arXiv subjects

Scott H. Holan

Publications and source records attributed to Scott H. Holan.

49 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Generating Partially Synthetic Geocoded Public Use Data with Decreased Disclosure Risk Using Differential Smoothing

When collecting geocoded confidential data with the intent to disseminate, agencies often resort to altering the geographies prior to making data publicly available due to data privacy obligations. An alternative to releasing aggregated and/or perturbed data is to release multiply-imputed synthetic data, where sensitive values are replaced with draws from statistical models designed to capture important distributional features in the collected data. One issue that has received relatively little attention, however, is how to handle spatially outlying observations in the collected data, as common spatial models often have a tendency to overfit these observations. The goal of this work is to bring this issue to the forefront and propose a solution, which we refer to as "differential smoothing." After implementing our method on simulated data, highlighting the effectiveness of our approach under various scenarios, we illustrate the framework using data consisting of sale prices of homes in San Francisco.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2015

Bayesian binomial mixture models for estimating abundance in ecological monitoring studies

Investigation of species abundance has become a vital component of many ecological monitoring studies. The primary objective of these studies is to understand how specific species are distributed across the study domain, as well as quantification of the sampling efficiency for detecting these species. To achieve these goals, preselected locations are sampled during scheduled visits, in which the number of species observed at each location is recorded. This results in spatially referenced replicated count data that are often unbalanced in structure and exhibit overdispersion. Motivated by the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, we propose Bayesian hierarchical binomial mixture models, including Binomial Conway-Maxwell Poisson (Bin-CMP) mixture models, that formally account for varying levels of spatial dispersion. Our proposed models also allow for variable selection of model covariates and grouping of dispersion parameters through the implementation of reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methodology. Finally, using demographic covariates from the American Community Survey, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through estimation of abundance for the American Robin (Turdus migratorius) in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2014

Bayesian Spatial Change of Support for Count-Valued Survey Data

We introduce Bayesian spatial change of support methodology for count-valued survey data with known survey variances. Our proposed methodology is motivated by the American Community Survey (ACS), an ongoing survey administered by the U.S. Census Bureau that provides timely information on several key demographic variables. Specifically, the ACS produces 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year "period-estimates," and corresponding margins of errors, for published demographic and socio-economic variables recorded over predefined geographies within the United States. Despite the availability of these predefined geographies it is often of interest to data users to specify customized user-defined spatial supports. In particular, it is useful to estimate demographic variables defined on "new" spatial supports in "real-time." This problem is known as spatial change of support (COS), which is typically performed under the assumption that the data follows a Gaussian distribution. However, count-valued survey data is naturally non-Gaussian and, hence, we consider modeling these data using a Poisson distribution. Additionally, survey-data are often accompanied by estimates of error, which we incorporate into our analysis. We interpret Poisson count-valued data in small areas as an aggregation of events from a spatial point process. This approach provides us with the flexibility necessary to allow ACS users to consider a variety of spatial supports in "real-time." We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through a simulated example as well as through an analysis using public-use ACS data.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2014

Mixed Effects Modeling for Areal Data that Exhibit Multivariate-Spatio-Temporal Dependencies

There are many data sources available that report related variables of interest that are also referenced over geographic regions and time; however, there are relatively few general statistical methods that one can readily use that incorporate these multivariate-spatio-temporal dependencies. As such, we introduce the multivariate-spatio-temporal mixed effects model (MSTM) to analyze areal data with multivariate-spatio-temporal dependencies. The proposed MSTM extends the notion of Moran's I basis functions to the multivariate-spatio-temporal setting. This extension leads to several methodological contributions including extremely effective dimension reduction, a dynamic linear model for multivariate-spatio-temporal areal processes, and the reduction of a high-dimensional parameter space using a novel parameter model. Several examples are used to demonstrate that the MSTM provides an extremely viable solution to many important problems found in different and distinct corners of the spatio-temporal statistics literature including: modeling nonseparable and nonstationary covariances, combing data from multiple repeated surveys, and analyzing massive multivariate-spatio-temporal datasets.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

Bayesian Lattice Filters for Time-Varying Autoregression and Time-Frequency Analysis

