We prove a central limit theorem for the Horvitz-Thompson estimator based on the Gram-Schmidt Walk (GSW) design, recently developed in Harshaw et al.(2022). In particular, we consider the version of the GSW design which uses randomized pivot order, thereby answering an open question raised in the same article. We deduce this under minimal and global assumptions involving only the problem parameters such as the (sum) potential outcome vector and the covariate matrix. As an interesting consequence of our analysis we also obtain the precise limiting variance of the estimator in terms of these parameters which is smaller than the previously known upper bound. The main ingredients are a simplified skeletal process approximating the GSW design and concentration phenomena for random matrices obtained from random sampling using the Stein's method for exchangeable pairs.
The growing demand for accurate control in varying and unknown environments has sparked a corresponding increase in the requirements for power supply components, including permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs). To infer the unknown part of the system, machine learning techniques are widely employed, especially Gaussian process regression (GPR) due to its flexibility of continuous system modeling and its guaranteed performance. For practical implementation, distributed GPR is adopted to alleviate the high computational complexity. However, the study of distributed GPR from a control perspective remains an open problem. In this paper, a control-aware optimal aggregation strategy of distributed GPR for PMSMs is proposed based on the Lyapunov stability theory. This strategy exclusively leverages the posterior mean, thereby obviating the need for computationally intensive calculations associated with posterior variance in alternative approaches. Moreover, the straightforward calculation process of our proposed strategy lends itself to seamless implementation in high-frequency PMSM control. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is demonstrated in the simulations.
We present an intimate connection among the following fields: (a) distributed local algorithms: coming from the area of computer science, (b) finitary factors of iid processes: coming from the area of analysis of randomized processes, (c) descriptive combinatorics: coming from the area of combinatorics and measure theory. In particular, we study locally checkable labellings in grid graphs from all three perspectives. Most of our results are for the perspective (b) where we prove time hierarchy theorems akin to those known in the field (a) [Chang, Pettie FOCS 2017]. This approach that borrows techniques from the fields (a) and (c) implies a number of results about possible complexities of finitary factor solutions. Among others, it answers three open questions of [Holroyd et al. Annals of Prob. 2017] or the more general question of [Brandt et al. PODC 2017] who asked for a formal connection between the fields (a) and (b). In general, we hope that our treatment will help to view all three perspectives as a part of a common theory of locality, in which we follow the insightful paper of [Bernshteyn 2020+] .
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are a cornerstone of comparative effectiveness because they remove the confounding bias present in observational studies. However, RCTs are typically much smaller than observational studies because of financial and ethical considerations. Therefore it is of great interest to be able to incorporate plentiful observational data into the analysis of smaller RCTs. Previous estimators developed for this purpose rely on unrealistic additional assumptions without which the added data can bias the effect estimate. Recent work proposed an alternative method (prognostic adjustment) that imposes no additional assumption and increases efficiency in the analysis of RCTs. The idea is to use the observational data to learn a prognostic model: a regression of the outcome onto the covariates. The predictions from this model, generated from the RCT subjects' baseline variables, are used as a covariate in a linear model. In this work, we extend this framework to work when conducting inference with nonparametric efficient estimators in trial analysis. Using simulations, we find that this approach provides greater power (i.e., smaller standard errors) than without prognostic adjustment, especially when the trial is small. We also find that the method is robust to observed or unobserved shifts between the observational and trial populations and does not introduce bias. Lastly, we showcase this estimator leveraging real-world historical data on a randomized blood transfusion study of trauma patients.
In this work, we propose a novel preconditioned Krylov subspace method for solving an optimal control problem of wave equations, after explicitly identifying the asymptotic spectral distribution of the involved sequence of linear coefficient matrices from the optimal control problem. Namely, we first show that the all-at-once system stemming from the wave control problem is associated to a structured coefficient matrix-sequence possessing an eigenvalue distribution. Then, based on such a spectral distribution of which the symbol is explicitly identified, we develop an ideal preconditioner and two parallel-in-time preconditioners for the saddle point system composed of two block Toeplitz matrices. For the ideal preconditioner, we show that the eigenvalues of the preconditioned matrix-sequence all belong to the set $\left(-\frac{3}{2},-\frac{1}{2}\right)\bigcup \left(\frac{1}{2},\frac{3}{2}\right)$ well separated from zero, leading to mesh-independent convergence when the minimal residual method is employed. The proposed {parallel-in-time} preconditioners can be implemented efficiently using fast Fourier transforms or discrete sine transforms, and their effectiveness is theoretically shown in the sense that the eigenvalues of the preconditioned matrix-sequences are clustered around $\pm 1$, which leads to rapid convergence. When these parallel-in-time preconditioners are not fast diagonalizable, we further propose modified versions which can be efficiently inverted. Several numerical examples are reported to verify our derived localization and spectral distribution result and to support the effectiveness of our proposed preconditioners and the related advantages with respect to the relevant literature.
Recently, Eldan, Koehler, and Zeitouni (2020) showed that Glauber dynamics mixes rapidly for general Ising models so long as the difference between the largest and smallest eigenvalues of the coupling matrix is at most $1 - \epsilon$ for any fixed $\epsilon > 0$. We give evidence that Glauber dynamics is in fact optimal for this "general-purpose sampling" task. Namely, we give an average-case reduction from hypothesis testing in a Wishart negatively-spiked matrix model to approximately sampling from the Gibbs measure of a general Ising model for which the difference between the largest and smallest eigenvalues of the coupling matrix is at most $1 + \epsilon$ for any fixed $\epsilon > 0$. Combined with results of Bandeira, Kunisky, and Wein (2019) that analyze low-degree polynomial algorithms to give evidence for the hardness of the former spiked matrix problem, our results in turn give evidence for the hardness of general-purpose sampling improving on Glauber dynamics. We also give a similar reduction to approximating the free energy of general Ising models, and again infer evidence that simulated annealing algorithms based on Glauber dynamics are optimal in the general-purpose setting.
