Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A

(thanks @dracek.bsky.social for the tutorial and congrats on your paper!)

Bonus 🎁🎁🎁:
Model estimation can be carried out with the R package mgcv. We also provide a tutorial on how researchers can apply our method for their own work

We demonstrate how conflict is triggered across cells, varying distances and time lags. We find that diffusion is driven by population structures. Conflict generally breaks out in densely populated areas and from there diffuses across the region and disproportionately affecting less populated areas

We develop a GAM model that smooths across the spatio-temporal history of
each observation, to capture these diffusion mechanisms. Using gridded conflict data from
UCDP in Africa, we analyze diffusion up to 550km in distance and 24 months in the past.

Armed conflict exhibits substantial diffusion, i.e., spreading, across space and time. However,
existing statistical models do not analyze nor fully capture these complex transmission
mechanisms.

Capturing the spatio-temporal diffusion effects of armed conflict: A nonparametric smoothing approach Abstract. Facilitated by advancements in conflict event databases, studies have moved towards predicting armed conflict and understanding its determinants

🆕 Capturing the Spatio-Temporal Diffusion Effects of Armed Conflict: A Non-parametric Smoothing Approach

💡@dracek.bsky.social‬ Thurner and Kauermann develop a statistical model to capture the spatio-temporal
diffusion effects of armed conflict (@lmumuenchen.bsky.social‬)

doi.org/10.1093/jrss...

The findings do not support a momentum effect and, moreover, show that the observed momentum in the data can be explained by differences in players’ strength. Hence, the empirical evidence suggests that past successes per se do not affect the probability of a current success.

The momentum effect is empirically investigated with data from games of single round-robin chess tournaments. The effect is identified by exploiting that players were randomly assigned a number before the tournament which determined for each round their opponent and pieces colour

A theoretical prediction for performance is that a player’s performance in a round can be affected by outcomes in previous rounds relative to those of the tournament leader. This momentum effect relates to the belief past successes increases the probability of a current success

The effect of past successes on the probability of a current success: evidence from a natural experiment Abstract. A theoretical prediction for performance in a tournament is that a player’s performance in a round can be affected by their results in previous r

🆕The effect of past successes on the probability of a current success: evidence from a natural experiment

♟️Adriaan Kalwij investigates the momentum effects to assess chess tournament performance

doi.org/10.1093/jrss...

Results suggest differences in the effects of various vocal interventions, and that average pitch of a speaker’s voice does not necessarily have the largest effect on listeners, highlighting the need for further study of the channels through which speech influences listeners

As a solution, the authors propose a causal framework design that addresses these threats and clarifies the assumptions on which they rest. Throughout, the authors demonstrate their proposed methods in the context of political campaign speech.

Numerous disciplines hypothesize about the causal effects of speech, which influences others not only through which words are spoken, but also how they are spoken. Yet applied research focuses almost exclusively on the textual component of speech—ignoring audiovisual components

A framework for studying causal effects of speech style: application to US presidential campaigns Abstract. Numerous disciplines hypothesize about the causal effects of speech, which influences others not only through which words are spoken, but also ho

🆕A framework for studying causal effects of speech style: application to US presidential campaigns

💡Damann, Knox & Lucas develop a formal causal framework to overcome limitations of text-only analyses

doi.org/10.1093/jrss...

GitHub - sho-kawano/ssd_paper_code: code for paper "Spatially Selected and Dependent Random Effects for Small Area Estimation with Application to Rent Burden" code for paper "Spatially Selected and Dependent Random Effects for Small Area Estimation with Application to Rent Burden" - sho-kawano/ssd_paper_code

Also, Code and Materials are provided ;)

github.com/sho-kawano/s...

Results show that the new model can produce far more accurate point and interval estimates, compared to standard approaches and approaches that use shrinkage or spatial priors alone. The model also had reduced uncertainty in the data analysis compared to the direct estimate.

Authors show how the proposed model can significantly improve predictive accuracy via an empirical simulation study based on data from the American Community Survey, and illustrate its properties via an application to estimate county-level median rent burden.

Area-level models for small area estimation typically rely on areal random effects to shrink design-based direct estimates towards a model-based predictor . Previous studies that include random effects for only a subset of small areas do not readily handle spatial dependence

🆕Spatially selected and dependent random effects for small area estimation with application to rent burden

💡Kawano Parker & Li we introduce a model that accounts for spatial dependence in random effects as well and effect selection latent processes

doi.org/10.1093/jrss...

The model is applied to age-specific immigration flows to Austria, disaggregated by sex and countries of origin. Comparative analysis demonstrates that the model outperforms commonly used benchmark frameworks in both in-sample imputation and out-of-sample predictive exercises.

The proposed model utilizes smooth latent factors to capture common age-specific patterns across subpopulations and facilitates additional information sharing through a hierarchical prior. It provides smoothed estimates of the latent age pattern in each subpopulation.

Analysing age-specific mortality, fertility, and migration patterns is a crucial task in demography with policy relevance. In practice, such analysis is challenging when studying a large number of subpopulations, due to small observations and increasing heterogeneity

Flexible Bayesian modelling of age-specific counts in many demographic subpopulations Abstract. Analysing age-specific mortality, fertility, and migration patterns is a crucial task in demography with significant policy relevance. In practic

🆕Flexible Bayesian modelling of age-specific counts in many demographic subpopulations

💡Zens proposes a Bayesian model for the joint analysis of age-specific counts in many, potentially small, demographic subpopulations

doi.org/10.1093/jrss...

GitHub - augustinewigle/methaneInventory Contribute to augustinewigle/methaneInventory development by creating an account on GitHub.

👏👏👏👏👏👏
Bonus: An R package (methaneInventory) is provided to facilitate the use of the methods. github.com/augustinewig...

Authors conduct a simulation study to investigate the statistical properties of the proposed methods. Finally, they apply the methods to aerial survey data of oil and gas facilities in British Columbia, Canada, to estimate the methane emissions in the province.

Authors contribute to provide estimators of the total methane emissions along with variance estimators which do not require simulation, as well as stratum-level total estimators. The resulting methods are interpretable and require minimal computational resources

Measurement-based methane inventories, which involve surveying oil & gas facilities and compiling data to estimate emissions, are becoming the gold standard for quantifying emissions. But there is a current lack of statistical guidance for the design and analysis of such surveys

🆕Estimating methane emissions from the upstream oil and gas industry using a multi-stage framework

💡Wigle and Béliveau provide a method for estimating methane inventories that are simple to interpret

t.co/wWXhJhmTGq

Results provide a detailed analysis of high-risk areas for recurrent crimes and the behaviour of recidivism rates over time in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This research significantly enhances our understanding of criminal trajectories, which might help in combating criminal recidivism.

The proposed new models are designed for recurrent events data characterized by an excess of zeros and spatial correlation. In addition to their parametric counterparts, we propose flexible semi-parametric versions approximating the intensity function using Bernstein Polynomials