Roundtable: Wed, Nov 16 - Noon, Alex Franks
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Jai Ranganathan
Nov 14, 2022, 1:18:19 PM11/14/22
to round...@nceas.ucsb.edu
Join us at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (1021 Anacapa Street, third floor lounge) for Wednesday's Roundtable.
Wednesday, November 16, Noon - 1 PM
Estimating the effects of a California gun control program with Multitask Gaussian Processes
Wednesday, November 16, Noon - 1 PM
Estimating the effects of a California gun control program with Multitask Gaussian Processes
Alex Franks
Department of Statistics and Applied Probability, UCSB
Join us virtually by connecting to:
https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/468789779?pwd=aklaUWYrNkNHMDduY2xEWDFyWU03Zz09
TALK ABSTRACT:
Gun violence is a critical public safety concern in the United States. In 2006 California implemented a unique firearm monitoring program, the Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), to address gun violence in the state. The APPS program first identifies those firearm owners who become prohibited from owning one due to federal or state law, then confiscates their firearms. Our goal is to assess the effect of APPS on California murder rates using annual, state-level crime data across the US for the years before and after the introduction of the program. To do so, we adapt a non-parametric Bayesian approach, multitask Gaussian Processes (MTGPs), to the panel data setting. MTGPs allow for flexible and parsimonious panel data models that nest many existing approaches and allow for direct control over both dependence across time and dependence across units, as well as natural uncertainty quantification. Applying this approach, we find that the increased monitoring and enforcement from the APPS program substantially decreased homicides in California. I'll briefly touch on how our methodology is relevant to ecological analyses.
https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/468789779?pwd=aklaUWYrNkNHMDduY2xEWDFyWU03Zz09
TALK ABSTRACT:
Gun violence is a critical public safety concern in the United States. In 2006 California implemented a unique firearm monitoring program, the Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), to address gun violence in the state. The APPS program first identifies those firearm owners who become prohibited from owning one due to federal or state law, then confiscates their firearms. Our goal is to assess the effect of APPS on California murder rates using annual, state-level crime data across the US for the years before and after the introduction of the program. To do so, we adapt a non-parametric Bayesian approach, multitask Gaussian Processes (MTGPs), to the panel data setting. MTGPs allow for flexible and parsimonious panel data models that nest many existing approaches and allow for direct control over both dependence across time and dependence across units, as well as natural uncertainty quantification. Applying this approach, we find that the increased monitoring and enforcement from the APPS program substantially decreased homicides in California. I'll briefly touch on how our methodology is relevant to ecological analyses.
SPEAKER BIO:
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics and Applied Probability at the University of California, Santa Barbara and am on the executive committee of the Career Development Network (CDN) for the Academic Data Science Alliance (ADSA). My research interests include covariance estimation, sensitivity analysis and causal inference, missing data and measurement error, high throughput applications in biology (“omics”), Bayesian statistics and sports.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages