We introduce appropriate computable moduli of smoothness to characterize the rate of best approximation by multivariate polynomials on a connected and compact $C^2$-domain $\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^d$. This new modulus of smoothness is defined via finite differences along the directions of coordinate axes, and along a number of tangential directions from the boundary. With this modulus, we prove both the direct Jackson inequality and the corresponding inverse for the best polynomial approximation in $L_p(\Omega)$. The Jackson inequality is established for the full range of $0<p\leq \infty$, while its proof relies on a recently established Whitney type estimates with constants depending only on certain parameters; and on a highly localized polynomial partitions of unity on a $C^2$-domain which is of independent interest. The inverse inequality is established for $1\leq p\leq \infty$, and its proof relies on a recently proved Bernstein type inequality associated with the tangential derivatives on the boundary of $\Omega$. Such an inequality also allows us to establish the inverse theorem for Ivanov's average moduli of smoothness on general compact $C^2$-domains.
We introduce a novel algorithm that converges to level-set convex viscosity solutions of high-dimensional Hamilton-Jacobi equations. The algorithm is applicable to a broad class of curvature motion PDEs, as well as a recently developed Hamilton-Jacobi equation for the Tukey depth, which is a statistical depth measure of data points. A main contribution of our work is a new monotone scheme for approximating the direction of the gradient, which allows for monotone discretizations of pure partial derivatives in the direction of, and orthogonal to, the gradient. We provide a convergence analysis of the algorithm on both regular Cartesian grids and unstructured point clouds in any dimension and present numerical experiments that demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm in approximating solutions of the affine flow in two dimensions and the Tukey depth measure of high-dimensional datasets such as MNIST and FashionMNIST.
We characterise the behaviour of the maximum Diaconis-Ylvisaker prior penalized likelihood estimator in high-dimensional logistic regression, where the number of covariates is a fraction $\kappa \in (0,1)$ of the number of observations $n$, as $n \to \infty$. We derive the estimator's aggregate asymptotic behaviour when covariates are independent normal random variables with mean zero and variance $1/n$, and the vector of regression coefficients has length $\gamma \sqrt{n}$, asymptotically. From this foundation, we devise adjusted $Z$-statistics, penalized likelihood ratio statistics, and aggregate asymptotic results with arbitrary covariate covariance. In the process, we fill in gaps in previous literature by formulating a Lipschitz-smooth approximate message passing recursion, to formally transfer the asymptotic results from approximate message passing to logistic regression. While the maximum likelihood estimate asymptotically exists only for a narrow range of $(\kappa, \gamma)$ values, the maximum Diaconis-Ylvisaker prior penalized likelihood estimate not only exists always but is also directly computable using maximum likelihood routines. Thus, our asymptotic results also hold for $(\kappa, \gamma)$ values where results for maximum likelihood are not attainable, with no overhead in implementation or computation. We study the estimator's shrinkage properties and compare it to logistic ridge regression and demonstrate our theoretical findings with simulations.
We study the asymptotic eigenvalue distribution of the Slepian spatiospectral concentration problem within subdomains of the $d$-dimensional unit ball $\mathbb{B}^d$. The clustering of the eigenvalues near zero and one is a well-known phenomenon. Here, we provide an analytical investigation of this phenomenon for two different notions of bandlimit: (a) multivariate polynomials, with the maximal polynomial degree determining the bandlimit, (b) basis functions that separate into radial and spherical contributions (expressed in terms of Jacobi polynomials and spherical harmonics, respectively), with separate maximal degrees for the radial and spherical contributions determining the bandlimit. In particular, we investigate the number of relevant non-zero eigenvalues (the so-called Shannon number) and obtain distinct asymptotic results for both notions of bandlimit, characterized by Jacobi weights $W_0$ and a modification $\widetilde{W_0}$, respectively. The analytic results are illustrated by numerical examples on the 3-d ball.
We discuss techniques of estimation and inference for nonlinear cohort panels with learning from experience, showing, inter alia, the consistency and asymptotic normality of the nonlinear least squares estimator employed in the seminal paper by Malmendier and Nagel (2016, QJE). Potential pitfalls for hypothesis testing are identified and solutions proposed. Monte Carlo simulations verify the properties of the estimator and corresponding test statistics in finite samples, while an application to a panel of survey expectations demonstrates the usefulness of the theory developed.
