In this paper, we consider the use of a partition model to estimate regional disease rates and to detect spatial clusters.
Formal inference regarding the number of partitions (or clusters) can be obtained with a reversible jump Markov chain Monte
Carlo algorithm. As an alternative, we consider the ability of models with a fixed, but overly large, number of partitions
to estimate regional disease rates and to provide informal inferences about the number and locations of clusters using local
Bayes factors. We illustrate and compare these two approaches using data on leukemia incidence in upstate New York and data
on breast cancer incidence in Wisconsin. 相似文献
For operational or research purposes (dispersion computations of radioactive effluents during nuclear emergency situations, simulations of chemical pollution in the vicinity of thermal power plants), different models of passive dispersion in the atmosphere have been developed at the Environment Department of EDF’s R and D Division. This report presents the comparison of the performances of three such models: DIFTRA (lagrangian puff model, with operational goal), DIFEUL (three dimensional eulerian) and DIFPAR (Monte Carlo particle model) for the simulation of the first ETEX release, an international tracer campaign during which a passive tracer cloud has been followed over Europe. The results obtained in this study give model vs. experience differences of the same order as the model vs. experience differences observed during an international model comparison experiment using data of the Chernobyl release, the ATMES exercise. In addition to the standard statistical scores used in the evaluation of the performances of the transport models two asymmetric scores (in contradistinction with the Figure of Merit in Space) are proposed: “efficiency” and “power”. Their aim is to separate the two manners in which a model may be wrong: by predicting presence of pollutant while none is measured or conversely predicting absence when pollutant is actually detected. 相似文献
By scoring the chromosome number of developing embryos, we show that the sex ratio bias of the African social spider Stegodyphus dumicola Pocock is the result of an overproduction of female embryos. Only 17% of 585 embryos sexed from 14 egg sacs were male, a
significant departure from a 1:1 sex ratio. We also explored the possibility of direct control of the sex of individual offspring
in this species by examining the variance in the number of males per sac and the spatial distribution of male and female embryos
within the sacs. We postulated that a variance in the number of males per sac lower than binomial (i.e., underdispersed or
precise sex ratios) or a non-random distribution of male embryos within the sacs would suggest direct control of the sex of
individual offspring. We found that the variance in the number of males per sac was indistinguishable from binomial and significantly
larger than expected under exact ratios. Likewise, the spatial distribution of male embryos within three sacs examined was
no more clustered than expected by chance. The sex ratio biasing mechanism in this species, therefore, apparently only allows
control of the mean sex ratio but not of its variance. We present randomization and Monte Carlo methods that can be applied
to test for departures from a random spatial arrangement of male and female embryos in an egg mass and for departures from
binomial or exact ratios when not all members of a clutch have been sexed.
Received: 21 October 1998 / Received in revised form: 23 March 1999 / Accepted: 26 April 1999 相似文献
Identifying source information after river chemical spill occurrences is critical for emergency responses. However, the inverse uncertainty characteristics of this kind of pollution source inversion problem have not yet been clearly elucidated. To fill this gap, stochastic analysis approaches, including a regional sensitivity analysis method, identifiability plot and perturbation methods, were employed to conduct an empirical investigation on generic inverse uncertainty characteristics under a well-accepted uncertainty analysis framework. Case studies based on field tracer experiments and synthetic numerical tracer experiments revealed several new rules. For example, the release load can be most easily inverted, and the source location is responsible for the largest uncertainty among the source parameters. The diffusion and convection processes are more sensitive than the dilution and pollutant attenuation processes to the optimization of objective functions in terms of structural uncertainty. The differences among the different objective functions are smaller for instantaneous release than for continuous release cases. Small monitoring errors affect the inversion results only slightly, which can be ignored in practice. Interestingly, the estimated values of the release location and time negatively deviate from the real values, and the extent is positively correlated with the relative size of the mixing zone to the objective river reach. These new findings improve decision making in emergency responses to sudden water pollution and guide the monitoring network design.