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- Genre: Academic theses
- Creators: Fricks, John
- Status: Published
Description
As the impacts of climate change worsen in the coming decades, natural hazards are expected to increase in frequency and intensity, leading to increased loss and risk to human livelihood. The spatio-temporal statistical approaches developed and applied in this dissertation highlight the ways in which hazard data can be leveraged to understand loss trends, build forecasts, and study societal impacts of losses. Specifically, this work makes use of the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database which is an unparalleled source of loss data for the United States. The first portion of this dissertation develops accurate loss baselines that are crucial for mitigation planning, infrastructure investment, and risk communication. This is accomplished thorough a stationarity analysis of county level losses following a normalization procedure. A wide variety of studies employ loss data without addressing stationarity assumptions or the possibility for spurious regression. This work enables the statistically rigorous application of such loss time series to modeling applications. The second portion of this work develops a novel matrix variate dynamic factor model for spatio-temporal loss data stratified across multiple correlated hazards or perils. The developed model is employed to analyze and forecast losses from convective storms, which constitute some of the highest losses covered by insurers. Adopting factor-based approach, forecasts are achieved despite the complex and often unobserved underlying drivers of these losses. The developed methodology extends the literature on dynamic factor models to matrix variate time series. Specifically, a covariance structure is imposed that is well suited to spatio-temporal problems while significantly reducing model complexity. The model is fit via the EM algorithm and Kalman filter. The third and final part of this dissertation investigates the impact of compounding hazard events on state and regional migration in the United States. Any attempt to capture trends in climate related migration must account for the inherent uncertainties surrounding climate change, natural hazard occurrences, and socioeconomic factors. For this reason, I adopt a Bayesian modeling approach that enables the explicit estimation of the inherent uncertainty. This work can provide decision-makers with greater clarity regarding the extent of knowledge on climate trends.
ContributorsBoyle, Esther Sarai (Author) / Jevtic, Petar (Thesis advisor) / Lanchier, Nicolas (Thesis advisor) / Lan, Shiwei (Committee member) / Cheng, Dan (Committee member) / Fricks, John (Committee member) / Gall, Melanie (Committee member) / Cutter, Susan (Committee member) / McNicholas, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This dissertation centers on treatment effect estimation in the field of causal inference, and aims to expand the toolkit for effect estimation when the treatment variable is binary. Two new stochastic tree-ensemble methods for treatment effect estimation in the continuous outcome setting are presented. The Accelerated Bayesian Causal Forrest (XBCF) model handles variance via a group-specific parameter, and the Heteroskedastic version of XBCF (H-XBCF) uses a separate tree ensemble to learn covariate-dependent variance. This work also contributes to the field of survival analysis by proposing a new framework for estimating survival probabilities via density regression. Within this framework, the Heteroskedastic Accelerated Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (H-XBART) model, which is also developed as part of this work, is utilized in treatment effect estimation for right-censored survival outcomes. All models have been implemented as part of the XBART R package, and their performance is evaluated via extensive simulation studies with appropriate sets of comparators. The contributed methods achieve similar levels of performance, while being orders of magnitude (sometimes as much as 100x) faster than comparator state-of-the-art methods, thus offering an exciting opportunity for treatment effect estimation in the large data setting.
ContributorsKrantsevich, Nikolay (Author) / Hahn, P Richard (Thesis advisor) / McCulloch, Robert (Committee member) / Zhou, Shuang (Committee member) / Lan, Shiwei (Committee member) / He, Jingyu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Tracking disease cases is an essential task in public health; however, tracking the number of cases of a disease may be difficult not every infection can be recorded by public health authorities. Notably, this may happen with whole country measles case reports, even such countries with robust registration systems. Eilertson et al. (2019) propose using a state-space model combined with maximum likelihood methods for estimating measles transmission. A Bayesian approach that uses particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo (pMCMC) is proposed to estimate the parameters of the non-linear state-space model developed in Eilertson et al. (2019) and similar previous studies. This dissertation illustrates the performance of this approach by calculating posterior estimates of the model parameters and predictions of the unobserved states in simulations and case studies. Also, Iteration Filtering (IF2) is used as a support method to verify the Bayesian estimation and to inform the selection of prior distributions. In the second half of the thesis, a birth-death process is proposed to model the unobserved population size of a disease vector. This model studies the effect of a disease vector population size on a second affected population. The second population follows a non-homogenous Poisson process when conditioned on the vector process with a transition rate given by a scaled version of the vector population. The observation model also measures a potential threshold event when the host species population size surpasses a certain level yielding a higher transmission rate. A maximum likelihood procedure is developed for this model, which combines particle filtering with the Minorize-Maximization (MM) algorithm and extends the work of Crawford et al. (2014).
