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Statistical modelling and machine learning offer a vast toolbox of inference methods with which to model the world, discover patterns and reach beyond the data to make predictions when the truth is not certain. This concise book provides a clear introduction to those tools and to the core ideas – probabilistic model, likelihood, prior, posterior, overfitting, underfitting, cross-validation – that unify them. A mixture of toy and real examples illustrates diverse applications ranging from biomedical data to treasure hunts, while the accompanying datasets and computational notebooks in R and Python encourage hands-on learning. Instructors can benefit from online lecture slides and exercise solutions. Requiring only first-year university-level knowledge of calculus, probability and linear algebra, the book equips students in statistics, data science and machine learning, as well as those in quantitative applied and social science programmes, with the tools and conceptual foundations to explore more advanced techniques.
This comprehensive yet accessible guide to enterprise risk management for financial institutions contains all the tools needed to build and maintain an ERM framework. It discusses the internal and external contexts within which risk management must be carried out, and it covers a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques that can be used to identify, model and measure risks. This third edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect new regulations and legislation. It includes additional detail on machine learning, a new section on vine copulas, and significantly expanded information on sustainability. A range of new case studies include Theranos and FTX. Suitable as a course book or for self-study, this book forms part of the core reading for the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' examination in enterprise risk management.
Aimed at practising biologists, especially graduate students and researchers in ecology, this revised and expanded 3rd edition continues to explore cause-effect relationships through a series of robust statistical methods. Every chapter has been updated, and two brand-new chapters cover statistical power, Akaike information criterion statistics and equivalent models, and piecewise structural equation modelling with implicit latent variables. A new R package (pwSEM) is included to assist with the latter. The book offers advanced coverage of essential topics, including d-separation tests and path analysis, and equips biologists with the tools needed to carry out analyses in the open-source R statistical environment. Writing in a conversational style that minimises technical jargon, Shipley offers an accessible text that assumes only a very basic knowledge of introductory statistics, incorporating real-world examples that allow readers to make connections between biological phenomena and the underlying statistical concepts.
This book offers a comprehensive introduction to Markov decision process and reinforcement learning fundamentals using common mathematical notation and language. Its goal is to provide a solid foundation that enables readers to engage meaningfully with these rapidly evolving fields. Topics covered include finite and infinite horizon models, partially observable models, value function approximation, simulation-based methods, Monte Carlo methods, and Q-learning. Rigorous mathematical concepts and algorithmic developments are supported by numerous worked examples. As an up-to-date successor to Martin L. Puterman's influential 1994 textbook, this volume assumes familiarity with probability, mathematical notation, and proof techniques. It is ideally suited for students, researchers, and professionals in operations research, computer science, engineering, and economics.
An intricate landscape of bias permeates biomedical research. In this groundbreaking exploration the myriad sources of bias shaping research outcomes, from cognitive biases inherent in researchers to the selection of study subjects and data interpretation, are examined in detail. With a focus on randomized controlled trials, pharmacologic studies, genetic research, animal studies, and pandemic analyses, it illuminates how bias distorts the quest for scientific truth. Historical and contemporary examples vividly illustrate the impact of biases across research domains. Offering insights on recognizing and mitigating bias, this comprehensive work equips scientists and research teams with tools to navigate the complex terrain of biased research practices. A must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the critical role biases play in shaping the reliability and reproducibility of biomedical research.
Understanding change over time is a critical component of social science. However, data measured over time – time series – requires their own set of statistical and inferential tools. In this book, Suzanna Linn, Matthew Lebo, and Clayton Webb explain the most commonly used time series models and demonstrate their applications using examples. The guide outlines the steps taken to identify a series, make determinations about exogeneity/endogeneity, and make appropriate modelling decisions and inferences. Detailing challenges and explanations of key techniques not covered in most time series textbooks, the authors show how navigating between data and models, deliberately and transparently, allows researchers to clearly explain their statistical analyses to a broad audience.
