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- All Subjects: Statistics
- All Subjects: spatial statistics
- Creators: Fotheringham, A. Stewart
- Creators: Zhou, Shuang
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
Gerrymandering is a central problem for many representative democracies. Formally, gerrymandering is the manipulation of spatial boundaries to provide political advantage to a particular group (Warf, 2006). The term often refers to political district design, where the boundaries of political districts are “unnaturally” manipulated by redistricting officials to generate durable advantages for one group or party. Since free and fair elections are possibly the critical part of representative democracy, it is important for this cresting tide to have scientifically validated tools. This dissertation supports a current wave of reform by developing a general inferential technique to “localize” inferential bias measures, generating a new type of district-level score. The new method relies on the statistical intuition behind jackknife methods to construct relative local indicators. I find that existing statewide indicators of partisan bias can be localized using this technique, providing an estimate of how strongly a district impacts statewide partisan bias over an entire decade. When compared to measures of shape compactness (a common gerrymandering detection statistic), I find that weirdly-shaped districts have no consistent relationship with impact in many states during the 2000 and 2010 redistricting plan. To ensure that this work is valid, I examine existing seats-votes modeling strategies and develop a novel method for constructing seats-votes curves. I find that, while the empirical structure of electoral swing shows significant spatial dependence (even in the face of spatial heterogeneity), existing seats-votes specifications are more robust than anticipated to spatial dependence. Centrally, this dissertation contributes to the much larger social aim to resist electoral manipulation: that individuals & organizations suffer no undue burden on political access from partisan gerrymandering.
ContributorsWolf, Levi (Author) / Rey, Sergio J (Thesis advisor) / Anselin, Luc (Committee member) / Fotheringham, A. Stewart (Committee member) / Tam Cho, Wendy K (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
In the study of regional economic growth and convergence, the distribution dynamics approach which interrogates the evolution of the cross-sectional distribution as a whole and is concerned with both the external and internal dynamics of the distribution has received wide usage. However, many methodological issues remain to be resolved before valid inferences and conclusions can be drawn from empirical research. Among them, spatial effects including spatial heterogeneity and spatial dependence invalidate the assumption of independent and identical distributions underlying the conventional maximum likelihood techniques while the availability of small samples in regional settings questions the usage of the asymptotic properties. This dissertation is comprised of three papers targeted at addressing these two issues. The first paper investigates whether the conventional regional income mobility estimators are still suitable in the presence of spatial dependence and/or a small sample. It is approached through a series of Monte Carlo experiments which require the proposal of a novel data generating process (DGP) capable of generating spatially dependent time series. The second paper moves to the statistical tests for detecting specific forms of spatial (spatiotemporal) effects in the discrete Markov chain model, investigating their robustness to the alternative spatial effect, sensitivity to discretization granularity, and properties in small sample settings. The third paper proposes discrete kernel estimators with cross-validated bandwidths as an alternative to maximum likelihood estimators in small sample settings. It is demonstrated that the performance of discrete kernel estimators offers improvement when the sample size is small. Taken together, the three papers constitute an endeavor to relax the restrictive assumptions of spatial independence and spatial homogeneity, as well as demonstrating the difference between the small sample and asymptotic properties for conventionally adopted maximum likelihood estimators towards a more valid inferential framework for the distribution dynamics approach to the study of regional economic growth and convergence.
