Antonio López-Quílez

University of Valencia | UV · Department of Statistics and Operations Research

This paper introduces a Laplace approximation to Bayesian inference in Dirichlet regression models, which can be used to analyze a set of variables on a simplex exhibiting skewness and heteroscedasticity, without having to transform the data. These data, which mainly consist of proportions or percentages of disjoint categories, are widely known as...

In the study of plant disease epidemics, there is often an interest in the state at the individual level to analyze disease progression, where the spatial structure of the population should be considered. Based on the disease status of the individuals, we developed a model to simulate plant disease spread in time and space, where the spatial depend...

In this paper, we propose a structured additive regression (STAR) model for modeling the occurrence of a disease in fields or nurseries. The methodological approach involves a Gaussian field (GF) affected by a spatial process represented by an approximation to a Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF). This modeling allows the building of maps with pre...

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are a promising management tool for the conservation and recovery of marine ecosystems, as well as fisheries management. MPAs are generally established as permanent closures but marine systems are dynamic, which has generated debate in favour of more dynamic designs. As a consequence, the identification of priority are...

Bayesian spatio-temporal models are an emerging research approach to the study of the ecological variations of child maltreatment at the neighborhood level. A small but growing number of studies are recently applying this perspective to analyze the neighborhood-level characteristics that influence the spatial distribution of child maltreatment in t...

Patients with chronic diseases are frequent users of healthcare services. The systematic use of stratification tools and predictive models for this group of patients can be useful for health professionals in decision-making processes. The aim of this study was to design two new classifier systems for detecting the risk of hospital admission for eld...

Genomic heterogeneity constitutes one of the most distinctive features of cancer diseases, limiting the efficacy and availability of medical treatments. Tumorigenesis emerges as a strongly stochastic process, producing a variable landscape of genomic configurations. In this context, matrix factorisation techniques represent a suitable approach for...

The EU plant health legislation enforces the implementation of intensive surveillance programs for quarantine pests. After an outbreak, surveys are implemented to delimit the extent of the infested zone and to manage disease control. Surveillance in agricultural and natural environments can be enhanced by increasing the survey efforts. Budget const...

Circular leaf spot (CLS), caused by Plurivorosphaerella nawae, is a serious disease affecting persimmon (Diospyros kaki) that is characterized by necrotic lesions on leaves, defoliation, and fruit drop. Under Mediterranean conditions, P. nawae forms pseudothecia in the leaf litter in winter, and ascospores are released in spring, infecting suscepti...

Traditionally, intimate-partner violence has been considered a special type of crime that occurs behind closed doors, with different characteristics from street-level crime. The aim of this study is to analyze the spatial overlap of police calls reporting street-level and behind-closed-doors crime. We analyzed geocoded police calls in the 552 censu...

We conducted a small-area ecological longitudinal study to analyze neighborhood contextual influences on the spatio-temporal variations in intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) risk in a southern European city over an eight-year period. We used geocoded data of IPVAW cases with associated protection orders (n = 5867) in the city of Valenc...

In this work, we discuss the use of a methodological approach for modelling spatial relationships among species by means of a Bayesian spatial coregionalized model. Inference and prediction is performed using the integrated nested Laplace approximation methodology to reduce the computational burden. We illustrate the performance of the coregionaliz...

Fishery restricted areas (FRAs) are pivotal for the mitigation of fishery impacts, but the designation of optimum FRAs is complex, and currently there is no quantitative guideline to assess the spatio-temporal variability of conservation priority areas. Fishery systems are naturally dynamic, and shifts may at two different levels, the species level...

Sensor noise sources cause differences in the signal recorded across pixels in a single image and across multiple images. This study presents a Bayesian approach to decomposing and characterising the sensor noise sources involved in imaging with digital cameras. A Bayesian probabilistic model based on the (theoretical) model for noise sources in im...

The plant-pathogenic bacterium Xylella fastidiosa was first reported in Europe in 2013, in the province of Lecce, Italy, where extensive areas were affected by the olive quick decline syndrome, caused by the subsp. pauca. In Alicante, Spain, almond leaf scorch, caused by X. fastidiosa subsp. multiplex, was detected in 2017. The effects of climatic...

Dear Colleagues, Classical models based on system dynamics approach provide a useful way to represent and comprehend changing behaviours in time, but they do not adequately represent spatial processes. An ecosystem is a system that progresses with both time and space; thus the development of spatio-temporal ecological models is necessary. Spatio-te...

Understanding the spatiotemporal persistence of fish distributions is key to defining fish hotspots and effective fisheries restricted areas (FRAs). Hierarchical Bayesian spatiotemporal models provide an excellent framework to understand these distributions as they can accommodate different spatiotemporal behaviour in the data, primarily due to the...

Background Considerable debate exists on whether the substantiation decision is a reliable measure for rates of maltreatment. Studies have shown that risks among children victims of maltreatment versus children investigated but unsubstantiated are similar. Objective This paper aims to respond to two research questions: (1) Do most child maltreatme...

