This thesis attempts to evaluate the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods Metropolis-Hastings (MH) and No-U-Turn Sampler (NUTS) to estimate systemic risk measures. The subject of analysis is an equity portfolio provided by a Nordic asset management firm, which is modelled using a vine copula. The evaluation considers three different crisis outcomes on a portfolio level, and the results are compared with a Monte Carlo (MC) benchmark. The MCMC samplers attempt to increase sampling efficiency by sampling from these crisis events directly, which is impossible for an MC sampler. The resulting systemic risk measures are evaluated both on the portfolio level as well as marginal level.  The results are divided. In part, the MCMC samplers proved to be efficient in terms of accepted samples, where NUTS outperformed MH. However, due to the practical implementation of the MCMC samplers and the vine copula model, the computational time required outweighed the gains in sampler efficiency - causing the MC sampler to outperform both MCMC samplers in certain settings. For NUTS, there seems to be great potential in the context of estimating systemic risk measures as it explores high-dimensional and multimodal joint distributions efficiently with low autocorrelation. It is concluded that asset management companies can benefit from both using vine copulas to model portfolio risk, as well as using MC or MCMC methods for evaluating systemic risk. However, for the MCMC samplers to be of practical relevance, it is recommended to further investigate efficient implementations of vine copulas in the context of MCMC sampling. / Detta examensarbete utvärderar Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)-metoderna No-U-Turn Sampler (NUTS) och Metropolis-Hastings (MH) vid uppskattning av systemiska riskmått. För att göra detta används en vine copula för att modellera en portfölj, baserad på empirisk data från ett nordiskt kapitalförvaltningsföretag. Metoderna utvärderas givet tre olika krishändelser och jämförs därefter med ett Monte Carlo (MC) benchmark. MCMC-metoderna försöker öka samplingseffektiviteten genom att simulera direkt från dessa krishändelser, vilket är omöjligt för en klassisk MC-metod. De resulterande systemiska riskmåtten utvärderas både på portföljnivå och på marginalnivå. Resultaten är delade. Dels visade sig MCMC-metoderna vara effektiva när det gäller accepterade samples där NUTS överträffade MH. Dock, med anledning av av den praktiska implementationen av MCMC-metoderna och vine copula modellen var beräkningstiden för hög trots effektiviteten hos metoden - vilket fick MC-metoden att överträffa de andra metoderna i givet dessa särskilda kontexter. När det kommer till att uppskatta systemiska riskmått finns det dock stor potential för NUTS eftersom metoden utforskar högdimensionella och multimodala sannolikhetsfördelningar effektivt med låg autokorrelation. Vi drar även slutsatsen att kapitalförvaltare kan dra nytta av att både använda riskmodeller baserade på vine copulas, samt använda MC- eller MCMC-metoder för att utvärdera systemisk risk. För att MCMC-metoderna ska vara av praktisk relevans rekommenderas det dock att framtida forskning görs där mer effektiva implementeringar av vine copula-baserade modeller görs i samband med MCMC-sampling.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

In this thesis, we deal with finite Gibbs point processes, especially the processes with densities with respect to a Poisson point process. The main aim of this work is to investigate a four-parametric marked point process of circular discs in three dimensions with two and three way point interactions. In the second chapter, our goal is to simulate such a process. For that purpose, the birth- death Metropolis-Hastings algorithm is presented including theoretical results. After that, the algorithm is applied on the disc process and numerical results for different choices of parameters are presented. The third chapter consists of two approaches for the estimation of parameters. First is the Takacs-Fiksel estimation procedure with a choice of weight functions as the derivatives of pseudolikelihood. The second one is the estimation procedure aiming for the optimal choice of weight functions for the estimation in order to provide better quality estimates. The theoretical background for both of these approaches is derived as well as detailed calculations for the disc process. The numerical results for both methods are presented as well as their comparison. 1

