The joint modeling of multiple longitudinal biomarkers together with a time-to-event outcome is a challenging modeling task of continued scientific interest. In particular, the computational complexity of high dimensional (generalized) mixed effects models often restricts the flexibility of shared parameter joint models, even when the subject-specific marker trajectories follow highly nonlinear courses. We propose a parsimonious multivariate functional principal components representation of the shared random effects. This allows better scalability, as the dimension of the random effects does not directly increase with the number of markers, only with the chosen number of principal component basis functions used in the approximation of the random effects. The functional principal component representation additionally allows to estimate highly flexible subject-specific random trajectories without parametric assumptions. The modeled trajectories can thus be distinctly different for each biomarker. We build on the framework of flexible Bayesian additive joint models implemented in the R-package 'bamlss', which also supports estimation of nonlinear covariate effects via Bayesian P-splines. The flexible yet parsimonious functional principal components basis used in the estimation of the joint model is first estimated in a preliminary step. We validate our approach in a simulation study and illustrate its advantages by analyzing a study on primary biliary cholangitis.
Fully Bayesian methods for Cox models specify a model for the baseline hazard function. Parametric approaches generally provide monotone estimations. Semi-parametric choices allow for more flexible patterns but they can suffer from overfitting and instability. Regularization methods through prior distributions with correlated structures usually give reasonable answers to these types of situations. We discuss Bayesian regularization for Cox survival models defined via flexible baseline hazards specified by a mixture of piecewise constant functions and by a cubic B-spline function. For those "semiparametric" proposals, different prior scenarios ranging from prior independence to particular correlated structures are discussed in a real study with micro-virulence data and in an extensive simulation scenario that includes different data sample and time axis partition sizes in order to capture risk variations. The posterior distribution of the parameters was approximated using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. Model selection was performed in accordance with the Deviance Information Criteria and the Log Pseudo-Marginal Likelihood. The results obtained reveal that, in general, Cox models present great robustness in covariate effects and survival estimates independent of the baseline hazard specification. In relation to the "semi-parametric" baseline hazard specification, the B-splines hazard function is less dependent on the regularization process than the piecewise specification because it demands a smaller time axis partition to estimate a similar behaviour of the risk.
Data generation remains a bottleneck in training surrogate models to predict molecular properties. We demonstrate that multitask Gaussian process regression overcomes this limitation by leveraging both expensive and cheap data sources. In particular, we consider training sets constructed from coupled-cluster (CC) and density function theory (DFT) data. We report that multitask surrogates can predict at CC level accuracy with a reduction to data generation cost by over an order of magnitude. Of note, our approach allows the training set to include DFT data generated by a heterogeneous mix of exchange-correlation functionals without imposing any artificial hierarchy on functional accuracy. More generally, the multitask framework can accommodate a wider range of training set structures -- including full disparity between the different levels of fidelity -- than existing kernel approaches based on $\Delta$-learning, though we show that the accuracy of the two approaches can be similar. Consequently, multitask regression can be a tool for reducing data generation costs even further by opportunistically exploiting existing data sources.
Time series and extreme value analyses are two statistical approaches usually applied to study hydrological data. Classical techniques, such as ARIMA models (in the case of mean flow predictions), and parametric generalised extreme value (GEV) fits and nonparametric extreme value methods (in the case of extreme value theory) have been usually employed in this context. In this paper, nonparametric functional data methods are used to perform mean monthly flow predictions and extreme value analysis, which are important for flood risk management. These are powerful tools that take advantage of both, the functional nature of the data under consideration and the flexibility of nonparametric methods, providing more reliable results. Therefore, they can be useful to prevent damage caused by floods and to reduce the likelihood and/or the impact of floods in a specific location. The nonparametric functional approaches are applied to flow samples of two rivers in the U.S. In this way, monthly mean flow is predicted and flow quantiles in the extreme value framework are estimated using the proposed methods. Results show that the nonparametric functional techniques work satisfactorily, generally outperforming the behaviour of classical parametric and nonparametric estimators in both settings.
We propose a local modification of the standard subdiffusion model by introducing the initial Fickian diffusion, which results in a multiscale diffusion model. The developed model resolves the incompatibility between the nonlocal operators in subdiffusion and the local initial conditions and thus eliminates the initial singularity of the solutions of the subdiffusion, while retaining its heavy tail behavior away from the initial time. The well-posedness of the model and high-order regularity estimates of its solutions are analyzed by resolvent estimates, based on which the numerical discretization and analysis are performed. Numerical experiments are carried out to substantiate the theoretical findings.
This study presents a Bayesian regression framework to model the relationship between scalar outcomes and brain functional connectivity represented as symmetric positive definite (SPD) matrices. Unlike many proposals that simply vectorize the connectivity predictors thereby ignoring their matrix structures, our method respects the Riemannian geometry of SPD matrices by modelling them in a tangent space. We perform dimension reduction in the tangent space, relating the resulting low-dimensional representations with the responses. The dimension reduction matrix is learnt in a supervised manner with a sparsity-inducing prior imposed on a Stiefel manifold to prevent overfitting. Our method yields a parsimonious regression model that allows uncertainty quantification of the estimates and identification of key brain regions that predict the outcomes. We demonstrate the performance of our approach in simulation settings and through a case study to predict Picture Vocabulary scores using data from the Human Connectome Project.