Sensor noise sources cause differences in the signal recorded across pixels in a single image and across multiple images. This paper presents a Bayesian approach to decomposing and characterizing the sensor noise sources involved in imaging with digital cameras. A Bayesian probabilistic model based on the (theoretical) model for noise sources in im...

Forest fires are the outcome of a complex interaction between environmental factors, topography and socioeconomic factors (Bedia et al, 2014). Therefore, understand causality and early prediction are crucial elements for controlling such phenomenon and saving lives.The aim of this study is to build spatio-temporal model to understand causality of f...

Current legislation enforces the implementation of intensive surveillance programs for quarantine plant pathogens. After an outbreak, surveys are implemented to delimit the geographic extent of the pathogen and execute disease control. The feasibility of control programs is highly dependent on budget availability, thus it is necessary to target and...

Rapidly detecting the beginning of influenza outbreaks helps health authorities to reduce their impact. Accounting for the spatial distribution of the data can greatly improve the performance of an outbreak detection method by promptly detecting the first foci of infection. The use of Hidden Markov chains in temporal models has shown to be great to...

Circular leaf spot (CLS), caused by Plurivorosphaerella nawae, is a serious disease of persimmon (Diospyros kaki) inducing necrotic lesions on leaves, defoliation and fruit drop. Under Mediterranean conditions, P. nawae forms pseudothecia in the leaf litter during winter and ascospores are released in spring infecting susceptible leaves. Persimmon...

Bayesian spatial modeling is increasingly used for studying different social problems, including crime and violence. However, there is less research that has analyzed crime-related outcomes from a multivariate perspective. The aim of this study is to analyze the shared spatial structure for three types of police calls. The study was conducted in th...

The increasing development of techniques applied to species distribution models (SDMs) has allowed them to be widely used in different areas such as ecology and epidemiology. The SDMs are useful tools to establish suitable conditions for the expansion of populations, to evaluate the associations of biotic and abiotic factors with the geographic ext...

Xylella fastidiosa is a phytopathogenic bacterium regulated in the European Union (EU) to avoid its introduction and spread within all Member States. The current legal provisions specify the implementation of an intensive surveillance progam in those regions in which the presence of disease was confirmed. The main aim of this plan is to make an acc...

One of the major goals of ecology is to understand the spatio-temporal dynamics of species. Commonly the habitat relevance is analyzed using Species Distribution Models (SDMs). These models link information on the presence/absence or abundance of a species to environmental variables to predict where (and how much of) a species is likely to be prese...

Dirichlet regression models can be used to analyze a set of variables lying in a bounded interval that sum up to one exhibiting skewness and heteroscedasticity, without having to transform the data. These data which mainly consist of proportions or percentages of disjoint categories are widely known as compositional data and are common in areas suc...

This paper introduces a Laplace approximation to Bayesian inference in regression models for multivariate response variables. We focus on Dirichlet regression models, which can be used to analyze a set of variables on a simplex exhibiting skewness and heteroscedasticity, without having to transform the data. These data, which mainly consist of prop...

We jointly estimated relative risk for dengue and Zika virus disease (Zika) in Colombia, establishing the spatial association between them at the department and city levels for October 2015-December 2016. Cases of dengue and Zika were allocated to the 87 municipalities of 1 department and the 293 census sections of 1 city in Colombia. We fitted 8 h...

Background Alcohol outlet density has been linked to rates of substantiated maltreatment both cross-sectionally and over time. Most of these studies have been conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, especially in the U.S., but other countries, where alcohol outlets and alcohol consumption may have different social meanings, are clearly underrepresente...

Usually in Ecology, the availability and quality of the data is not as good as we would like. For some species, the typical environmental study focuses on presence/absence data, and particularly with small animals as amphibians and reptiles, the number of presences can be rather small. The aim of this study is to develop a spatial model for studyin...

Epidemiological research on the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases is a broad field of study with renewed validity in the face of social changes and new threats [...]

Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are now being widely used in ecology for management and conservation purposes across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine realms. The increasing interest in SDMs has drawn the attention of ecologists to spatial models and, in particular, to geostatistical models, which are used to associate observations of species...

A methodological approach for modelling the spatial multivariate distribution of multiple bioclimatic indices is presented. The value of the indices is modelled by means of a Bayesian conditional coregionalised linear model. Elicitation of prior distributions and approximation of posterior distributions of the parameters in the proposed model are a...

Las llamadas que la Policía Local recibe diariamente movilizan actuaciones de estas fuerzas de seguridad que, entre otras cosas, facilitan la prevención de futuros delitos y problemáticas sociales. Pero no solo eso, la información que proporcionan estas llamadas puede desempeñar, igualmente, un papel relevante en el análisis y conocimiento de los p...

Climatic change is expected to affect forest development in the short term, as well as the spatial distribution of species in the long term. Species distribution models are potentially useful tools for guiding species choices in reforestation and forest management prescriptions to address climate change. The aim of this study is to build spatial an...

