Modelling multivariate data using product copulas and minimum distance estimators: an exemplary application to ecological traits

Modelling and applying multivariate distributions is an important topic in ecology. In particular in plant ecology, the multidimensional nature of plant traits comes with challenges such as wide ranges in observations as well as correlations between several characteristics. In other disciplines (e.g., finances and economics), copulas have been proven as a valuable tool for modelling multivariate distributions. However, applications in ecology are still rarely used. Here, we present a copula-based methodology of fitting multivariate distributions to ecological data. We used product copula models to fit multidimensional plant traits, on example of observations from the global trait database TRY. The fitting procedure is split into two parts: fitting the marginal distributions and fitting the copula. We found that product copulas are well suited to model ecological data as they have the advantage of being asymmetric (similar to the observed data). Challenges in the fitting were mainly addressed to limited amount of data. In view of growing global databases, we conclude that copula modelling provides a great potential for ecological modelling.

Risk Analysis of Australia’s Victorian Dairy Farms Using Multivariate Copulae

The study provides comparative risk analyses of Australia’s three Victorian dairy regions. Historical data were used to identify business risk and financial viability. Multivariate distributions were fitted to the historical price, production, and input costs using copula models, capturing non-linear dependence among the variables. Monte Carlo simulation methods were then used to generate cash flows for a decade. Factors that influenced profitability the most were identified using sensitivity analysis. The dairies in the Northern region have faced water reductions, whereas those of Gippsland and South West have more positive indicators. Our analysis summarizes long-term risks and net farm profits by utilizing survey data in a probabilistic manner.

On New Types of Multivariate Trigonometric Copulas

Copulas are useful functions for modeling multivariate distributions through their univariate marginal distributions and dependence structures. They have a wide range of applications in all fields of science that deal with multivariate data. While there is a plethora of copulas, those based on trigonometric functions, especially in dimensions greater than two, have received much less attention. They are, however, of interest because of the properties of oscillation and periodicity of the trigonometric functions, which can appear in certain models of correlation of natural phenomena. In order to fill this gap, this paper introduces and investigates two new types of “multivariate trigonometric copulas”. Their main theoretical properties are studied, and some perspectives for applications are sketched for future work. In particular, we show that the proposed copulas are symmetric, not associative, with no orthant dependence, and with copula densities that have wide oscillations, which remains an uncommon property in the field. The expressions of their multivariate Spearman’s rho are also determined. Furthermore, the first type of the proposed copulas has the interesting feature of having a multivariate Spearman’s rho equal to 0 for all of the dimensions. Some graphic evidence supports the findings. Some mathematical formulas involving the product of n trigonometric functions may be of independent interest.

A Generative Model for Correlated Graph Signals

A graph signal is a random vector with a partially known statistical description. The observations are usually sufficient to determine marginal distributions of graph node variables and their pairwise correlations representing the graph edges. However, the curse of dimensionality often prevents estimating a full joint distribution of all variables from the available observations. This paper introduces a computationally effective generative model to sample from arbitrary but known marginal distributions with defined pairwise correlations. Numerical experiments show that the proposed generative model is generally accurate for correlation coefficients with magnitudes up to about 0.3, whilst larger correlations can be obtained at the cost of distribution approximation accuracy. The generative models of graph signals can also be used to sample multivariate distributions for which closed-form mathematical expressions are not known or are too complex.

Expectations

The expectation is defined, applying integration concepts to probability measures. Leading examples are given and the different characterizations of the expectation of a function are compared. The Markov and Jensen inequalities are given and consideration of multivariate distributions then leads to the treatment of the Cauchy–Schwarz, Hölder, Liapunov, Minkowski, and Loève inequalities. The final section treats the calculus of random functions of a real variable.

Random Variables

Specializing the concepts of Chapter 7 to the case of real variables, this chapter introduces distribution functions, discrete and continuous distributions, and describes examples such as the binomial, uniform, Gaussian, Cauchy, and gamma distributions. It then treats multivariate distributions and the concept of independence.