Trend estimation is important in many fields, though arguably the most important applications appear in ecology. Trend is difficult to quantify; in fact, the term itself is not well-defined. Often, trend is quantified by estimating the slope coefficient in a regression model where the response variable is an index of population size, and time is the explanatory variable. Linear trend is often unrealistic for biological populations; in fact, many critical environmental changes occur abruptly as a result of very rapid changes in human activities. My PhD research has involved formulating methods with greater flexibility than those currently in use. Penalized spline regression provides a flexible technique for fitting a smooth curve. This method has proven useful in many areas including environmental monitoring; however, inference is more difficult than with ordinary linear regression because so many parameters are estimated. My research has focused on developing methods of trend detection and comparing these methods to other methods currently in use. Attention is given to comparing estimated Type I error rates and power across several trend detection methods. This was accomplished through an extensive simulation study. Monte Carlo simulations and randomization tests were employed to construct an empirical sampling distribution for the test statistic under the null hypothesis of no trend. These methods are superior over smoothing methods over other smoothing methods of trend detection with respect to achieving the designated Type I error rate. The likelihood ratio test using a mixed effects model had the most power for detecting linear trend while a test involving the first derivative was the most powerful for detecting nonlinear trend for small sample sizes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-09262007-104625 |
| Date | 26 September 2007 |
| Creators | Gray, Katharine Lynn |
| Contributors | Dr. Brian Steele, Dr. David Patterson |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-09262007-104625/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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