Processus ponctuel

En probabilité et statistique, un processus ponctuel est un type particulier de processus stochastique pour lequel une réalisation est un ensemble de points isolés du temps et/ou de l'espace. Par exemple, la position des arbres dans une forêt peut être modélisée comme la réalisation d'un processus ponctuel. Les processus ponctuels sont des objets très étudiés en probabilité et en statistique pour représenter et analyser des données spatialisées qui interviennent dans une multitude de domaines telle que l'écologie, l'astronomie, l'épidémiologie, la géographie, la sismologie, les télécommunications, la science des matériaux et beaucoup d'autres. Le cas particulier des processus ponctuels sur la droite réelle est très étudié, la connaissance de la distance entre deux points consécutifs caractérisant le processus. Ce type de processus ponctuel est très utilisé pour modéliser des événements aléatoires dans le temps, tels que l'arrivée d'un client (), l'impulsion d'un neurone... Théo

A Quasi-Likelihood Approach to Zero-Inflated Spatial Count Data

Anthea Monod

The increased accessibility of data that are geographically referenced and correlated increases the demand for techniques of spatial data analysis. The subset of such data comprised of discrete counts exhibit particular difficulties and the challenges further increase when a large proportion (typically 50% or more) of the counts are zero-valued. Such scenarios arise in many applications in numerous fields of research and it is often desirable to infer on subtleties of the process, despite the lack of substantive information obscuring the underlying stochastic mechanism generating the data. An ecological example provides the impetus for the research in this thesis: when observations for a species are recorded over a spatial region, and many of the counts are zero-valued, are the abundant zeros due to bad luck, or are aspects of the region making it unsuitable for the survival of the species? In the framework of generalized linear models, we first develop a zero-inflated Poisson generalized linear regression model, which explains the variability of the responses given a set of measured covariates, and additionally allows for the distinction of two kinds of zeros: sampling ("bad luck" zeros), and structural (zeros that provide insight into the data-generating process). We then adapt this model to the spatial setting by incorporating dependence within the model via a general, leniently-defined quasi-likelihood strategy, which provides consistent, efficient and asymptotically normal estimators, even under erroneous assumptions of the covariance structure. In addition to this advantage of robustness to dependence misspecification, our quasi-likelihood model overcomes the need for the complete specification of a probability model, thus rendering it very general and relevant to many settings. To complement the developed regression model, we further propose methods for the simulation of zero-inflated spatial stochastic processes. This is done by deconstructing the entire process into a mixed, marked spatial point process: we augment existing algorithms for the simulation of spatial marked point processes to comprise a stochastic mechanism to generate zero-abundant marks (counts) at each location. We propose several such mechanisms, and consider interaction and dependence processes for random locations as well as over a lattice.

EPFL2012

Uncertainty quantification in unfolding elementary particle spectra at the Large Hadron Collider

Mikael Johan Kuusela

This thesis studies statistical inference in the high energy physics unfolding problem, which is an ill-posed inverse problem arising in data analysis at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Any measurement made at the LHC is smeared by the finite resolution of the particle detectors and the goal in unfolding is to use these smeared measurements to make nonparametric inferences about the underlying particle spectrum. Mathematically the problem consists in inferring the intensity function of an indirectly observed Poisson point process. Rigorous uncertainty quantification of the unfolded spectrum is of central importance to particle physicists. The problem is typically solved by first forming a regularized point estimator in the unfolded space and then using the variability of this estimator to form frequentist confidence intervals. Such confidence intervals, however, underestimate the uncertainty, since they neglect the bias that is used to regularize the problem. We demonstrate that, as a result, conventional statistical techniques as well as the methods that are presently used at the LHC yield confidence intervals which may suffer from severe undercoverage in realistic unfolding scenarios. We propose two complementary ways of addressing this issue. The first approach applies to situations where the unfolded spectrum is expected to be a smooth function and consists in using an iterative bias-correction technique for debiasing the unfolded point estimator obtained using a roughness penalty. We demonstrate that basing the uncertainties on the variability of the bias-corrected point estimator provides significantly improved coverage with only a modest increase in the length of the confidence intervals, even when the amount of bias-correction is chosen in a data-driven way. We compare the iterative bias-correction to an alternative debiasing technique based on undersmoothing and find that, in several situations, bias-correction provides shorter confidence intervals than undersmoothing. The new methodology is applied to unfolding the Z boson invariant mass spectrum measured in the CMS experiment at the LHC. The second approach exploits the fact that a significant portion of LHC particle spectra are known to have a steeply falling shape. A physically justified way of regularizing such spectra is to impose shape constraints in the form of positivity, monotonicity and convexity. Moreover, when the shape constraints are applied to an unfolded confidence set, one can regularize the length of the confidence intervals without sacrificing coverage. More specifically, we form shape-constrained confidence intervals by considering all those spectra that satisfy the shape constraints and fit the smeared data within a given confidence level. This enables us to derive regularized unfolded uncertainties which have by construction guaranteed simultaneous finite-sample coverage, provided that the true spectrum satisfies the shape constraints. The uncertainties are conservative, but still usefully tight. The method is demonstrated using simulations designed to mimic unfolding the inclusive jet transverse momentum spectrum at the LHC.

EPFL2016

A Quasi-Likelihood Approach to Zero-Inflated Spatial Count Data

Anthea Monod

EPFL2012

Uncertainty quantification in unfolding elementary particle spectra at the Large Hadron Collider

Mikael Johan Kuusela

EPFL2016

Multi-Site Modelling of Rainfall based on a point process

A Quasi-Likelihood Approach to Zero-Inflated Spatial Count Data

Uncertainty quantification in unfolding elementary particle spectra at the Large Hadron Collider

A Quasi-Likelihood Approach to Zero-Inflated Spatial Count Data

Multi-Site Modelling of Rainfall based on a point process

Uncertainty quantification in unfolding elementary particle spectra at the Large Hadron Collider