Centre of Statistics and its Applications

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Publications

Publication . Petropoulos, Fotios; Apiletti, Daniele; Assimakopoulos, Vassilios; Zied Babai, Mohamed; K. Barrow, Devon; Ben Taieb, Souhaib; Bergmeir, Christoph; J. Bessa, Ricardo; Bijak, Jakub; Boylan, John E.; Browell, Jethro; Carnevale, Claudio; Castle, Jennifer L.; Cirillo, Pasquale; Clements, Michael P.; Cordeiro, Clara; Oliveira, Fernando Luiz; Shari De Baets, Cyrino; Dokumentov, Alexander; Ellison, Joanne; Fiszeder, Piotr; Franses, Philip Hans; Frazier, David T.; Gilliland, Michael; Gönül, M. Sinan; Goodwin, Paul; Grossi, Luigi; Grushka-Cockayne, Yael; Guidolin, Mariangela; Guidolin, Massimo; Gunter, Ulrich; Guo, Xiaojia; Guseo, Renato; Harvey, Nigel; Hendry, David F.; Hollyman, Ross; Januschowski, Tim; eon, Jooyoung J; Richmond R. Jose, Victor; Kang, Yanfei; Koehler, Anne B.; Kolassa, Stephan; Kourentzes, Nikolaos; Leva, Sonia; Li, Feng; Litsiou, Konstantia; Makridakis, Spyros; M. Martin, Gael; Martinez, Andrew B.; Meeran, Sheik; Modis, Theodore; Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos; Önkal, Dilek; Paccagnini, Alessia; Panagiotelis, Anastasios; Panapakidis, Ioannis; Pavía, Jose M.; Pedio, Manuela; Pedregal, Diego J.; Pinson, Pierre; Ramos, Patrícia; Rapach, David E.; Reade, J. James; Rostami-Tabar, Bahman; Rubaszek, Michał; Sermpinis, Georgios; Shang, Han Lin; Spiliotis, Evangelos; Syntetos, Aris A.; Talagala, Priyanga Dilini; Talagala, Thiyanga S.; Tashman, Len; Thomakos, Dimitrios; Thorarinsdottir, Thordis; Todini, Ezio; Trapero Arenas, Juan Ramón; Wang, Xiaoqian; Winkler, Robert L.; Yusupova, Alisa; Ziel, Florian

Forecasting has always been at the forefront of decision making and planning. The uncertainty that surrounds the future is both exciting and challenging, with individuals and organisations seeking to minimise risks and maximise utilities. The large number of forecasting applications calls for a diverse set of forecasting methods to tackle real-life challenges. This article provides a non-systematic review of the theory and the practice of forecasting. We provide an overview of a wide range of theoretical, state-of-the-art models, methods, principles, and approaches to prepare, produce, organise, and evaluate forecasts. We then demonstrate how such theoretical concepts are applied in a variety of real-life contexts. We do not claim that this review is an exhaustive list of methods and applications. However, we wish that our encyclopedic presentation will offer a point of reference for the rich work that has been undertaken over the last decades, with some key insights for the future of forecasting theory and practice. Given its encyclopedic nature, the intended mode of reading is non-linear. We offer cross-references to allow the readers to navigate through the various topics. We complement the theoretical concepts and applications covered by large lists of free or open-source software implementations and publicly-available databases.

2020-12-04Journal article

Open access

Professional skills in family support: A systematic review

Publication . Dos Santos, Rita Alexandra Mendes; Isakov, Anita Burgund; Martins, Cátia; Antunes, Ana Pereira; Zegarac, Nevenka; Nunes, C.

Family support encompasses a wide variety of professionals, sectors, and intervention paradigms that make it difficult to systematize and standardize the skills needed by the family support workforce. The present study aimed to describe the relevant skills of professionals, organize the main skills into different categories, and contribute to the development of intervention standardization guidelines in the field of family support. So, a systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. The search was carried out in five databases and included the analysis of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies, and all studies were qualitatively assessed. Of the initial 3334 articles identified, 59 studies were included, and four categories were identified: professionals’ qualities, essential skills common to all professions and contexts, specific knowledge, and theoretical approaches necessary for family support. Most of the studies were from the United Kingdom, qualitative, published in the last 10 years, used small samples, and included a specific group of professionals. The included studies did not specify whether some skills or characteristics were considered more effective in practice, and they had bias issues related to social desirability. The implications for family support practice are discussed, as well as the gaps to be covered in future studies.

