Kevin Burke

Kevin Burke
University of Limerick | UL · Department of Mathematics and Statistics (MACSI)

About

55
Publications
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242
Citations

Publications

Publications (55)
Article
Full-text available
Background Diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are a leading cause of ill-health and death across Europe. In Ireland, dietary intakes of saturated fat, free sugar and salt exceed World Health Organization recommendations, and excess consumption follows a social gradient increasing population risk of diet-related NCDs. The retail food envir...
Article
The deep neural network (DNN) model can be viewed as a highly non-linear and semi-parametric generalization of statistical regression models such as the generalized linear model (GLM). The fitting (i.e. learning) of DNN models using training data is usually implemented by minimizing a squared loss function, which is equivalent to a Gaussian likelih...
Article
Within the realm of business context, process duration signifies time spent by customers between successive activities. This temporal perspective offers important insight to customer behaviour, highlighting potential bottlenecks, and influencing business management decisions. The distribution of these process duration often changes over time due to...
Article
Standard survival models such as the proportional hazards model contain a single regression component, corresponding to the scale of the hazard. In contrast, we consider the so-called “multi-parameter regression” approach whereby covariates enter the model through multiple distributional parameters simultaneously, for example, scale and shape param...
Article
Full-text available
Unlabelled: Modern variable selection procedures make use of penalization methods to execute simultaneous model selection and estimation. A popular method is the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, the use of which requires selecting the value of a tuning parameter. This parameter is typically tuned by minimizing the cross-validation...
Article
Full-text available
We consider the analysis of temporal data arising from online interactive social experiments, which is complicated by the fact that classical independence assumptions about the observations are not satisfied. Therefore, we propose an approach that compares the output of a fitted (linear) model from the observed interaction data to that generated by...
Article
Full-text available
Poor diet is responsible for a quarter of European non-communicable disease (NCD)-related deaths. The reformulation of sugar, salt, and saturated fat in processed packaged foods offers an opportunity to reduce consumption of nutrients of concern and also support a reduction in energy intake. To date, there have been no publications measuring progre...
Preprint
Datasets with extreme observations and/or heavy-tailed error distributions are commonly encountered and should be analyzed with careful consideration of these features from a statistical perspective. Small deviations from an assumed model, such as the presence of outliers, can cause classical regression procedures to break down, potentially leading...
Preprint
Full-text available
Mean-field equations have been developed recently to approximate the dynamics of the Deffuant model of opinion formation. These equations can describe both fully-mixed populations and the case where individuals interact only along edges of a network. In each case, interactions only occur between individuals whose opinions differ by less than a give...
Article
We consider a parametric modelling approach for survival data where covariates are allowed to enter the model through multiple distributional parameters (i.e., scale and shape). This is in contrast with the standard convention of having a single covariate-dependent parameter, typically the scale. Taking what is referred to as a multi-parameter regr...
Article
Concept drifts within business processes are viewed as variations in the business circumstances, such as structural and behavioural changes in the control-flow, which necessitate process refinement and model updating. Existing approaches, such as relation-based precedence rules, tuned to detect drifts in the process structure are often not well sui...
Preprint
Full-text available
Feedforward neural networks (FNNs) can be viewed as non-linear regression models, where covariates enter the model through a combination of weighted summations and non-linear functions. Although these models have some similarities to the models typically used in statistical modelling, the majority of neural network research has been conducted outsi...
Article
Full-text available
Concept drift, which refers to changes in the underlying process structure or customer behaviour over time, is inevitable in business processes, causing challenges in ensuring that the learned model is a proper representation of the new data. Due to factors such as seasonal effects and policy updates, concept drifts can occur in customer transition...
Preprint
Full-text available
Process visualizations of data from manufacturing execution systems (MESs) provide the ability to generate valuable insights for improved decision-making. Industry 4.0 is awakening a digital transformation where advanced analytics and visualizations are critical. Exploiting MESs with data-driven strategies can have a major impact on business outcom...
Article
Full-text available
Strategies adopted globally to mitigate the threat of COVID–19 have primarily involved lockdown measures with substantial economic and social costs with varying degrees of success. Morbidity patterns of COVID–19 variants have a strong association with age, while restrictive lockdown measures have association with negative mental health outcomes in...
Preprint
Full-text available
We consider a parametric modelling approach for survival data where covariates are allowed to enter the model through multiple distributional parameters, i.e., scale and shape. This is in contrast with the standard convention of having a single covariate-dependent parameter, typically the scale. Taking what is referred to as a multi-parameter regre...
