Several recent advances in smoothing and semiparametric regression are presented in this book from a unifying, Bayesian perspective. Simulation-based full Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) inference, as well as empirical Bayes procedures closely related to penalized likelihood estimation and mixed models, are considered here. Throughout, the focus is on semiparametric regression and smoothing based on basis expansions of unknown functions and effects in combination with smoothness priors for the basis coefficients.
Beginning with a review of basic methods for smoothing and mixed...