This paper provides insights into the dynamics of attention to TV commercials via an analysis of the length of time that commercials are viewed before being 'zapped'. The model, which incorporates a flexible baseline hazard rate and captures unobserved heterogeneity across both consumers and...

The area of marked-point processes is well developed but simulation is still a challenging problem when mark correlations are to be included. In this paper we propose the use of simulated annealing to incorporate the spatial mark correlation into the simulations of correlated marked-point...

Advances in computation mean that it is now possible to fit a wide range of complex models to data, but there remains the problem of selecting a model on which to base reported inferences. Following an early suggestion of Box & Tiao, it seems reasonable to seek 'inference robustness' in reported...

We investigate a Bayesian method for the segmentation of muscle fibre images. The images are reasonably well approximated by a Dirichlet tessellation, and so we use a deformable template model based on Voronoi polygons to represent the segmented image. We consider various prior distributions for...

Breast cancer is one of the diseases with the most profound impact on health in developed countries and mammography is the most popular method for detecting breast cancer at a very early stage. This paper focuses on the waiting period from a positive mammogram until a confirmatory diagnosis is...

New recursive algorithms for fast computation of the normalizing constant for the autologistic model on the lattice make feasible a sample-based maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of the autologistic parameters. We demonstrate by sampling from 12 simulated 420×420 binary lattices with square...

We present a method for predicting future pavement distresses such as longitudinal cracking. These predicted distress values are used to plan road repairs. Large inherent variability in measured cracking and an extremely small number of observations are the nature of the pavement cracking data,...

We propose alternative approaches to analyze residuals in binary regression models based on random effect components. Our preferred model does not depend upon any tuning parameter, being completely automatic. Although the focus is mainly on accommodation of outliers, the proposed methodology is...

In this paper, we propose a spatial model for the initiation of cracks in the bone cement of hip replacement specimens. The failure of hip replacements can be attributed mainly to damage accumulation, consisting of crack initiation and growth, occurring in the cement mantle that interlocks the...

A Bayesian approach is considered for identifying sources of nonstationarity for models with a unit root and breaks. Different types of multiple breaks are allowed through crash models, changing growth models, and mixed models. All possible nonstationary models are represented by combinations of...