Preprint
Full-text available
Modern variable selection procedures make use of penalization methods to execute simultaneous model selection and estimation. A popular method is the LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator), which contains a tuning parameter. This parameter is typically tuned by minimizing the cross-validation error or Bayesian information criterion...
Preprint
Full-text available
Confidence interval performance is typically assessed in terms of two criteria: coverage probability and interval width (or margin of error). In this work we detail the importance of defining the margin of error in relation to the magnitude of the estimated proportion when the success probability is small. We compare the performance of four common...
Preprint
Full-text available
Strategies adopted globally to mitigate the threat of COVID-19 have primarily involved lockdown measures with substantial economic and social costs with varying degrees of success. Morbidity patterns of COVID-19 variants have a strong association with age, while restrictive lockdown measures have association with negative mental health outcomes in...
Article
Full-text available
When the interactions of agents on a network are assumed to follow the Deffuant opinion dynamics model, the outcomes are known to depend on the structure of the underlying network. This behavior cannot be captured by existing mean-field approximations for the Deffuant model. In this paper, a generalized mean-field approximation is derived that acco...
Article
Full-text available
In this article, we present a new methodology to model patient transitions and length of stay in the emergency department using a series of conditional Coxian phase‐type distributions, with covariates. We reformulate the Coxian models (standard Coxian, Coxian with multiple absorbing states, joint Coxian, and conditional Coxian) to take into account...
Article
Full-text available
We propose a new likelihood-based approach for estimation, inference and variable selection for parametric cure regression models in time-to-event analysis under random right-censoring. In this context, it often happens that some subjects are “cured”, i.e., they will never experience the event of interest. Then, the sample of censored observations...
Article
Full-text available
Background Elevation of serum uric acid (SUA) is associated with increased mortality; however, controversy exists regarding the nature of the relationship and differences between men and women. We explored relationships of SUA levels with all-cause mortality in a large cohort of patients within the Irish health system. Methods A retrospective coho...
Preprint
Full-text available
In this paper, we introduce a new control-theoretic paradigm for mitigating the spread of a virus. To this end, our discrete-time controller, aims to reduce the number of new daily deaths, and consequently, the cumulative number of deaths. In contrast to much of the existing literature, we do not rely on a potentially complex virus transmission mod...
Preprint
Full-text available
When the interactions of agents on a network are assumed to follow the Deffuant opinion dynamics model, the outcomes are known to depend on the structure of the underlying network. This behavior cannot be captured by existing mean-field approximations for the Deffuant model. In this paper, a generalised mean-field approximation is derived that acco...
Article
Full-text available
We present a generalization of the Simultaneous Long-Short (SLS) trading strategy described in recent control literature wherein we allow for different parameters across the short and long sides of the controller; we refer to this new strategy as Generalized SLS (GSLS). Furthermore, we investigate the conditions under which positive gain can be ass...
Article
Full-text available
For sequential betting games, Kelly’s theory, aimed at maximization of the logarithmic growth of one’s account value, involves optimization of the so-called betting fraction $K$ . In this letter, we extend the classical formulation to allow for temporal correlation among bets. To demonstrate the potential of this new paradigm, for simplicity of e...
Article
Full-text available
Shared opinions are an important feature in the formation of social groups. In this paper, we use the Axelrod model of cultural dissemination to represent opinion-based groups. In the Axelrod model, each agent has a set of features which each holds one of a set of nominally related traits. Survey data has a similar structure, where each participant...
Article
Full-text available
We develop flexible multiparameter regression (MPR) survival models for interval‐censored survival data arising in longitudinal prospective studies and longitudinal randomised controlled clinical trials. A multiparameter Weibull regression survival model, which is wholly parametric, and has nonproportional hazards, is the main focus of the article....
Preprint
Full-text available
For sequential betting games, Kelly's theory, aimed at maximization of the logarithmic growth of one's account value, involves optimization of the so-called betting fraction $K$. In this paper, we extend the classical formulation to allow for temporal correlation among bets. For the example of successive coin flips with even-money payoff, used thro...
Article
Full-text available
We introduce a general, flexible, parametric survival modelling framework which encompasses key shapes of hazard functions (constant; increasing; decreasing; up then down; down then up) and various common survival distributions (log‐logistic; Burr type XII; Weibull; Gompertz) and includes defective distributions (cure models). This generality is ac...
Article
Full-text available
We are concerned with the flexible parametric analysis of bivariate survival data. Elsewhere, we argued in favour of an adapted form of the ‘power generalized Weibull’ distribution as an attractive vehicle for univariate parametric survival analysis. Here, we additionally observe a frailty relationship between a power generalized Weibull distributi...
Preprint
Full-text available
