Van Der Laan Research Articles

The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the Age of Luther and Faustus. Edited by J.M. van der Laan and Andrew Weeks. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2013. xii + 399 pages + 12 b/w illustrations. $90.00.

The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the Age of Luther and Faustus. Edited by J.M. van der Laan and Andrew Weeks. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2013. xii + 399 pages + 12 b/w illustrations. $90.00.

Doubly Robust and Efficient Estimation of Marginal Structural Models for the Hazard Function.

In social and health sciences, many research questions involve understanding the causal effect of a longitudinal treatment on mortality (or time-to-event outcomes in general). Often, treatment status may change in response to past covariates that are risk factors for mortality, and in turn, treatment status may also affect such subsequent covariates. In these situations, Marginal Structural Models (MSMs), introduced by Robins (1997. Marginal structural models Proceedings of the American Statistical Association. Section on Bayesian Statistical Science, 1-10), are well-established and widely used tools to account for time-varying confounding. In particular, a MSM can be used to specify the intervention-specific counterfactual hazard function, i. e. the hazard for the outcome of a subject in an ideal experiment where he/she was assigned to follow a given intervention on their treatment variables. The parameters of this hazard MSM are traditionally estimated using the Inverse Probability Weighted estimation Robins (1999. Marginal structural models versus structural nested models as tools for causal inference. In: Statistical models in epidemiology: the environment and clinical trials. Springer-Verlag, 1999:95-134), Robins et al. (2000), (IPTW, van der Laan and Petersen (2007. Causal effect models for realistic individualized treatment and intention to treat rules. Int J Biostat 2007;3:Article 3), Robins et al. (2008. Estimaton and extrapolation of optimal treatment and testing strategies. Statistics in Medicine 2008;27(23):4678-721)). This estimator is easy to implement and admits Wald-type confidence intervals. However, its consistency hinges on the correct specification of the treatment allocation probabilities, and the estimates are generally sensitive to large treatment weights (especially in the presence of strong confounding), which are difficult to stabilize for dynamic treatment regimes. In this paper, we present a pooled targeted maximum likelihood estimator (TMLE, van der Laan and Rubin (2006. Targeted maximum likelihood learning. The International Journal of Biostatistics 2006;2:1-40)) for MSM for the hazard function under longitudinal dynamic treatment regimes. The proposed estimator is semiparametric efficient and doubly robust, offering bias reduction over the incumbent IPTW estimator when treatment probabilities may be misspecified. Moreover, the substitution principle rooted in the TMLE potentially mitigates the sensitivity to large treatment weights in IPTW. We compare the performance of the proposed estimator with the IPTW and a on-targeted substitution estimator in a simulation study.

Non-technical approach to the challenges of ecological architecture: Learning from Van der Laan

Up to now, ecology has a strong influence on the development of technical and instrumental aspects of architecture, such as renewable and efficient of resources and energy, CO2 emissions, air quality, water reuse, some social and economical aspects. These concepts define the physical keys and codes of the current ׳sustainable׳ architecture, normally instrumental but rarely and insufficiently theorised. But is not there another way of bringing us to nature? We need a theoretical referent. This is where we place the Van der Laan׳s thoughts: he considers that art completes nature and he builds his theoretical discourse on it, trying to better understand many aspects of architecture. From a conceptual point of view, we find in his works sense of timelessness, universality, special attention on the ׳locus׳ and a strict sense of proportions and use of materials according to nature. Could these concepts complement our current sustainable architecture? How did Laan apply the current codes of ecology in his architecture? His work may help us to get a theoretical interpretation of nature and not only physical. This paper develops this idea through the comparison of thoughts and works of Laan with the current technical approach to ׳sustainable׳ architecture.

Inverse modeling of GOSAT-retrieved ratios of total column CH<sub>4</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> for 2009 and 2010

