Modelling columnarity of pyramidal cells in the human cerebral cortex

For modelling the location of pyramidal cells in the human cerebral cortex, we suggest a hierarchical point process in that exhibits anisotropy in the form of cylinders extending along the z-axis. The model consists first of a generalised shot noise Cox process for the xy-coordinates, providing cylindrical clusters, and next of a Markov random field model for the z-coordinates conditioned on the xy-coordinates, providing either repulsion, aggregation or both within specified areas of interaction. Several cases of these hierarchical point processes are fitted to two pyramidal cell data sets, and of these a final model allowing for both repulsion and attraction between the points seem adequate. We discuss how the final model relates to the so-called minicolumn hypothesis in neuroscience.     

State estimation for aoristic models

Aoristic data can be described by a marked point process in time in which the points cannot be observed directly but are known to lie in observable intervals, the marks. We consider Bayesian state estimation for the latent points when the marks are modeled in terms of an alternating renewal process in equilibrium and the prior is a Markov point process. We derive the posterior distribution, estimate its parameters and present some examples that illustrate the influence of the prior distribution. The model is then used to estimate times of occurrence of interval censored crimes.     

Interacting neighbour point processes: Some models for clustering

We introduce a class of spatial point processesinteracting neighbour point (INP) processes, where the density of the process can be written by means of local interactions between a point and subsets of its neighbourhood but where the processes may not be Ripley-Kelly Markov processes with respect to this neighbourhood. We show that the processes are iterated Markov processes defined by Hayat and Gubner (1996). Furthermore, we pay special attention to a subclass of interacting neighbour processes, where the density belongs to the exponential family and all neighbours of a point affect it simultaneously. A simulation study is presented to show that some simple processes of this subclass can produce clustered patterns of great variety. Finally, an empirical example is given.     

A Fixed Point Approach to the Classification of Markov Chains with a Tree Structure

In this paper, we study the classification problem of discrete time and continuous time Markov processes with a tree structure. We first show some useful properties associated with the fixed points of a nondecreasing mapping. Mainly we find the conditions for a fixed point to be the minimal fixed point by using fixed point theory and degree theory. We then use these results to identify conditions for Markov chains of M/G/1 type or GI/M/1 type with a tree structure to be positive recurrent, null recurrent, or transient. The results are generalized to Markov chains of matrix M/G/1 type with a tree structure. For all these cases, a relationship between a certain fixed point, the matrix of partial differentiation (Jacobian) associated with the fixed point, and the classification of the Markov chain with a tree structure is established. More specifically, we show that the Perron-Frobenius eigenvalue of the matrix of partial differentiation associated with a certain fixed point provides information for a complete classification of the Markov chains of interest.     

Long-Range Dependence of Markov Renewal Processes

This paper examines long‐range dependence (LRD) and asymptotic properties of Markov renewal processes generalizing results of Daley for renewal processes. The Hurst index and discrepancy function, which is the difference between the expected number of arrivals in (0, t] given a point at 0 and the number of arrivals in (0, t] in the time stationary version, are examined in terms of the moment index. The moment index is the supremum of the set of r > 0 such that the rth moment of the first return time to a state is finite, employing the solidarity results of Sgibnev. The results are derived for irreducible, regular Markov renewal processes on countable state spaces. The paper also derives conditions to determine the moment index of the first return times in terms of the Markov renewal kernel distribution functions of the process.     

On directional Metropolis–Hastings algorithms

New Metropolis–Hastings algorithms using directional updates are introduced in this paper. Each iteration of a directional Metropolis–Hastings algorithm consists of three steps (i) generate a line by sampling an auxiliary variable, (ii) propose a new state along the line, and (iii) accept/reject according to the Metropolis–Hastings acceptance probability. We consider two classes of directional updates. The first uses a point in ⁿ as auxiliary variable, the second an auxiliary direction vector. The proposed algorithms generalize previous directional updating schemes since we allow the distribution of the auxiliary variable to depend on properties of the target at the current state. By letting the proposal distribution along the line depend on the density of the auxiliary variable, we identify proposal mechanisms that give unit acceptance rate. When we use direction vector as auxiliary variable, we get the advantageous effect of large moves in the Markov chain and hence the autocorrelation length of the samples is small. We apply the directional Metropolis–Hastings algorithms to a Gaussian example, a mixture of Gaussian densities, and a Bayesian model for seismic data.     