Shared opinions are an important feature in the formation of social groups. In this paper, we use the Axelrod model of cultural dissemination to represent opinion-based groups. In the Axelrod model, each agent has a set of features which each holds one of a set of nominally related traits. Survey data, for example, has a similar structure, where ea...
Article
In the mathematics education literature, subject matter knowledge is well recognized as the cornerstone of a mathematics teacher’s knowledge base. Though the ‘Mathematics Problem’, the declining standards of students’ mathematical abilities upon entering tertiary education, is well documented in many countries, its effect on preservice mathematics...
Article
Full-text available
We consider a log‐linear model for survival data, where both the location and scale parameters depend on covariates and the baseline hazard function is completely unspecified. This model provides the flexibility needed to capture many interesting features of survival data at a relatively low cost in model complexity. Estimation procedures are devel...
Preprint
Full-text available
Analysis of temporal network data arising from online interactive social experiments is not possible with standard statistical methods because the assumptions of these models, such as independence of observations, are not satisfied. In this paper, we outline a modelling methodology for such experiments where, as an example, we analyse data collecte...
Preprint
Full-text available
In this paper we present a new methodology to model patient transitions and length of stay in the emergency department using a series of conditional Coxian phase-type distributions, with covariates. We reformulate the Coxian models (standard Coxian, Coxian with multiple absorbing states, joint Coxian, and conditional Coxian) to take into account he...
Preprint
Full-text available
Multi-parameter regression (MPR) modelling refers to the approach whereby covariates are allowed to enter the model through multiple distributional parameters simultaneously. This is in contrast to the standard approaches where covariates enter through a single parameter (e.g., a location parameter). Penalized variable selection has received a sign...
Preprint
Full-text available
We develop flexible multi-parameter regression survival models for interval censored survival data arising in longitudinal prospective studies and longitudinal randomised controlled clinical trials. A multi-parameter Weibull regression survival model, which is wholly parametric, and has non-proportional hazards, is the main focus of the paper. We d...
Preprint
Full-text available
We consider a log-linear model for survival data, where both the location and scale parameters depend on covariates and the baseline hazard function is completely unspecified. This model provides the flexibility needed to capture many interesting features of survival data at a relatively low cost in model complexity. Estimation procedures are devel...
Preprint
Full-text available
Parameter estimation in Coxian phase-type models can be challenging due to their non-unique representation leading to a multi-modal likelihood. Since each representation corresponds to a different underlying data-generating mechanism, it is of interest to identify those supported by given data (i.e., find all likelihood modes). The standard approac...
Preprint
Full-text available
We introduce a general, flexible, parametric survival modelling framework which encompasses key shapes of hazard function (constant, increasing, decreasing, up-then-down, down-then-up), various common survival distributions (log-logistic, Burr type XII, Weibull, Gompertz), and includes defective distributions (i.e., cure models). This generality is...
Preprint
Full-text available
We are concerned with the flexible parametric analysis of bivariate survival data. Elsewhere, we have extolled the virtues of the "power generalized Weibull" (PGW) distribution as an attractive vehicle for univariate parametric survival analysis: it is a tractable, parsimonious, model which interpretably allows for a wide variety of hazard shapes a...
Preprint
Full-text available
We propose a new likelihood approach for estimation, inference and variable selection for parametric cure regression models in time-to-event analysis under random right-censoring. In such a context, it often happens that some subjects under study are "cured", meaning that they do not experience the event of interest. Then, sample of the censored ob...
Preprint
Full-text available
We present a generalization of the Simultaneous Long-Short (SLS) trading strategy described in recent control literature wherein we allow for different parameters across the short and long sides of the controller; we refer to this new strategy as Generalized SLS (GSLS). Furthermore, we investigate the conditions under which positive gain can be ass...
Article
Full-text available
It is standard practice for covariates to enter a parametric model through a single distributional parameter of interest, for example, the scale parameter in many standard survival models. Indeed, the well-known proportional hazards model is of this kind. In this article, we discuss a more general approach whereby covariates enter the model through...
Code
Package for fitting Multi-Parameter Regression (MPR) models to right-censored survival data. These are flexible parametric regression models which extend standard models, for example, proportional hazards.
Article
Full-text available
The proportional hazards (PH) assumption in survival analysis may not always be appropriate. If data do not obey the assumption then we will reach incorrect conclusions by making it. For example we may find a covariate to be statistically insignificant when in fact it is important, but on a non-PH scale. Even if a PH model does pick up the statisti...
Article
Full-text available
We aim to explore the survival distributions based on the extreme dispersion, XD, models proposed by Jørgensen (2010). It is suggested that survival times can be modelled within the XD framework by taking log T = Y ∼ XD(µ, λ), where T is the survival time and Y is the extreme dispersion random variable. We will show how these survival models can be...

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