2016 Fall

Date: 2016-12-02 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: The aim of this talk is to present a statistical framework for the analysis of dependent bivariate multistate processes, allowing one to study the dependence both across subjects in a pair and among individual-specific events. As for the latter, copula- based models are employed, whereas dependence between multi-state models can be accomplished by means of frailties. The well known Marshall-Olkin Bivariate Exponential Distribution (MOBVE) is considered for the joint distribution of frailties.

Date: 2016-12-01 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 708 Abstract: Changepoints are a very common feature of Big Data that arrive in the form of a data stream. We study high-dimensional time series in which, at certain time points, the mean structure changes in a sparse subset of the coordinates. The challenge is to borrow strength across the coordinates in order to detect smaller changes than could be observed in any individual component series.

Date: 2016-11-25 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: In the analysis of most spatio-temporal processes in environmental studies, observations present skewed distributions. Usually, a single transformation of the data is used to approximate normality, and stationary Gaussian processes are assumed to model the transformed data. The choice of transformation is key for spatial interpolation and temporal prediction. We propose a spatio-temporal model for skewed data that does not require the use of data transformation.

Date: 2016-11-18 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: Deep learning has arisen around 2006 as a renewal of neural networks research allowing such models to have more layers. Theoretical investigations have shown that functions obtained as deep compositions of simpler functions (which includes both deep and recurrent nets) can express highly varying functions (with many ups and downs and different input regions that can be distinguished) much more efficiently (with fewer parameters) than otherwise, under a prior which seems to work well for artificial intelligence tasks.

Date: 2016-11-11 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: Given a data set, Tyler’s M-estimator is a widely used covariance matrix estimator with robustness to outliers or heavy-tailed distribution. We will discuss two recent results of this estimator. First, we show that when a certain percentage of the data points are sampled from a low-dimensional subspace, Tyler’s M-estimator can be used to recover the subspace exactly. Second, in the high-dimensional regime that the number of samples n and the dimension p both go to infinity, p/n converges to a constant y between 0 and 1, and when the data samples are identically and independently generated from the Gaussian distribution N(0,I), we showed that the difference between the sample covariance matrix and a scaled version of Tyler’s M-estimator tends to zero in spectral norm, and the empirical spectral densities of both estimators converge to the Marcenko-Pastur distribution.

Date: 2016-11-04 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: Piché: Analysis of survival data arising from different groups, whereby the data in each group is scarce, but abundant overall, is a common issue in applied statistics. Bayesian nonparametrics are tools of choice to handle such datasets given their ability to share information across groups. In this presentation, we will compare three popular Bayesian nonparametric methods on the modeling of survival functions coming from related heterogeneous groups.

Date: 2016-11-02 Time: 15:00-16:00 17:35-18:25 Location: 1st: BURN 306 2nd: ADAMS AUD Abstract: First talk: This talk focuses on three practical aspects of resampling: communication, accuracy, and software. I’ll introduce the bootstrap and permutation tests, and discussed how they may be used to help clients understand statistical results. I’ll talk about accuracy – there are dramatic differences in how accurate different bootstrap methods are. Surprisingly, the most common bootstrap methods are less accurate than classical methods for small samples, and more accurate for larger samples.

Date: 2016-10-28 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: Two-phase studies are frequently used when observations on certain variables are expensive or difficult to obtain. One such situation is when a cohort exists for which certain variables have been measured (phase 1 data); then, a sub-sample of individuals is selected, and additional data are collected on them (phase 2). Efficiency for tests and estimators can be increased by basing the selection of phase 2 individuals on data collected at phase 1.

Date: 2016-10-21 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: Multi-level hierarchical clustered data are commonly seen in financial and biostatistics applications. In this talk, we introduce several modeling strategies for describing the dependent relationships for members within a cluster or between different clusters (in the same or different levels). In particular we will apply the hierarchical Kendall copula, first proposed by Brechmann (2014), to model two-level hierarchical clustered survival data. This approach provides a clever way of dimension reduction in modeling complicated multivariate data.

Date: 2016-10-14 Time: 15:30-16:30 Location: BURN 1205 Abstract: Building on the work of Schwartz, Gelfand and Miranda (Statistics in Medicine (2010); 29(16), 1710-23), we propose a Bayesian finite mixture of bivariate regressions model for causal mediation analyses. Using an identifiability condition within each component of the mixture, we express the natural direct and indirect effects of the exposure on the outcome as functions of the component-specific regression coefficients. On the basis of simulated data, we examine the behaviour of the model for estimating these effects in situations where the associations between exposure, mediator and outcome are confounded, or not.