2024-03-20Journal article

Open access

Revisiting IgG antibody reactivity to epstein-barr virus in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and Its potential application to disease diagnosis

Publication . Sepúlveda, Nuno; Malato, João; Sotzny, Franziska; Grabowska, Anna D.; Fonseca, André; Cordeiro, Clara; Graça, Luís; Biecek, Przemyslaw; Behrends, Uta; Mautner, Josef; Westermeier, Francisco; Lacerda, Eliana M.; Scheibenbogen, Carmen

Infections by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) are often at the disease onset of patients suffering from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). However, serological analyses of these infections remain inconclusive when comparing patients with healthy controls (HCs). In particular, it is unclear if certain EBV-derived antigens eliciting antibody responses have a biomarker potential for disease diagnosis. With this purpose, we re-analyzed a previously published microarray data on the IgG antibody responses against 3,054 EBV-related antigens in 92 patients with ME/CFS and 50 HCs. This re-analysis consisted of constructing different regression models for binary outcomes with the ability to classify patients and HCs. In these models, we tested for a possible interaction of different antibodies with age and gender. When analyzing the whole data set, there were no antibody responses that could distinguish patients from healthy controls. A similar finding was obtained when comparing patients with non-infectious or unknown disease trigger with healthy controls. However, when data analysis was restricted to the comparison between HCs and patients with a putative infection at their disease onset, we could identify stronger antibody responses against two candidate antigens (EBNA4_0529 and EBNA6_0070). Using antibody responses to these two antigens together with age and gender, the final classification model had an estimated sensitivity and specificity of 0.833 and 0.720, respectively. This reliable case-control discrimination suggested the use of the antibody levels related to these candidate viral epitopes as biomarkers for disease diagnosis in this subgroup of patients. To confirm this finding, a follow-up study will be conducted in a separate cohort of patients.

2022Journal article

Open access

Interactions between air-breathing marine megafauna and artisanal fisheries in Southern Iberian Atlantic waters: results from an interview survey to fishers

Publication . Alexandre, Sofia; Marçalo, Ana; Marques, Tiago A.; Pires, Alexandra; Rangel, Mafalda; Ressurreição, Adriana; Monteiro, Pedro; Erzini, Karim; Gonçalves, Jorge Manuel Santos

The coastal waters off Western Iberia are an important fishing ground and a marine megafauna foraging area. Overlap between fishery target species and the diet of several air breathing marine megafauna species can lead to negative interactions and consequently conservation and economic issues. This work aimed to assess marine megafauna (cetaceans, marine birds, and marine turtles) – fishery interactions through face-to-face interviews to fishers of the local and coastal artisanal fisheries fleets in the landing sites of the Portuguese mainland Southern coast (Algarve). The main goal was to identify and evaluate problematic interactions known to cause bycatch or economic loss through depredation. We found that bycatch is a concern for all marine megafauna groups, but depredation problems are mostly associated with cetaceans. Of the sampled artisanal fisheries (longlines, pots and traps, bottom set-nets, and purse seine), the fishing gears of most concern were purse seine and coastal bottom set-nets. Purse seine showed problems associated with important bycatch numbers, especially of common dolphins, Delphinus delphis, while bottom set-nets have considerable bycatch of all animal groups and depredation was highly associated with bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus. Bycatch and depredation were found to be species, gear, area, and vessel size dependent. Economic loss caused by depredation led to catch and gear damage and was widely reported by bottom set-net fishers, ranging from 7% to 21% of their revenue. Higher losses were reported for local vessels in leeward (eastern) Algarve area. This study showed that the active participation of fishers provides improved localized knowledge on interactions between local and coastal fisheries and marine megafauna, allowing for the definition of specific management and mitigation strategies.

2022Journal article

Restricted access

Forecasting air pollutants using classification models: a case study in the Bay of Algeciras (Spain)

Publication . Rodríguez-García, M. I.; Ribeiro, Conceição; González-Enrique, J.; Ruiz-Aguilar, J. J.; Turias, I. J.

The main goal of this work is to obtain reliable predictions of pollutant concentrations related to maritime traffic (SO2, PM10, NO2, NOX, and NO) in the Bay of Algeciras, located in Andalusia, the south of Spain. Furthermore, the objective is to predict future air quality levels of the principal maritime traffic-related pollutants in the Bay of Algeciras as a function of the rest of the pollutants, the meteorological variables, and vessel data. In this sense, three scenarios were analysed for comparison, namely Alcornocales Park and the cities of La Linea and Algeciras. A database of hourly records of air pollution immissions, meteorological measurements in the Bay of Algeciras region and a database of maritime traffic in the port of Algeciras during the years 2017 to 2019 were used. A resampling procedure using a five-fold cross-validation procedure to assure the generalisation capabilities of the tested models was designed to compute the pollutant predictions with different classification models and also with artificial neural networks using different numbers of hidden layers and units. This procedure enabled appropriate and reliable multiple comparisons among the tested models and facilitated the selection of a set of top-performing prediction models. The models have been compared using several quality classification indexes such as sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and precision. The distance (d(1)) to the perfect classifier (1, 1, 1, 1) was also used as a discriminant feature, which allowed for the selection of the best models. Concerning the number of variables, an analysis was conducted to identify the most relevant ones for each pollutant. This approach aimed to obtain models with fewer inputs, facilitating the design of an optimised monitoring network. These more compact models have proven to be the optimal choice in many cases. The obtained sensitivities in the best models were 0.98 for SO2, 0.97 for PM10, 0.82 for NO2 and NOX, and 0.83 for NO. These results demonstrate the potential of the models to forecast air pollution in a port city or a complex scenario and to be used by citizens and authorities to prevent exposure to pollutants and to make decisions concerning air quality.

2023Journal article

Open access