Modeling nonstationary processes is of paramount importance to many scientific disciplines including environmental science, ecology, and finance, among others. Consequently, flexible methodology that provides accurate estimation across a wide range of processes is a subject of ongoing interest. We propose a novel approach to model-based time-frequency estimation using time-varying autoregressive models. In this context, we take a fully Bayesian approach and allow both the autoregressive coefficients and innovation variance to vary over time. Importantly, our estimation method uses the lattice filter and is cast within the partial autocorrelation domain. The marginal posterior distributions are of standard form and, as a convenient by-product of our estimation method, our approach avoids undesirable matrix inversions. As such, estimation is extremely computationally efficient and stable. To illustrate the effectiveness of our approach, we conduct a comprehensive simulation study that compares our method with other competing methods and find that, in most cases, our approach performs superior in terms of average squared error between the estimated and true time-varying spectral density. Lastly, we demonstrate our methodology through three modeling applications; namely, insect communication signals, environmental data (wind components), and macroeconomic data (US gross domestic product (GDP) and consumption).

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

Bayesian Marked Point Process Modeling for Generating Fully Synthetic Public Use Data with Point-Referenced Geography

Many data stewards collect confidential data that include fine geography. When sharing these data with others, data stewards strive to disseminate data that are informative for a wide range of spatial and non-spatial analyses while simultaneously protecting the confidentiality of data subjects' identities and attributes. Typically, data stewards meet this challenge by coarsening the resolution of the released geography and, as needed, perturbing the confidential attributes. When done with high intensity, these redaction strategies can result in released data with poor analytic quality. We propose an alternative dissemination approach based on fully synthetic data. We generate data using marked point process models that can maintain both the statistical properties and the spatial dependence structure of the confidential data. We illustrate the approach using data consisting of mortality records from Durham, North Carolina.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

The Cepstral Model for Multivariate Time Series: The Vector Exponential Model

Vector autoregressive (VAR) models have become a staple in the analysis of multivariate time series and are formulated in the time domain as difference equations, with an implied covariance structure. In many contexts, it is desirable to work with a stable, or at least stationary, representation. To fit such models, one must impose restrictions on the coefficient matrices to ensure that certain determinants are nonzero; which, except in special cases, may prove burdensome. To circumvent these difficulties, we propose a flexible frequency domain model expressed in terms of the spectral density matrix. Specifically, this paper treats the modeling of covariance stationary vector-valued (i.e., multivariate) time series via an extension of the exponential model for the spectrum of a scalar time series. We discuss the modeling advantages of the vector exponential model and its computational facets, such as how to obtain Wold coefficients from given cepstral coefficients. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our approach through simulation as well as two illustrative data examples focusing on multi-step ahead forecasting and estimation of squared coherence.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

Bayesian Semiparametric Hierarchical Empirical Likelihood Spatial Models

We introduce a general hierarchical Bayesian framework that incorporates a flexible nonparametric data model specification through the use of empirical likelihood methodology, which we term semiparametric hierarchical empirical likelihood (SHEL) models. Although general dependence structures can be readily accommodated, we focus on spatial modeling, a relatively underdeveloped area in the empirical likelihood literature. Importantly, the models we develop naturally accommodate spatial association on irregular lattices and irregularly spaced point-referenced data. We illustrate our proposed framework by means of a simulation study and through three real data examples. First, we develop a spatial Fay-Herriot model in the SHEL framework and apply it to the problem of small area estimation in the American Community Survey. Next, we illustrate the SHEL model in the context of areal data (on an irregular lattice) through the North Carolina sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) dataset. Finally, we analyze a point-referenced dataset from the North American Breeding Bird survey that considers dove counts for the state of Missouri. In all cases, we demonstrate superior performance of our model, in terms of mean squared prediction error, over standard parametric analyses.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

Spatial Fay-Herriot Models for Small Area Estimation with Functional Covariates

The Fay-Herriot (FH) model is widely used in small area estimation and uses auxiliary information to reduce estimation variance at undersampled locations. We extend the type of covariate information used in the FH model to include functional covariates, such as social-media search loads or remote-sensing images (e.g., in crop-yield surveys). The inclusion of these functional covariates is facilitated through a two-stage dimension-reduction approach that includes a Karhunen-Loève expansion followed by stochastic search variable selection. Additionally, the importance of modeling spatial autocorrelation has recently been recognized in the FH model; our model utilizes the intrinsic conditional autoregressive class of spatial models in addition to functional covariates. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through simulation and analysis of data from the American Community Survey. We use Google Trends searches over time as functional covariates to analyze relative changes in rates of percent household Spanish-speaking in the eastern half of the United States.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

