Award Abstract # 1107017
Spline-based Empirical Likelihood and Qausi-likelihood Estimation

NSF Org: DMS
Division Of Mathematical Sciences
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
Initial Amendment Date: August 13, 2011
Latest Amendment Date: August 13, 2011
Award Number: 1107017
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Gabor Szekely
DMS
 Division Of Mathematical Sciences
MPS
 Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Start Date: August 15, 2011
End Date: July 31, 2014 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $80,448.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $80,448.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2011 = $80,448.00
History of Investigator:
  • Jing Wang (Principal Investigator)
    jiwang12@uic.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Illinois at Chicago
809 S MARSHFIELD AVE M/C 551
CHICAGO
IL  US  60612-4305
(312)996-2862
Sponsor Congressional District: 07
Primary Place of Performance: University of Illinois at Chicago
809 S MARSHFIELD AVE M/C 551
CHICAGO
IL  US  60612-4305
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
07
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): W8XEAJDKMXH3
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): STATISTICS
Primary Program Source: 01001112DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):
Program Element Code(s): 126900
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.049

ABSTRACT

Spline smoothing method contains substantial advantages for its simple implementation and fast computation. The method becomes one of the most prominent techniques in the area of semi-parametric and nonparametric regression modeling. The main objective of this proposal is to investigate the inferential aspects of two spline-based methods. One is the quasi-likelihood estimation for categorized response data in generalized regression, and the other the empirical likelihood estimation which brings efficiency properties analogous to parametric likelihood and retains distribution-free character of nonparametric procedures. Specifically, the PI proposes to i) develop robust estimation and testing procedures for generalized spline regression models; ii) employ the equivalence between linear mixed models and penalized splines for linearity tests in generalized additive models; iii) extend free-knots spline to generalized regression in order to improve the empirical behavior of polynomial spline estimators; and iv) investigate spline confidence region of linear coefficients in partially linear models via empirical likelihood by considering the number of constraints growing with the sample sizes.

The proposed projects are expected to be of broad interest to researchers from a wide range of applied and social science fields including biochemistry, biostatistics, epidemiology, and economics. For example, the research findings are applicable to a cancer research study for a dose-response relationship between ethanol and risk of cancer with binary outcomes, and a fauna study for relationship between the number of species on sea bed and the spatial coordinates where error distribution is not fully specified. The proposed procedures serve as new highly usable tools for curve estimation and model diagnosis in general regression model-related data analysis. For educational purpose, the PI plans to develop a new advanced topic course related with the proposed topics to mentor undergraduate or graduate students, and therefore involve them in proposed research and related projects.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Author - J. Leider, Faculty Sponsor - Jing Wang "A Quantile Regression Study of Climate Change in Chicago 1960-2010" SIAM Online Undergraduate Research Online , v.5 , 2012 , p.148-165
Cao Guanqun; Wang Jing; Wang Li; Totem David "Spline Confidence Bands for Functional Derivatives" Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference , v.142 , 2012 , p.1557
G. Cao, J. Wang, L. Wang, and D. Totem "Confidence Bands for Derivatives of Dense Functional Data." Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference , v.142 , 2012 , p.1557
Jing Wang "Modelling Time Trend via Spline Confidence Band" Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics , v.64 , 2012
Julien Leider (Jing Wang as Faculty Superviser) "A Quantile Regression Study of Climate Change in Chicago 1960-2010" SIAM Online Undergraduate Research Online , 2012 , p.148
J. Wang, N. Moore, J. Qi, L. Yang, J. Olson, N. Torbick, J. Ge "Derivation of Phenological Information from Remotely Sensed Imagery for Improved Regional Climate Modeling." Proceedings of Joint Statistical Meetings. Section on Statistics and ENviroment , 2012 , p.2999
M. Fettiplace, B. Lin, R. Ripper, K. Lis, J. Lang, B. Zider, J. Wang, I. Rubinstein, J. Brown, and G. Weinberg "Rapid Cardiotonic Effects of Lipid Emulsion Infusion" Critical Care Medicine , v.NA , 2013 , p.7

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Statistical data analysis usually begins with a specified parametric model as parametric effects can be interpreted and comprehended intuitively. This project is intended to further understand the spline techniques which are applied to parametric model diagnosis by the construction of simultaneous confidence bands. We have developed robust and stable spline estimators with optimal asymptotic properties. We have found that in both classical regression and generalized regression models, utilizing bias reduction and consistent wild bootstrap procedures can help improve the coverage probabilities of the spline confidence bands, increase the accuracy of model checking, and hence reduce model misspecification error for parametric data analysis. Detailed implementation procedures and computational algorithms are developed for spline confidence bands under regular setup. Simulation results are run extensively to investigate the finite sample behavior of the proposed bands. Optimization, reparameterization, and penalized techniques are key computational tools in simulations. Findings are shown to corroborate with the proposed theoretical outcomes. These new statistical methods can be applied to many research fields with data including binary/categorical responses and linear predictors.

 On the educational side, we have developed a new topic course on generalized regression models for graduate students with diverse background. This course mainly covers popular regression smoothing methods and their theoretical properties and computational challenges for generalized regression models. Under the advising/coadvising of this PI, two female students have obtained their doctorate degrees in statistics and economics respectively. One dissertation focuses on inferential and computational sides of model diagnosis by using the bootstrapped spline confidence bands. The other dissertation is on the nonlinearity detection of prediction of stock returns with kernel simultaneous confidence bands. One undergraduate student supervised by the PI investigates climate change data with quantile regression methods in a Capstone project. Part of his research result is published in a peer-review journal. The student has won an undergraduate research award for his poster to present his project result.

 


Last Modified: 10/28/2014
Modified by: Jing Wang

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