Monte Carlo Integration (monte + carlo_integration)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Threshold Dynamics of Short-term Interest Rates: Empirical Evidence and Implications for the Term Structure

ECONOMIC NOTES, Issue 1 2008
Theofanis Archontakis
This paper studies a nonlinear one-factor term structure model in discrete time. The short-term interest rate follows a self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) process that allows for shifts in the intercept and the variance. In comparison with a linear model, we find empirical evidence in favour of the threshold model for Germany and the US. Based on the estimated short-rate dynamics we derive the implied arbitrage-free term structure of interest rates. Since analytical solutions are not feasible, bond prices are computed by means of Monte Carlo integration. The resulting term structure captures stylized facts of the data. In particular, it implies a nonlinear relation between long rates and the short rate. [source]


New and fast statistical-thermodynamic method for computation of protein-ligand binding entropy substantially improves docking accuracy

JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 11 2005
A. M. Ruvinsky
Abstract We present a novel method to estimate the contributions of translational and rotational entropy to protein-ligand binding affinity. The method is based on estimates of the configurational integral through the sizes of clusters obtained from multiple docking positions. Cluster sizes are defined as the intervals of variation of center of ligand mass and Euler angles in the cluster. Then we suggest a method to consider the entropy of torsional motions. We validate the suggested methods on a set of 135 PDB protein-ligand complexes by comparing the averaged root-mean square deviations (RMSD) of the top-scored ligand docked positions, accounting and not accounting for entropy contributions, relative to the experimentally determined positions. We demonstrate that the method increases docking accuracy by 10,21% when used in conjunction with the AutoDock docking program, thus reducing the percent of incorrectly docked ligands by 1.4-fold to four-fold, so that in some cases the percent of ligands correctly docked to within an RMSD of 2 Å is above 90%. We show that the suggested method to account for entropy of relative motions is identical to the method based on the Monte Carlo integration over intervals of variation of center of ligand mass and Euler angles in the cluster. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 26: 1089,1095, 2005 [source]


Correlation method for variance reduction of Monte Carlo integration in RS-HDMR

JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 3 2003
Genyuan Li
Abstract The High Dimensional Model Representation (HDMR) technique is a procedure for efficiently representing high-dimensional functions. A practical form of the technique, RS-HDMR, is based on randomly sampling the overall function and utilizing orthonormal polynomial expansions. The determination of expansion coefficients employs Monte Carlo integration, which controls the accuracy of RS-HDMR expansions. In this article, a correlation method is used to reduce the Monte Carlo integration error. The determination of the expansion coefficients becomes an iteration procedure, and the resultant RS-HDMR expansion has much better accuracy than that achieved by direct Monte Carlo integration. For an illustration in four dimensions a few hundred random samples are sufficient to construct an RS-HDMR expansion by the correlation method with an accuracy comparable to that obtained by direct Monte Carlo integration with thousands of samples. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 24: 277,283, 2003 [source]


A theory of statistical models for Monte Carlo integration

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES B (STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY), Issue 3 2003
A. Kong
Summary. The task of estimating an integral by Monte Carlo methods is formulated as a statistical model using simulated observations as data. The difficulty in this exercise is that we ordinarily have at our disposal all of the information required to compute integrals exactly by calculus or numerical integration, but we choose to ignore some of the information for simplicity or computational feasibility. Our proposal is to use a semiparametric statistical model that makes explicit what information is ignored and what information is retained. The parameter space in this model is a set of measures on the sample space, which is ordinarily an infinite dimensional object. None-the-less, from simulated data the base-line measure can be estimated by maximum likelihood, and the required integrals computed by a simple formula previously derived by Vardi and by Lindsay in a closely related model for biased sampling. The same formula was also suggested by Geyer and by Meng and Wong using entirely different arguments. By contrast with Geyer's retrospective likelihood, a correct estimate of simulation error is available directly from the Fisher information. The principal advantage of the semiparametric model is that variance reduction techniques are associated with submodels in which the maximum likelihood estimator in the submodel may have substantially smaller variance than the traditional estimator. The method is applicable to Markov chain and more general Monte Carlo sampling schemes with multiple samplers. [source]


Estimation of origin,destination trip rates in Leicester

JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES C (APPLIED STATISTICS), Issue 4 2001
Martin L. Hazelton
The road system in region RA of Leicester has vehicle detectors embedded in many of the network's road links. Vehicle counts from these detectors can provide transportation researchers with a rich source of data. However, for many projects it is necessary for researchers to have an estimate of origin-to-destination vehicle flow rates. Obtaining such estimates from data observed on individual road links is a non-trivial statistical problem, made more difficult in the present context by non-negligible measurement errors in the vehicle counts collected. The paper uses road link traffic count data from April 1994 to estimate the origin,destination flow rates for region RA. A model for the error prone traffic counts is developed, but the resulting likelihood is not available in closed form. Nevertheless, it can be smoothly approximated by using Monte Carlo integration. The approximate likelihood is combined with prior information from a May 1991 survey in a Bayesian framework. The posterior is explored using the Hastings,Metropolis algorithm, since its normalizing constant is not available. Preliminary findings suggest that the data are overdispersed according to the original model. Results for a revised model indicate that a degree of overdispersion exists, but that the estimates of origin,destination flow rates are quite insensitive to the change in model specification. [source]


Transformations and seasonal adjustment

JOURNAL OF TIME SERIES ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2009
Tommaso Proietti
Abstract., We address the problem of seasonal adjustment of a nonlinear transformation of the original time series, measured on a ratio scale, which aims at enforcing two essential features: additivity and orthogonality of the components. The posterior mean and variance of the seasonally adjusted series admit an analytic finite representation only for particular values of the transformation parameter, e.g. for a fractional Box,Cox transformation parameter. Even if available, the analytical derivation can be tedious and difficult. As an alternative we propose to compute the two conditional moments of the seasonally adjusted series by means of numerical and Monte Carlo integration. The former is both fast and reliable in univariate applications. The latter uses the algorithm known as the ,simulation smoother' and it is most useful in multivariate applications. We present two case studies dealing with robust seasonal adjustment under the square root and the fourth root transformation. Our overall conclusion is that robust seasonal adjustment under transformations is feasible from the computational standpoint and that the possibility of transforming the scale ought to be considered as a further option for improving the quality of seasonal adjustment. [source]