arXiv subjects

Jamie Stafford

Publications and source records attributed to Jamie Stafford.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Spatio-Temporal Disaggregation with Changing Areal Boundaries

Small area estimation and disease mapping increasingly rely on areal data where reporting boundaries change over time. We develop a computationally efficient spatio-temporal disaggregation method to recover high-resolution risk surfaces from observed counts under changing boundaries. Our approach extends the spatially aggregated log-Gaussian Cox process and uses the Extended Latent Gaussian Model framework for fast approximate posterior inference. We replace standard lognormal polygon-specific effects with gamma-distributed overdispersion which yields a marginal negative binomial likelihood, and removes one latent variable per polygon-time pair. We illustrate the approach by mapping mortality risk across shifting NUTS-3 boundaries in Belgium and the Netherlands. For the purpose of dissemination we use Codex to leverage the methodology presented in this paper for the analysis of a separate data set concerning the city of Manchester. The methodology is implemented in the open-source R package DAST.

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arXiv2023

Efficient Modeling of Quasi-Periodic Data with Seasonal Gaussian Process

Quasi-periodicity refers to a pattern in a function where it appears periodic but has evolving amplitudes over time. This is often the case in practical settings such as the modeling of case counts of infectious disease or the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration over time. In this paper, we introduce a class of Gaussian processes, called seasonal Gaussian Processes (sGP), for model-based inference of such quasi-periodic behavior. We illustrate that the exact sGP can be efficiently fit within $O(n)$ time using its state space representation for equally spaced locations. However, for large datasets with irregular spacing, the exact approach becomes computationally inefficient and unstable. To address this, we develop a continuous finite dimensional approximation for sGP using the seasonal B-spline (sB-spline) basis constructed by damping B-splines with sinusoidal functions. We prove that the proposed approximation converges in distribution to the true sGP as the number of basis functions increases, and show its superior approximation quality through numerical studies. We also provide a unified and interpretable way to define priors for the sGP, based on the notion of predictive standard deviation (PSD). Finally, we implement the proposed inference method on several real data examples to illustrate its practical usage.

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arXiv2023

Model-based Smoothing with Integrated Wiener Processes and Overlapping Splines

In many applications that involve the inference of an unknown smooth function, the inference of its derivatives will often be just as important as that of the function itself. To make joint inferences of the function and its derivatives, a class of Gaussian processes called $p^{\text{th}}$ order Integrated Wiener's Process (IWP), is considered. Methods for constructing a finite element (FEM) approximation of an IWP exist but have focused only on the order $p = 2$ case which does not allow appropriate inference for derivatives, and their computational feasibility relies on additional approximation to the FEM itself. In this article, we propose an alternative FEM approximation, called overlapping splines (O-spline), which pursues computational feasibility directly through the choice of test functions, and mirrors the construction of an IWP as the Ospline results from the multiple integrations of these same test functions. The O-spline approximation applies for any order $p \in \mathbb{Z}^+$, is computationally efficient and provides consistent inference for all derivatives up to order $p-1$. It is shown both theoretically, and empirically through simulation, that the O-spline approximation converges to the true IWP as the number of knots increases. We further provide a unified and interpretable way to define priors for the smoothing parameter based on the notion of predictive standard deviation (PSD), which is invariant to the order $p$ and the placement of the knot. Finally, we demonstrate the practical use of the O-spline approximation through simulation studies and an analysis of COVID death rates where the inference is carried on both the function and its derivatives where the latter has an important interpretation in terms of the course of the pandemic.

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arXiv2022

Fast, Scalable Approximations to Posterior Distributions in Extended Latent Gaussian Models

We define a novel class of additive models, called Extended Latent Gaussian Models, that allow for a wide range of response distributions and flexible relationships between the additive predictor and mean response. The new class covers a broad range of interesting models including multi-resolution spatial processes, partial likelihood-based survival models, and multivariate measurement error models. Because computation of the exact posterior distribution is infeasible, we develop a fast, scalable approximate Bayesian inference methodology for this class based on nested Gaussian, Laplace, and adaptive quadrature approximations. We prove that the error in these approximate posteriors is op(1) under standard conditions, and provide numerical evidence suggesting that our method runs faster and scales to larger datasets than methods based on Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations and Markov Chain Monte Carlo, with comparable accuracy. We apply the new method to the mapping of malaria incidence rates in continuous space using aggregated data, mapping leukaemia survival hazards using a Cox Proportional-Hazards model with a continuously-varying spatial process, and estimating the mass of the Milky Way Galaxy using noisy multivariate measurements of the positions and velocities of star clusters in its orbit.

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arXiv2019

Extracting the strangeness freeze-out temperature from net-Kaon data at RHIC

Using the moments of the net-kaon distribution calculated within a state of-the-art hadron resonance gas model compared to experimental data from STAR's Beam Energy Scan, we find that the extracted strange freeze-out temperature is incompatible with the light one extracted from net-proton and net-charge fluctuations. Additionally predictions for net-$Lambda$ fluctuations are made that also appear to be consistent with a higher freeze-out temperature for strange particles. This strangeness freeze-out temperature is roughly $10-15$ MeV higher than the corresponding light freeze-out temperature. We also discuss cross-susceptibilities using different identified particles, which may be a further test of this two freeze-out temperature picture. Finally, we lay out the necessary updates needed in relativistic hydrodynamic models to take into account for this two freeze-out temperature scenario and present preliminary results of $Λ$ spectra at RHIC for AuAu $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV collisions that indicate a higher freeze-out temperature is preferred.

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