Asymptotic theory of cepstral random fields

Random fields play a central role in the analysis of spatially correlated data and, as a result, have a significant impact on a broad array of scientific applications. This paper studies the cepstral random field model, providing recursive formulas that connect the spatial cepstral coefficients to an equivalent moving-average random field, which facilitates easy computation of the autocovariance matrix. We also provide a comprehensive treatment of the asymptotic theory for two-dimensional random field models: we establish asymptotic results for Bayesian, maximum likelihood and quasi-maximum likelihood estimation of random field parameters and regression parameters. The theoretical results are presented generally and are of independent interest, pertaining to a wide class of random field models. The results for the cepstral model facilitate model-building: because the cepstral coefficients are unconstrained in practice, numerical optimization is greatly simplified, and we are always guaranteed a positive definite covariance matrix. We show that inference for individual coefficients is possible, and one can refine models in a disciplined manner. Our results are illustrated through simulation and the analysis of straw yield data in an agricultural field experiment.

math.ST↗

arXiv2013

Small Area Estimation via Multivariate Fay-Herriot Models with Latent Spatial Dependence

The Fay-Herriot model is a standard model for direct survey estimators in which the true quantity of interest, the superpopulation mean, is latent and its estimation is improved through the use of auxiliary covariates. In the context of small area estimation, these estimates can be further improved by borrowing strength across spatial region or by considering multiple outcomes simultaneously. We provide here two formulations to perform small area estimation with Fay-Herriot models that include both multivariate outcomes and latent spatial dependence. We consider two model formulations, one in which the outcome-by-space dependence structure is separable and one that accounts for the cross dependence through the use of a generalized multivariate conditional autoregressive (GMCAR) structure. The GMCAR model is shown in a state-level example to produce smaller mean square prediction errors, relative to equivalent census variables, than the separable model and the state-of-the-art multivariate model with unstructured dependence between outcomes and no spatial dependence. In addition, both the GMCAR and the separable models give smaller mean squared prediction error than the state-of-the-art model when conducting small area estimation on county level data from the American Community Survey.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2013

A Conversation with David Findley

David Findley was born in Washington, DC on December 27, 1940. After attending high school in Lyndon, Kentucky, he earned a B.S. (1962) and M.A. (1963) in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati. He then lived in Germany, studying functional analysis under Gottfried Köthe, obtaining a Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt in 1967. Returning to the United States, he served as a mathematics professor at the University of Cincinnati until 1975. Having transitioned from pure mathematics to statistical time series analysis, Findley took a new academic position at the University of Tulsa, during which time he interacted frequently with the nearby research laboratories of major oil companies and consulted regularly for Cities Service Oil Company (now Citgo). In 1980 he was invited to lead the seasonal adjustment research effort at the U.S. Census Bureau, and eventually rose to be a Senior Mathematical Statistician before his retirement in 2009. In 1966 he married Mary Virginia Baker, and they currently live in Washington, DC. David Findley has published more than 40 journal articles and book chapters, as well as dozens of technical reports and conference proceedings, many of which are heavily cited and influential. He has also published two edited volumes (1978 and 1981) that have had a substantial impact on the field of time series analysis. Numerous honors and awards have accrued to him, including ASA Fellow (1987), the Julius Shiskin award (1996) and the U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal (1997).

stat.ME↗

arXiv2011

Semiparametric Bivariate Zero-Inflated Poisson Models with Application to Studies of Abundance for Multiple Species

Ecological studies involving counts of abundance, presence-absence or occupancy rates often produce data having a substantial proportion of zeros. Furthermore, these types of processes are typically multivariate and only adequately described by complex nonlinear relationships involving externally measured covariates. Ignoring these aspects of the data and implementing standard approaches can lead to models that fail to provide adequate scientific understanding of the underlying ecological processes, possibly resulting in a loss of inferential power. One method of dealing with data having excess zeros is to consider the class of univariate zero-inflated generalized linear models. However, this class of models fails to address the multivariate and nonlinear aspects associated with the data usually encountered in practice. Therefore, we propose a semiparametric bivariate zero-inflated Poisson model that takes into account both of these data attributes. The general modeling framework is hierarchical Bayes and is suitable for a broad range of applications. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our model through a motivating example on modeling catch per unit area for multiple species using data from the Missouri River benthic fish study, implemented by the United States Geological Survey.

stat.ME↗