2,119 research outputs found
Bayesian threshold selection for extremal models using measures of surprise
Statistical extreme value theory is concerned with the use of asymptotically
motivated models to describe the extreme values of a process. A number of
commonly used models are valid for observed data that exceed some high
threshold. However, in practice a suitable threshold is unknown and must be
determined for each analysis. While there are many threshold selection methods
for univariate extremes, there are relatively few that can be applied in the
multivariate setting. In addition, there are only a few Bayesian-based methods,
which are naturally attractive in the modelling of extremes due to data
scarcity. The use of Bayesian measures of surprise to determine suitable
thresholds for extreme value models is proposed. Such measures quantify the
level of support for the proposed extremal model and threshold, without the
need to specify any model alternatives. This approach is easily implemented for
both univariate and multivariate extremes.Comment: To appear in Computational Statistics and Data Analysi
Adaptive Optimal Scaling of Metropolis-Hastings Algorithms Using the Robbins-Monro Process
We present an adaptive method for the automatic scaling of Random-Walk
Metropolis-Hastings algorithms, which quickly and robustly identifies the
scaling factor that yields a specified overall sampler acceptance probability.
Our method relies on the use of the Robbins-Monro search process, whose
performance is determined by an unknown steplength constant. We give a very
simple estimator of this constant for proposal distributions that are
univariate or multivariate normal, together with a sampling algorithm for
automating the method. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated with
both simulated and real data examples. This approach could be implemented as a
useful component in more complex adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms,
or as part of automated software packages
A Comparative Review of Dimension Reduction Methods in Approximate Bayesian Computation
Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) methods make use of comparisons
between simulated and observed summary statistics to overcome the problem of
computationally intractable likelihood functions. As the practical
implementation of ABC requires computations based on vectors of summary
statistics, rather than full data sets, a central question is how to derive
low-dimensional summary statistics from the observed data with minimal loss of
information. In this article we provide a comprehensive review and comparison
of the performance of the principal methods of dimension reduction proposed in
the ABC literature. The methods are split into three nonmutually exclusive
classes consisting of best subset selection methods, projection techniques and
regularization. In addition, we introduce two new methods of dimension
reduction. The first is a best subset selection method based on Akaike and
Bayesian information criteria, and the second uses ridge regression as a
regularization procedure. We illustrate the performance of these dimension
reduction techniques through the analysis of three challenging models and data
sets.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-STS406 the Statistical
Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
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