Abstract. This study investigates the constraint provided by greenhouse gas measurements from space on surface fluxes. Imperfect knowledge of the light path through the atmosphere, arising from scattering by clouds and aerosols, can create biases in column measurements retrieved from space. To minimize the impact of such biases, ratios of total column retrieved CH4 and CO2 (Xratio) have been used. We apply the ratio inversion method described in Pandey et al. (2015) to retrievals from the Greenhouse Gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT). The ratio inversion method uses the measured Xratio as a weak constraint on CO2 fluxes. In contrast, the more common approach of inverting proxy CH4 retrievals (Frankenberg et al., 2005) prescribes atmospheric CO2 fields and optimizes only CH4 fluxes. The TM5–4DVAR (Tracer Transport Model version 5–variational data assimilation system) inverse modeling system is used to simultaneously optimize the fluxes of CH4 and CO2 for 2009 and 2010. The results are compared to proxy inversions using model-derived CO2 mixing ratios (XCO2model) from CarbonTracker and the Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate (MACC) Reanalysis CO2 product. The performance of the inverse models is evaluated using measurements from three aircraft measurement projects. Xratio and XCO2model are compared with TCCON retrievals to quantify the relative importance of errors in these components of the proxy XCH4 retrieval (XCH4proxy). We find that the retrieval errors in Xratio (mean = 0.61 %) are generally larger than the errors in XCO2model (mean = 0.24 and 0.01 % for CarbonTracker and MACC, respectively). On the annual timescale, the CH4 fluxes from the different satellite inversions are generally in agreement with each other, suggesting that errors in XCO2model do not limit the overall accuracy of the CH4 flux estimates. On the seasonal timescale, however, larger differences are found due to uncertainties in XCO2model, particularly over Australia and in the tropics. The ratio method stays closer to the a priori CH4 flux in these regions, because it is capable of simultaneously adjusting the CO2 fluxes. Over tropical South America, comparison to independent measurements shows that CO2 fields derived from the ratio method are less realistic than those used in the proxy method. However, the CH4 fluxes are more realistic, because the impact of unaccounted systematic uncertainties is more evenly distributed between CO2 and CH4. The ratio inversion estimates an enhanced CO2 release from tropical South America during the dry season of 2010, which is in accordance with the findings of Gatti et al. (2014) and Van der Laan et al. (2015). The performance of the ratio method is encouraging, because despite the added nonlinearity due to the assimilation of Xratio and the significant increase in the degree of freedom by optimizing CO2 fluxes, still consistent results are obtained with respect to other CH4 inversions.

Combinatorial Hopf algebras from PROs

We introduce a general construction that takes as input a so-called stiff PRO and that outputs a Hopf algebra. Stiff PROs are particular PROs that can be described by generators and relations with precise conditions. Our construction generalizes the classical construction from operads to Hopf algebras of van der Laan. We study some of its properties and review some examples of application. We get in particular Hopf algebras on heaps of pieces and retrieve some deformed versions of the noncommutative Fa\`a di Bruno algebra introduced by Foissy.

Between Looking and Making: Unravelling Dom Hans van der Laan’s Plastic Number

Between 1920 and 1991, the Dutch Benedictine monk and architect Dom Hans van der Laan (1904–91) developed his own proportional system based on the ratio 3:4, or the irrational number 1.3247. . ., which he called the plastic number. According to him, this ratio directly grew from discernment, the human ability to differentiate sizes, and as such would be an improvement over the golden ratio. To put his theories to the test, he developed an architectural language, which can best be described as elementary architecture. His oeuvre — four convents and a house — is published on an international scale. His buildings have become pilgrimage sites for practicing architects and institutions that want to study and experience his spaces. His 1977 book Architectonic Space: Fifteen Lessons on the Disposition of the Human Habitat , translated into English, French, German and Italian, still inspires architects today, as does his biography, Modern Primitive , written by the architect Richard Padovan in 1994. But beyond the inspiration of his writings and realisations, the actual application of the plastic number in Van der Laan’s designs is unclear. Moreover, Van der Laan’s theories seem to be directed towards one goal only: to present the plastic number as the only possible means by which eminent architecture can be achieved, making them a target for suspicion and critique. To understand and evaluate Van der Laan’s application of the plastic number, this paper approaches it as a practical design tool. It analyses its genealogy and defines its key concepts. From that framework, Van der Laan’s architectonic space is interpreted as a design methodology that combines antique tectonic theories reminiscent of writers from Plato to Vitruvius with more recent atectonic approaches towards space through experience and movement.

