Schools in developing a risk prevention model built on more than ten years of longitudinal student data. In its second year of implementation, Houston At-Risk Profiles (HARP), has proven effective in identifying those students most in need of support and linking them to interventions and supports that lead to improved outcomes and significantly reduces the risk of failure.

A Traders Guide To The Predictive Universe- A Model For Predicting Oil Price Targets And Trading On Them, Jimmie Harold Lenz

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

At heart every trader loves volatility; this is where return on investment comes from, this is what drives the proverbial “positive alpha.” As a trader, understanding the probabilities related to the volatility of prices is key, however if you could also predict future prices with reliability the world would be your oyster. To this end, I have achieved three goals with this dissertation, to develop a model to predict future short term prices (direction and magnitude), to effectively test this by generating consistent profits utilizing a trading model developed for this purpose, and to write a paper that anyone with …

A Comparison Of Techniques For Handling Missing Data In Longitudinal Studies, Alexander R. Bogdan

Masters Theses

Missing data are a common problem in virtually all epidemiological research, especially when conducting longitudinal studies. In these settings, clinicians may collect biological samples to analyze changes in biomarkers, which often do not conform to parametric distributions and may be censored due to limits of detection. Using complete data from the BioCycle Study (2005-2007), which followed 259 premenopausal women over two menstrual cycles, we compared four techniques for handling missing biomarker data with non-Normal distributions. We imposed increasing degrees of missing data on two non-Normally distributed biomarkers under conditions of missing completely at random, missing at random, and missing not …

Passive Visual Analytics Of Social Media Data For Detection Of Unusual Events, Kush Rustagi, Junghoon Chae

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Now that social media sites have gained substantial traction, huge amounts of un-analyzed valuable data are being generated. Posts containing images and text have spatiotemporal data attached as well, having immense value for increasing situational awareness of local events, providing insights for investigations and understanding the extent of incidents, their severity, and consequences, as well as their time-evolving nature. However, the large volume of unstructured social media data hinders exploration and examination. To analyze such social media data, the S.M.A.R.T system provides the analyst with an interactive visual spatiotemporal analysis and spatial decision support environment that assists in evacuation planning …

Takens Theorem With Singular Spectrum Analysis Applied To Noisy Time Series, Thomas K. Torku

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The evolution of big data has led to financial time series becoming increasingly complex, noisy, non-stationary and nonlinear. Takens theorem can be used to analyze and forecast nonlinear time series, but even small amounts of noise can hopelessly corrupt a Takens approach. In contrast, Singular Spectrum Analysis is an excellent tool for both forecasting and noise reduction. Fortunately, it is possible to combine the Takens approach with Singular Spectrum analysis (SSA), and in fact, estimation of key parameters in Takens theorem is performed with Singular Spectrum Analysis. In this thesis, we combine the denoising abilities of SSA with the Takens …

Preparedness Of Hospitals In The Republic Of Ireland For An Influenza Pandemic, An Infection Control Perspective, Mary Reidy, Fiona Ryan, Dervla Hogan, Seán Lacey, Claire Buckley

Department of Mathematics Publications

When an influenza pandemic occurs most of the population is susceptible and attack rates can range as high as 40–50 %. The most important failure in pandemic planning is the lack of standards or guidelines regarding what it means to be ‘prepared’. The aim of this study was to assess the preparedness of acute hospitals in the Republic of Ireland for an influenza pandemic from an infection control perspective.

A Comparison Of Periodic Autoregressive And Dynamic Factor Models In Intraday Energy Demand Forecasting, Thomas Mestekemper, Goeran Kauermann, Michael Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

We suggest a new approach for forecasting energy demand at an intraday resolution. Demand in each intraday period is modeled using semiparametric regression smoothing to account for calendar and weather components. Residual serial dependence is captured by one of two multivariate stationary time series models, with dimension equal to the number of intraday periods. These are a periodic autoregression and a dynamic factor model. We show the benefits of our approach in the forecasting of district heating demand in a steam network in Germany and aggregate electricity demand in the state of Victoria, Australia. In both studies, accounting for weather …