From social networks to biological systems, networks are a fundamental part of modern life. Network analysis is increasingly popular across the mathematical, physical, life and social sciences, offering insights into a range of phenomena, from developing new drugs based on intracellular interactions, to understanding the influence of social interactions on behaviour patterns. This book provides a toolkit for analyzing random networks, together with theoretical justification of the methods proposed. It combines methods from both probability and statistics, teaching how to build and analyze plausible models for random networks, and how to validate such models, to detect unusual features in the data, and to make predictions. Theoretical results are motivated by applications across a range of fields, and classical data sets are used for illustration throughout the book. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the field for graduate students and researchers.
'High-Dimensional Probability,' winner of the 2019 PROSE Award in Mathematics, offers an accessible and friendly introduction to key probabilistic methods for mathematical data scientists. Streamlined and updated, this second edition integrates theory, core tools, and modern applications. Concentration inequalities are central, including classical results like Hoeffding's and Chernoff's inequalities, and modern ones like the matrix Bernstein inequality. The book also develops methods based on stochastic processes – Slepian's, Sudakov's, and Dudley's inequalities, generic chaining, and VC-based bounds. Applications include covariance estimation, clustering, networks, semidefinite programming, coding, dimension reduction, matrix completion, and machine learning. New to this edition are 200 additional exercises, alongside extra hints to assist with self-study. Material on analysis, probability, and linear algebra has been reworked and expanded to help bridge the gap from a typical undergraduate background to a second course in probability.
Providing comprehensive yet accessible coverage, this is the first graduate-level textbook dedicated to the mathematical theory of risk measures. It explains how economic and financial principles result in a profound mathematical theory that allows us to quantify risk in monetary terms, giving rise to risk measures. Each chapter is designed to match the length of one or two lectures, covering the core theory in a self-contained manner, with exercises included in every chapter. Additional material sections then provide further background and insights for those looking to delve deeper. This two-layer modular design makes the book suitable as the basis for diverse lecture courses of varying length and level, and a valuable resource for researchers.
Elements of Structural Equation Models (SEMs) blends theoretical foundations with practical applications, serving as both a learning tool and a lasting reference. Synthesizing material from diverse sources, including the author's own contributions, it provides a rigorous yet accessible guide for graduate students, faculty, and researchers across social, behavioral, health, and data sciences. The book covers essential SEM concepts – model assumptions, identification, estimation, and diagnostics – while also addressing advanced topics often overlooked, such as Bayesian SEMs, model-implied instrumental variables, and categorical variables. Readers will gain insights into missing data, longitudinal models, and comparisons with Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). By presenting complex technical content in a clear, structured way, this authoritative resource deepens readers' understanding of SEMs, making it an indispensable guide for both newcomers and experts seeking a definitive treatment of the field.
Play of Chance and Purpose emphasizes learning probability, statistics, and stochasticity by developing intuition and fostering imagination as a pedagogical approach. This book is meant for undergraduate and graduate students of basic sciences, applied sciences, engineering, and social sciences as an introduction to fundamental as well as advanced topics. The text has evolved out of the author's experience of teaching courses on probability, statistics, and stochastic processes at both undergraduate and graduate levels in India and the United States. Readers will get an opportunity to work on several examples from real-life applications and pursue projects and case-study analyses as capstone exercises in each chapter. Many projects involve the development of visual simulations of complex stochastic processes. This will augment the learners' comprehension of the subject and consequently train them to apply their learnings to solve hitherto unseen problems in science and engineering.
Build a firm foundation for studying statistical modelling, data science, and machine learning with this practical introduction to statistics, written with chemical engineers in mind. It introduces a data–model–decision approach to applying statistical methods to real-world chemical engineering challenges, establishes links between statistics, probability, linear algebra, calculus, and optimization, and covers classical and modern topics such as uncertainty quantification, risk modelling, and decision-making under uncertainty. Over 100 worked examples using Matlab and Python demonstrate how to apply theory to practice, with over 70 end-of-chapter problems to reinforce student learning, and key topics are introduced using a modular structure, which supports learning at a range of paces and levels. Requiring only a basic understanding of calculus and linear algebra, this textbook is the ideal introduction for undergraduate students in chemical engineering, and a valuable preparatory text for advanced courses in data science and machine learning with chemical engineering applications.
