Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) can be viewed as nonlinear sieves that can approximate complex functions of high dimensional variables more effectively than linear sieves. We investigate the computational performance of various ANNs in nonparametric instrumental variables (NPIV) models of moderately high dimensional covariates that are relevant to empirical economics. We present two efficient procedures for estimation and inference on a weighted average derivative (WAD): an orthogonalized plug-in with optimally-weighted sieve minimum distance (OP-OSMD) procedure and a sieve efficient score (ES) procedure. Both estimators for WAD use ANN sieves to approximate the unknown NPIV function and are root-n asymptotically normal and first-order equivalent. We provide a detailed practitioner's recipe for implementing both efficient procedures. This involves the choice of tuning parameters for the unknown NPIV, the conditional expectations and the optimal weighting function that are present in both procedures but also the choice of tuning parameters for the unknown Riesz representer in the ES procedure. We compare their finite-sample performances in various simulation designs that involve smooth NPIV function of up to 13 continuous covariates, different nonlinearities and covariate correlations. Some Monte Carlo findings include: 1) tuning and optimization are more delicate in ANN estimation; 2) given proper tuning, both ANN estimators with various architectures can perform well; 3) easier to tune ANN OP-OSMD estimators than ANN ES estimators; 4) stable inferences are more difficult to achieve with ANN (than spline) estimators; 5) there are gaps between current implementations and approximation theories. Finally, we apply ANN NPIV to estimate average partial derivatives in two empirical demand examples with multivariate covariates.
We study a new two-time-scale stochastic gradient method for solving optimization problems, where the gradients are computed with the aid of an auxiliary variable under samples generated by time-varying Markov random processes parameterized by the underlying optimization variable. These time-varying samples make gradient directions in our update biased and dependent, which can potentially lead to the divergence of the iterates. In our two-time-scale approach, one scale is to estimate the true gradient from these samples, which is then used to update the estimate of the optimal solution. While these two iterates are implemented simultaneously, the former is updated "faster" (using bigger step sizes) than the latter (using smaller step sizes). Our first contribution is to characterize the finite-time complexity of the proposed two-time-scale stochastic gradient method. In particular, we provide explicit formulas for the convergence rates of this method under different structural assumptions, namely, strong convexity, convexity, the Polyak-Lojasiewicz condition, and general non-convexity. We apply our framework to two problems in control and reinforcement learning. First, we look at the standard online actor-critic algorithm over finite state and action spaces and derive a convergence rate of O(k^(-2/5)), which recovers the best known rate derived specifically for this problem. Second, we study an online actor-critic algorithm for the linear-quadratic regulator and show that a convergence rate of O(k^(-2/3)) is achieved. This is the first time such a result is known in the literature. Finally, we support our theoretical analysis with numerical simulations where the convergence rates are visualized.
Continuous-time measurements are instrumental for a multitude of tasks in quantum engineering and quantum control, including the estimation of dynamical parameters of open quantum systems monitored through the environment. However, such measurements do not extract the maximum amount of information available in the output state, so finding alternative optimal measurement strategies is a major open problem. In this paper we solve this problem in the setting of discrete-time input-output quantum Markov chains. We present an efficient algorithm for optimal estimation of one-dimensional dynamical parameters which consists of an iterative procedure for updating a `measurement filter' operator and determining successive measurement bases for the output units. A key ingredient of the scheme is the use of a coherent quantum absorber as a way to post-process the output after the interaction with the system. This is designed adaptively such that the joint system and absorber stationary state is pure at a reference parameter value. The scheme offers an exciting prospect for optimal continuous-time adaptive measurements, but more work is needed to find realistic practical implementations.
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.
Existing inferential methods for small area data involve a trade-off between maintaining area-level frequentist coverage rates and improving inferential precision via the incorporation of indirect information. In this article, we propose a method to obtain an area-level prediction region for a future observation which mitigates this trade-off. The proposed method takes a conformal prediction approach in which the conformity measure is the posterior predictive density of a working model that incorporates indirect information. The resulting prediction region has guaranteed frequentist coverage regardless of the working model, and, if the working model assumptions are accurate, the region has minimum expected volume compared to other regions with the same coverage rate. When constructed under a normal working model, we prove such a prediction region is an interval and construct an efficient algorithm to obtain the exact interval. We illustrate the performance of our method through simulation studies and an application to EPA radon survey data.
We study efficient estimation of an interventional mean associated with a point exposure treatment under a causal graphical model represented by a directed acyclic graph without hidden variables. Under such a model, it may happen that a subset of the variables are uninformative in that failure to measure them neither precludes identification of the interventional mean nor changes the semiparametric variance bound for regular estimators of it. We develop a set of graphical criteria that are sound and complete for eliminating all the uninformative variables so that the cost of measuring them can be saved without sacrificing estimation efficiency, which could be useful when designing a planned observational or randomized study. Further, we construct a reduced directed acyclic graph on the set of informative variables only. We show that the interventional mean is identified from the marginal law by the g-formula (Robins, 1986) associated with the reduced graph, and the semiparametric variance bounds for estimating the interventional mean under the original and the reduced graphical model agree. This g-formula is an irreducible, efficient identifying formula in the sense that the nonparametric estimator of the formula, under regularity conditions, is asymptotically efficient under the original causal graphical model, and no formula with such property exists that only depends on a strict subset of the variables.
We propose in this paper a data driven state estimation scheme for generating nonlinear reduced models for parametric families of PDEs, directly providing data-to-state maps, represented in terms of Deep Neural Networks. A major constituent is a sensor-induced decomposition of a model-compliant Hilbert space warranting approximation in problem relevant metrics. It plays a similar role as in a Parametric Background Data Weak framework for state estimators based on Reduced Basis concepts. Extensive numerical tests shed light on several optimization strategies that are to improve robustness and performance of such estimators.
We present a new approach for efficient exploration which leverages a low-dimensional encoding of the environment learned with a combination of model-based and model-free objectives. Our approach uses intrinsic rewards that are based on the distance of nearest neighbors in the low dimensional representational space to gauge novelty. We then leverage these intrinsic rewards for sample-efficient exploration with planning routines in representational space for hard exploration tasks with sparse rewards. One key element of our approach is the use of information theoretic principles to shape our representations in a way so that our novelty reward goes beyond pixel similarity. We test our approach on a number of maze tasks, as well as a control problem and show that our exploration approach is more sample-efficient compared to strong baselines.
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.
Likelihood-based, or explicit, deep generative models use neural networks to construct flexible high-dimensional densities. This formulation directly contradicts the manifold hypothesis, which states that observed data lies on a low-dimensional manifold embedded in high-dimensional ambient space. In this paper we investigate the pathologies of maximum-likelihood training in the presence of this dimensionality mismatch. We formally prove that degenerate optima are achieved wherein the manifold itself is learned but not the distribution on it, a phenomenon we call manifold overfitting. We propose a class of two-step procedures consisting of a dimensionality reduction step followed by maximum-likelihood density estimation, and prove that they recover the data-generating distribution in the nonparametric regime, thus avoiding manifold overfitting. We also show that these procedures enable density estimation on the manifolds learned by implicit models, such as generative adversarial networks, hence addressing a major shortcoming of these models. Several recently proposed methods are instances of our two-step procedures; we thus unify, extend, and theoretically justify a large class of models.
The growing energy and performance costs of deep learning have driven the community to reduce the size of neural networks by selectively pruning components. Similarly to their biological counterparts, sparse networks generalize just as well, if not better than, the original dense networks. Sparsity can reduce the memory footprint of regular networks to fit mobile devices, as well as shorten training time for ever growing networks. In this paper, we survey prior work on sparsity in deep learning and provide an extensive tutorial of sparsification for both inference and training. We describe approaches to remove and add elements of neural networks, different training strategies to achieve model sparsity, and mechanisms to exploit sparsity in practice. Our work distills ideas from more than 300 research papers and provides guidance to practitioners who wish to utilize sparsity today, as well as to researchers whose goal is to push the frontier forward. We include the necessary background on mathematical methods in sparsification, describe phenomena such as early structure adaptation, the intricate relations between sparsity and the training process, and show techniques for achieving acceleration on real hardware. We also define a metric of pruned parameter efficiency that could serve as a baseline for comparison of different sparse networks. We close by speculating on how sparsity can improve future workloads and outline major open problems in the field.