On solving integral equations using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods

In this paper, we propose an original approach to the solution of Fredholm equations of the second kind. We interpret the standard Von Neumann expansion of the solution as an expectation with respect to a probability distribution defined on a union of subspaces of variable dimension. Based on this representation, it is possible to use trans-dimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods such as Reversible Jump MCMC to approximate the solution numerically. This can be an attractive alternative to standard Sequential Importance Sampling (SIS) methods routinely used in this context. To motivate our approach, we sketch an application to value function estimation for a Markov decision process. Two computational examples are also provided.     

基于MCMC模拟方法的带变点的NHPP软件可靠性模型

本文主要讨论软件测试过程中NHPP模型参数发生变化的情形,并用Bayes方法对GGO模型进行变点分析,运用基于Gibbs抽样的MCMC方法模拟出参数后验分布的马尔科夫链,最后借助于BUGS软件包对软件故障数据集Musa进行建模仿真,其结果表明该模型在软件可靠性变点分析中的直观性和有效性。     

Bayesian Filtering for Jump-Diffusions With Application to Stochastic Volatility

In this article, the problem of sequentially learning parameters governing discretely observed jump-diffusions is explored. The estimation framework involves the introduction of latent points between every pair of observations to allow a sufficiently accurate Euler–Maruyama approximation of the underlying (but unavailable) transition densities. Particle filtering algorithms are then implemented to sample the posterior distribution of the latent data and the model parameters online. The methodology is applied to the estimation of parameters governing a stochastic volatility (SV) model with jumps. As well as using S&P 500 Index data, a simulation study is provided. Supplemental materials for this article are available online.     

时间序列中方差的结构变点的小波识别(英文)

本文给出了时间序列中方差的小波系数的两种估计:连续估计和离散估计.这两种估计可以用来检测时间序列中方差的结构变点.利用这两种估计我们给出了方差变点的位置和跳跃幅度的估计,并且显示出这些估计可达到最佳收敛速度.同时,我们还给出了这些估计的收敛速度以及检验统计量的渐进分布!     

Bayesian Methods for Wavelet Series in Single-Index Models

Single-index models have found applications in econometrics and biometrics, where multidimensional regression models are often encountered. This article proposes a nonparametric estimation approach that combines wavelet methods for nonequispaced designs with Bayesian models. We consider a wavelet series expansion of the unknown regression function and set prior distributions for the wavelet coefficients and the other model parameters. To ensure model identifiability, the direction parameter is represented via its polar coordinates. We employ ad hoc hierarchical mixture priors that perform shrinkage on wavelet coefficients and use Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for a posteriori inference. We investigate an independence-type Metropolis-Hastings algorithm to produce samples for the direction parameter. Our method leads to simultaneous estimates of the link function and of the index parameters. We present results on both simulated and real data, where we look at comparisons with other methods.     

Joint Monitoring of Several Types of Shocks in Normal Dynamic Linear Models: A Bayesian Decision Theoretic Approach

In this article we consider the sequential monitoring process in normal dynamic linear models as a Bayesian sequential decision problem. We use this approach to build a general procedure that jointly analyzes the existence of outliers, level changes, variance changes, and the development of local correlations. In addition, we study the frequentist performance of this procedure and compare it with the monitoring algorithm proposed in an earlier article.     

Nonlinear Time Series Analysis Since 1990:Some Personal Reflections

Abstract I reflect upon the development of nonlinear time series analysis since 1990 by focusing on five majorareas of development. These areas include the interface between nonlinear time series analysis and chaos,thenonparametric/semiparametric approach,nonlinear state space modelling,financial time series and nonlinearmodelling of panels of time series.     

The Alive Particle Filter and Its Use in Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo

In the following article, we investigate a particle filter for approximating Feynman–Kac models with indicator potentials and we use this algorithm within Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to learn static parameters of the model. Examples of such models include approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) posteriors associated with hidden Markov models (HMMs) or rare-event problems. Such models require the use of advanced particle filter or MCMC algorithms to perform estimation. One of the drawbacks of existing particle filters is that they may “collapse,” in that the algorithm may terminate early, due to the indicator potentials. In this article, using a newly developed special case of the locally adaptive particle filter, we use an algorithm that can deal with this latter problem, while introducing a random cost per-time step. In particular, we show how this algorithm can be used within MCMC, using particle MCMC. It is established that, when not taking into account computational time, when the new MCMC algorithm is applied to a simplified model it has a lower asymptotic variance in comparison to a standard particle MCMC algorithm. Numerical examples are presented for ABC approximations of HMMs.     

