Thanks to its fine balance between model flexibility and interpretability, the nonparametric additive model has been widely used, and variable selection for this type of model has been frequently studied. However, none of the existing solutions can control the false discovery rate (FDR) unless the sample size tends to infinity. The knockoff framework is a recent proposal that can address this issue, but few knockoff solutions are directly applicable to nonparametric models. In this article, we propose a novel kernel knockoffs selection procedure for the nonparametric additive model. We integrate three key components: the knockoffs, the subsampling for stability, and the random feature mapping for nonparametric function approximation. We show that the proposed method is guaranteed to control the FDR for any sample size, and achieves a power that approaches one as the sample size tends to infinity. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method through intensive simulations and comparisons with the alternative solutions. Our proposal thus makes useful contributions to the methodology of nonparametric variable selection, FDR-based inference, as well as knockoffs.
Linear mixed models (LMMs) are instrumental for regression analysis with structured dependence, such as grouped, clustered, or multilevel data. However, selection among the covariates--while accounting for this structured dependence--remains a challenge. We introduce a Bayesian decision analysis for subset selection with LMMs. Using a Mahalanobis loss function that incorporates the structured dependence, we derive optimal linear coefficients for (i) any given subset of variables and (ii) all subsets of variables that satisfy a cardinality constraint. Crucially, these estimates inherit shrinkage or regularization and uncertainty quantification from the underlying Bayesian model, and apply for any well-specified Bayesian LMM. More broadly, our decision analysis strategy deemphasizes the role of a single "best" subset, which is often unstable and limited in its information content, and instead favors a collection of near-optimal subsets. This collection is summarized by key member subsets and variable-specific importance metrics. Customized subset search and out-of-sample approximation algorithms are provided for more scalable computing. These tools are applied to simulated data and a longitudinal physical activity dataset, and demonstrate excellent prediction, estimation, and selection ability.
We propose a decomposition method for the spectral peaks in an observed frequency spectrum, which is efficiently acquired by utilizing the Fast Fourier Transform. In contrast to the traditional methods of waveform fitting on the spectrum, we optimize the problem from a more robust perspective. We model the peaks in spectrum as pseudo-symmetric functions, where the only constraint is a nonincreasing behavior around a central frequency when the distance increases. Our approach is more robust against arbitrary distortion, interference and noise on the spectrum that may be caused by an observation system. The time complexity of our method is linear, i.e., $O(N)$ per extracted spectral peak. Moreover, the decomposed spectral peaks show a pseudo-orthogonal behavior, where they conform to a power preserving equality.
We consider the problem of nonparametric estimation of the drift and diffusion coefficients of a Stochastic Differential Equation (SDE), based on $n$ independent replicates $\left\{X_i(t)\::\: t\in [0,1]\right\}_{1 \leq i \leq n}$, observed sparsely and irregularly on the unit interval, and subject to additive noise corruption. By \textit{sparse} we intend to mean that the number of measurements per path can be arbitrary (as small as two), and remain constant with respect to $n$. We focus on time-inhomogeneous SDE of the form $dX_t = \mu(t)X_t^{\alpha}dt + \sigma(t)X_t^{\beta}dW_t$, where $\alpha \in \{0,1\}$ and $\beta \in \{0,1/2,1\}$, which includes prominent examples such as Brownian motion, Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, geometric Brownian motion, and Brownian bridge. Our estimators are constructed by relating the local (drift/diffusion) parameters of the diffusion to their global parameters (mean/covariance, and their derivatives) by means of an apparently novel PDE. This allows us to use methods inspired by functional data analysis, and pool information across the sparsely measured paths. The methodology we develop is fully non-parametric and avoids any functional form specification on the time-dependency of either the drift function or the diffusion function. We establish almost sure uniform asymptotic convergence rates of the proposed estimators as the number of observed curves $n$ grows to infinity. Our rates are non-asymptotic in the number of measurements per path, explicitly reflecting how different sampling frequency might affect the speed of convergence. Our framework suggests possible further fruitful interactions between FDA and SDE methods in problems with replication.
Federated learning (FL) has been recognized as a viable distributed learning paradigm which trains a machine learning model collaboratively with massive mobile devices in the wireless edge while protecting user privacy. Although various communication schemes have been proposed to expedite the FL process, most of them have assumed ideal wireless channels which provide reliable and lossless communication links between the server and mobile clients. Unfortunately, in practical systems with limited radio resources such as constraint on the training latency and constraints on the transmission power and bandwidth, transmission of a large number of model parameters inevitably suffers from quantization errors (QE) and transmission outage (TO). In this paper, we consider such non-ideal wireless channels, and carry out the first analysis showing that the FL convergence can be severely jeopardized by TO and QE, but intriguingly can be alleviated if the clients have uniform outage probabilities. These insightful results motivate us to propose a robust FL scheme, named FedTOE, which performs joint allocation of wireless resources and quantization bits across the clients to minimize the QE while making the clients have the same TO probability. Extensive experimental results are presented to show the superior performance of FedTOE for deep learning-based classification tasks with transmission latency constraints.
Vector Perturbation Precoding (VPP) can speed up downlink data transmissions in Large and Massive Multi-User MIMO systems but is known to be NP-hard. While there are several algorithms in the literature for VPP under total power constraint, they are not applicable for VPP under per-antenna power constraint. This paper proposes a novel, parallel tree search algorithm for VPP under per-antenna power constraint, called \emph{\textbf{TreeStep}}, to find good quality solutions to the VPP problem with practical computational complexity. We show that our method can provide huge performance gain over simple linear precoding like Regularised Zero Forcing. We evaluate TreeStep for several large MIMO~($16\times16$ and $24\times24$) and massive MIMO~($16\times32$ and $24\times 48$) and demonstrate that TreeStep outperforms the popular polynomial-time VPP algorithm, the Fixed Complexity Sphere Encoder, by achieving the extremely low BER of $10^{-6}$ at a much lower SNR.
Dynamic Linear Models (DLMs) are commonly employed for time series analysis due to their versatile structure, simple recursive updating, ability to handle missing data, and probabilistic forecasting. However, the options for count time series are limited: Gaussian DLMs require continuous data, while Poisson-based alternatives often lack sufficient modeling flexibility. We introduce a novel semiparametric methodology for count time series by warping a Gaussian DLM. The warping function has two components: a (nonparametric) transformation operator that provides distributional flexibility and a rounding operator that ensures the correct support for the discrete data-generating process. We develop conjugate inference for the warped DLM, which enables analytic and recursive updates for the state space filtering and smoothing distributions. We leverage these results to produce customized and efficient algorithms for inference and forecasting, including Monte Carlo simulation for offline analysis and an optimal particle filter for online inference. This framework unifies and extends a variety of discrete time series models and is valid for natural counts, rounded values, and multivariate observations. Simulation studies illustrate the excellent forecasting capabilities of the warped DLM. The proposed approach is applied to a multivariate time series of daily overdose counts and demonstrates both modeling and computational successes.
Bayesian model selection provides a powerful framework for objectively comparing models directly from observed data, without reference to ground truth data. However, Bayesian model selection requires the computation of the marginal likelihood (model evidence), which is computationally challenging, prohibiting its use in many high-dimensional Bayesian inverse problems. With Bayesian imaging applications in mind, in this work we present the proximal nested sampling methodology to objectively compare alternative Bayesian imaging models for applications that use images to inform decisions under uncertainty. The methodology is based on nested sampling, a Monte Carlo approach specialised for model comparison, and exploits proximal Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques to scale efficiently to large problems and to tackle models that are log-concave and not necessarily smooth (e.g., involving l_1 or total-variation priors). The proposed approach can be applied computationally to problems of dimension O(10^6) and beyond, making it suitable for high-dimensional inverse imaging problems. It is validated on large Gaussian models, for which the likelihood is available analytically, and subsequently illustrated on a range of imaging problems where it is used to analyse different choices of dictionary and measurement model.
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.
With the increasing penetration of distributed energy resources, distributed optimization algorithms have attracted significant attention for power systems applications due to their potential for superior scalability, privacy, and robustness to a single point-of-failure. The Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) is a popular distributed optimization algorithm; however, its convergence performance is highly dependent on the selection of penalty parameters, which are usually chosen heuristically. In this work, we use reinforcement learning (RL) to develop an adaptive penalty parameter selection policy for the AC optimal power flow (ACOPF) problem solved via ADMM with the goal of minimizing the number of iterations until convergence. We train our RL policy using deep Q-learning, and show that this policy can result in significantly accelerated convergence (up to a 59% reduction in the number of iterations compared to existing, curvature-informed penalty parameter selection methods). Furthermore, we show that our RL policy demonstrates promise for generalizability, performing well under unseen loading schemes as well as under unseen losses of lines and generators (up to a 50% reduction in iterations). This work thus provides a proof-of-concept for using RL for parameter selection in ADMM for power systems applications.
In variable selection, a selection rule that prescribes the permissible sets of selected variables (called a "selection dictionary") is desirable due to the inherent structural constraints among the candidate variables. The methods that can incorporate such restrictions can improve model interpretability and prediction accuracy. Penalized regression can integrate selection rules by assigning the coefficients to different groups and then applying penalties to the groups. However, no general framework has been proposed to formalize selection rules and their applications. In this work, we establish a framework for structured variable selection that can incorporate universal structural constraints. We develop a mathematical language for constructing arbitrary selection rules, where the selection dictionary is formally defined. We show that all selection rules can be represented as a combination of operations on constructs, which can be used to identify the related selection dictionary. One may then apply some criteria to select the best model. We show that the theoretical framework can help to identify the grouping structure in existing penalized regression methods. In addition, we formulate structured variable selection into mixed-integer optimization problems which can be solved by existing software. Finally, we discuss the significance of the framework in the context of statistics.