39th Scottish & Northumbrian Academic Statisticians' Meeting
On Friday 21st May 2010, the 39th Scottish and Northumbrian Academic Statisticians' meeting will take place in the Cairn Auditorium in our recently opened Postgraduate Centre at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. This year the programme has a networks theme with two of the three talks focussing on aspects of this topic.
Programme
11.00 - 11:30 Arrival and Coffee
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11:30 - 12:30 Nial Friel, University College Dublin
Statistical inference for exponential random graph models. This talk will provide an introduction to exponential random graph models. These models have a long history, and represent a very flexible way to model network data. However, the underlying likelihood function is typically very complicated to evaluate and requires approximations of various kinds. Very often, the corresponding parameter estimates yield a poor fit of the model to the data. I will present two approaches, one Bayesian, the other likelihood-based, which overcome these issues to a certain extent.
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12:30 - 14:00 Lunch
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14:00 - 15:00 Frank Ball, University of Nottingham
Epidemics on random networks incorporating household structure
There has been a growing interest in models for epidemics among structured populations, which incorporate realistic departures from homogeneous mixing whilst maintaining mathematical tractability. Two classes of structured population epidemic models that have attracted considerable recent attention are network models (in which there is a random graph describing possible infectious contacts) and household models (in which the population is partitioned into households with different contact rates for within- and between-household infection). In this talk I describe and analyse a model for the spread of an SIR (susceptible – infective- removed) epidemic that includes both of these features. The analysis includes deriving a threshold parameter which determines whether or not an epidemic with few initial infectives can become established and lead to a major outbreak, and determining the probability and expected final size of a major outbreak. The model is compared and contrasted with standard household and network models and vaccination strategies are briefly considered.
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15:00 - 15.30 Refreshments
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15.30 - 16.30 Tim Bedford, Strathclyde Business School
Building multivariate copulas using vines
A vine is a graphical model developed by Cooke, Bedford and Kurowicka that enables us to describe a multivariate copula in terms of a number of conditional and unconditional 2 dimensional copulas. The problem of how one chooses appropriate 2d copulas in practice is however difficult. We look at this as a problem in approximation, and show that under certain conditions we can choose the same finite dimensional family of 2d copulas everywhere to get a given level of approximation. The result is illustrated by a financial data set. The talk describes joint work with Ali Daneshkhah of Strathclyde Business School
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16.30 -17.00 Refreshment and Close
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General Details
Lunch
A buffet lunch will be provided in the Postgraduate Centre. Please indicate any dietary requirements on the registration form.
Accommodation
Those requiring accommodation in Edinburgh can find a list of hotels and B&Bs at the following link http://www.icms.org.uk/information/localAccommodation
Travel
Details of travelling to Riccarton can be found at http://www.hw.ac.uk/welcome/directions.htm, and a campus map can be found at http://www.hw.ac.uk/maps/detailed-campus-map.pdf
Parking
Car parking is available in the visitors' car park which is located on the right on entering the campus by the main entrance.
Registration
The registration fee is £35 which includes morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea. A reduced rate of £25 is available to students. To register please complete the registration form
http://www.erp.ac.uk/s_and_n_meeting_2010/sn_registration2010.pdf
and send it with a cheque for the payment (payable to Heriot-Watt University) to Mrs Mary Wilson, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS ([log in to unmask], 0131-451-3202). Registrations should be received by Monday 3rd May.
If you have any questions about the event or would like further information, please contact Gavin Gibson, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS ([log in to unmask], 0131-451-3205).
You may leave the list at any time by sending the command
SIGNOFF allstat
to [log in to unmask], leaving the subject line blank.
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