ContributorsKang, Wei (Author) / Rey, Sergio (Thesis advisor) / Fotheringham, A. Stewart (Committee member) / Ye, Xinyue (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Large-scale cultivation of perennial bioenergy crops (e.g., miscanthus and switch-
grass) offers unique opportunities to mitigate climate change through avoided fossil fuel use and associated greenhouse gas reduction. Although conversion of existing agriculturally intensive lands (e.g., maize and soy) to perennial bioenergy cropping systems has been shown to reduce near-surface temperatures, unintended consequences on natural water resources via depletion of soil moisture may offset these benefits. In the effort of the cross-fertilization across the disciplines of physics-based modeling and spatio-temporal statistics, three topics are investigated in this dissertation aiming to provide a novel quantification and robust justifications of the hydroclimate impacts associated with bioenergy crop expansion. Topic 1 quantifies the hydroclimatic impacts associated with perennial bioenergy crop expansion over the contiguous United States using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) dynamically coupled to a land surface model (LSM). A suite of continuous (2000–09) medium-range resolution (20-km grid spacing) ensemble-based simulations is conducted. Hovmöller and Taylor diagrams are utilized to evaluate simulated temperature and precipitation. In addition, Mann-Kendall modified trend tests and Sieve-bootstrap trend tests are performed to evaluate the statistical significance of trends in soil moisture differences. Finally, this research reveals potential hot spots of suitable deployment and regions to avoid. Topic 2 presents spatio-temporal Bayesian models which quantify the robustness of control simulation bias, as well as biofuel impacts, using three spatio-temporal correlation structures. A hierarchical model with spatially varying intercepts and slopes display satisfactory performance in capturing spatio-temporal associations. Simulated temperature impacts due to perennial bioenergy crop expansion are robust to physics parameterization schemes. Topic 3 further focuses on the accuracy and efficiency of spatial-temporal statistical modeling for large datasets. An ensemble of spatio-temporal eigenvector filtering algorithms (hereafter: STEF) is proposed to account for the spatio-temporal autocorrelation structure of the data while taking into account spatial confounding. Monte Carlo experiments are conducted. This method is then used to quantify the robustness of simulated hydroclimatic impacts associated with bioenergy crops to alternative physics parameterizations. Results are evaluated against those obtained from three alternative Bayesian spatio-temporal specifications.
grass) offers unique opportunities to mitigate climate change through avoided fossil fuel use and associated greenhouse gas reduction. Although conversion of existing agriculturally intensive lands (e.g., maize and soy) to perennial bioenergy cropping systems has been shown to reduce near-surface temperatures, unintended consequences on natural water resources via depletion of soil moisture may offset these benefits. In the effort of the cross-fertilization across the disciplines of physics-based modeling and spatio-temporal statistics, three topics are investigated in this dissertation aiming to provide a novel quantification and robust justifications of the hydroclimate impacts associated with bioenergy crop expansion. Topic 1 quantifies the hydroclimatic impacts associated with perennial bioenergy crop expansion over the contiguous United States using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) dynamically coupled to a land surface model (LSM). A suite of continuous (2000–09) medium-range resolution (20-km grid spacing) ensemble-based simulations is conducted. Hovmöller and Taylor diagrams are utilized to evaluate simulated temperature and precipitation. In addition, Mann-Kendall modified trend tests and Sieve-bootstrap trend tests are performed to evaluate the statistical significance of trends in soil moisture differences. Finally, this research reveals potential hot spots of suitable deployment and regions to avoid. Topic 2 presents spatio-temporal Bayesian models which quantify the robustness of control simulation bias, as well as biofuel impacts, using three spatio-temporal correlation structures. A hierarchical model with spatially varying intercepts and slopes display satisfactory performance in capturing spatio-temporal associations. Simulated temperature impacts due to perennial bioenergy crop expansion are robust to physics parameterization schemes. Topic 3 further focuses on the accuracy and efficiency of spatial-temporal statistical modeling for large datasets. An ensemble of spatio-temporal eigenvector filtering algorithms (hereafter: STEF) is proposed to account for the spatio-temporal autocorrelation structure of the data while taking into account spatial confounding. Monte Carlo experiments are conducted. This method is then used to quantify the robustness of simulated hydroclimatic impacts associated with bioenergy crops to alternative physics parameterizations. Results are evaluated against those obtained from three alternative Bayesian spatio-temporal specifications.
ContributorsWang, Meng, Ph.D (Author) / Kamarianakis, Yiannis (Thesis advisor) / Georgescu, Matei (Thesis advisor) / Fotheringham, A. Stewart (Committee member) / Moustaoui, Mohamed (Committee member) / Reiser, Mark R. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Transfer learning is a sub-field of statistical modeling and machine learning. It refers to methods that integrate the knowledge of other domains (called source domains) and the data of the target domain in a mathematically rigorous and intelligent way, to develop a better model for the target domain than a model using the data of the target domain alone. While transfer learning is a promising approach in various application domains, my dissertation research focuses on the particular application in health care, including telemonitoring of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and radiomics for glioblastoma.
