Ph.D. project

My Ph.D. studies has been at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Aalborg University, Denmark. I started in August 1997 and defended my Thesis on 19th February 2002. My supervisor has been Søren Lundbye-Christensen. You may download my thesis here (Gzip,pdf). The programs used in the thesis are available here. The presentation is also available.

Research interests:

  • Longitudinal data analysis
  • State Space Models
  • Spatial statistics
  • Medical applications
  • Agricultural applications

    • About the project

    Educated in the world of Dynamic Linear Models (State Space Models), this is my starting point. Some basic references are West and Harrison (1997) and Harvey (1989). Recent work by Durbin and Koopman (2000) describes how to use exact simulation from non-linear and/or non-Gaussian state space models.

    Lavine (1999) demonstrates how the class of Gaussian Markov Random Fields can be put into state space form. My aim is to explore this link and by using techniques known from state space models, the Markov random field models can be extended and analysed by the methods from Durbin and Koopman (2000). This is an alternative to the MCMC approach taken by e.g. Rue.

    Applications are within agriculture (e.g. Besag and Higdon (1999)), disease mapping (e.g. Knorr-Held and Rue (2000)) and image restoration.

    Conferences, meetings

  • ISBA 2000. Participated with a poster.
  • Symposium i Anvendt Statistik, 2000. Participated with a talk and a paper.
  • HSSS 1999. Participated with a poster.
  • Valencia 6, 1998. Participated with a poster.
  • Svensk-Dansk Symposium i Longitudinel Analyse, 1997. Participated with a talk.

    • Groups

  • Contemporary inference in State Space models.
  • Jutland's society for longitudinal studies
  • DINA - Spatial statistics in agriculture. I have participated in activities in Dina research school.

    • Contacts

    In 1998, my supervisor and I visited David Spiegelhalter from the MRC Biostatistics Unit in Cambridge, U.K.

    From July 2000 to ultimo 2000, I was visiting the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Lancaster, U.K.

    I was on leave from my Ph.D. in the period July 1998 to July 1999, where I was travelling around the world, sponsored by the incredible travelling grant for newly educated Danish mathematicians. I visited the Department of Statistics at University of Auckland, New Zealand in the period August 1998 to October 1998. From January to April 1999, I visited the Department of Statistics at University of British Columbia, Canada. Finally, during May/June 1999, I visited the Department of Statistics at University of Toronto, Canada.

    Last modified: Thu Dec 18 13:21:09 Romance Standard Time 2003 by Claus Dethlefsen