An Object Oriented Data Analysis Approach To The Robust Analysis Of A Dynamic Transport Network

Abstract

The first part of this talk (roughly 20 minutes)  will give an overview of the emerging field known as Object Oriented Data  Analysis (OODA). A good starting point for the study of OODA is the recent book  Marron and Dryden (2022). A principal challenge of dealing with object data is  that the usual operations in Euclidean space such as vector addition and scalar  multiplication may not be available. After introducing some of the main ideas  of OODA, I will discuss the problem of statistical analysis of random objects  that vary over time and will then describe the robust approach to functional  principal component analysis that has been developed by Xu et al. (2025). The  robustness is achieved by (i) using Fr\'echet medians rather than Fr\'echet  means and (ii) by using a certain Winsorised estimator of the relevant  covariance operator. The application of the approach of Xu et al. (2025) to the  analysis of a dynamic transport network will then be described.

Reference
1. Marron, J.S.  and Dryden, I.L. (2022). Object Oriented Data Analysis. CRC Press.
2. Xu, J.,  Wood, A.T.A. and Zou, T. (2025). Robust functional principal components  analysis for non-Euclidean random objects.  Biometrika (to appear).

Biography

Andrew has an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and a masters degree in Statistics from Cambridge University.  He then did a PhD at the Open University, UK, in Directional Statistics, followed by several postdocs, including 5 years at the ANU in the 1990s, working in Peter Hall's group.  He then returned to the UK as Senior Lecturer in Statistics at Bath University.  From 1999 to 2019  Andrew was Professor of Statistics at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he held various leadership positions, including Head of Statistics and Probability for around 10 years.    He returned to the ANU as Professor of Statistics at the start of 2020.  Andrew was Joint Editor of JRSSB from 2004 to 2008 and is currently an Associate Editor of Annals of Statistics and Biometrika. A brief summary of his research interests and activities is given at https://cbe.anu.edu.au/about/staff-directory/professor-andrew-wood