Editorial

A few months ago, Philip Hans Franses stepped down as editor of Statistica Neerlandica after a tenure of many years. Let me start this editorial by thanking him for the excellent job he has achieved for such a long time. It is a testimony to the enormous size of Philip Hans' shoes that we have felt the need to fill them not with one but with three new editors: myself (Eric Cator), Marijtje van Duijn and Erik van Zwet. Roughly speaking, I will focus on mathematical statistics, Marijtje on statistics for the behavioural sciences and Erik on biostatistics. Statistica Neerlandica has always had a very wide scope, covering all areas of statistics, from theoretical to applied. The diversity of our editorial team will ensure the continuation of this tradition and hopefully send a message to a broad range of authors to consider us for their work. The change in editorship has also meant that we have renewed much of the editorial board. While several associate editors have been very kind to stay on, we say goodbye to Paul Eilers, Rob Eisinga, Patrick Groenen, Geurt Jongbloed, Alfred Stein and Peter van der Heijden. We thank them for all their selfless help in the past few years. We are very excited to welcome Ismael Castillo, Lutz Dümbgen, Anuska Ferligoj, Richard Gill, Jelle J. Goeman, Peter Grünwald, Alexandre Tsybakov, Mark J. van der Laan, Aad van der Vaart, Michel van der Wel and Jon Wellner as new associate editors. We look forward to working with them (some might say: harassing them) and learning from them. The editorial board continues its commitment to a fast and fair reviewing process and will judge submissions on quality, correctness, relevance and originality. Statistica Neerlandica encourages transparency and reproducibility and offers online resources to make data, code, simulation results and other additional materials publicly available. We have many plans for the future. In particular, we would like to dedicate special issues to conferences, and in fact, we already made a tentative start with the IBS 2015 Channel Meeting in Utrecht. Special issues around topics of current interest are also high on our list, and your (the reader's) suggestions are very welcome. Statistica Neerlandica has been the journal of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research since 1946. We are honoured to edit a journal with such a long and venerable history but, even more than that, we look forward to an exciting future. We will not be able to do much without your support, though, so please keep sending us your work!

Between Ima Summis and nearness. Dom Hans van der Laan’s Roosenberg Abbey as an example of a contemporary space of worship

Bloomsbury Journals, Spaces of Faith (Vol. 6 Issue 3 – 2015). This paper interweaves the architectural concepts and elementary architecture of Roosenberg Abbey in Belgium with the motivations and search of its creator: the Dutch monk-architect Dom Hans van der Laan (1904–1991). The abbey was built in 1975 for the Marian Sisters of Franciscus, who sought an austere place that adhered closely with their own experience of Catholic faith. Dom Hans van der Laan designed the building as a materialization and testing ground of his ideas put forward in his publications Architectonic Space (1970) and The Play of Forms (1985). Although the religious concepts behind his thoughts grew from his own Benedictine background, he developed an architectural philosophy that aimed to define spaces of worship through universal characteristics as dwelling and living. He interpreted the Dyonisian concept of ‘Ima Summis’ (the lowest in reconciliation with the highest) not from a transcendental perspective, but through the concrete material world of architecture that grew from human experience. For that, he developed the concepts of nearness and superposition, an architectural methodology that combines a classical ordering system with a modern dynamic spatiality. For van der Laan, building a space of faith is to create an order as a layered inside in constant but gradual relation to an outside. He called this concept of interweaving mass and space ‘nearness’. Although his writings are quite poetic, his design methodology with the central concept of ‘superposition’ is very concrete and practical.For two years, the Marian Sisters of Franciscus have worked together with the philosopher Dr. Marc Colpaert to open up their abbey as a place for contemplation and the study of interreligious dialog. They count amongst their guest lecturers Islamic scholars such as the Pakistani psychologist Prof. Durre Ahmen, who introduces the abbey to Muslims as a place for Ressourcement, and Omar Nahas and Sergio Scattolini, who organize seminars on the reading of the Koran. This shows that the requirements put forward by van der Laan from a Benedictine perspective for the Maria Sisters of Franciscus overcome a specific ideological focus, offering a more universal approach towards the design of spaces of faith. This paper will analyze Roosenberg Abbey as a testimony of these requirements.

Monasteries – The layered capture of rhythm in space and time through rituals by ‘moulage’

Monasteries have represented a unique quest to balance daily life and sacredness for more than 1,500 years. The subject of this paper is their community life through rituals, and rhythm in time and space. We start with Philip Gröning’s movie, ‘Die Große Stille’ (2005), a poetical and intimate portrait of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks in Grande Chartreuse, high up in the French Alps. The movie shows great respect for rituals in prayer, but equally in the monks’ dealings with space and ritual objects. Monks live ‘together alone’ following traditions that are over one thousand years’ old, concerning identity and spiritual regeneration in a collective site.We then look at a twentieth century Benedictine monk, the architect and theorist Dom Hans van der Laan. He fostered a link between space and clothing as a progressive separation between individual and infinite nature. He defines our personal atmosphere as part of a larger whole, a relationship which is strengthened by rituals. We examine his designs of liturgical clothing as metaphoric of this relationship.To conclude we introduce the concept of ‘moulage’ as a potential architectural tool in the discourse of the adaptive reuse of monasteries.