Dynamic Markov Bases

This article presents a computational approach for generating Markov bases for multiway contingency tables whose cell counts might be constrained by fixed marginals and by lower and upper bounds. Our framework includes tables with structural zeros as a particular case. Instead of computing the entire Markov bases in an initial step, our framework finds sets of local moves that connect each table in the reference set with a set of neighbor tables. We construct a Markov chain on the reference set of tables that requires only a set of local moves at each iteration. The union of these sets of local moves forms a dynamic Markov basis. We illustrate the practicality of our algorithms in the estimation of exact p-values for a three-way table with structural zeros and a sparse eight-way table. This article has online supplementary materials.     

An Approximation Method for Improving Dynamic Network Model Fitting

There has been a great deal of interest recently in the modeling and simulation of dynamic networks, that is, networks that change over time. One promising model is the separable temporal exponential-family random graph model (ERGM) of Krivitsky and Handcock, which treats the formation and dissolution of ties in parallel at each time step as independent ERGMs. However, the computational cost of fitting these models can be substantial, particularly for large, sparse networks. Fitting cross-sectional models for observations of a network at a single point in time, while still a nonnegligible computational burden, is much easier. This article examines model fitting when the available data consist of independent measures of cross-sectional network structure and the duration of relationships under the assumption of stationarity. We introduce a simple approximation to the dynamic parameters for sparse networks with relationships of moderate or long duration and show that the approximation method works best in precisely those cases where parameter estimation is most likely to fail—networks with very little change at each time step. We consider a variety of cases: Bernoulli formation and dissolution of ties, independent-tie formation and Bernoulli dissolution, independent-tie formation and dissolution, and dependent-tie formation models.     

IV模型中变点序贯检验方法

本文研究了IV模型中变点序贯检验问题.提出了基于加权残差部分和(weighted-CUSUM)的检验统计量.证明了其在原假设和备择假设下的极限性质.该检验方法在特征量与跃度非正交性条件下,当δ=1/2具有非平凡势,而当0≤δ<1/2时,则是相合的.     

Estimating Mixture of Dirichlet Process Models

Abstract

Current Gibbs sampling schemes in mixture of Dirichlet process (MDP) models are restricted to using “conjugate” base measures that allow analytic evaluation of the transition probabilities when resampling configurations, or alternatively need to rely on approximate numeric evaluations of some transition probabilities. Implementation of Gibbs sampling in more general MDP models is an open and important problem because most applications call for the use of nonconjugate base measures. In this article we propose a conceptual framework for computational strategies. This framework provides a perspective on current methods, facilitates comparisons between them, and leads to several new methods that expand the scope of MDP models to nonconjugate situations. We discuss one in detail. The basic strategy is based on expanding the parameter vector, and is applicable for MDP models with arbitrary base measure and likelihood. Strategies are also presented for the important class of normal-normal MDP models and for problems with fixed or few hyperparameters. The proposed algorithms are easily implemented and illustrated with an application.     

Asymmetric response and interaction of U.S. and local news in financial markets

This paper examines the extent to which financial returns on market indices exhibit mean and volatility asymmetries, as a response to past information from both the U.S. market and the local market itself. In particular, we wish to assess the asymmetric effect of a combination of local and U.S. market news on volatility. To the best of the authors knowledge, this joint effect has not been considered previously. We propose a double threshold non‐linear heteroscedastic model, combined with a GJR‐GARCH effect in the conditional volatility equation, to capture jointly both mean and volatility asymmetric behaviours and the interactive effect of U.S. and local market news. In an application to five major international market indices, clear evidence of threshold non‐linearity is discovered, supporting the hypothesis of an uneven mean‐reverting pattern and volatility asymmetry, both in reaction to U.S. market news and news from the local market itself. Significant, but somewhat different, interactive effects between local and U.S. news are observed in all markets. An asymmetric pattern in the exogenous relationship between the local market and the U.S. market is also found. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Random Quasi-Monte-Carlo Within Particle Filters,With Application to Financial Time Series

This article presents a new particle filter algorithm which uses random quasi-Monte-Carlo to propagate particles. The filter can be used generally, but here it is shown that for one-dimensional state-space models, if the number of particles is N, then the rate of convergence of this algorithm is N^?1. This compares favorably with the N^?1/2 convergence rate of standard particle filters. The computational complexity of the new filter is quadratic in the number of particles, as opposed to the linear computational complexity of standard methods. I demonstrate the new filter on two important financial time series models, an ARCH model and a stochastic volatility model. Simulation studies show that for fixed CPU time, the new filter can be orders of magnitude more accurate than existing particle filters. The new filter is particularly efficient at estimating smooth functions of the states, where empirical rates of convergence are N^?3/2; and for performing smoothing, where both the new and existing filters have the same computational complexity.     

