arXiv subjects

Vanda Inácio

Publications and source records attributed to Vanda Inácio.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The generalized underlap coefficient with an application in clustering

Quantifying distributional separation across groups is fundamental in statistical learning and scientific discovery, yet most classical discrepancy measures are tailored to two-group comparisons. We generalize the underlap coefficient (UNL), a multi-group separation measure, to multivariate settings. We study its relationship with Bayes risk and mutual information, and further interpret the UNL as a measure of dependence between group labels and variables of interest. We propose an efficient importance sampling estimator of the UNL that can be combined with flexible density estimation methods. A key application is the assessment of partition-covariate dependence in clustering, where the UNL provides an interpretable measure of whether latent group structure can be explained by specific covariates. The methodology is illustrated on two real-world datasets.

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arXiv2025

Penalised spline estimation of covariate-specific time-dependent ROC curves

The identification of biomarkers with high predictive accuracy is a crucial task in medical research, as it can aid clinicians in making early decisions, thereby reducing morbidity and mortality in high-risk populations. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are the main tool used to assess the accuracy of prognostic biomarkers for outcomes that evolve over time. Recognising the need to account for patient heterogeneity when evaluating the accuracy of a prognostic biomarker, we introduce a novel penalised-based estimator of the time-dependent ROC curve that accommodates a possible modifying effect of covariates. We consider flexible models for both the hazard function of the event time given the covariates and biomarker and for the location-scale regression model of the biomarker given covariates, enabling the accommodation of non-proportional hazards and nonlinear effects through penalised splines, thus overcoming limitations of earlier methods. The simulation study demonstrates that our approach successfully recovers the true functional form of the covariate-specific time-dependent ROC curve and the corresponding area under the curve across a variety of scenarios. Comparisons with existing methods further show that our approach performs favourably in multiple settings. Our approach is applied to evaluate the ability of the Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events risk score to predict mortality over different time periods after discharge in patients who have suffered an acute coronary syndrome and to investigate how this ability may vary with the left ventricular ejection fraction. An R package, CondTimeROC, implementing the proposed method is provided.

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arXiv2025

A Bayesian functional model with multilevel partition priors for group studies in neuroscience

The statistical analysis of group studies in neuroscience is particularly challenging due to the complex spatio-temporal nature of the data, its multiple levels and the inter-individual variability in brain responses. In this respect, traditional ANOVA-based studies and linear mixed effects models typically provide only limited exploration of the dynamic of the group brain activity and variability of the individual responses potentially leading to overly simplistic conclusions and/or missing more intricate patterns. In this study we propose a novel Bayesian model-based clustering method for functional data to simultaneously assess group effects and individual deviations over the most important temporal features in the data. To this aim, we develop an innovative multilevel partition prior to model the functional scores of a functional Principal Components decomposition of neuroscientific recordings; this approach returns a thorough exploration of group differences and individual deviations without compromising on the spatio-temporal nature of the data. By means of a simulation study we demonstrate that the proposed model returns correct classification in different clustering scenarios under low and high noise levels in the data. Finally we consider a case study using Electroencephalogram data recorded during an object recognition task where our approach provides new insights into the underlying brain mechanisms generating the data and their variability.

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arXiv2024

Density regression via Dirichlet process mixtures of normal structured additive regression models

Within Bayesian nonparametrics, dependent Dirichlet process mixture models provide a highly flexible approach for conducting inference about the conditional density function. However, several formulations of this class make either rather restrictive modelling assumptions or involve intricate algorithms for posterior inference, thus preventing their widespread use. In response to these challenges, we present a flexible, versatile, and computationally tractable model for density regression based on a single-weights dependent Dirichlet process mixture of normal distributions model for univariate continuous responses. We assume an additive structure for the mean of each mixture component and incorporate the effects of continuous covariates through smooth nonlinear functions. The key components of our modelling approach are penalised B-splines and their bivariate tensor product extension. Our proposed method also seamlessly accommodates parametric effects of categorical covariates, linear effects of continuous covariates, interactions between categorical and/or continuous covariates, varying coefficient terms, and random effects, which is why we refer our model as a Dirichlet process mixture of normal structured additive regression models. A noteworthy feature of our method is its efficiency in posterior simulation through Gibbs sampling, as closed-form full conditional distributions for all model parameters are available. Results from a simulation study demonstrate that our approach successfully recovers true conditional densities and other regression functionals in various challenging scenarios. Applications to a toxicology, disease diagnosis, and agricultural study are provided and further underpin the broad applicability of our modelling framework. An R package, DDPstar, implementing the proposed method is publicly available at https://bitbucket.org/mxrodriguez/ddpstar.

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