15 Day 15 (March 20)

15.1 Announcements

  • Class projects
    • Presentations will occur between May 2 and May 9
    • Peer review is due May 5
    • Report and reproducible analysis is due May 10
  • Assignment 7 is posted and due Sunday (March 26)
    • Derived quantities
  • Read Ch. 17 on spatial models

15.2 Review

  • Bayesian hierarchical models
    • Data model
    • Process model
    • Parameter model
    • Remember this is the place that you can/should use your creativity!!
  • Fitting the model to data
    • Use Bayes theorem to find the joint posterior distribution
      • Using a sampling based approach to obtain samples from the joint posterior distribution
      • Gibbs sampler with analytical full-conditionals or Metropolis-Hastings
    • Parameter “estimates” are obtained by finding the marginal posterior
      • Discard samples of all other parameters in the the joint posterior distribution that are not of interest (automatic marginalization)
    • If you are interested in a function a parameter or multiple parameters, just perform the transformation
      • Use mathematical formula to transform samples from the posterior of interest
    • Predictions are obtained by finding the
      • Use composition sampling to obtain samples from the posterior predictive distribution
  • Reporting of results
    • Carefully writing out a Bayesian model enables us to precisely report the results
    • If you report a single number as a results make sure to use mathematical symbols in the text to communicate what part of the model you are showing (give examples on whiteboard)
    • If you report a posterior distribution using a histogram (or simlar plot) make sure to use mathematical symbols o communicate what part of the model you are showing (give examples on whiteboard)
  • Important things we have not covered
    • More advanced/efficient MCMC algorithms
    • Less advance, but easier to program/implement algorithms
    • Model checking (how do we know if we have a good or bad model)
    • Model comparison (using the data to help determine which model is best)