Estimation with right‐censored observations under a semi‐Markov model

The semi‐Markov process often provides a better framework than the classical Markov process for the analysis of events with multiple states. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we show that in the presence of right censoring, when the right end‐point of the support of the censoring time is strictly less than the right end‐point of the support of the semi‐Markov kernel, the transition probability of the semi‐Markov process is nonidentifiable, and the estimators proposed in the literature are inconsistent in general. We derive the set of all attainable values for the transition probability based on the censored data, and we propose a nonparametric inference procedure for the transition probability using this set. Second, the conventional approach to constructing confidence bands is not applicable for the semi‐Markov kernel and the sojourn time distribution. We propose new perturbation resampling methods to construct these confidence bands. Different weights and transformations are explored in the construction. We use simulation to examine our proposals and illustrate them with hospitalization data from a recent cancer survivor study. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 41: 237–256; 2013 © 2013 Statistical Society of Canada     

Perfect Simulation for Length-interacting Polygonal Markov Fields in the Plane

Abstract.  The purpose of this paper was to construct perfect samplers for length-interacting Arak–Clifford–Surgailis polygonal Markov fields in the plane with nodes of order 2 ( V -shaped nodes). This is achieved by providing for the polygonal fields a hard core marked point process representation with individual points carrying polygonal loops as their marks, so that the coupling from the past and clan of ancestors routines can be adopted.     

Estimation of the intensity function of an inhomogeneous Poisson process with a change‐point

Recent work on point processes includes studying posterior convergence rates of estimating a continuous intensity function. In this article, convergence rates for estimating the intensity function and change‐point are derived for the more general case of a piecewise continuous intensity function. We study the problem of estimating the intensity function of an inhomogeneous Poisson process with a change‐point using non‐parametric Bayesian methods. An Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm is proposed to obtain estimates of the intensity function and the change‐point which is illustrated using simulation studies and applications. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 47: 604–618; 2019 © 2019 Statistical Society of Canada     

Modern trends in multivariate time-series analysis 2

The paper deals with statistical tests of hypotheses about the real parameter of a homogeneous time-discrete Markov process. The power function of an asymptotically uniformly most powerful unbiased sequence of tests is approximately calculated and the convergence order of the remainder term is given. The essential assumption used is the uniform ergodicity of the Markov process.     

A Poisson Limit Theorem for Reliability Models Based on Markov Chains

Abstract

In this article, we deal with a class of discrete-time reliability models. The failures are assumed to be generated by an underlying time inhomogeneous Markov chain. The multivariate point process of failures is proved to converge to a Poisson-type process when the failures are rare. As a result, we obtain a Compound Poisson approximation of the cumulative number of failures. A rate of convergence is provided.     

Generalized order statistic processes and Pfeifer records

We introduce a uniform generalized order statistic process. It is a simple Markov process whose initial segment can be identified with a set of uniform generalized order statistics. A standard marginal transformation leads to a generalized order statistic process related to non-uniform generalized order statistics. It is then demonstrated that the nth variable in such a process has the same distribution as an nth Pfeifer record value. This process representation of Pfeifer records facilitates discussion of the possible limit laws for Pfeifer records and, in some cases, of sums thereof. Because of the close relationship between Pfeifer records and generalized order statistics, the results shed some light on the problem of determining the nature of the possible limiting distributions of the largest generalized order statistic.     

Bayesian inference for pairwise interacting point processes

Pairwise interacting point processes are commonly used to model spatial point patterns. To perform inference, the established frequentist methods can produce good point estimates when the interaction in the data is moderate, but some methods may produce severely biased estimates when the interaction in strong. Furthermore, because the sampling distributions of the estimates are unclear, interval estimates are typically obtained by parametric bootstrap methods. In the current setting however, the behavior of such estimates is not well understood. In this article we propose Bayesian methods for obtaining inferences in pairwise interacting point processes. The requisite application of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques is complicated by an intractable function of the parameters in the likelihood. The acceptance probability in a Metropolis-Hastings algorithm involves the ratio of two likelihoods evaluated at differing parameter values. The intractable functions do not cancel, and hence an intractable ratio r must be estimated within each iteration of a Metropolis-Hastings sampler. We propose the use of importance sampling techniques within MCMC to address this problem. While r may be estimated by other methods, these, in general, are not readily applied in a Bayesian setting. We demonstrate the validity of our importance sampling approach with a small simulation study. Finally, we analyze the Swedish pine sapling dataset (Strand 1972) and contrast the results with those in the literature.     

