Zero inflation is a common nuisance while monitoring disease progression over time. This article proposes a new observation driven model for zero inflated and over-dispersed count time series. The counts given the past history of the process and available information on covariates is assumed to be distributed as a mixture of a Poisson distribution and a distribution degenerate at zero, with a time dependent mixing probability, $π_t$. Since, count data usually suffers from overdispersion, a Gamma distribution is used to model the excess variation, resulting in a zero inflated Negative Binomial (NB) regression model with mean parameter $λ_t$. Linear predictors with auto regressive and moving average (ARMA) type terms, covariates, seasonality and trend are fitted to $λ_t$ and $π_t$ through canonical link generalized linear models. Estimation is done using maximum likelihood aided by iterative algorithms, such as Newton Raphson (NR) and Expectation and Maximization (EM). Theoretical results on the consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimators are given. The proposed model is illustrated using in-depth simulation studies and a dengue data set.
This paper describes a new method for generating stationary integer-valued time series from renewal processes. We prove that if the lifetime distribution of renewal processes is nonlattice and the probability generating function is rational, then the generated time series satisfy causal and invertible ARMA type stochastic difference equations. The result provides an easy method for generating integer-valued time series with ARMA type autocovariance functions. Examples of generating binomial ARMA(p,p-1) series from lifetime distributions with constant hazard rates after lag p are given as an il…
We consider modeling and prediction of Capelin distribution in the Barents sea based on zero-inflated count observation data that vary continuously over a specified survey region. The model is a mixture of two components; a one-point distribution at the origin and a Poisson distribution with spatio-temporal intensity, where both intensity and mixing proportions are modeled by some auxiliary variables and unobserved spatio-temporal effects. The spatio-temporal effects are modeled by a dynamic linear model combined with the predictive Gaussian process. We develop an efficient posterior computati…
In this study, the wind data series from five locations in Aegean Sea islands, the most active `hotspots' in terms of refugee influx during the Oct/2015 - Jan/2016 period, are investigated. The analysis of the three-per-site data series includes standard statistical analysis and parametric distributions, auto-correlation analysis, cross-correlation analysis between the sites, as well as various ARMA models for estimating the feasibility and accuracy of such spatio-temporal linear regressors for predictive analytics. Strong correlations are detected across specific sites and appropriately train…
Spearman's rho for zero-inflated count data: formulation and attainable bounds
Eindhoven University of Technology（埃因霍温理工大学）；University of Windsor（温莎大学）；University of Quebec in Trois-Rivères（特鲁瓦河魁北克大学）；Université Libre de Bruxelles（布鲁塞尔自由大学）
In this paper, we extend the work of Pimentel et al. (2015) and propose an adjusted estimator of Kendall's $τ$ for bivariate zero-inflated count data. We provide achievable lower and upper bounds of our proposed estimator and show its relationship with current literature. In addition, we also suggest an estimator of the achievable bounds, thereby helping practitioners interpret the results while working with real data. The performance of the proposed estimator for Kendall's $τ$ is unbiased with smaller mean squared errors compared to the unadjusted estimator of Pimentel et al. (2015). Our resu…
Spatio-temporal counts of infectious disease cases often contain an excess of zeros. With existing zero inflated count models applied to such data it is difficult to quantify space-time heterogeneity in the effects of disease spread between areas. Also, existing methods do not allow for separate dynamics to affect the reemergence and persistence of the disease. As an alternative, we develop a new zero-state coupled Markov switching negative binomial model, under which the disease switches between periods of presence and absence in each area through a series of partially hidden nonhomogeneous M…
In this paper, we focus on the COM-type negative binomial distribution with three parameters, which belongs to COM-type $(a,b,0)$ class distributions and family of equilibrium distributions of arbitrary birth-death process. Besides, we show abundant distributional properties such as overdispersion and underdispersion, log-concavity, log-convexity (infinite divisibility), pseudo compound Poisson, stochastic ordering and asymptotic approximation. Some characterizations including sum of equicorrelated geometrically distributed random variables, conditional distribution, limit distribution of COM-…
