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Random Forests is a statistical learning method which has been proposed for propensity score estimation models that involve complex interactions, nonlinear relationships, or both of the covariates. In this dissertation I conducted a simulation study to examine the effects of three Random Forests model specifications in propensity score analysis. The

Random Forests is a statistical learning method which has been proposed for propensity score estimation models that involve complex interactions, nonlinear relationships, or both of the covariates. In this dissertation I conducted a simulation study to examine the effects of three Random Forests model specifications in propensity score analysis. The results suggested that, depending on the nature of data, optimal specification of (1) decision rules to select the covariate and its split value in a Classification Tree, (2) the number of covariates randomly sampled for selection, and (3) methods of estimating Random Forests propensity scores could potentially produce an unbiased average treatment effect estimate after propensity scores weighting by the odds adjustment. Compared to the logistic regression estimation model using the true propensity score model, Random Forests had an additional advantage in producing unbiased estimated standard error and correct statistical inference of the average treatment effect. The relationship between the balance on the covariates' means and the bias of average treatment effect estimate was examined both within and between conditions of the simulation. Within conditions, across repeated samples there was no noticeable correlation between the covariates' mean differences and the magnitude of bias of average treatment effect estimate for the covariates that were imbalanced before adjustment. Between conditions, small mean differences of covariates after propensity score adjustment were not sensitive enough to identify the optimal Random Forests model specification for propensity score analysis.
ContributorsCham, Hei Ning (Author) / Tein, Jenn-Yun (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Stephen G (Thesis advisor) / Enders, Craig K. (Committee member) / Mackinnon, David P (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
With the rapid development of mobile sensing technologies like GPS, RFID, sensors in smartphones, etc., capturing position data in the form of trajectories has become easy. Moving object trajectory analysis is a growing area of interest these days owing to its applications in various domains such as marketing, security, traffic

With the rapid development of mobile sensing technologies like GPS, RFID, sensors in smartphones, etc., capturing position data in the form of trajectories has become easy. Moving object trajectory analysis is a growing area of interest these days owing to its applications in various domains such as marketing, security, traffic monitoring and management, etc. To better understand movement behaviors from the raw mobility data, this doctoral work provides analytic models for analyzing trajectory data. As a first contribution, a model is developed to detect changes in trajectories with time. If the taxis moving in a city are viewed as sensors that provide real time information of the traffic in the city, a change in these trajectories with time can reveal that the road network has changed. To detect changes, trajectories are modeled with a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). A modified training algorithm, for parameter estimation in HMM, called m-BaumWelch, is used to develop likelihood estimates under assumed changes and used to detect changes in trajectory data with time. Data from vehicles are used to test the method for change detection. Secondly, sequential pattern mining is used to develop a model to detect changes in frequent patterns occurring in trajectory data. The aim is to answer two questions: Are the frequent patterns still frequent in the new data? If they are frequent, has the time interval distribution in the pattern changed? Two different approaches are considered for change detection, frequency-based approach and distribution-based approach. The methods are illustrated with vehicle trajectory data. Finally, a model is developed for clustering and outlier detection in semantic trajectories. A challenge with clustering semantic trajectories is that both numeric and categorical attributes are present. Another problem to be addressed while clustering is that trajectories can be of different lengths and also have missing values. A tree-based ensemble is used to address these problems. The approach is extended to outlier detection in semantic trajectories.
ContributorsKondaveeti, Anirudh (Author) / Runger, George C. (Thesis advisor) / Mirchandani, Pitu (Committee member) / Pan, Rong (Committee member) / Maciejewski, Ross (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012