No Arabic abstract
The meningitis belt is a region in sub-Saharan Africa where annual outbreaks of meningitis occur, with large epidemics observed cyclically. While we know that meningitis is heavily dependent on seasonal trends (in particular, weather), the exact pathways for contracting the disease are not fully understood and warrant further investigation. This manuscript examines meningitis trends in the context of survival analysis, quantifying underlying seasonal patterns in meningitis rates through the hazard rate for the population of Navrongo, Ghana. We compare three candidate models: the commonly used Poisson generalized linear model, the Bayesian multi-resolution hazard model, and the Poisson generalized additive model. We compare the accuracy and robustness of the models through the bias, RMSE, and the standard deviation. We provide a detailed case study of meningitis patterns for data collected in Navrongo, Ghana.
Count-valued time series data are routinely collected in many application areas. We are particularly motivated to study the count time series of daily new cases, arising from COVID-19 spread. We propose two Bayesian models, a time-varying semiparametric AR(p) model for count and then a time-varying INGARCH model considering the rapid changes in the spread. We calculate posterior contraction rates of the proposed Bayesian methods with respect to average Hellinger metric. Our proposed structures of the models are amenable to Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling for efficient computation. We substantiate our methods by simulations that show superiority compared to some of the close existing methods. Finally we analyze the daily time series data of newly confirmed cases to study its spread through different government interventions.
Robins 1997 introduced marginal structural models (MSMs), a general class of counterfactual models for the joint effects of time-varying treatment regimes in complex longitudinal studies subject to time-varying confounding. In his work, identification of MSM parameters is established under a sequential randomization assumption (SRA), which rules out unmeasured confounding of treatment assignment over time. We consider sufficient conditions for identification of the parameters of a subclass, Marginal Structural Mean Models (MSMMs), when sequential randomization fails to hold due to unmeasured confounding, using instead a time-varying instrumental variable. Our identification conditions require that no unobserved confounder predicts compliance type for the time-varying treatment. We describe a simple weighted estimator and examine its finite-sample properties in a simulation study. We apply the proposed estimator to examine the effect of delivery hospital on neonatal survival probability.
Many existing mortality models follow the framework of classical factor models, such as the Lee-Carter model and its variants. Latent common factors in factor models are defined as time-related mortality indices (such as $kappa_t$ in the Lee-Carter model). Factor loadings, which capture the linear relationship between age variables and latent common factors (such as $beta_x$ in the Lee-Carter model), are assumed to be time-invariant in the classical framework. This assumption is usually too restrictive in reality as mortality datasets typically span a long period of time. Driving forces such as medical improvement of certain diseases, environmental changes and technological progress may significantly influence the relationship of different variables. In this paper, we first develop a factor model with time-varying factor loadings (time-varying factor model) as an extension of the classical factor model for mortality modelling. Two forecasting methods to extrapolate the factor loadings, the local regression method and the naive method, are proposed for the time-varying factor model. From the empirical data analysis, we find that the new model can capture the empirical feature of time-varying factor loadings and improve mortality forecasting over different horizons and countries. Further, we propose a novel approach based on change point analysis to estimate the optimal `boundary between short-term and long-term forecasting, which is favoured by the local linear regression and naive method, respectively. Additionally, simulation studies are provided to show the performance of the time-varying factor model under various scenarios.
Functional variables are often used as predictors in regression problems. A commonly-used parametric approach, called {it scalar-on-function regression}, uses the $ltwo$ inner product to map functional predictors into scalar responses. This method can perform poorly when predictor functions contain undesired phase variability, causing phases to have disproportionately large influence on the response variable. One past solution has been to perform phase-amplitude separation (as a pre-processing step) and then use only the amplitudes in the regression model. Here we propose a more integrated approach, termed elastic functional regression model (EFRM), where phase-separation is performed inside the regression model, rather than as a pre-processing step. This approach generalizes the notion of phase in functional data, and is based on the norm-preserving time warping of predictors. Due to its invariance properties, this representation provides robustness to predictor phase variability and results in improved predictions of the response variable over traditional models. We demonstrate this framework using a number of datasets involving gait signals, NMR data, and stock market prices.
This paper explores the identification and estimation of nonseparable panel data models. We show that the structural function is nonparametrically identified when it is strictly increasing in a scalar unobservable variable, the conditional distributions of unobservable variables do not change over time, and the joint support of explanatory variables satisfies some weak assumptions. To identify the target parameters, existing studies assume that the structural function does not change over time, and that there are stayers, namely individuals with the same regressor values in two time periods. Our approach, by contrast, allows the structural function to depend on the time period in an arbitrary manner and does not require the existence of stayers. In estimation part of the paper, we consider parametric models and develop an estimator that implements our identification results. We then show the consistency and asymptotic normality of our estimator. Monte Carlo studies indicate that our estimator performs well in finite samples. Finally, we extend our identification results to models with discrete outcomes, and show that the structural function is partially identified.