Adversarial generative models, such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), are widely applied for generating various types of data, i.e., images, text, and audio. Accordingly, its promising performance has led to the GAN-based adversarial attack methods in the white-box and black-box attack scenarios. The importance of transferable black-box attacks lies in their ability to be effective across different models and settings, more closely aligning with real-world applications. However, it remains challenging to retain the performance in terms of transferable adversarial examples for such methods. Meanwhile, we observe that some enhanced gradient-based transferable adversarial attack algorithms require prolonged time for adversarial sample generation. Thus, in this work, we propose a novel algorithm named GE-AdvGAN to enhance the transferability of adversarial samples whilst improving the algorithm's efficiency. The main approach is via optimising the training process of the generator parameters. With the functional and characteristic similarity analysis, we introduce a novel gradient editing (GE) mechanism and verify its feasibility in generating transferable samples on various models. Moreover, by exploring the frequency domain information to determine the gradient editing direction, GE-AdvGAN can generate highly transferable adversarial samples while minimizing the execution time in comparison to the state-of-the-art transferable adversarial attack algorithms. The performance of GE-AdvGAN is comprehensively evaluated by large-scale experiments on different datasets, which results demonstrate the superiority of our algorithm. The code for our algorithm is available at: //github.com/LMBTough/GE-advGAN
We consider a general multivariate model where univariate marginal distributions are known up to a parameter vector and we are interested in estimating that parameter vector without specifying the joint distribution, except for the marginals. If we assume independence between the marginals and maximize the resulting quasi-likelihood, we obtain a consistent but inefficient QMLE estimator. If we assume a parametric copula (other than independence) we obtain a full MLE, which is efficient but only under a correct copula specification and may be biased if the copula is misspecified. Instead we propose a sieve MLE estimator (SMLE) which improves over QMLE but does not have the drawbacks of full MLE. We model the unknown part of the joint distribution using the Bernstein-Kantorovich polynomial copula and assess the resulting improvement over QMLE and over misspecified FMLE in terms of relative efficiency and robustness. We derive the asymptotic distribution of the new estimator and show that it reaches the relevant semiparametric efficiency bound. Simulations suggest that the sieve MLE can be almost as efficient as FMLE relative to QMLE provided there is enough dependence between the marginals. We demonstrate practical value of the new estimator with several applications. First, we apply SMLE in an insurance context where we build a flexible semi-parametric claim loss model for a scenario where one of the variables is censored. As in simulations, the use of SMLE leads to tighter parameter estimates. Next, we consider financial risk management examples and show how the use of SMLE leads to superior Value-at-Risk predictions. The paper comes with an online archive which contains all codes and datasets.
Statistical inference for high dimensional parameters (HDPs) can be based on their intrinsic correlation; that is, parameters that are close spatially or temporally tend to have more similar values. This is why nonlinear mixed-effects models (NMMs) are commonly (and appropriately) used for models with HDPs. Conversely, in many practical applications of NMM, the random effects (REs) are actually correlated HDPs that should remain constant during repeated sampling for frequentist inference. In both scenarios, the inference should be conditional on REs, instead of marginal inference by integrating out REs. In this paper, we first summarize recent theory of conditional inference for NMM, and then propose a bias-corrected RE predictor and confidence interval (CI). We also extend this methodology to accommodate the case where some REs are not associated with data. Simulation studies indicate that this new approach leads to substantial improvement in the conditional coverage rate of RE CIs, including CIs for smooth functions in generalized additive models, as compared to the existing method based on marginal inference.
The four-parameter generalized beta distribution of the second kind (GBII) has been proposed for modelling insurance losses with heavy-tailed features. The aim of this paper is to present a parametric composite GBII regression modelling by splicing two GBII distributions using mode matching method. It is designed for simultaneous modeling of small and large claims and capturing the policyholder heterogeneity by introducing the covariates into the location parameter. In such cases, the threshold that splits two GBII distributions varies across individuals policyholders based on their risk features. The proposed regression modelling also contains a wide range of insurance loss distributions as the head and the tail respectively and provides the close-formed expressions for parameter estimation and model prediction. A simulation study is conducted to show the accuracy of the proposed estimation method and the flexibility of the regressions. Some illustrations of the applicability of the new class of distributions and regressions are provided with a Danish fire losses data set and a Chinese medical insurance claims data set, comparing with the results of competing models from the literature.
Applications in robotics or other size-, weight- and power-constrained autonomous systems at the edge often require real-time and low-energy solutions to large optimization problems. Event-based and memory-integrated neuromorphic architectures promise to solve such optimization problems with superior energy efficiency and performance compared to conventional von Neumann architectures. Here, we present a method to solve convex continuous optimization problems with quadratic cost functions and linear constraints on Intel's scalable neuromorphic research chip Loihi 2. When applied to model predictive control (MPC) problems for the quadruped robotic platform ANYmal, this method achieves over two orders of magnitude reduction in combined energy-delay product compared to the state-of-the-art solver, OSQP, on (edge) CPUs and GPUs with solution times under ten milliseconds for various problem sizes. These results demonstrate the benefit of non-von-Neumann architectures for robotic control applications.