In this comprehensive volume, the authors introduce some of the most important recent developments at the intersection of probability theory and mathematical physics, including the Gaussian free field, Gaussian multiplicative chaos and Liouville quantum gravity. This is the first book to present these topics using a unified approach and language, drawing on a large array of multi-disciplinary techniques. These range from the combinatorial (discrete Gaussian free field, random planar maps) to the geometric (culminating in the path integral formulation of Liouville conformal field theory on the Riemann sphere) via the complex analytic (based on the couplings between Schramm–Loewner evolution and the Gaussian free field). The arguments (currently scattered over a vast literature) have been streamlined and the exposition very carefully thought out to present the theory as much as possible in a reader-friendly, pedagogical yet rigorous way, suitable for graduate students as well as researchers.
A meta-conjecture of Coulson, Keevash, Perarnau, and Yepremyan [12] states that above the extremal threshold for a given spanning structure in a (hyper-)graph, one can find a rainbow version of that spanning structure in any suitably bounded colouring of the host (hyper-)graph. We solve one of the most pertinent outstanding cases of this conjecture by showing that for any $1\leq j\leq k-1$, if $G$ is a $k$-uniform hypergraph above the $j$-degree threshold for a loose Hamilton cycle, then any globally bounded colouring of $G$ contains a rainbow loose Hamilton cycle.
Political polarization is a group phenomenon in which opposing factions, often of unequal size, exhibit asymmetrical influence and behavioral patterns. Within these groups, elites and masses operate under different motivations and levels of influence, challenging simplistic views of polarization. Yet, existing methods for measuring polarization in social networks typically reduce it to a single value, assuming homogeneity in polarization across the entire system. While such approaches confirm the rise of political polarization in many social contexts, they overlook structural complexities that could explain its underlying mechanisms. We propose a method that decomposes existing polarization and alignment measures into distinct components. These components separately capture polarization processes involving elites and masses from opposing groups. Applying this method to Twitter discussions surrounding the 2019 and 2023 Finnish parliamentary elections, we find that (1) opposing groups rarely have a balanced contribution to observed polarization, and (2) while elites strongly contribute to structural polarization and consistently display greater alignment across various topics, the masses, too, have recently experienced a surge in alignment. Our method provides an improved analytical lens through which to view polarization, explicitly recognizing the complexity of and need to account for elite-mass dynamics in polarized environments.
We show that the Potts model on a graph can be approximated by a sequence of independent and identically distributed spins in terms of Wasserstein distance at high temperatures. We prove a similar result for the Curie–Weiss–Potts model on the complete graph, conditioned on being close enough to any of its equilibrium macrostates, in the low-temperature regime. Our proof technique is based on Stein’s method for comparing the stationary distributions of two Glauber dynamics with similar updates, one of which is rapid mixing and contracting on a subset of the state space. Along the way, we prove a new upper bound on the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics for the conditional measure of the Curie–Weiss–Potts model near an equilibrium macrostate.
In this paper we investigate large-scale linear systems driven by a fractional Brownian motion (fBm) with Hurst parameter $H\in [1/2, 1)$. We interpret these equations either in the sense of Young ($H>1/2$) or Stratonovich ($H=1/2$). In particular, fractional Young differential equations are well suited to modeling real-world phenomena as they capture memory effects, unlike other frameworks. Although it is very complex to solve them in high dimensions, model reduction schemes for Young or Stratonovich settings have not yet been much studied. To address this gap, we analyze important features of fundamental solutions associated with the underlying systems. We prove a weak type of semigroup property which is the foundation of studying system Gramians. From the Gramians introduced, a dominant subspace can be identified, which is shown in this paper as well. The difficulty for fractional drivers with $H>1/2$ is that there is no link between the corresponding Gramians and algebraic equations, making the computation very difficult. Therefore we further propose empirical Gramians that can be learned from simulation data. Subsequently, we introduce projection-based reduced-order models using the dominant subspace information. We point out that such projections are not always optimal for Stratonovich equations, as stability might not be preserved and since the error might be larger than expected. Therefore an improved reduced-order model is proposed for $H=1/2$. We validate our techniques conducting numerical experiments on some large-scale stochastic differential equations driven by fBm resulting from spatial discretizations of fractional stochastic PDEs. Overall, our study provides useful insights into the applicability and effectiveness of reduced-order methods for stochastic systems with fractional noise, which can potentially aid in the development of more efficient computational strategies for practical applications.