Simulation has become a standard tool in statistics because it may be the only tool available for analysing some classes of probabilistic models. We review in this paper simulation tools that have been specifically derived to address statistical challenges and, in particular, recent advances in...

While Robert and Rousseau (2010) addressed the foundational aspects of Bayesian analysis, the current chapter details its practical aspects through a review of the computational methods available for approximating Bayesian procedures. Recent innovations like Monte Carlo Markov chain, sequential...

Abstract: In this paper, we review classical and advanced methodologies for analysing within-subject functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data. Such data are usually acquired during sensory or cognitive experiments that aims at stimulating the subject in the scanner and eliciting evoked...

In this work we investigate the asymptotic properties of nonparametric bayesian mixtures of Betas for estimating a smooth density on [0,1]. We consider a parameterisation of Betas distributions in terms of mean and scale parameters and construct a mixture of these Betas in the mean parameter,...

While statisticians are well-accustomed to performing exploratory analysis in the modeling stage of an analysis, the notion of conducting preliminary general-purpose exploratory analysis in the Monte Carlo stage (or more generally, the model-fitting stage) of an analysis is an area that we feel...

Gibbs sampling has had great success in the analysis of mixture models. In particular, the “latent variable” formulation of the mixture model greatly reduces computational complexity. However, one failing of this approach is the possible existence of almost-absorbing states, called trapping...

Many authors have considered the problem of estimating a covariance matrix in small samples. In this framework the sample covariance matrix is not robust, the solution is to impose some ad hoc structure on the covariance matrix to force it to be well-conditioned. This method is known as...

En génétique des populations, les modèles sont souvent complexes ce qui rend l'évaluation de la vraisemblance difficile, si ce n'est impossible. En revanche, des mécanismes de génération de données sont parfois disponibles ce qui explique pourquoi les méthodes d'inférence bayésienne...

Bayesian inference is attractive for its coherence and good frequentist properties. However, eliciting a honest prior may be difficult and a common practice is to take an empirical Bayes approach, using some empirical estimate of the prior hyperparameters. Despite not rigorous, the underlying...