Mediation analyses play important roles in making causal inference in biomedical research to examine causal pathways that may be mediated by one or more intermediate variables (i.e., mediators). Although mediation frameworks have been well established such as counterfactual-outcomes (i.e., potential-outcomes) models and traditional linear mediation models, little effort has been devoted to dealing with mediators with zero-inflated structures due to challenges associated with excessive zeros. We develop a novel mediation modeling approach to address zero-inflated mediators containing true zeros…
Finite mixture representations of zero-and-$N$-inflated distributions for count-compositional data
Hamilton Institute and Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Maynooth University（梅努斯大学数学与统计系汉密尔顿研究所）；School of Mathematics and Statistics, Insight Centre for Data Analytics, University College Dublin（都柏林大学学院数据洞察中心数学与统计学院）
The problem of estimating the ratio of the means of a two-component Poisson mixture model is considered, when each component is subject to zero-inflation, i.e., excess zero counts. The. resulting {\it zero-inflated Poisson mixture (ZIPM) model} can be treated as a three-component Poisson mixture model with one degenerate component. The EM algorithm is applied to obtain frequentist estimators and their standard errors, the latter determined via an explicit expression for the observed information matrix. Bayes and empirical Bayes estimators also are obtained by means of conjugate priors and thei…
We introduce a general approach for modeling the dynamic of multivariate time series when the data are of mixed type (binary/count/continuous). Our method is quite flexible and conditionally on past values, each coordinate at time $t$ can have a distribution compatible with a standard univariate time series model such as GARCH, ARMA, INGARCH or logistic models whereas past values of the other coordinates play the role of exogenous covariates in the dynamic. The simultaneous dependence in the multivariate time series can be modeled with a copula. Additional exogenous covariates are also allowed…
We propose a novel class of count time series models alternative to the classic Galton-Watson process with immigration (GWI) and Bernoulli offspring. A new offspring mechanism is developed and its properties are explored. This novel mechanism, called geometric thinning operator, is used to define a class of modified GWI (MGWI) processes, which induces a certain non-linearity to the models. We show that this non-linearity can produce better results in terms of prediction when compared to the linear case commonly considered in the literature. We explore both stationary and non-stationary version…
An expectation-based scan statistic is proposed for the prospective monitoring of spatio-temporal count data with an excess of zeros. The method, which is based on an outbreak model for the zero-inflated Poisson distribution, is shown to be superior to traditional scan statistics based on the Poisson distribution in the presence of structural zeros. The spatial accuracy and detection timeliness of the proposed scan statistic is investigated by means of simulation, and an application on weekly cases of Campylobacteriosis in Germany illustrates how the scan statistic could be used to detect emer…
The Poisson distribution is often used as a standard model for count data. Quite often, however, such data sets are not well fit by a Poisson model because they have more zeros than are compatible with this model. For these situations, a zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) distribution is often proposed. This article addresses testing a Poisson versus a ZIP model, using Bayesian methodology based on suitable objective priors. Specific choices of objective priors are justified and their properties investigated. The methodology is extended to include covariates in regression models. Several applications…
Power series distributions form a useful subclass of one-parameter discrete exponential families suitable for modeling count data. A zero-inflated power series distribution is a mixture of a power series distribution and a degenerate distribution at zero, with a mixing probability $p$ for the degenerate distribution. This distribution is useful for modeling count data that may have extra zeros. One question is whether the mixture model can be reduced to the power series portion, corresponding to $p=0$, or whether there are so many zeros in the data that zero inflation relative to the pure powe…
I examine the consequences of modelling contagious influence in a social network with incomplete edge information, namely in the situation where each individual may name a limited number of friends, so that extra outbound ties are censored. In particular, I consider a prototypical time series configuration where a property of the "ego" is affected in a causal fashion by the properties of their "alters" at a previous time point, both in the total number of alters as well as the deviation from a central value. This is considered with three potential methods for naming one's friends: a strict upp…