In this paper, we derive results about the limiting distribution of the empirical magnetization vector and the maximum likelihood (ML) estimates of the natural parameters in the tensor Curie-Weiss Potts model. Our results reveal surprisingly new phase transition phenomena including the existence of a smooth curve in the interior of the parameter plane on which the magnetization vector and the ML estimates have mixture limiting distributions, the latter comprising of both continuous and discrete components, and a surprising superefficiency phenomenon of the ML estimates, which stipulates an $N^{-3/4}$ rate of convergence of the estimates to some non-Gaussian distribution at certain special points of one type and an $N^{-5/6}$ rate of convergence to some other non-Gaussian distribution at another special point of a different type. The last case can arise only for one particular value of the tuple of the tensor interaction order and the number of colors. These results are then used to derive asymptotic confidence intervals for the natural parameters at all points where consistent estimation is possible.
A generalization of a recently introduced recursive numerical method for the exact evaluation of integrals of regular solid harmonics and their normal derivatives over simplex elements in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is presented. The original Quadrature to Expansion (Q2X) method achieves optimal per-element asymptotic complexity, however, it considered only constant density functions over the elements. Here, we generalize this method to support arbitrary degree polynomial density functions, which is achieved in an extended recursive framework while maintaining the optimality of the complexity. The method is derived for 1- and 2- simplex elements in $\mathbb{R}^3$ and can be used for the boundary element method and vortex methods coupled with the fast multipole method.
Convergence rate analyses of random walk Metropolis-Hastings Markov chains on general state spaces have largely focused on establishing sufficient conditions for geometric ergodicity or on analysis of mixing times. Geometric ergodicity is a key sufficient condition for the Markov chain Central Limit Theorem and allows rigorous approaches to assessing Monte Carlo error. The sufficient conditions for geometric ergodicity of the random walk Metropolis-Hastings Markov chain are refined and extended, which allows the analysis of previously inaccessible settings such as Bayesian Poisson regression. The key technical innovation is the development of explicit drift and minorization conditions for random walk Metropolis-Hastings, which allows explicit upper and lower bounds on the geometric rate of convergence. Further, lower bounds on the geometric rate of convergence are also developed using spectral theory. The existing sufficient conditions for geometric ergodicity, to date, have not provided explicit constraints on the rate of geometric rate of convergence because the method used only implies the existence of drift and minorization conditions. The theoretical results are applied to random walk Metropolis-Hastings algorithms for a class of exponential families and generalized linear models that address Bayesian Regression problems.
It has been observed that the performances of many high-dimensional estimation problems are universal with respect to underlying sensing (or design) matrices. Specifically, matrices with markedly different constructions seem to achieve identical performance if they share the same spectral distribution and have ``generic'' singular vectors. We prove this universality phenomenon for the case of convex regularized least squares (RLS) estimators under a linear regression model with additive Gaussian noise. Our main contributions are two-fold: (1) We introduce a notion of universality classes for sensing matrices, defined through a set of deterministic conditions that fix the spectrum of the sensing matrix and precisely capture the previously heuristic notion of generic singular vectors; (2) We show that for all sensing matrices that lie in the same universality class, the dynamics of the proximal gradient descent algorithm for solving the regression problem, as well as the performance of RLS estimators themselves (under additional strong convexity conditions) are asymptotically identical. In addition to including i.i.d. Gaussian and rotational invariant matrices as special cases, our universality class also contains highly structured, strongly correlated, or even (nearly) deterministic matrices. Examples of the latter include randomly signed versions of incoherent tight frames and randomly subsampled Hadamard transforms. As a consequence of this universality principle, the asymptotic performance of regularized linear regression on many structured matrices constructed with limited randomness can be characterized by using the rotationally invariant ensemble as an equivalent yet mathematically more tractable surrogate.
We extend the pseudorandomness of random walks on expander graphs using the sticky random walk. Building on prior works, it was recently shown that expander random walks can fool all symmetric functions in total variation distance (TVD) upto an $O(\lambda(\frac{p}{\min f})^{O(p)})$ error, where $\lambda$ is the second largest eigenvalue of the expander, $p$ is the size of the arbitrary alphabet used to label the vertices, and $\min f = \min_{b\in[p]} f_b$, where $f_b$ is the fraction of vertices labeled $b$ in the graph. Golowich and Vadhan conjecture that the dependency on the $(\frac{p}{\min f})^{O(p)}$ term is not tight. In this paper, we resolve the conjecture in the affirmative for a family of expanders. We present a generalization of the sticky random walk for which Golowich and Vadhan predict a TVD upper bound of $O(\lambda p^{O(p)})$ using a Fourier-analytic approach. For this family of graphs, we use a combinatorial approach involving the Krawtchouk functions to derive a strengthened TVD of $O(\lambda)$. Furthermore, we present equivalencies between the generalized sticky random walk, and, using linear-algebraic techniques, show that the generalized sticky random walk parameterizes an infinite family of expander graphs.