The Information Filtering of Gene Network for Chronic Diseases: Social Network Perspective

Web and mobile platforms have provided an environment of technical cooperation through technical development and the diffusion of related devices. Large-scale data sets have been available to analyze web interaction and data analysis. Particularly, large-scale data make us learn new patterns and insight into several research fields. For healthcare field, most chronic diseases are caused by environmental and genetic factors (Van der Laan et al., 2003). The relationship between environmental exposure and gene factors is crucial regarding disease etiology (Swift et al., 2004). For example, Tobacco is considered one of the biggest environmental factors responsible for many diseases each year. Schwartz and Collins (2007) discussed the importance of gene and environment factor correlation in human diseases. Thomas (2010) published a review of different approaches on gene-environment association studies attempting to explain some of the most complex diseases. Although previous studies have studied chronicle diseases with their causes one by one, those studies do not show integrated relationships between various diseases and their related human genes. Therefore, this study investigates the gene-disease relationships which are affected by tobacco and is able to find new association links with social network analysis and other mining techniques.

On Harsanyi Dividends and Asymmetric Values

The concept of dividend in transferable utility games was introduced by Harsanyi [1959]. It offers a unifying framework for studying various valuation concepts, from the Shapley value (symmetric as well as weighted) to the different notions of values introduced by Weber [1988]. Using the decomposition of the characteristic function used by Shapley [1953] to prove uniqueness of his value, the idea of Harsanyi was to associate to each coalition a dividend to be distributed among its members to define an allocation. Many authors have contributed to that question. Here, we offer a synthesis of their work, with a particular attention to restrictions on dividend distributions, starting with the seminal contributions of Vasil'ev [1978], Hammer, Peled and Sorensen [1977] and Derks, Haller and Peters [2000], until the recent paper of van den Brink, van der Laan and Vasil'ev [2014].

A counterview of 'An investigation of the false discovery rate and the misinterpretation of p-values' by Colquhoun (2014).

A counterview of 'An investigation of the false discovery rate and the misinterpretation of p-values' by Colquhoun (2014).

Double robust and efficient estimation of a prognostic model for events in the presence of dependent censoring.

In longitudinal data arising from observational or experimental studies, dependent subject drop-out is a common occurrence. If the goal is estimation of the parameters of a marginal complete-data model for the outcome, biased inference will result from fitting the model of interest with only uncensored subjects. For example, investigators are interested in estimating a prognostic model for clinical events in HIV-positive patients, under the counterfactual scenario in which everyone remained on ART (when in reality, only a subset had). Inverse probability of censoring weighting (IPCW) is a popular method that relies on correct estimation of the probability of censoring to produce consistent estimation, but is an inefficient estimator in its standard form. We introduce sequentially augmented regression (SAR), an adaptation of the Bang and Robins (2005. Doubly robust estimation in missing data and causal inference models. Biometrics 61, 962-972.) method to estimate a complete-data prediction model, adjusting for longitudinal missing at random censoring. In addition, we propose a closely related non-parametric approach using targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE; van der Laan and Rubin, 2006. Targeted maximum likelihood learning. The International Journal of Biostatistics 2 (1), Article 11). We compare IPCW, SAR, and TMLE (implemented parametrically and with Super Learner) through simulation and the above-mentioned case study.

Proliferation and reception of communicative behaviours: An analysis of the institution of university

