MétaCan
Menu
Back to cohort
Record W4416051414 · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2508.15665

Fast approximate Bayesian inference of HIV indicators using PCA adaptive Gauss-Hermite quadrature

2025· preprint· en· W4416051414 on OpenAlexfundno aff
Adam Howes, Alex Stringer, Seth Flaxman, Jeffrey W. Eaton

Bibliographic record

VenueArXiv.org · 2025
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldMathematics
TopicStatistical Methods and Bayesian Inference
Canadian institutionsnot available
FundersEuropean and Developing Countries Clinical Trials PartnershipMedical Research CouncilNational Institutes of HealthForeign, Commonwealth and Development OfficeEngineering and Physical Sciences Research CouncilUniversity of WaterlooNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaEuropean CommissionBill and Melinda Gates Foundation
KeywordsInferenceBayes' theoremBayesian inferenceBayesian probabilityHuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV)Gaussian processMarkov chain Monte CarloMonte Carlo method

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Naomi is a spatial evidence synthesis model used to produce district-level HIV epidemic indicators in sub-Saharan Africa. Multiple outcomes of policy interest, including HIV prevalence, HIV incidence, and antiretroviral therapy treatment coverage are jointly modelled using both household survey data and routinely reported health system data. The model is provided as a tool for countries to input their data to and generate estimates with during a yearly process supported by UNAIDS. Previously, inference has been conducted using empirical Bayes and a Gaussian approximation, implemented via the TMB R package. We propose a new inference method based on an extension of adaptive Gauss-Hermite quadrature to deal with more than 20 hyperparameters. Using data from Malawi, our method improves the accuracy of inferences for model parameters, while being substantially faster to run than Hamiltonian Monte Carlo with the No-U-Turn sampler. Our implementation leverages the existing TMB C++ template for the model's log-posterior, and is compatible with any model with such a template.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not 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.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.007
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.036
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Simulation or modeling · Consensus signal: Simulation or modeling
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.015
Threshold uncertainty score0.038

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0070.036
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0020.001
Bibliometrics0.0020.002
Science and technology studies0.0010.001
Scholarly communication0.0020.002
Open science0.0020.002
Research integrity0.0010.003
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0080.002

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.

Opus teacher head0.098
GPT teacher head0.380
Teacher spread0.282 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designSimulation or modeling
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

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".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

Explore more

Same venueArXiv.orgSame topicStatistical Methods and Bayesian InferenceFrench-language works237,207