用深度生成模型预测疫情,同时给出可信的不确定性评估。
Deep Generative Spatiotemporal Engression for Probabilistic Forecasting of Epidemics
- 构建轻量级生成模型,通过预加噪声捕捉疫情中的不确定性
- 在6个数据集上,概率和点预测均优于现有方法
- 适合公共卫生决策者用于制定应急预案
准确可靠的疫情预测对公共卫生准备至关重要,但复杂非线性时间依赖和异质空间交互使其极具挑战。传统时空模型常给出不可靠的点预测,无法有效量化未来事件的不确定性。为此,我们提出深度时空回归生成方法,实现对低频疫情数据的精准可靠概率预测。该方法作为分布视角的透镜,通过训练模型采样生成样本外概率预测。框架采用轻量级深度生成结构,不确定性在模型构建中由预加噪声成分内生驱动。在对网络权重和预加噪声过程施加弱假设下,建立了时空回归过程的几何遍历性和渐近平稳性。在三个预测时长下对六个流行病学数据集的全面评估表明,该方法在点预测和概率预测上均持续优于多种时间与时空基准模型。此外,我们探索了方法的可解释性,以增强其在及时、明智的公共卫生干预中的实际应用价值。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Accurate and reliable forecasting of epidemic incidences is critical for public health preparedness, yet it remains a challenging task due to complex nonlinear temporal dependencies and heterogeneous spatial interactions. Often, point forecasts generated by spatiotemporal models are unreliable in assigning uncertainty to future epidemic events. Probabilistic forecasting of epidemics is therefore crucial for providing the best or worst-case scenarios rather than a simple, often inaccurate, point estimate. We present deep spatiotemporal engression methods to generate accurate and reliable probabilistic forecasts on low-frequency epidemic datasets. The proposed methods act as distributional lenses, and out-of-sample probabilistic forecasts are generated by sampling from the trained models. Our frameworks encapsulate lightweight deep generative architectures, wherein uncertainty is quantified endogenously, driven by a pre-additive noise component during model construction. We establish geometric ergodicity and asymptotic stationarity of the spatiotemporal engression processes under mild assumptions on the network weights and pre-additive noise process. Comprehensive evaluations across six epidemiological datasets over three forecast horizons demonstrate that the proposal consistently outperforms several temporal and spatiotemporal benchmarks in both point and probabilistic forecasting. Additionally, we explore the explainability of the proposal to enhance the models' practical application for informed, timely public health interventions.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。