Fused Spatial Point Process Intensity Estimation with Varying Coefficients on Complex Constrained Domains

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel graph-regularized intensity estimation method for large spatial point patterns on complex domains, effectively addressing leakage and computational issues in spatial modeling.

Contribution

It develops an efficient algorithm using proximal gradient optimization for estimating spatially varying intensities and effects on complex domains, with theoretical error bounds.

Findings

Accurate intensity estimation on irregular domains

Effective modeling of spatial effects on linear networks

Successful application to real-world accident and homicide data

Abstract

The availability of large spatial data geocoded at accurate locations has fueled a growing interest in spatial modeling and analysis of point processes. The proposed research is motivated by the intensity estimation problem for large spatial point patterns on complex domains in $\mathbb{R}^2$ (e.g., domains with irregular boundaries, sharp concavities, and/or interior holes due to geographic constraints) and linear networks, where many existing spatial point process models suffer from the problems of "leakage" and computation. We propose an efficient intensity estimation algorithm to estimate the spatially varying intensity function and to study the varying relationship between intensity and explanatory variables on complex domains. The method is built upon a graph regularization technique and hence can be flexibly applied to point patterns on complex domains such as regions with irregular boundaries and holes, or linear networks. An efficient proximal gradient optimization algorithm is proposed to handle large spatial point patterns. We also derive the asymptotic error bound for the proposed estimator. Numerical studies are conducted to illustrate the performance of the method. Finally, we apply the method to study and visualize the intensity patterns of the accidents on the Western Australia road network, and the spatial variations in the effects of income, lights condition, and population density on the Toronto homicides occurrences.