1 IntroductionSociety develops entities that specialize in delivering certain services to the members of given community. The most advanced of these entities are institutions. The one which is in focus of this article is the university, the type of institution which caters for higher education and refers to a number of persons associated into one body, society, company, community, guild, corporation (Lewis, & Short 1966: 11). Additionally, the university is in power to grand academic degrees in different subjects. Like any other institution, the university exercises the use of human communicating agents that operate within the institution in order to deliver the coveted resources to the agents that inhabit the space outside the university and desire to employ its assets. Therefore, both aforementioned group apply particular communicative behaviours.The objective of this article is to assess how communicative behaviours are proliferated by the university communicators and received by the general users of the public space. The theoretical part as well as the data obtained for the research part of this article are elicited from the Ph.D. dissertation by Krawczak (2014). Furthermore, there can be found the analyses of other cardinal institutions for the public space.2 Communicative behavioursCommunicative clashes embracing the interactions of intrapersonal, interpersonal, group or mass nature participate in the Universal Communication Space (...) as the ultimate framework for encompassing all the populations of agents and for dealing with the agents' potential/ability to communicate (Puppel 2004: 3-4). As Puppel further adds communicative behaviours are encompassed as dynamic that is activated and unfolded in communication acts performed by both groups of agents in the communication as result of and within communicative For the need of the article, these two groups of communicators have been determined as inner- and outer-communicators. The first is comprehended as the agents who consciously transmit particular institution's resources according to the fashion in which this institution was designed for the public space, thus they operate within an institution. The latter comprises the types of communicators that approach institutions in order to take advantage of their resources. Thus, outer communicators are general public space users.The aforementioned needs context in which different communicative acts among different types of communicators take place, i.e. the public space.3 The public space as web of interactionsThere occur abundances of public spaces and eventually they are mentally visualized in varied manners, frequently according to particular discipline scholar represents. To name few, the public spaces can be of physical nature viewed as complete holders of nature phenomena (Speake 1979: 308), geographical one where space is merely relation between events or an aspect of events, and thus bound to time and process (Blaut 1961) or an architectural one in which space is the composition of enclosure which represents human experience withdrawn from the realm of nature (van der Laan 1983).The interpretation of space that is of greatest use for this article provides the following selected aspects of the public space: 1) Woolley (2003), 2) Madanipour (1996), 3) Tonnelat (2010), 4) Puppel (2004).The first three scholars point out that accessibility is key concept subjected to skilful administrators, the latter one perceives accessibility not only as an individual right, but coherent trait of each communicator who either intentionally or unintentionally enters the public space owing to communicative encounters. The core observation is made by Lafebvre (1991: 77)[In the public space] [m]ediations, and mediators, have to be taken into considerations: the action of groups, factors within knowledge, within ideology, or within the domain of representations. …

Urgent endovascular repair for ruptured aortic aneurysm using computed tomography image fusion

Abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture remains a cardiovascular catastrophe with strikingly high morbidity and mortality rates. Endovascular aneurysm repair management has recently emerged as a valuable treatment modality for ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, but better outcomes have to be reached. Image fusion may potentially improve perioperative outcomes in selected patients, guiding navigation and device implantation and limiting contrast dosage during interventions. We report an 83-year-old man presenting with an 80-mm infrarenal aortic aneurysm rupture suitable for endovascular aneurysm repair. Endovascular navigation and stent graft deployment were achieved using computed tomography image fusion for the first reported case in English.

Binet's formula for generalized tribonacci numbers

In this note, we derive Binet's formula for the general term of the generalized tribonacci sequence. This formula gives explicitly as a function of the index n, the roots of the associated characteristic equation, and the initial terms , , and . By way of illustration, we obtain Binet's formula for the Cordonnier, Perrin, and Van der Laan numbers. In addition, we establish a double identity that can be regarded as a parent of Binet's formula for generalized tribonacci numbers.

Variable Selection for Confounder Control, Flexible Modeling and Collaborative Targeted Minimum Loss-Based Estimation in Causal Inference.

This paper investigates the appropriateness of the integration of flexible propensity score modeling (nonparametric or machine learning approaches) in semiparametric models for the estimation of a causal quantity, such as the mean outcome under treatment. We begin with an overview of some of the issues involved in knowledge-based and statistical variable selection in causal inference and the potential pitfalls of automated selection based on the fit of the propensity score. Using a simple example, we directly show the consequences of adjusting for pure causes of the exposure when using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW). Such variables are likely to be selected when using a naive approach to model selection for the propensity score. We describe how the method of Collaborative Targeted minimum loss-based estimation (C-TMLE; van der Laan and Gruber, 2010 [27]) capitalizes on the collaborative double robustness property of semiparametric efficient estimators to select covariates for the propensity score based on the error in the conditional outcome model. Finally, we compare several approaches to automated variable selection in low- and high-dimensional settings through a simulation study. From this simulation study, we conclude that using IPTW with flexible prediction for the propensity score can result in inferior estimation, while Targeted minimum loss-based estimation and C-TMLE may benefit from flexible prediction and remain robust to the presence of variables that are highly correlated with treatment. However, in our study, standard influence function-based methods for the variance underestimated the standard errors, resulting in poor coverage under certain data-generating scenarios.

Selective mobility, segregation and neighbourhood effects

Selective mobility, segregation and neighbourhood effects

Selective mobility, segregation and neighbourhood effects

Selective mobility, segregation and neighbourhood effects

Selective mobility, segregation and neighbourhood effects

Selective mobility, segregation and neighbourhood effects