Contains various functions for data analysis, notably helpers and diagnostics for Bayesian modelling using Stan.

When considering count data, it is often the case that many more zero counts than would be expected of some given distribution are observed. It is well established that data such as this can be reliably modelled using zero-inflated or hurdle distributions, both of which may be applied using the functions in this package. Bayesian analysis methods are used to best model problematic count data that cannot be fit to any typical distribution. The package functions are flexible and versatile, and can be applied to varying count distributions, parameter estimation with or without explanatory variable information, and are able to allow for multiple hurdles as it is also not uncommon that count data have an abundance of large-number observations which would be considered outliers of the typical distribution. In lieu of throwing out data or misspecifying the typical distribution, these extreme observations can be applied to a second, extreme distribution. With the given functions of this package, such a two-hurdle model may be easily specified in order to best manage data that is both zero-inflated and over-dispersed.

The HURRECON model estimates wind speed, wind direction, enhanced 
    Fujita scale wind damage, and duration of EF0 to EF5 winds as a function 
    of hurricane location and maximum sustained wind speed. Results may be 
    generated for a single site or an entire region. Hurricane track and 
    intensity data may be imported directly from the US National Hurricane 
    Center's HURDAT2 database. For details on the original version of the 
    model written in Borland Pascal, see: Boose, Chamberlin, and Foster (2001) 
    <doi:10.1890/0012-9615(2001)071[0027:LARIOH]2.0.CO;2> and Boose, Serrano, 
    and Foster (2004) <doi:10.1890/02-4057>.

Allows users to create time series of tropical storm
    exposure histories for chosen counties for a number of hazard metrics
    (wind, rain, distance from the storm, etc.). This package interacts
    with data available through the 'hurricaneexposuredata' package, which
    is available in a 'drat' repository. To access this data package, see the 
    instructions at <https://github.com/geanders/hurricaneexposure>. 
    The size of the 'hurricaneexposuredata' package is
    approximately 20 MB. This work was supported in part by grants from the National
    Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R00ES022631), the National Science
    Foundation (1331399), and a NASA Applied Sciences Program/Public Health Program
    Grant (NNX09AV81G).