The first topic is a Mixed Effects Transfer Learning (METL) model that can flexibly incorporate mixed effects and a general-form covariance matrix to better account for similarity and heterogeneity across subjects. I further develop computationally efficient procedures to handle unknown parameters and large covariance structures. Domain relations, such as domain similarity and domain covariance structure, are automatically quantified in the estimation steps. I demonstrate METL in an application of smartphone-based telemonitoring of PD.
The second topic focuses on an MRI-based transfer learning algorithm for non-invasive surgical guidance of glioblastoma patients. Limited biopsy samples per patient create a challenge to build a patient-specific model for glioblastoma. A transfer learning framework helps to leverage other patient’s knowledge for building a better predictive model. When modeling a target patient, not every patient’s information is helpful. Deciding the subset of other patients from which to transfer information to the modeling of the target patient is an important task to build an accurate predictive model. I define the subset of “transferrable” patients as those who have a positive rCBV-cell density correlation, because a positive correlation is confirmed by imaging theory and the its respective literature.
The last topic is a Privacy-Preserving Positive Transfer Learning (P3TL) model. Although negative transfer has been recognized as an important issue by the transfer learning research community, there is a lack of theoretical studies in evaluating the risk of negative transfer for a transfer learning method and identifying what causes the negative transfer. My work addresses this issue. Driven by the theoretical insights, I extend Bayesian Parameter Transfer (BPT) to a new method, i.e., P3TL. The unique features of P3TL include intelligent selection of patients to transfer in order to avoid negative transfer and maintain patient privacy. These features make P3TL an excellent model for telemonitoring of PD using an At-Home Testing Device.
The first topic is a Mixed Effects Transfer Learning (METL) model that can flexibly incorporate mixed effects and a general-form covariance matrix to better account for similarity and heterogeneity across subjects. I further develop computationally efficient procedures to handle unknown parameters and large covariance structures. Domain relations, such as domain similarity and domain covariance structure, are automatically quantified in the estimation steps. I demonstrate METL in an application of smartphone-based telemonitoring of PD.
The second topic focuses on an MRI-based transfer learning algorithm for non-invasive surgical guidance of glioblastoma patients. Limited biopsy samples per patient create a challenge to build a patient-specific model for glioblastoma. A transfer learning framework helps to leverage other patient’s knowledge for building a better predictive model. When modeling a target patient, not every patient’s information is helpful. Deciding the subset of other patients from which to transfer information to the modeling of the target patient is an important task to build an accurate predictive model. I define the subset of “transferrable” patients as those who have a positive rCBV-cell density correlation, because a positive correlation is confirmed by imaging theory and the its respective literature.
The last topic is a Privacy-Preserving Positive Transfer Learning (P3TL) model. Although negative transfer has been recognized as an important issue by the transfer learning research community, there is a lack of theoretical studies in evaluating the risk of negative transfer for a transfer learning method and identifying what causes the negative transfer. My work addresses this issue. Driven by the theoretical insights, I extend Bayesian Parameter Transfer (BPT) to a new method, i.e., P3TL. The unique features of P3TL include intelligent selection of patients to transfer in order to avoid negative transfer and maintain patient privacy. These features make P3TL an excellent model for telemonitoring of PD using an At-Home Testing Device.
ContributorsYoon, Hyunsoo (Author) / Li, Jing (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Yan, Hao (Committee member) / Hu, Leland S. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Buildings consume nearly 50% of the total energy in the United States, which drives the need to develop high-fidelity models for building energy systems. Extensive methods and techniques have been developed, studied, and applied to building energy simulation and forecasting, while most of work have focused on developing dedicated modeling approach for generic buildings. In this study, an integrated computationally efficient and high-fidelity building energy modeling framework is proposed, with the concentration on developing a generalized modeling approach for various types of buildings. First, a number of data-driven simulation models are reviewed and assessed on various types of computationally expensive simulation problems. Motivated by the conclusion that no model outperforms others if amortized over diverse problems, a meta-learning based recommendation system for data-driven simulation modeling is proposed. To test the feasibility of the proposed framework on the building energy system, an extended application of the recommendation system for short-term building energy forecasting is deployed on various buildings. Finally, Kalman filter-based data fusion technique is incorporated into the building recommendation system for on-line energy forecasting. Data fusion enables model calibration to update the state estimation in real-time, which filters out the noise and renders more accurate energy forecast. The framework is composed of two modules: off-line model recommendation module and on-line model calibration module. Specifically, the off-line model recommendation module includes 6 widely used data-driven simulation models, which are ranked by meta-learning recommendation system for off-line energy modeling on a given building scenario. Only a selective set of building physical and operational characteristic features is needed to complete the recommendation task. The on-line calibration module effectively addresses system uncertainties, where data fusion on off-line model is applied based on system identification and Kalman filtering methods. The developed data-driven modeling framework is validated on various genres of buildings, and the experimental results demonstrate desired performance on building energy forecasting in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency. The framework could be easily implemented into building energy model predictive control (MPC), demand response (DR) analysis and real-time operation decision support systems.
