No Arabic abstract
Historical Functional Linear Models (HFLM) quantify associations between a functional predictor and functional outcome where the predictor is an exposure variable that occurs before, or at least concurrently with, the outcome. Current work on the HFLM is largely limited to frequentist estimation techniques that employ spline-based basis representations. In this work, we propose a novel use of the discrete wavelet-packet transformation, which has not previously been used in functional models, to estimate historical relationships in a fully Bayesian model. Since inference has not been an emphasis of the existing work on HFLMs, we also employ two established Bayesian inference procedures in this historical functional setting. We investigate the operating characteristics of our wavelet-packet HFLM, as well as the two inference procedures, in simulation and use the model to analyze data on the impact of lagged exposure to particulate matter finer than 2.5$mu$g on heart rate variability in a cohort of journeyman boilermakers over the course of a days shift.
We study a scalar-on-function historical linear regression model which assumes that the functional predictor does not influence the response when the time passes a certain cutoff point. We approach this problem from the perspective of locally sparse modeling, where a function is locally sparse if it is zero on a substantial portion of its defining domain. In the historical linear model, the slope function is exactly a locally sparse function that is zero beyond the cutoff time. A locally sparse estimate then gives rise to an estimate of the cutoff time. We propose a nested group bridge penalty that is able to specifically shrink the tail of a function. Combined with the B-spline basis expansion and penalized least squares, the nested group bridge approach can identify the cutoff time and produce a smooth estimate of the slope function simultaneously. The proposed locally sparse estimator is shown to be consistent, while its numerical performance is illustrated by simulation studies. The proposed method is demonstrated with an application of determining the effect of the past engine acceleration on the current particulate matter emission.
The conventional historical functional linear model relates the current value of the functional response at time t to all past values of the functional covariate up to time t. Motivated by situations where it is more reasonable to assume that only recent, instead of all, past values of the functional covariate have an impact on the functional response, we investigate in this work the historical functional linear model with an unknown forward time lag into the history. Besides the common goal of estimating the bivariate regression coefficient function, we also aim to identify the historical time lag from the data, which is important in many applications. Tailored for this purpose, we propose an estimation procedure adopting the finite element method to conform naturally to the trapezoidal domain of the bivariate coefficient function. A nested group bridge penalty is developed to provide simultaneous estimation of the bivariate coefficient function and the historical lag. The method is demonstrated in a real data example investigating the effect of muscle activation recorded via the noninvasive electromyography (EMG) method on lip acceleration during speech production. The finite sample performance of our proposed method is examined via simulation studies in comparison with the conventional method.
Graphical models express conditional independence relationships among variables. Although methods for vector-valued data are well established, functional data graphical models remain underdeveloped. We introduce a notion of conditional independence between random functions, and construct a framework for Bayesian inference of undirected, decomposable graphs in the multivariate functional data context. This framework is based on extending Markov distributions and hyper Markov laws from random variables to random processes, providing a principled alternative to naive application of multivariate methods to discretized functional data. Markov properties facilitate the composition of likelihoods and priors according to the decomposition of a graph. Our focus is on Gaussian process graphical models using orthogonal basis expansions. We propose a hyper-inverse-Wishart-process prior for the covariance kernels of the infinite coefficient sequences of the basis expansion, establish existence, uniqueness, strong hyper Markov property, and conjugacy. Stochastic search Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms are developed for posterior inference, assessed through simulations, and applied to a study of brain activity and alcoholism.
Aggregation of large databases in a specific format is a frequently used process to make the data easily manageable. Interval-valued data is one of the data types that is generated by such an aggregation process. Using traditional methods to analyze interval-valued data results in loss of information, and thus, several interval-valued data models have been proposed to gather reliable information from such data types. On the other hand, recent technological developments have led to high dimensional and complex data in many application areas, which may not be analyzed by traditional techniques. Functional data analysis is one of the most commonly used techniques to analyze such complex datasets. While the functional extensions of much traditional statistical techniques are available, the functional form of the interval-valued data has not been studied well. This paper introduces the functional forms of some well-known regression models that take interval-valued data. The proposed methods are based on the function-on-function regression model, where both the response and predictor/s are functional. Through several Monte Carlo simulations and empirical data analysis, the finite sample performance of the proposed methods is evaluated and compared with the state-of-the-art.
The functional linear model is a popular tool to investigate the relationship between a scalar/functional response variable and a scalar/functional covariate. We generalize this model to a functional linear mixed-effects model when repeated measurements are available on multiple subjects. Each subject has an individual intercept and slope function, while shares common population intercept and slope function. This model is flexible in the sense of allowing the slope random effects to change with the time. We propose a penalized spline smoothing method to estimate the population and random slope functions. A REML-based EM algorithm is developed to estimate the variance parameters for the random effects and the data noise. Simulation studies show that our estimation method provides an accurate estimate for the functional linear mixed-effects model with the finite samples. The functional linear mixed-effects model is demonstrated by investigating the effect of the 24-hour nitrogen dioxide on the daily maximum ozone concentrations and also studying the effect of the daily temperature on the annual precipitation.