State-space modelling for infectious disease surveillance data: Stochastic simulation techniques and structural change detection
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We present an exploration of advanced stochastic simulation techniques for state-space models, with a specific focus on their applications in infectious disease modelling. Utilizing COVID-19 surveillance data from the province of Ontario, Canada, we employ Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods to detect structural changes and pre-dict future trends in case counts. Our approach begins with the application of a Kalman smoothing technique, integrated with MCMC for state sampling within local level and seasonal models, alongside Bayesian inference for non-linear dynamic regression models. We then assess the effectiveness of various priors, including normal, Student's t, Laplace, and horseshoe distributions, in capturing abrupt changes within the data using a Rao-Blackwellized par-ticle filter. Our findings highlight the superior performance of the horseshoe prior in identifying change points and adapting to complex data structures, offering valuable insights for real-time monitoring and forecasting in public health. This study emphasizes the efficacy of state-space models, particu-larly when enhanced with sophisticated prior distributions, in providing a nuanced understanding of infectious disease transmission.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.030 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".