ContributorsCui, Can (Author) / Wu, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Weir, Jeffery D. (Thesis advisor) / Li, Jing (Committee member) / Fowler, John (Committee member) / Hu, Mengqi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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
With the increased demand for genetically modified T-cells in treating hematological malignancies, the need for an optimized measurement policy within the current good manufacturing practices for better quality control has grown greatly. There are several steps involved in manufacturing gene therapy. These steps are for the autologous-type gene therapy, in chronological order, are harvesting T-cells from the patient, activation of the cells (thawing the cryogenically frozen cells after transport to manufacturing center), viral vector transduction, Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) attachment during T-cell expansion, then infusion into patient. The need for improved measurement heuristics within the transduction and expansion portions of the manufacturing process has reached an all-time high because of the costly nature of manufacturing the product, the high cycle time (approximately 14-28 days from activation to infusion), and the risk for external contamination during manufacturing that negatively impacts patients post infusion (such as illness and death).
The main objective of this work is to investigate and improve measurement policies on the basis of quality control in the transduction/expansion bio-manufacturing processes. More specifically, this study addresses the issue of measuring yield within the transduction/expansion phases of gene therapy. To do so, it was decided to model the process as a Markov Decision Process where the decisions being made are optimally chosen to create an overall optimal measurement policy; for a set of predefined parameters.
The main objective of this work is to investigate and improve measurement policies on the basis of quality control in the transduction/expansion bio-manufacturing processes. More specifically, this study addresses the issue of measuring yield within the transduction/expansion phases of gene therapy. To do so, it was decided to model the process as a Markov Decision Process where the decisions being made are optimally chosen to create an overall optimal measurement policy; for a set of predefined parameters.
ContributorsStarkey, Michaela (Author) / Pedrielli, Giulia (Thesis advisor) / Li, Jing (Committee member) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
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
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
Embedded within the regression framework, local models can estimate conditioned relationships between observed spatial phenomena and hypothesized explanatory variables and help infer the intangible spatial processes that contribute to the observed spatial patterns. Rather than investigating averaged characteristics corresponding to processes over space as global models do, these models estimate a surface of spatially varying parameters with a value for each location. Additionally, some models such as variants within the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) framework, also estimate a parameter to represent the spatial scale across which the processes vary representing the inherent heterogeneity of the estimated surfaces. Since different processes tend to operate at unique spatial scales, some extensions to local models such as Multiscale GWR (MGWR) estimate unique scales of association for each predictor in a model and generate significantly more information on the nature of geographic processes than their predecessors. However, developments within the realm of local models are fairly nascent and hence an understanding around their correct application as well as recognizing their true potential in exploring fundamental spatial science issues is under-developed. The techniques within these frameworks are also currently limited thus restricting the kinds of data that can be analyzed using these models. Therefore the goal of this dissertation is to advance techniques within local multiscale modeling specifically by coining new diagnostics, exploring their novel application in understanding long-standing issues concerning spatial scale and by expanding the tool base to allow their use in wider empirical applications. This goal is realized through three distinct research objectives over four chapters, followed by a discussion on the future of the developments within local multiscale modeling. A correct understanding of the capability and promise of local multiscale models and expanding the fields where they can be employed will not only enhance geographical research by strengthening the intuition of the nature of geographic processes, but will also exemplify the importance and need for using such tools bringing quantitative spatial science to the fore.
ContributorsSachdeva, Mehak (Author) / Fotheringham, A. Stewart (Thesis advisor) / Goodchild, Michael Frank (Committee member) / Kedron, Peter (Committee member) / Wolf, Levi John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022