Bayesian Approaches To Copula Modelling, Michael S. Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

Copula models have become one of the most widely used tools in the applied modelling of multivariate data. Similarly, Bayesian methods are increasingly used to obtain efficient likelihood-based inference. However, to date, there has been only limited use of Bayesian approaches in the formulation and estimation of copula models. This article aims to address this shortcoming in two ways. First, to introduce copula models and aspects of copula theory that are especially relevant for a Bayesian analysis. Second, to outline Bayesian approaches to formulating and estimating copula models, and their advantages over alternative methods. Copulas covered include Archimedean, copulas constructed …

Modeling Dependence Using Skew T Copulas: Bayesian Inference And Applications, Michael S. Smith, Quan Gan, Robert Kohn

Michael Stanley Smith

[THIS IS AN AUGUST 2010 REVISION THAT REPLACES ALL PREVIOUS VERSIONS.]

We construct a copula from the skew t distribution of Sahu, Dey & Branco (2003). This copula can capture asymmetric and extreme dependence between variables, and is one of the few copulas that can do so and still be used in high dimensions effectively. However, it is difficult to estimate the copula model by maximum likelihood when the multivariate dimension is high, or when some or all of the marginal distributions are discrete-valued, or when the parameters in the marginal distributions and copula are estimated jointly. We therefore propose …

Estimation Of Copula Models With Discrete Margins Via Bayesian Data Augmentation, Michael S. Smith, Mohamad A. Khaled

Michael Stanley Smith

Estimation of copula models with discrete margins is known to be difficult beyond the bivariate case. We show how this can be achieved by augmenting the likelihood with latent variables, and computing inference using the resulting augmented posterior. To evaluate this we propose two efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling schemes. One generates the latent variables as a block using a Metropolis-Hasting step with a proposal that is close to its target distribution, the other generates them one at a time. Our method applies to all parametric copulas where the conditional copula functions can be evaluated, not just elliptical copulas …

Rejoinder: Estimation Issues For Copulas Applied To Marketing Data, Peter Danaher, Michael Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

Estimating copula models using Bayesian methods presents some subtle challenges, ranging from specification of the prior to computational tractability. There is also some debate about what is the most appropriate copula to employ from those available. We address these issues here and conclude by discussing further applications of copula models in marketing.

Forecasting Television Ratings, Peter Danaher, Tracey Dagger, Michael Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

Despite the state of flux in media today, television remains the dominant player globally for advertising spend. Since television advertising time is purchased on the basis of projected future ratings, and ad costs have skyrocketed, there is increasing pressure to forecast television ratings accurately. Previous forecasting methods are not generally very reliable and many have not been validated, but more distressingly, none have been tested in today’s multichannel environment. In this study we compare 8 different forecasting models, ranging from a naïve empirical method to a state-of-the-art Bayesian model-averaging method. Our data come from a recent time period, 2004-2008 in …

Windows Executable For Gaussian Copula With Nbd Margins, Michael S. Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

This is an example Windows 32bit program to estimate a Gaussian copula model with NBD margins. The margins are estimated first using MLE, and the copula second using Bayesian MCMC. The model was discussed in Danaher & Smith (2011; Marketing Science) as example 4 (section 4.2).

Bicycle Commuting In Melbourne During The 2000s Energy Crisis: A Semiparametric Analysis Of Intraday Volumes, Michael S. Smith, Goeran Kauermann

Michael Stanley Smith

Cycling is attracting renewed attention as a mode of transport in western urban environments, yet the determinants of usage are poorly understood. In this paper we investigate some of these using intraday bicycle volumes collected via induction loops located at ten bike paths in the city of Melbourne, Australia, between December 2005 and June 2008. The data are hourly counts at each location, with temporal and spatial disaggregation allowing for the impact of meteorology to be measured accurately for the first time. Moreover, during this period petrol prices varied dramatically and the data also provide a unique opportunity to assess …