Cognitive radio (CR) is often described as a context-intelligent radio, capable of changing the transmit parameters dynamically based on the interaction with the environment it operates. The work in this thesis explores the problem of using received signal strength (RSS) measurements taken by a network of CR nodes to generate an interference map of a given geographical area and estimate the locations of multiple primary transmitters that operate simultaneously in the area. A probabilistic model of the problem is developed, and algorithms to address location estimation challenges are proposed. Three approaches are proposed to solve the localization problem. The first approach is based on estimating the locations from the generated interference map when no information about the propagation model or any of its parameters is present. The second approach is based on approximating the maximum likelihood (ML) estimate of the transmitter locations with the grid search method when the model is known and its parameters are available. The third approach also requires the knowledge of model parameters but it is actually based on generating samples from the joint posterior of the unknown location parameter with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods, as an alternative for the highly computationally complex grid search approach. For RF cartography generation problem, we study global and local interpolation techniques, specifically the Delaunay triangulation based techniques as the use of existing triangulation provides a computationally attractive solution. We present a comparative performance evaluation of these interpolation techniques in terms of RF field strength estimation and emitter localization. Even though the estimates obtained from the generated interference maps are less accurate compared to the ML estimator, the rough estimates are utilized to initialize a more accurate algorithm such as the MCMC technique to reduce the complexity of the algorithm. The complexity issues of ML estimators based on full grid search are also addressed by various types of iterative grid search methods. One challenge to apply the ML estimation algorithm to multiple emitter localization problem is that, it requires a pdf approximation to summands of log-normal random variables for likelihood calculations at each grid location. This inspires our investigations on sum of log-normal approximations studied in literature for selecting the appropriate approximation to our model assumptions. As a final extension of this work, we propose our own approximation based on distribution fitting to a set of simulated data and compare our approach with Fenton-Wilkinson's well-known approximation which is a simple and computational efficient approach that fits a log-normal distribution to sum of log-normals by matching the first and second central moments of random variables. We demonstrate that the location estimation accuracy of the grid search technique obtained with our proposed approximation is higher than the one obtained with Fenton-Wilkinson's in many different case scenarios.

Eighteenth-century Methodist evangelism supported, perpetuated, and promoted slavery as requisite for a productive economy in the colonial American South. Religious thought of the First Great Awakening emerged alongside a colonial economy increasingly reliant on chattel slavery for its prosperity. The records of well-traveled celebrity minister and provocateur of the Anglican tradition, George Whitefield, suggest how Calvinist-Methodist evangelicals viewed slavery as necessary to supporting colonial ministerial efforts. Whitefield’s absorption of and immersion into American culture is revealed in his owning a plantation, portraying a willingness to sacrifice the mobility of the disfranchised for widespread consumption of evangelical thought. A side effect of this was free and formerly enslaved individuals of African descent gained direct access to itinerancy in the post-Revolutionary Atlantic world, as evidenced by the multi-racial ministerial network of Whitefield’s proslavery benefactor, Selina Hastings. Paradoxically, southern evangelicalism appealed to the disfranchised while perpetuating slavery as a socially normative, religiously-sanctioned institution.

Throughout the 19th century, large numbers of enslaved people were brought from southeastern Africa to work on Somali plantations along the Benadir Coast and Shebelle River. As these southeast Africans were manumitted or escaped bondage, many fled to the west and settled in the heavily forested and fertile Gosha district along the Juba River. Unattached, lacking security, and surrounded by Somalis-speaking groups, these refugees established agricultural communities and were forced to construct new identities. Initially these riverine peoples could easily access clan structures and political institutions of surrounding Somali sub-clans, which in pre-colonial Jubaland were relatively fluid, open, and—in time—would have allowed these groups to become assimilated into Somali society. British colonial rule however changed this flexibility. Somali identity, once porous and accessible, became increasingly more rigid and exclusive, especially towards the riverine ex-slave communities—collectively called the Gosha by the British—who were subsequently marginalized and othered by these new "Somali." This project explores how British colonial rule contributed to this process and argues that in Jubaland province a "Somali" identity coalesced largely in opposition to the Gosha. / Master of Arts

針對金融時序資料變異數不齊一的性質，隨機波動模型除了提供於ARCH族外的另一選擇；且由於其設定隱含波動本身亦為一個隨機波動函數，藉由設定隨時間改變且自我相關的條件變異數，使得隨機波動模型較ARCH族來得有彈性且符合實際。傳統上處理隨機波動模型的參數估計往往需要面對到複雜的多維積分，此問題可藉由貝氏分析裡的馬可夫鏈蒙地卡羅法解決。本文主要的探討標的，即在於利用馬可夫鏈蒙地卡羅法估計美元/新台幣匯率隨機波動模型參數。除原始模型之外，模型的擴充分為三部分：其一為隱含波動的二階自我回歸模型；其二則為藉由基本模型的修改，檢測匯率市場上的槓桿效果；最後，我們嘗試藉由加入scale mixture的方式以驗證金融時序資料中常見的厚尾分配。

