Accession Number:

ADA002176

Title:

Empirical Bayes Methods Applied to Spatial Analysis Problems,

Descriptive Note:

Corporate Author:

RAND CORP SANTA MONICA CALIF

Personal Author(s):

• Carter,Grace M.
• Rolph,John E.

Report Date:

1973-08-01

Pagination or Media Count:

29.0

Abstract:

A generalization of empirical Bayes estimators to the case in which the components have unequal variance is given. This estimator is applied to the spatial analysis problem of estimating the probability that a fire alarm reported from a particular street box signals a structural fire rather than a false alarm, rubbish fire or other emergency. The approach is to group alarm boxes into relatively homogeneous neighborhoods and to make empirical Bayes estimates of the probability structural for each box in the neighborhood for yearly 1967-1969 Bronx data. The results are evaluated by measuring how a dispatching rule based on the estimates performs on 1970 data.

Descriptors:

• *SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
• *BAYES THEOREM
• PROBABILITY
• ESTIMATES
• SAMPLING
• FIRE ALARM SYSTEMS

Subject Categories:

• Statistics and Probability

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE