This paper deals with robust inference for parametric copula models. Estimation using Canonical Maximum Likelihood might be unstable, especially in the presence of outliers. We propose to use a procedure based on the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) principle. We derive non-asymptotic oracle inequalities, consistency and asymptotic normality of this new estimator. In particular, the oracle inequality holds without any assumption on the copula family, and can be applied in the presence of outliers or under misspecification. Moreover, in our MMD framework, the statistical inference of copula models for which there exists no density with respect to the Lebesgue measure on $[0,1]^d$, as the Marshall-Olkin copula, becomes feasible. A simulation study shows the robustness of our new procedures, especially compared to pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation. An R package implementing the MMD estimator for copula models is available.
Anomaly detection among a large number of processes arises in many applications ranging from dynamic spectrum access to cybersecurity. In such problems one can often obtain noisy observations aggregated from a chosen subset of processes that conforms to a tree structure. The distribution of these observations, based on which the presence of anomalies is detected, may be only partially known. This gives rise to the need for a search strategy designed to account for both the sample complexity and the detection accuracy, as well as cope with statistical models that are known only up to some missing parameters. In this work we propose a sequential search strategy using two variations of the Generalized Local Likelihood Ratio statistic. Our proposed Hierarchical Dynamic Search (HDS) strategy is shown to be order-optimal with respect to the size of the search space and asymptotically optimal with respect to the detection accuracy. An explicit upper bound on the error probability of HDS is established for the finite sample regime. Extensive experiments are conducted, demonstrating the performance gains of HDS over existing methods.
We employ kernel-based approaches that use samples from a probability distribution to approximate a Kolmogorov operator on a manifold. The self-tuning variable-bandwidth kernel method [Berry & Harlim, Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal., 40(1):68--96, 2016] computes a large, sparse matrix that approximates the differential operator. Here, we use the eigendecomposition of the discretization to (i) invert the operator, solving a differential equation, and (ii) represent gradient vector fields on the manifold. These methods only require samples from the underlying distribution and, therefore, can be applied in high dimensions or on geometrically complex manifolds when spatial discretizations are not available. We also employ an efficient $k$-$d$ tree algorithm to compute the sparse kernel matrix, which is a computational bottleneck.
Covariance estimation for matrix-valued data has received an increasing interest in applications. Unlike previous works that rely heavily on matrix normal distribution assumption and the requirement of fixed matrix size, we propose a class of distribution-free regularized covariance estimation methods for high-dimensional matrix data under a separability condition and a bandable covariance structure. Under these conditions, the original covariance matrix is decomposed into a Kronecker product of two bandable small covariance matrices representing the variability over row and column directions. We formulate a unified framework for estimating bandable covariance, and introduce an efficient algorithm based on rank one unconstrained Kronecker product approximation. The convergence rates of the proposed estimators are established, and the derived minimax lower bound shows our proposed estimator is rate-optimal under certain divergence regimes of matrix size. We further introduce a class of robust covariance estimators and provide theoretical guarantees to deal with heavy-tailed data. We demonstrate the superior finite-sample performance of our methods using simulations and real applications from a gridded temperature anomalies dataset and a S&P 500 stock data analysis.
Many recent state-of-the-art (SOTA) optical flow models use finite-step recurrent update operations to emulate traditional algorithms by encouraging iterative refinements toward a stable flow estimation. However, these RNNs impose large computation and memory overheads, and are not directly trained to model such stable estimation. They can converge poorly and thereby suffer from performance degradation. To combat these drawbacks, we propose deep equilibrium (DEQ) flow estimators, an approach that directly solves for the flow as the infinite-level fixed point of an implicit layer (using any black-box solver), and differentiates through this fixed point analytically (thus requiring $O(1)$ training memory). This implicit-depth approach is not predicated on any specific model, and thus can be applied to a wide range of SOTA flow estimation model designs. The use of these DEQ flow estimators allows us to compute the flow faster using, e.g., fixed-point reuse and inexact gradients, consumes $4\sim6\times$ times less training memory than the recurrent counterpart, and achieves better results with the same computation budget. In addition, we propose a novel, sparse fixed-point correction scheme to stabilize our DEQ flow estimators, which addresses a longstanding challenge for DEQ models in general. We test our approach in various realistic settings and show that it improves SOTA methods on Sintel and KITTI datasets with substantially better computational and memory efficiency.
Computing a maximum independent set (MaxIS) is a fundamental NP-hard problem in graph theory, which has important applications in a wide spectrum of fields. Since graphs in many applications are changing frequently over time, the problem of maintaining a MaxIS over dynamic graphs has attracted increasing attention over the past few years. Due to the intractability of maintaining an exact MaxIS, this paper aims to develop efficient algorithms that can maintain an approximate MaxIS with an accuracy guarantee theoretically. In particular, we propose a framework that maintains a $(\frac{\Delta}{2} + 1)$-approximate MaxIS over dynamic graphs and prove that it achieves a constant approximation ratio in many real-world networks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first non-trivial approximability result for the dynamic MaxIS problem. Following the framework, we implement an efficient linear-time dynamic algorithm and a more effective dynamic algorithm with near-linear expected time complexity. Our thorough experiments over real and synthetic graphs demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithms, especially when the graph is highly dynamic.