Dynamically Rescaled Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for Bayesian Hierarchical Models

Dynamically rescaled Hamiltonian Monte Carlo is introduced as a computationally fast and easily implemented method for performing full Bayesian analysis in hierarchical statistical models. The method relies on introducing a modified parameterization so that the reparameterized target distribution has close to constant scaling properties, and thus is easily sampled using standard (Euclidian metric) Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. Provided that the parameterizations of the conditional distributions specifying the hierarchical model are “constant information parameterizations” (CIPs), the relation between the modified- and original parameterization is bijective, explicitly computed, and admit exploitation of sparsity in the numerical linear algebra involved. CIPs for a large catalogue of statistical models are presented, and from the catalogue, it is clear that many CIPs are currently routinely used in statistical computing. A relation between the proposed methodology and a class of explicitly integrated Riemann manifold Hamiltonian Monte Carlo methods is discussed. The methodology is illustrated on several example models, including a model for inflation rates with multiple levels of nonlinearly dependent latent variables. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Bayesian modeling of financial returns: A relationship between volatility and trading volume

The modified mixture model with Markov switching volatility specification is introduced to analyze the relationship between stock return volatility and trading volume. We propose to construct an algorithm based on Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation methods to estimate all the parameters in the model using a Bayesian approach. The series of returns and trading volume of the British Petroleum stock will be analyzed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Practical Sequential Stopping Rule for High-Dimensional Markov Chain Monte Carlo

A current challenge for many Bayesian analyses is determining when to terminate high-dimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations. To this end, we propose using an automated sequential stopping procedure that terminates the simulation when the computational uncertainty is small relative to the posterior uncertainty. Further, we show this stopping rule is equivalent to stopping when the effective sample size is sufficiently large. Such a stopping rule has previously been shown to work well in settings with posteriors of moderate dimension. In this article, we illustrate its utility in high-dimensional simulations while overcoming some current computational issues. As examples, we consider two complex Bayesian analyses on spatially and temporally correlated datasets. The first involves a dynamic space-time model on weather station data and the second a spatial variable selection model on fMRI brain imaging data. Our results show the sequential stopping rule is easy to implement, provides uncertainty estimates, and performs well in high-dimensional settings. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Simulation Estimation of Quantiles From a Distribution With Known Mean

It is common in practice to estimate the quantiles of a complicated distribution by using the order statistics of a simulated sample. If the distribution of interest has known population mean, then it is often possible to improve the mean square error of the standard quantile estimator substantially through the simple device of mean-correction: subtract off the sample mean and add on the known population mean. Asymptotic results for the meancorrected quantile estimator are derived and compared to the standard sample quantile. Simulation results for a variety of distributions and processes illustrate the asymptotic theory. Application to Markov chain Monte Carlo and to simulation-based uncertainty analysis is described.     

Bayesian estimation of stochastic volatility models based on OU processes with marginal Gamma law

This paper discusses practical Bayesian estimation of stochastic volatility models based on OU processes with marginal Gamma laws. Estimation is based on a parameterization which is derived from the Rosiński representation, and has the advantage of being a non-centered parameterization. The parameterization is based on a marked point process, living on the positive real line, with uniformly distributed marks. We define a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) scheme which enables multiple updates of the latent point process, and generalizes single updating algorithm used earlier. At each MCMC draw more than one point is added or deleted from the latent point process. This is particularly useful for high intensity processes. Furthermore, the article deals with superposition models, where it discuss how the identifiability problem inherent in the superposition model may be avoided by the use of a Markov prior. Finally, applications to simulated data as well as exchange rate data are discussed.     

Dynamic rating of European football teams

^** Formerly Knorr-Held. Email: held{at}stat.uni-muenchen.de In this paper we apply and extend recently proposed methodsfor the dynamic analysis of pairwise comparison data to Europeanfootball teams. Our statistical model is based on the cumulativelogistic link model with time-changing parameters for the strengthof each team. We jointly analyse the results from the five topEuropean leagues from 1996 to 2001 and all international matchesbetween teams from these leagues. We introduce weights for internationalmatches and also allow for a different size of the home teamadvantage in the different leagues. We suggest that the resultsfrom such an analysis may be taken as an alternative to theUEFA coefficient, which is currently used to determine the numberof teams from each league to take part in the European footballcontests.