ContributorsMartinez Rivera, Wilmer Osvaldo (Author) / Fricks, John (Thesis advisor) / Reiser, Mark (Committee member) / Zhou, Shuang (Committee member) / Cheng, Dan (Committee member) / Lan, Shiwei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This dissertation covers several topics in machine learning and causal inference. First, the question of “feature selection,” a common byproduct of regularized machine learning methods, is investigated theoretically in the context of treatment effect estimation. This involves a detailed review and extension of frameworks for estimating causal effects and in-depth theoretical study. Next, various computational approaches to estimating causal effects with machine learning methods are compared with these theoretical desiderata in mind. Several improvements to current methods for causal machine learning are identified and compelling angles for further study are pinpointed. Finally, a common method used for “explaining” predictions of machine learning algorithms, SHAP, is evaluated critically through a statistical lens.
ContributorsHerren, Andrew (Author) / Hahn, P Richard (Thesis advisor) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Lopes, Hedibert (Committee member) / McCulloch, Robert (Committee member) / Zhou, Shuang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This dissertation comprises two projects: (i) Multiple testing of local maxima for detection of peaks and change points with non-stationary noise, and (ii) Height distributions of critical points of smooth isotropic Gaussian fields: computations, simulations and asymptotics. The first project introduces a topological multiple testing method for one-dimensional domains to detect signals in the presence of non-stationary Gaussian noise. The approach involves conducting tests at local maxima based on two observation conditions: (i) the noise is smooth with unit variance and (ii) the noise is not smooth where kernel smoothing is applied to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The smoothed signals are then standardized, which ensures that the variance of the new sequence's noise becomes one, making it possible to calculate $p$-values for all local maxima using random field theory. Assuming unimodal true signals with finite support and non-stationary Gaussian noise that can be repeatedly observed. The algorithm introduced in this work, demonstrates asymptotic strong control of the False Discovery Rate (FDR) and power consistency as the number of sequence repetitions and signal strength increase. Simulations indicate that FDR levels can also be controlled under non-asymptotic conditions with finite repetitions. The application of this algorithm to change point detection also guarantees FDR control and power consistency. The second project focuses on investigating the explicit and asymptotic height densities of critical points of smooth isotropic Gaussian random fields on both Euclidean space and spheres.The formulae are based on characterizing the distribution of the Hessian of the Gaussian field using the Gaussian orthogonally invariant (GOI) matrices and the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE) matrices, which are special cases of GOI matrices. However, as the dimension increases, calculating explicit formulae becomes computationally challenging. The project includes two simulation methods for these distributions. Additionally, asymptotic distributions are obtained by utilizing the asymptotic distribution of the eigenvalues (excluding the maximum eigenvalues) of the GOE matrix for large dimensions. However, when it comes to the maximum eigenvalue, the Tracy-Widom distribution is utilized. Simulation results demonstrate the close approximation between the asymptotic distribution and the real distribution when $N$ is sufficiently large.
Contributorsgu, shuang (Author) / Cheng, Dan (Thesis advisor) / Lopes, Hedibert (Committee member) / Fricks, John (Committee member) / Lan, Shiwei (Committee member) / Zheng, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This dissertation develops versatile modeling tools to estimate causal effects when conditional unconfoundedness is not immediately satisfied. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview ofcommon techniques in causal inference, with a focus on models relevant to the data explored
in later chapters. The rest of the dissertation focuses on the development of novel “reduced
form” models which are designed to assess the particular challenges of different datasets.
Chapter 3 explores the question of whether or not forecasts of bankruptcy cause bankruptcy.
The question arises from the observation that companies issued going concern opinions were
more likely to go bankrupt in the following year, leading people to speculate that the opinions themselves caused the bankruptcy via a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. A Bayesian machine
learning sensitivity analysis is developed to answer this question. In exchange for additional
flexibility and fewer assumptions, this approach loses point identification of causal effects
and thus a sensitivity analysis is developed to study a wide range of plausible scenarios of
the causal effect of going concern opinions on bankruptcy. Reported in the simulations are
different performance metrics of the model in comparison with other popular methods and a
robust analysis of the sensitivity of the model to mis-specification. Results on empirical data
indicate that forecasts of bankruptcies likely do have a small causal effect.
Chapter 4 studies the effects of vaccination on COVID-19 mortality at the state level in
the United States. The dynamic nature of the pandemic complicates more straightforward
regression adjustments and invalidates many alternative models. The chapter comments on
the limitations of mechanistic approaches as well as traditional statistical methods to epidemiological data. Instead, a state space model is developed that allows the study of the
ever-changing dynamics of the pandemic’s progression. In the first stage, the model decomposes the observed mortality data into component surges, and later uses this information in
a semi-parametric regression model for causal analysis. Results are investigated thoroughly
for empirical justification and stress-tested in simulated settings.