Statistical Inference for Transformation Inhomogeneous Point Processes

Abstract.  Statistical inference for exponential inhomogeneous Markov point processes by transformation is discussed. It is argued that the inhomogeneity parameter can be estimated, using a partial likelihood based on an inhomogeneous Poisson point process. The inhomogeneity parameter can thereby be estimated without taking the interaction into account, which simplifies the statistical analysis considerably. Data analysis and simulation experiments support the results.     

Piecewise deterministic Markov processes applied to fatigue crack growth modelling

In this paper, we use a particular piecewise deterministic Markov process (PDMP) to model the evolution of a degradation mechanism that may arise in various structural components, namely, the fatigue crack growth. We first derive some probability results on the stochastic dynamics with the help of Markov renewal theory: a closed-form solution for the transition function of the PDMP is given. Then, we investigate some methods to estimate the parameters of the dynamical system, involving Bogolyubov's averaging principle and maximum likelihood estimation for the infinitesimal generator of the underlying jump Markov process. Numerical applications on a real crack data set are given.     

Adaptive estimating function inference for nonstationary determinantal point processes

Estimating function inference is indispensable for many common point process models where the joint intensities are tractable while the likelihood function is not. In this article, we establish asymptotic normality of estimating function estimators in a very general setting of nonstationary point processes. We then adapt this result to the case of nonstationary determinantal point processes, which are an important class of models for repulsive point patterns. In practice, often first‐ and second‐order estimating functions are used. For the latter, it is a common practice to omit contributions for pairs of points separated by a distance larger than some truncation distance, which is usually specified in an ad hoc manner. We suggest instead a data‐driven approach where the truncation distance is adapted automatically to the point process being fitted and where the approach integrates seamlessly with our asymptotic framework. The good performance of the adaptive approach is illustrated via simulation studies for non‐stationary determinantal point processes and by an application to a real dataset.     

Additive nonparametric regression with autocorrelated errors

A Bayesian approach is presented for nonparametric estimation of an additive regression model with autocorrelated errors. Each of the potentially non-linear components is modelled as a regression spline using many knots, while the errors are modelled by a high order stationary autoregressive process parameterized in terms of its autocorrelations. The distribution of significant knots and partial autocorrelations is accounted for using subset selection. Our approach also allows the selection of a suitable transformation of the dependent variable. All aspects of the model are estimated simultaneously by using the Markov chain Monte Carlo method. It is shown empirically that the approach proposed works well on several simulated and real examples.     

Likelihood Inference for Unions of Interacting Discs

Abstract. This is probably the first paper which discusses likelihood inference for a random set using a germ‐grain model, where the individual grains are unobservable, edge effects occur and other complications appear. We consider the case where the grains form a disc process modelled by a marked point process, where the germs are the centres and the marks are the associated radii of the discs. We propose to use a recent parametric class of interacting disc process models, where the minimal sufficient statistic depends on various geometric properties of the random set, and the density is specified with respect to a given marked Poisson model (i.e. a Boolean model). We show how edge effects and other complications can be handled by considering a certain conditional likelihood. Our methodology is illustrated by analysing Peter Diggle's heather data set, where we discuss the results of simulation‐based maximum likelihood inference and the effect of specifying different reference Poisson models.     

Mixing and moments properties of a non-stationary copula-based Markov process

Abstract

We provide conditions under which a non-stationary copula-based Markov process is geometric β-mixing and geometric ρ-mixing. Our results generalize some results of Beare who considers the stationary case. As a particular case we introduce a stochastic process, that we call convolution-based Markov process, whose construction is obtained by using the C-convolution operator which allows the increments to be dependent. Within this subclass of processes we characterize a modified version of the standard random walk where copulas and marginal distributions involved are in the same elliptical family. We study mixing and moments properties to identify the differences compared to the standard case.     

A semi‐Markov model for binary longitudinal responses subject to misclassification

The authors propose a two‐state continuous‐time semi‐Markov model for an unobservable alternating binary process. Another process is observed at discrete time points that may misclassify the true state of the process of interest. To estimate the model's parameters, the authors propose a minimum Pearson chi‐square type estimating approach based on approximated joint probabilities when the true process is in equilibrium. Three consecutive observations are required to have sufficient degrees of freedom to perform estimation. The methodology is demonstrated on parasitic infection data with exponential and gamma sojourn time distributions.