Modeling Longitudinal Data Using A Pair-Copula Decomposition Of Serial Dependence, Michael S. Smith, Aleksey Min, Carlos Almeida, Claudia Czado

Michael Stanley Smith

Copulas have proven to be very successful tools for the flexible modelling of cross-sectional dependence. In this paper we express the dependence structure of continuous-valued time series data using a sequence of bivariate copulas. This corresponds to a type of decomposition recently called a ‘vine’ in the graphical models literature, where each copula is entitled a ‘pair-copula’. We propose a Bayesian approach for the estimation of this dependence structure for longitudinal data. Bayesian selection ideas are used to identify any independence pair-copulas, with the end result being a parsimonious representation of a time-inhomogeneous Markov process of varying order. Estimates are …

Dynamic Model Pooling Methodology For Improving Aberration Detection Algorithms, Brenton J. Sellati

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Syndromic surveillance is defined generally as the collection and statistical analysis of data which are believed to be leading indicators for the presence of deleterious activities developing within a system. Conceptually, syndromic surveillance can be applied to any discipline in which it is important to know when external influences manifest themselves in a system by forcing it to depart from its baseline. Comparing syndromic surveillance systems have led to mixed results, where models that dominate in one performance metric are often sorely deficient in another. This results in a zero-sum trade off where one performance metric must be afforded greater …

Bayesian Inference For A Periodic Stochastic Volatility Model Of Intraday Electricity Prices, Michael S. Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

The Gaussian stochastic volatility model is extended to allow for periodic autoregressions (PAR) in both the level and log-volatility process. Each PAR is represented as a first order vector autoregression for a longitudinal vector of length equal to the period. The periodic stochastic volatility model is therefore expressed as a multivariate stochastic volatility model. Bayesian posterior inference is computed using a Markov chain Monte Carlo scheme for the multivariate representation. A circular prior that exploits the periodicity is suggested for the log-variance of the log-volatilities. The approach is applied to estimate a periodic stochastic volatility model for half-hourly electricity prices …

Bayesian Skew Selection For Multivariate Models, Michael S. Smith, Anastasios Panagiotelis

Michael Stanley Smith

We develop a Bayesian approach for the selection of skew in multivariate skew t distributions constructed through hidden conditioning in the manners suggested by either Azzalini and Capitanio (2003) or Sahu, Dey and Branco~(2003). We show that the skew coefficients for each margin are the same for the standardized versions of both distributions. We introduce binary indicators to denote whether there is symmetry, or skew, in each dimension. We adopt a proper beta prior on each non-zero skew coefficient, and derive the corresponding prior on the skew parameters. In both distributions we show that as the degrees of freedom increases, …

Time Series Analysis, Yogendra Sisodia

Yogendra Sisodia

Time Series Analysis using Project R. ARMA Model on Nifty Spot, Nifty Futures and MCX Comdex.

Additive Nonparametric Regression With Autocorrelated Errors, Michael S. Smith, C Wong, Robert Kohn

Michael Stanley Smith

A Bayesian approach is presented for nonparametric estimation of an additive regression model with autocorrelated errors. Each of the potentially nonlinear components is modelled as a regression spline using many knots, while the errors are modelled by a high order stationary autoregressive process parameterised in terms of its autocorrelations. The distribution of significant knots and partial autocorrelations is accounted for using subset selection. Our approach also allows the selection of a suitable transformation of the dependent variable. All aspects of the model are estimated simultaneously using Markov chain Monte Carlo. It is shown empirically that the proposed approach works well …

A Bayesian Approach To Additive Nonparametric Regression, Michael S. Smith, Robert Kohn

Michael Stanley Smith

This proceedings paper was the first to suggest using a Gaussian g-prior combined with a point mass to undertake Bayesian variable selection in a Gaussian linear regression model. It also was the first to suggest integrating out the regression parameters and variance in closed form, resulting in an efficient Gibbs sampling scheme. The idea was applied to estimate regression functions in an additive model by using a linear basis expansion for each component function in an additive model. The conference proceeding was eventually published in a slightly tighter form in Journal of Econometrics (1996).