Search results for "uncertainty."
showing 10 items of 972 documents
Importance sampling type estimators based on approximate marginal Markov chain Monte Carlo
2020
We consider importance sampling (IS) type weighted estimators based on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) targeting an approximate marginal of the target distribution. In the context of Bayesian latent variable models, the MCMC typically operates on the hyperparameters, and the subsequent weighting may be based on IS or sequential Monte Carlo (SMC), but allows for multilevel techniques as well. The IS approach provides a natural alternative to delayed acceptance (DA) pseudo-marginal/particle MCMC, and has many advantages over DA, including a straightforward parallelisation and additional flexibility in MCMC implementation. We detail minimal conditions which ensure strong consistency of the sug…
Bayesian assessment of times to diagnosis in breast cancer screening
2008
Breast cancer is one of the diseases with the most profound impact on health in developed countries and mammography is the most popular method for detecting breast cancer at a very early stage. This paper focuses on the waiting period from a positive mammogram until a confirmatory diagnosis is carried out in hospital. Generalized linear mixed models are used to perform the statistical analysis, always within the Bayesian reasoning. Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms are applied for estimation by simulating the posterior distribution of the parameters and hyperparameters of the model through the free software WinBUGS.
The smallest singular value of a shifted $d$-regular random square matrix
2017
We derive a lower bound on the smallest singular value of a random d-regular matrix, that is, the adjacency matrix of a random d-regular directed graph. Specifically, let $$C_1<d< c n/\log ^2 n$$ and let $$\mathcal {M}_{n,d}$$ be the set of all $$n\times n$$ square matrices with 0 / 1 entries, such that each row and each column of every matrix in $$\mathcal {M}_{n,d}$$ has exactly d ones. Let M be a random matrix uniformly distributed on $$\mathcal {M}_{n,d}$$ . Then the smallest singular value $$s_{n} (M)$$ of M is greater than $$n^{-6}$$ with probability at least $$1-C_2\log ^2 d/\sqrt{d}$$ , where c, $$C_1$$ , and $$C_2$$ are absolute positive constants independent of any other parameter…
Evaluation of Insurance Products with Guarantee in Incomplete Markets
2008
Abstract Life insurance products are usually equipped with minimum guarantee and bonus provision options. The pricing of such claims is of vital importance for the insurance industry. Risk management, strategic asset allocation, and product design depend on the correct evaluation of the written options. Also regulators are interested in such issues since they have to be aware of the possible scenarios that the overall industry will face. Pricing techniques based on the Black & Scholes paradigm are often used, however, the hypotheses underneath this model are rarely met. To overcome Black & Scholes limitations, we develop a stochastic programming model to determine the fair price of the mini…
Sample-size calculation and reestimation for a semiparametric analysis of recurrent event data taking robust standard errors into account
2014
In some clinical trials, the repeated occurrence of the same type of event is of primary interest and the Andersen-Gill model has been proposed to analyze recurrent event data. Existing methods to determine the required sample size for an Andersen-Gill analysis rely on the strong assumption that all heterogeneity in the individuals' risk to experience events can be explained by known covariates. In practice, however, this assumption might be violated due to unknown or unmeasured covariates affecting the time to events. In these situations, the use of a robust variance estimate in calculating the test statistic is highly recommended to assure the type I error rate, but this will in turn decr…
k-Step shape estimators based on spatial signs and ranks
2010
In this paper, the shape matrix estimators based on spatial sign and rank vectors are considered. The estimators considered here are slight modifications of the estimators introduced in Dümbgen (1998) and Oja and Randles (2004) and further studied for example in Sirkiä et al. (2009). The shape estimators are computed using pairwise differences of the observed data, therefore there is no need to estimate the location center of the data. When the estimator is based on signs, the use of differences also implies that the estimators have the so called independence property if the estimator, that is used as an initial estimator, has it. The influence functions and limiting distributions of the es…
Updating input–output matrices: assessing alternatives through simulation
2009
A problem that frequently arises in economics, demography, statistics, transportation planning and stochastic modelling is how to adjust the entries of a matrix to fulfil row and column aggregation constraints. Biproportional methods in general and the so-called RAS algorithm in particular, have been used for decades to find solutions to this type of problem. Although alternatives exist, the RAS algorithm and its extensions are still the most popular. Apart from some interesting empirical and theoretical properties, tradition, simplicity and very low computational costs are among the reasons behind the great success of RAS. Nowadays computer hardware and software have made alternative proce…
Intrinsic credible regions: An objective Bayesian approach to interval estimation
2005
This paper definesintrinsic credible regions, a method to produce objective Bayesian credible regions which only depends on the assumed model and the available data.Lowest posterior loss (LPL) regions are defined as Bayesian credible regions which contain values of minimum posterior expected loss: they depend both on the loss function and on the prior specification. An invariant, information-theory based loss function, theintrinsic discrepancy is argued to be appropriate for scientific communication. Intrinsic credible regions are the lowest posterior loss regions with respect to the intrinsic discrepancy loss and the appropriate reference prior. The proposed procedure is completely general…
Multiple smoothing parameters selection in additive regression quantiles
2021
We propose an iterative algorithm to select the smoothing parameters in additive quantile regression, wherein the functional forms of the covariate effects are unspecified and expressed via B-spline bases with difference penalties on the spline coefficients. The proposed algorithm relies on viewing the penalized coefficients as random effects from the symmetric Laplace distribution, and it turns out to be very efficient and particularly attractive with multiple smooth terms. Through simulations we compare our proposal with some alternative approaches, including the traditional ones based on minimization of the Schwarz Information Criterion. A real-data analysis is presented to illustrate t…
Local bandwidth selection for kernel density estimation in a bifurcating Markov chain model
2020
International audience; We propose an adaptive estimator for the stationary distribution of a bifurcating Markov Chain onRd. Bifurcating Markov chains (BMC for short) are a class of stochastic processes indexed by regular binary trees. A kernel estimator is proposed whose bandwidths are selected by a method inspired by the works of Goldenshluger and Lepski [(2011), 'Bandwidth Selection in Kernel Density Estimation: Oracle Inequalities and Adaptive Minimax Optimality',The Annals of Statistics3: 1608-1632). Drawing inspiration from dimension jump methods for model selection, we also provide an algorithm to select the best constant in the penalty. Finally, we investigate the performance of the…