ContributorsPapakostas, Demetrios (Author) / Hahn, Paul (Thesis advisor) / McCulloch, Robert (Committee member) / Zhou, Shuang (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Lan, Shiwei (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
This dissertation centers on Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) and Accelerated BART (XBART) and presents a series of models that tackle extrapolation, classification, and causal inference challenges. To improve extrapolation in tree-based models, I propose a method called local Gaussian Process (GP) that combines Gaussian process regression with trained BART trees. This allows for extrapolation based on the most relevant data points and covariate variables determined by the trees' structure. The local GP technique is extended to the Bayesian causal forest (BCF) models to address the positivity violation issue in causal inference. Additionally, I introduce the LongBet model to estimate time-varying, heterogeneous treatment effects in panel data. Furthermore, I present a Poisson-based model, with a modified likelihood for XBART for the multi-class classification problem.
ContributorsWang, Meijia (Author) / Hahn, Paul (Thesis advisor) / He, Jingyu (Committee member) / Lan, Shiwei (Committee member) / McCulloch, Robert (Committee member) / Zhou, Shuang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Statistical model selection using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and similar criteria is a useful tool for comparing multiple and non-nested models without the specification of a null model, which has made it increasingly popular in the natural and social sciences. De- spite their common usage, model selection methods are not driven by a notion of statistical confidence, so their results entail an unknown de- gree of uncertainty. This paper introduces a general framework which extends notions of Type-I and Type-II error to model selection. A theo- retical method for controlling Type-I error using Difference of Goodness of Fit (DGOF) distributions is given, along with a bootstrap approach that approximates the procedure. Results are presented for simulated experiments using normal distributions, random walk models, nested linear regression, and nonnested regression including nonlinear mod- els. Tests are performed using an R package developed by the author which will be made publicly available on journal publication of research results.
ContributorsCullan, Michael J (Author) / Sterner, Beckett (Thesis advisor) / Fricks, John (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The primary objective in time series analysis is forecasting. Raw data often exhibits nonstationary behavior: trends, seasonal cycles, and heteroskedasticity. After data is transformed to a weakly stationary process, autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models may capture the remaining temporal dynamics to improve forecasting. Estimation of ARMA can be performed through regressing current values on previous realizations and proxy innovations. The classic paradigm fails when dynamics are nonlinear; in this case, parametric, regime-switching specifications model changes in level, ARMA dynamics, and volatility, using a finite number of latent states. If the states can be identified using past endogenous or exogenous information, a threshold autoregressive (TAR) or logistic smooth transition autoregressive (LSTAR) model may simplify complex nonlinear associations to conditional weakly stationary processes. For ARMA, TAR, and STAR, order parameters quantify the extent past information is associated with the future. Unfortunately, even if model orders are known a priori, the possibility of over-fitting can lead to sub-optimal forecasting performance. By intentionally overestimating these orders, a linear representation of the full model is exploited and Bayesian regularization can be used to achieve sparsity. Global-local shrinkage priors for AR, MA, and exogenous coefficients are adopted to pull posterior means toward 0 without over-shrinking relevant effects. This dissertation introduces, evaluates, and compares Bayesian techniques that automatically perform model selection and coefficient estimation of ARMA, TAR, and STAR models. Multiple Monte Carlo experiments illustrate the accuracy of these methods in finding the "true" data generating process. Practical applications demonstrate their efficacy in forecasting.
ContributorsGiacomazzo, Mario (Author) / Kamarianakis, Yiannis (Thesis advisor) / Reiser, Mark R. (Committee member) / McCulloch, Robert (Committee member) / Hahn, Richard (Committee member) / Fricks, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Acoustic emission (AE) signals have been widely employed for tracking material properties and structural characteristics. In this study, the aim is to analyze the AE signals gathered during a scanning probe lithography process to classify the known microstructure types and discover unknown surface microstructures/anomalies. To achieve this, a Hidden Markov Model is developed to consider the temporal dependency of the high-resolution AE data. Furthermore, the posterior classification probability and the negative likelihood score for microstructure classification and discovery are computed. Subsequently, a diagnostic procedure to identify the dominant AE frequencies that were used to track the microstructural characteristics is presented. In addition, machine learning methods such as KNN, Naive Bayes, and Logistic Regression classifiers are applied. Finally, the proposed approach applied to identify the surface microstructures of additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V and show that it not only achieved a high classification accuracy (e.g., more than 90\%) but also correctly identified the microstructural anomalies that may be subjected to further investigation to discover new material phases/properties.
ContributorsSun, Huifeng (Author) / Yan, Hao (Thesis advisor) / Fricks, John (Thesis advisor) / Cheng, Dan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020