Related papers: Monotone Ecological Inference
Ecological communities are composed of species interactions that respond to environmental fluctuations. Despite increasing evidence of temporal variation in these interactions, most theoretical frameworks remain rooted in static…
We develop semiparametric methods for estimating subgroup-specific relative vaccine efficacy against multiple viral strains in a partially vaccinated population. Focusing on observational case-only studies, we address informative…
Organisms and ecological groups accumulate evidence to make decisions. Classic experiments and theoretical studies have explored this process when the correct choice is fixed during each trial. However, we live in a constantly changing…
The ecological principle of limiting similarity dictates that species similar in resource requirements will compete, with the superior eventually excluding the inferior competitor from the community. The observation that nonetheless…
Seasonal influenza presents an ongoing challenge to public health. The rapid evolution of the flu virus necessitates annual vaccination campaigns, but the decision to get vaccinated or not in a given year is largely voluntary, at least in…
The dynamics of a rain forest is extremely complex involving births, deaths and growth of trees with complex interactions between trees, animals, climate, and environment. We consider the patterns of recruits (new trees) and dead trees…
We study causal inference in a multi-environment setting, in which the functional relations for producing the variables from their direct causes remain the same across environments, while the distribution of exogenous noises may vary. We…
We introduce and study a variational framework for the analysis of empirical risk based inference for dynamical systems and ergodic processes. The analysis applies to a two-stage estimation procedure in which (i) the trajectory of an…
We consider a model for a population in a heterogeneous environment, with logistic type local population dynamics, under the assumption that individuals can switch between two different nonzero rates of diffusion. Such switching behavior…
Most population models assume that individuals within a given population are identical, that is, the fundamental role of variation is ignored. Here we develop a general approach to modeling heterogeneous populations with discrete…
In longitudinal studies where units are embedded in space or a social network, interference may arise, meaning that a unit's outcome can depend on treatment histories of others. The presence of interference poses significant challenges for…
Shannon's information entropy measures of the uncertainty of an event's outcome. If learning about a system reflects a decrease in uncertainty, then a plausible intuition is that learning should be accompanied by a decrease in the entropy…
With the establishment of global biological monitor network and development of remote sensing technology, data won't be a limitation, but the variance brought by spatial heterogeneous and fractal will influence correlation coefficient…
Discovering causal relationships from observational data is a challenging task that relies on assumptions connecting statistical quantities to graphical or algebraic causal models. In this work, we focus on widely employed assumptions for…
Causal mediation analysis provides techniques for defining and estimating effects that may be endowed with mechanistic interpretations. With many scientific investigations seeking to address mechanistic questions, causal direct and indirect…
In the statistical literature, a number of methods have been proposed to ensure valid inference about marginal effects of variables on a longitudinal outcome in settings with irregular monitoring times. However, the potential biases due to…
The assembly and persistence of ecological communities can be understood as the result of the interaction and migration of species. Here we study a single community subject to migration from a species pool in which inter-specific…
We extend well-known comparative results under expected utility to models of non-expected utility by providing novel conditions on local utility functions. We illustrate how our results parallel, and are distinct from, existing results for…
The decision of whether or not to vaccinate is a complex one. It involves the contribution both to a social good -- herd immunity -- and to one's own well being. It is informed by social influence, personal experience, education, and mass…
We study which outcomes are implementable by disclosing coarse statistics of a data-generating process rather than its full distribution. Players observe data whose joint distribution is only partially known: they know the expectations of…