A separable covariance model for a random matrix provides a parsimonious description of the covariances among the rows and among the columns of the matrix, and permits likelihood-based inference with a very small sample size. However, in many applications the assumption of exact separability is unlikely to be met, and data analysis with a separable model may overlook or misrepresent important dependence patterns in the data. In this article, we propose a compromise between separable and unstructured covariance estimation. We show how the set of covariance matrices may be uniquely parametrized in terms of the set of separable covariance matrices and a complementary set of "core" covariance matrices, where the core of a separable covariance matrix is the identity matrix. This parametrization defines a Kronecker-core decomposition of a covariance matrix. By shrinking the core of the sample covariance matrix with an empirical Bayes procedure, we obtain an estimator that can adapt to the degree of separability of the population covariance matrix.
This paper studies the impact of bootstrap procedure on the eigenvalue distributions of the sample covariance matrix under the high-dimensional factor structure. We provide asymptotic distributions for the top eigenvalues of bootstrapped sample covariance matrix under mild conditions. After bootstrap, the spiked eigenvalues which are driven by common factors will converge weakly to Gaussian limits via proper scaling and centralization. However, the largest non-spiked eigenvalue is mainly determined by order statistics of bootstrap resampling weights, and follows extreme value distribution. Based on the disparate behavior of the spiked and non-spiked eigenvalues, we propose innovative methods to test the number of common factors. According to the simulations and a real data example, the proposed methods are the only ones performing reliably and convincingly under the existence of both weak factors and cross-sectionally correlated errors. Our technical details contribute to random matrix theory on spiked covariance model with convexly decaying density and unbounded support, or with general elliptical distributions.
Mixtures of experts (MoE) models are a popular framework for modeling heterogeneity in data, for both regression and classification problems in statistics and machine learning, due to their flexibility and the abundance of available statistical estimation and model choice tools. Such flexibility comes from allowing the mixture weights (or gating functions) in the MoE model to depend on the explanatory variables, along with the experts (or component densities). This permits the modeling of data arising from more complex data generating processes when compared to the classical finite mixtures and finite mixtures of regression models, whose mixing parameters are independent of the covariates. The use of MoE models in a high-dimensional setting, when the number of explanatory variables can be much larger than the sample size, is challenging from a computational point of view, and in particular from a theoretical point of view, where the literature is still lacking results for dealing with the curse of dimensionality, for both the statistical estimation and feature selection problems. We consider the finite MoE model with soft-max gating functions and Gaussian experts for high-dimensional regression on heterogeneous data, and its $l_1$-regularized estimation via the Lasso. We focus on the Lasso estimation properties rather than its feature selection properties. We provide a lower bound on the regularization parameter of the Lasso function that ensures an $l_1$-oracle inequality satisfied by the Lasso estimator according to the Kullback--Leibler loss.
Deployed machine learning (ML) models often encounter new user data that differs from their training data. Therefore, estimating how well a given model might perform on the new data is an important step toward reliable ML applications. This is very challenging, however, as the data distribution can change in flexible ways, and we may not have any labels on the new data, which is often the case in monitoring settings. In this paper, we propose a new distribution shift model, Sparse Joint Shift (SJS), which considers the joint shift of both labels and a few features. This unifies and generalizes several existing shift models including label shift and sparse covariate shift, where only marginal feature or label distribution shifts are considered. We describe mathematical conditions under which SJS is identifiable. We further propose SEES, an algorithmic framework to characterize the distribution shift under SJS and to estimate a model's performance on new data without any labels. We conduct extensive experiments on several real-world datasets with various ML models. Across different datasets and distribution shifts, SEES achieves significant (up to an order of magnitude) shift estimation error improvements over existing approaches.
Capturing the conditional covariances or correlations among the elements of a multivariate response vector based on covariates is important to various fields including neuroscience, epidemiology and biomedicine. We propose a new method called Covariance Regression with Random Forests (CovRegRF) to estimate the covariance matrix of a multivariate response given a set of covariates, using a random forest framework. Random forest trees are built with a splitting rule specially designed to maximize the difference between the sample covariance matrix estimates of the child nodes. We also propose a significance test for the partial effect of a subset of covariates. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method and significance test through a simulation study which shows that the proposed method provides accurate covariance matrix estimates and that the Type-1 error is well controlled. We also demonstrate an application of the proposed method with a thyroid disease data set.