Risk maps of dengue disease offer to the public health officers a tool to model disease risk in space and time. We analyzed the geographical distribution of relative incidence risk of dengue disease in a high incidence city from Colombia, and its evolution in time during the period January 2009-December 2015, identifying regional effects at differe...

This study compared different spatio-temporal model structures to infer the distributional patterns of Mullus barbatus in the GSA06 of the Spanish Mediterranean using MEDITS trawl survey data, whic is performed every year in spring. Results indicate that Mullus barbatus follows a very persistent distribution at this time of the year.

The aim of this study is to estimate the parallel relative risk of Zika virus disease (ZVD) and dengue using spatio-temporal interaction effects models for one department and one city of Colombia during the 2015–2016 ZVD outbreak. We apply the integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA) for parameter estimation, using the epidemiological week (E...

This study compared different spatio-temporal model structures to infer the distributional patterns of Lophius budegassa the GSA06 of the Spanish Mediterranean using MEDITS trawl survey data, which is performed every year in spring. Results indicate that Lophius budegassa follows a rather opportunistic distribution at this time of the year.

This study compared different spatio-temporal model structures to infer the distributional patterns of Illex coindetii in the GSA06 of the Spanish Mediterranean using MEDITS trawl survey data, whic is performed every year in spring. Results indicate that Illex coindetii follows a rather opportunistic distribution at this time of the year.

This study compared different spatio-temporal model structures to infer the distributional patterns of Merluccius merluccius the GSA06 of the Spanish Mediterranean using MEDITS trawl survey data, whic is performed every year in spring. Results indicate that Merluccius merluccius follows a progressive distribution, with certain persistence, at this...

This study compared different spatio-temporal model structures to infer the distributional patterns of Lophius piscatorius the GSA06 of the Spanish Mediterranean using MEDITS trawl survey data, which is performed every year in spring. Results indicate that Lophius piscatorius follows a opportunistic distribution at this time of the year.

In this study, we analyze first whether there is a common spatial distribution of child maltreatment (CM) and intimate partner violence (IPV), and second, whether the risks of CM and IPV are influenced by the same neighborhood characteristics, and if these risks spatially overlap. To this end we used geocoded data of CM referrals (N = 588) and IPV...

Spatiotemporal modeling of relative risk of dengue disease provides useful risk maps for surveillance and forecasting. The objective of the study was to generate smoothed estimates of relative risk applying hierarchical Bayesian spatiotemporal models, including covariates derived from satellite images containing land surface temperature (LST) and n...

Fishing activity in waters beyond national jurisdiction generates multiple management issues, such as data poor fisheries, management of straddling fish stocks and lack of impact assessments on deep-sea Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs). Fishing strategy is the key to understanding and managing high seas fisheries, targeting highly migratory reso...

Previous research has shown that neighborhood-level variables such as social deprivation, social fragmentation or rurality are related to suicide risk, but most of these studies have been conducted in the U.S. or northern European countries. The aim of this study was to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution of suicide in a southern European city...

Some neighborhood characteristics linked to social disorganization theory have been related to intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW). The study of other neighborhood‐level factors that may influence IPVAW risk, however, has received less attention. The aim of this study is to analyze the influence of university campuses on IPVAW risk. To...

Citrus black spot (CBS), caused by Phyllosticta citricarpa, is the main fungal disease affecting this crop and quarantine measures have been implemented. The role of climate as a limiting factor for the establishment and spread of CBS to new areas has been debated, but previous studies did not address the effects of spatial factors in the geographi...

Many ecological processes are measured as proportions and are spatially sampled. In all these cases the standard procedure has long been the transformation of proportional data with the arcsine square root or logit transformation, without considering the spatial correlation in any way. This paper presents a robust regression model to analyse this k...

Alcohol outlets have been associated with different social problems, such as crime, violence, intimate partner violence, and child maltreatment. The spatial analysis of neighborhood availability of alcohol outlets is key for better understanding of these influences. Most studies on the spatial distribution of alcohol outlets in the community have b...

Background: ‘Place’ matters in understanding prevalence variations and inequalities in child maltreatment risk. However, most studies examining ecological variations in child maltreatment risk fail to take into account the implications of the spatial and temporal dimensions of neighborhoods. In this study, we conduct a high-resolution small-area st...

Understanding the spatio-temporal dynamism and environmental relationships of species is essential for the conservation of natural resources. Many spatio-temporally sampled processes result in continuous positive [0, ∞) abundance datasets that have many zero values observed in areas that lie outside their optimum niche. In such cases the most commo...

Background: Dengue is a high incidence arboviral disease in tropical countries around the world. Colombia is an endemic country due to the favourable environmental conditions for vector survival and spread. Dengue surveillance in Colombia is based in passive notification of cases, supporting monitoring, prediction, risk factor identification and i...

Motivation: Current plant and animal genomic studies are often based on newly assembled genomes that have not been properly consolidated. In this scenario, misassembled regions can easily lead to false positive findings. Despite quality control scores are included within genotyping protocols, they are usually employed to evaluate individual sample...