<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4184">Hello all,</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4185" dir="ltr">I
am an absolute newbie to spatial statistics, but I am quite thoroughly
obsessed by it currently. I am an engineer by training, so I can find my
way around math and programming. I have begun to look at the Spatial
CRAN view and am absolutely blown away by the enormous body of work in
there. So thank you all for that. But I am equally confused regarding
the right choice of software and statistical approach as well.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4186" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4187"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4188" dir="ltr">With
that introduction, I will try to explain (one of) the problem(s) I am
trying to solve. Of note, we absolutely do not deal with GIS issues.<br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4189"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4190" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4191"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4192" dir="ltr">We
have a setup where we are trying to grow some bacterial cultures on a
polygonal irregular surface. I am able to obtain 2-D projection
views/images similar to the illustration attached to this mail. Some of
the things I want to do are <br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4193"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4194" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4195"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4196" dir="ltr">1) Establish a spatial statistical analytic pipeline to answer questions like</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4197" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4198"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4199" dir="ltr">a) Are the patterns of bacterial island growth in different cultures statistically random or correlated?</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4200" dir="ltr">b) Are the distances from the boundary edge to a bacterial island random or have a pattern?<br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4201"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4202" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4203"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4204" dir="ltr">Now,
the issue I have is, the bacterial islands have an "area", so I cannot
really consider them as "point" processes. Yet, these "areas" are
sufficiently far away from each other (relative to the polygonal
boundary) that I can (to an approximation) consider them as being
"point" processes (maybe?)...<br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4205"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4206" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4207"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4208" dir="ltr">Some of my questions are</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4209" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4210"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4211" dir="ltr">1) Is it appropriate to use a "point processes" method or an "areal processes" method for analysis of this problem?</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4212" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4213"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4214" dir="ltr">2) If point processes are ok, is it ok to weight the area and use the centroid at the location of the point?</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4215" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4216"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4217" dir="ltr">3)
Where do I start? I currently have 5 books - The Baddeley book
(spatstat, for point processes), the Cressie book (for theory), the
R-INLA book (Bayesian spatial statistics), Applied Spatial Analysis in R (Dr Bivand's book) and the Gelfand book
(Hierarchical modelling)</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4218" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4219"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4220" dir="ltr">4) Packages - Spatstat? sp? spdep? splancs? spatial? DCluster? AMOEBA? Which spatial regression package? Arghhhh.....</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4221" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4222"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4223" dir="ltr">Now,
I am not asking anyone to provide me with a ready made solution. I
would simply appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction
on how to start and go far from there. I am willing to learn and put in
the necessary elbow grease to understand it well. Experts in spatial
statistics are unavailable at my local college, so an immediate
collaboration is bit far off. But something we can look into in the
future.<br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4224"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4225" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4226"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4227" dir="ltr"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4330">Thank you for your kind consideration. Any and all advice is eagerly welcomed and I will be highly grateful for the same.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4342">Regards</div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4229" dir="ltr">Quant.</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4230" dir="ltr"><br id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1473407113776_4231"></div>PS
- Long term, I would like to contribute in some way to this group.
If anyone is in need of any assistants for any packages, I am willing to
volunteer my time.</div></body></html>