Interval-censored multi-state data arise in many studies of chronic diseases, where the health status of a subject can be characterized by a finite number of disease states and the transition between any two states is only known to occur over a broad time interval. We formulate the effects of potentially time-dependent covariates on multi-state processes through semiparametric proportional intensity models with random effects. We adopt nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation (NPMLE) under general interval censoring and develop a stable expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. We show that the resulting parameter estimators are consistent and that the finite-dimensional components are asymptotically normal with a covariance matrix that attains the semiparametric efficiency bound and can be consistently estimated through profile likelihood. In addition, we demonstrate through extensive simulation studies that the proposed numerical and inferential procedures perform well in realistic settings. Finally, we provide an application to a major epidemiologic cohort study.
The precision matrix that encodes conditional linear dependency relations among a set of variables forms an important object of interest in multivariate analysis. Sparse estimation procedures for precision matrices such as the graphical lasso (Glasso) gained popularity as they facilitate interpretability, thereby separating pairs of variables that are conditionally dependent from those that are independent (given all other variables). Glasso lacks, however, robustness to outliers. To overcome this problem, one typically applies a robust plug-in procedure where the Glasso is computed from a robust covariance estimate instead of the sample covariance, thereby providing protection against outliers. In this paper, we study such estimators theoretically, by deriving and comparing their influence function, sensitivity curves and asymptotic variances.
Consider a set of points sampled independently near a smooth compact submanifold of Euclidean space. We provide mathematically rigorous bounds on the number of sample points required to estimate both the dimension and the tangent spaces of that manifold with high confidence. The algorithm for this estimation is Local PCA, a local version of principal component analysis. Our results accommodate for noisy non-uniform data distribution with the noise that may vary across the manifold, and allow simultaneous estimation at multiple points. Crucially, all of the constants appearing in our bound are explicitly described. The proof uses a matrix concentration inequality to estimate covariance matrices and a Wasserstein distance bound for quantifying nonlinearity of the underlying manifold and non-uniformity of the probability measure.
Variational Bayesian posterior inference often requires simplifying approximations such as mean-field parametrisation to ensure tractability. However, prior work has associated the variational mean-field approximation for Bayesian neural networks with underfitting in the case of small datasets or large model sizes. In this work, we show that invariances in the likelihood function of over-parametrised models contribute to this phenomenon because these invariances complicate the structure of the posterior by introducing discrete and/or continuous modes which cannot be well approximated by Gaussian mean-field distributions. In particular, we show that the mean-field approximation has an additional gap in the evidence lower bound compared to a purpose-built posterior that takes into account the known invariances. Importantly, this invariance gap is not constant; it vanishes as the approximation reverts to the prior. We proceed by first considering translation invariances in a linear model with a single data point in detail. We show that, while the true posterior can be constructed from a mean-field parametrisation, this is achieved only if the objective function takes into account the invariance gap. Then, we transfer our analysis of the linear model to neural networks. Our analysis provides a framework for future work to explore solutions to the invariance problem.
We investigate hypothesis testing in nonparametric additive models estimated using simplified smooth backfitting (Huang and Yu, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, \textbf{28(2)}, 386--400, 2019). Simplified smooth backfitting achieves oracle properties under regularity conditions and provides closed-form expressions of the estimators that are useful for deriving asymptotic properties. We develop a generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) and a loss function (LF) based testing framework for inference. Under the null hypothesis, both the GLR and LF tests have asymptotically rescaled chi-squared distributions, and both exhibit the Wilks phenomenon, which means the scaling constants and degrees of freedom are independent of nuisance parameters. These tests are asymptotically optimal in terms of rates of convergence for nonparametric hypothesis testing. Additionally, the bandwidths that are well-suited for model estimation may be useful for testing. We show that in additive models, the LF test is asymptotically more powerful than the GLR test. We use simulations to demonstrate the Wilks phenomenon and the power of these proposed GLR and LF tests, and a real example to illustrate their usefulness.
To estimate causal effects, analysts performing observational studies in health settings utilize several strategies to mitigate bias due to confounding by indication. There are two broad classes of approaches for these purposes: use of confounders and instrumental variables (IVs). Because such approaches are largely characterized by untestable assumptions, analysts must operate under an indefinite paradigm that these methods will work imperfectly. In this tutorial, we formalize a set of general principles and heuristics for estimating causal effects in the two approaches when the assumptions are potentially violated. This crucially requires reframing the process of observational studies as hypothesizing potential scenarios where the estimates from one approach are less inconsistent than the other. While most of our discussion of methodology centers around the linear setting, we touch upon complexities in non-linear settings and flexible procedures such as target minimum loss-based estimation (TMLE) and double machine learning (DML). To demonstrate the application of our principles, we investigate the use of donepezil off-label for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We compare and contrast results from confounder and IV methods, traditional and flexible, within our analysis and to a similar observational study and clinical trial.