Le concept d’automate, central en théorie des langages, est l’outil d’appréhension naturel et efficace de nombreux problèmes concrets. L’usage intensif des automates finis dans un cadre algorithmique s ’illustre par de nombreux travaux de recherche. La correction et l’ évaluation sont les deux questions fondamentales de l’algorithmique. Une méthode classique d’ évaluation s’appuie sur la génération aléatoire contrôlée d’instances d’entrée. Les travaux d´écrits dans cette thèse s’inscrivent dans ce cadre et plus particulièrement dans le domaine de la génération aléatoire uniforme d’automates finis.L’exposé qui suit propose d’abord la construction d’un générateur aléatoire d’automates à pile déterministes, real time. Cette construction s’appuie sur la méthode symbolique. Des résultats théoriques et une étude expérimentale sont exposés.Un générateur aléatoire d’automates non-déterministes illustre ensuite la souplesse d’utilisation de la méthode de Monte-Carlo par Chaînes de Markov (MCMC) ainsi que la mise en œuvre de l’algorithme de Metropolis - Hastings pour l’ échantillonnage à isomorphisme près. Un résultat sur le temps de mélange est donné dans le cadre général .L’ échantillonnage par méthode MCMC pose le problème de l’évaluation du temps de mélange dans la chaîne. En s’inspirant de travaux antérieurs pour construire un générateur d’automates partiellement ordonnés, on montre comment différents outils statistiques permettent de s’attaquer à ce problème. / The concept of automata, central to language theory, is the natural and efficient tool to apprehendvarious practical problems.The intensive use of finite automata in an algorithmic framework is illustrated by numerous researchworks.The correctness and the evaluation of performance are the two fundamental issues of algorithmics.A classic method to evaluate an algorithm is based on the controlled random generation of inputs.The work described in this thesis lies within this context and more specifically in the field of theuniform random generation of finite automata.The following presentation first proposes to design a deterministic, real time, pushdown automatagenerator. This design builds on the symbolic method. Theoretical results and an experimental studyare given.This design builds on the symbolic method. Theoretical results and an experimental study are given.A random generator of non deterministic automata then illustrates the flexibility of the Markov ChainMonte Carlo methods (MCMC) as well as the implementation of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm tosample up to isomorphism. A result about the mixing time in the general framework is given.The MCMC sampling methods raise the problem of the mixing time in the chain. By drawing on worksalready completed to design a random generator of partially ordered automata, this work shows howvarious statistical tools can form a basis to address this issue.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:06:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 4453.pdf: 2980949 bytes, checksum: a5e49490266d2a0b649d487d8bf298d5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-23 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / In ecology, understanding the species-area relationship (SARs) are extremely important to determine species diversity. SARs are fundamental to assess the impact due to the destruction of natural habitats, creation of biodiversity maps, to determine the minimum area to preserve. In this study, the number of species is observed in different area sizes. These studies are referred in the literature through nonlinear models without assuming any distribution for the data. In this situation, it only makes sense to consider areas in which the counts of species are greater than zero. As the dependent variable is a count data, we assume that this variable comes from a known distribution for discrete data positive. In this paper, we used the zero truncated Poisson distribution (ZTP) and zero truncated Negative Binomial (ZTNB) to represent the probability distribution of the random variable species diversity number. To describe the relationship between species diversity and habitat, we consider nonlinear models with asymptotic behavior: Exponencial Negativo, Weibull, Logístico, Chapman-Richards, Gompertz e Beta. In this paper, we take a Bayesian approach to fit models. With the purpose of obtain the conditional distributions, we propose the use of latent variables to implement the Gibbs sampler. Introducing a comparative study through simulated data and will consider an application to a real data set. / Em ecologia, a compreensão da relação espécie-área (SARs) é de extrema importância para a determinação da diversidade de espécies e avaliar o impacto devido à destruição de habitats naturais. Neste estudo, observa-se o número de espécies em diferentes tamanhos de área. Estes estudos são abordados na literatura através de modelos não lineares sem assumir alguma distribuição para os dados. Nesta situação, só faz sentido considerar áreas nas quais as contagens das espécies são maiores do que zero. Como a variável dependente é um dado de contagem, assumiremos que esta variável provém de alguma distribuição conhecida para dados discretos positivos. Neste trabalho, utilizamos as distribuições de Poisson zero-truncada (PZT) e Binomial Negativa zero-truncada (BNZT) para representar a distribuição do número de espécies. Para descrever a relação espécie-área, consideramos os modelos não lineares com comportamento assintótico: Exponencial Negativo, Weibull, Logístico, Chapman-Richards, Gompertz e Beta. Neste trabalho os modelos foram ajustados através do método de verossimilhança, sendo proposto uma abordagem Bayesiana com a utilização de variáveis latentes auxiliares para a implementação do Amostrador de Gibbs.

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