The separation of performance metrics from gradient based loss functions may not always give optimal results and may miss vital aggregate information. This paper investigates incorporating a performance metric alongside differentiable loss functions to inform training outcomes. The goal is to guide model performance and interpretation by assuming statistical distributions on this performance metric for dynamic weighting. The focus is on van Rijsbergens $F_{\beta}$ metric -- a popular choice for gauging classification performance. Through distributional assumptions on the $F_{\beta}$, an intermediary link can be established to the standard binary cross-entropy via dynamic penalty weights. First, the $F_{\beta}$ metric is reformulated to facilitate assuming statistical distributions with accompanying proofs for the cumulative density function. These probabilities are used within a knee curve algorithm to find an optimal $\beta$ or $\beta_{opt}$. This $\beta_{opt}$ is used as a weight or penalty in the proposed weighted binary cross-entropy. Experimentation on publicly available data along with benchmark analysis mostly yields better and interpretable results as compared to the baseline for both imbalanced and balanced classes. For example, for the IMDB text data with known labeling errors, a 14% boost in $F_1$ score is shown. The results also reveal commonalities between the penalty model families derived in this paper and the suitability of recall-centric or precision-centric parameters used in the optimization. The flexibility of this methodology can enhance interpretation.
We derive optimal order a posteriori error estimates in the $L^\infty(L^2)$ and $L^1(L^2)$-norms for the fully discrete approximations of time fractional parabolic differential equations. For the discretization in time, we use the $L1$ methods, while for the spatial discretization, we use standard conforming finite element methods. The linear and quadratic space-time reconstructions are introduced, which are generalizations of the elliptic space reconstruction. Then the related a posteriori error estimates for the linear and quadratic space-time reconstructions play key roles in deriving global and pointwise final error estimates. Numerical experiments verify and complement our theoretical results.
Statistical learning methods are widely utilized in tackling complex problems due to their flexibility, good predictive performance and its ability to capture complex relationships among variables. Additionally, recently developed automatic workflows have provided a standardized approach to implementing statistical learning methods across various applications. However these tools highlight a main drawbacks of statistical learning: its lack of interpretation in their results. In the past few years an important amount of research has been focused on methods for interpreting black box models. Having interpretable statistical learning methods is relevant to have a deeper understanding of the model. In problems were spatial information is relevant, combined interpretable methods with spatial data can help to get better understanding of the problem and interpretation of the results. This paper is focused in the individual conditional expectation (ICE-plot), a model agnostic methods for interpreting statistical learning models and combined them with spatial information. ICE-plot extension is proposed where spatial information is used as restriction to define Spatial ICE curves (SpICE). Spatial ICE curves are estimated using real data in the context of an economic problem concerning property valuation in Montevideo, Uruguay. Understanding the key factors that influence property valuation is essential for decision-making, and spatial data plays a relevant role in this regard.
Clustering of extreme events can have profound and detrimental societal consequences. The extremal index, a number in the unit interval, is a key parameter in modelling the clustering of extremes. The study of extremal index often assumes a local dependence condition known as the $D^{(d)}(u_n)$ condition. In this paper, we develop a hypothesis test for $D^{(d)}(u_n)$ condition based on asymptotic results. We develop an estimator for the extremal index by leveraging the inference procedure based on the $D^{(d)}(u_n)$ condition, and we establish the asymptotic normality of this estimator. The finite sample performances of the hypothesis test and the estimation are examined in a simulation study, where we consider both models that satisfies the $D^{(d)}(u_n)$ condition and models that violate this condition. In a simple case study, our statistical procedure shows that daily temperature in summer shares a common clustering structure of extreme values based on the data observed in three weather stations in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
This paper presents the reduced biquaternion mixed least squares and total least squares (RBMTLS) method for solving an overdetermined system $AX \approx B$ in the reduced biquaternion algebra. The RBMTLS method is suitable when matrix $B$ and a few columns of matrix $A$ contain errors. By examining real representations of reduced biquaternion matrices, we investigate the conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the real RBMTLS solution and derive an explicit expression for the real RBMTLS solution. The proposed technique covers two special cases: the reduced biquaternion total least squares (RBTLS) method and the reduced biquaternion least squares (RBLS) method. Furthermore, the developed method is also used to find the best approximate solution to $AX \approx B$ over a complex field. Lastly, a numerical example is presented to support our findings.
We extend our formulation of Merge and Minimalism in terms of Hopf algebras to an algebraic model of a syntactic-semantic interface. We show that methods adopted in the formulation of renormalization (extraction of meaningful physical values) in theoretical physics are relevant to describe the extraction of meaning from syntactic expressions. We show how this formulation relates to computational models of semantics and we answer some recent controversies about implications for generative linguistics of the current functioning of large language models.