This paper proposes a numerical method based on the Adomian decomposition approach for the time discretization, applied to Euler equations. A recursive property is demonstrated that allows to formulate the method in an appropriate and efficient way. To obtain a fully numerical scheme, the space discretization is achieved using the classical DG techniques. The efficiency of the obtained numerical scheme is demonstrated through numerical tests by comparison to exact solution and the popular Runge-Kutta DG method results.
The instrumental variable method is widely used in the health and social sciences for identification and estimation of causal effects in the presence of potentially unmeasured confounding. In order to improve efficiency, multiple instruments are routinely used, leading to concerns about bias due to possible violation of the instrumental variable assumptions. To address this concern, we introduce a new class of g-estimators that are guaranteed to remain consistent and asymptotically normal for the causal effect of interest provided that a set of at least $\gamma$ out of $K$ candidate instruments are valid, for $\gamma\leq K$ set by the analyst ex ante, without necessarily knowing the identities of the valid and invalid instruments. We provide formal semiparametric efficiency theory supporting our results. Both simulation studies and applications to the UK Biobank data demonstrate the superior empirical performance of our estimators compared to competing methods.
Let $X^{(n)}$ be an observation sampled from a distribution $P_{\theta}^{(n)}$ with an unknown parameter $\theta,$ $\theta$ being a vector in a Banach space $E$ (most often, a high-dimensional space of dimension $d$). We study the problem of estimation of $f(\theta)$ for a functional $f:E\mapsto {\mathbb R}$ of some smoothness $s>0$ based on an observation $X^{(n)}\sim P_{\theta}^{(n)}.$ Assuming that there exists an estimator $\hat \theta_n=\hat \theta_n(X^{(n)})$ of parameter $\theta$ such that $\sqrt{n}(\hat \theta_n-\theta)$ is sufficiently close in distribution to a mean zero Gaussian random vector in $E,$ we construct a functional $g:E\mapsto {\mathbb R}$ such that $g(\hat \theta_n)$ is an asymptotically normal estimator of $f(\theta)$ with $\sqrt{n}$ rate provided that $s>\frac{1}{1-\alpha}$ and $d\leq n^{\alpha}$ for some $\alpha\in (0,1).$ We also derive general upper bounds on Orlicz norm error rates for estimator $g(\hat \theta)$ depending on smoothness $s,$ dimension $d,$ sample size $n$ and the accuracy of normal approximation of $\sqrt{n}(\hat \theta_n-\theta).$ In particular, this approach yields asymptotically efficient estimators in some high-dimensional exponential models.
One of the most important problems in system identification and statistics is how to estimate the unknown parameters of a given model. Optimization methods and specialized procedures, such as Empirical Minimization (EM) can be used in case the likelihood function can be computed. For situations where one can only simulate from a parametric model, but the likelihood is difficult or impossible to evaluate, a technique known as the Two-Stage (TS) Approach can be applied to obtain reliable parametric estimates. Unfortunately, there is currently a lack of theoretical justification for TS. In this paper, we propose a statistical decision-theoretical derivation of TS, which leads to Bayesian and Minimax estimators. We also show how to apply the TS approach on models for independent and identically distributed samples, by computing quantiles of the data as a first step, and using a linear function as the second stage. The proposed method is illustrated via numerical simulations.
There are many important high dimensional function classes that have fast agnostic learning algorithms when strong assumptions on the distribution of examples can be made, such as Gaussianity or uniformity over the domain. But how can one be sufficiently confident that the data indeed satisfies the distributional assumption, so that one can trust in the output quality of the agnostic learning algorithm? We propose a model by which to systematically study the design of tester-learner pairs $(\mathcal{A},\mathcal{T})$, such that if the distribution on examples in the data passes the tester $\mathcal{T}$ then one can safely trust the output of the agnostic learner $\mathcal{A}$ on the data. To demonstrate the power of the model, we apply it to the classical problem of agnostically learning halfspaces under the standard Gaussian distribution and present a tester-learner pair with a combined run-time of $n^{\tilde{O}(1/\epsilon^4)}$. This qualitatively matches that of the best known ordinary agnostic learning algorithms for this task. In contrast, finite sample Gaussian distribution testers do not exist for the $L_1$ and EMD distance measures. A key step in the analysis is a novel characterization of concentration and anti-concentration properties of a distribution whose low-degree moments approximately match those of a Gaussian. We also use tools from polynomial approximation theory. In contrast, we show strong lower bounds on the combined run-times of tester-learner pairs for the problems of agnostically learning convex sets under the Gaussian distribution and for monotone Boolean functions under the uniform distribution over $\{0,1\}^n$. Through these lower bounds we exhibit natural problems where there is a dramatic gap between standard agnostic learning run-time and the run-time of the best tester-learner pair.