We suppose that a Lévy process is observed at discrete time points. A rather general construction of minimum-distance estimators is shown to give consistent estimators of the Lévy-Khinchine characteristics as the number of observations tends to infinity, keeping the observation distance fixed. For a specific $C^2$-criterion this estimator is rate-optimal. The connection with deconvolution and inverse problems is explained. A key step in the proof is a uniform control on the deviations of the empirical characteristic function on the whole real line.
We investigate the asymptotic properties of a kernel-type nonparametric estimator of the linear multiplier in models governed by a stochastic differential equation driven by a general Gaussian process.
We study the nonparametric estimation for the intensity of Poisson random measure in jump-diffusion CIR model based on the low frequency observations. This is given in terms of the minimization of norms on a nonempty, closed and convex subset of some special Hilbert space. We establish the measurability of the estimator and derive its consistency and asymptotic risk bound.
We study the nonparametric Nadaraya-Watson estimator of the drift function for ergodic stochastic processes driven by fractional Brownian motion of Hurst parameter H > 1/2. The estimator is based on the discretely observed stochastic processes. By using the ergodic properties and stochastic integral, we obtain the consistency of the proposed estimator.
This article investigates nonparametric estimation of variance functions for functional data when the mean function is unknown. We obtain asymptotic results for the kernel estimator based on squared residuals. Similar to the finite dimensional case, our asymptotic result shows the smoothness of the unknown mean function has an effect on the rate of convergence. Our simulaton studies demonstrate that estimator based on residuals performs much better than that based on conditional second moment of the responses.
We investigate the nonparametric estimation for regression in a fixed-design setting when the errors are given by a field of dependent random variables. Sufficient conditions for kernel estimators to converge uniformly are obtained. These estimators can attain the optimal rates of uniform convergence and the results apply to a large class of random fields which contains martingale-difference random fields and mixing random fields.
This manuscript is a supplemental document providing the omitted material for our paper entitled "Nonparametric kernel estimation of the probability density function of regression errors using estimated residuals" [arXiv:1010.0439]. The paper is submitted to Journal of Nonparametric Statistics.
An adaptive nonparametric estimation procedure is constructed for the estimation problem of heteroscedastic regression when the noise variance depends on the unknown regression. A non-asymptotic upper bound for a quadratic risk (an oracle inequality) is constructed.
The paper deals with the nonparametric estimation problem at a given fixed point for an autoregressive model with unknown distributed noise. Kernel estimate modifications are proposed. Asymptotic minimax and efficiency properties for proposed estimators are shown.
Tsallis entropy is a generalized diversity index first derived in Patil and Taillie (1982) and then rediscovered in community ecology by Keylock (2005). Bayesian nonparametric estimation of Shannon entropy and Simpson's diversity under uniform and symmetric Dirichlet priors has been already advocated as an alternative to maximum likelihood estimation based on frequency counts, which is negatively biased in the undersampled regime. Here we present a fully general Bayesian nonparametric estimation of the whole class of Tsallis diversity indices under Gnedin-Pitman priors, a large family of rando…
This paper applies the recently axiomatized Optimum Information Principle (minimize the Kullback-Leibler information subject to all relevant information) to nonparametric density estimation, which provides a theoretical foundation as well as a computational algorithm for maximum entropy density estimation. The estimator, called optimum information estimator, approximates the true density arbitrarily well. As a by-product I obtain a measure of goodness of fit of parametric models (both conditional and unconditional) and an absolute criterion for model selection, as opposed to other conventional…
This paper is devoted to the nonparametric estimation of the derivative of the regression function in a nonparametric regression model. We implement a very efficient and easy to handle statistical procedure based on the derivative of the recursive Nadaraya-Watson estimator. We establish the almost sure convergence as well as the asymptotic normality for our estimates. We also illustrate our nonparametric estimation procedure on simulated and real life data associated with sea shores water quality and valvometry.
We address the estimation of quantiles from heavy-tailed distributions when functional covariate information is available and in the case where the order of the quantile converges to one as the sample size increases. Such "extreme" quantiles can be located in the range of the data or near and even beyond the boundary of the sample, depending on the convergence rate of their order to one. Nonparametric estimators of these functional extreme quantiles are introduced, their asymptotic distributions are established and their finite sample behavior is investigated.
The paper deals with asymptotic properties of the adaptive procedure proposed in the author paper (2007) for estimation of unknown nonparametric regression. We prove that this procedure is asymptotically efficient for a quadratic risk. It means that the asymptotic quadratic risk for this procedure coincides with a sharp lower bound.
This paper deals with the consistency, a rate of convergence and the asymptotic distribution of a nonparametric estimator of the trend in the Skorokhod reflection problem defined by a fractional SDE and a Moreau sweeping process.
We establish the asymptotic normality of the kernel type estimator for the regression function constructed from quasi-associated data when the explanatory variable takes its values in a separable Hilbert space.
In this paper, we consider a piecewise deterministic Markov process (PDMP), with known flow and deterministic transition measure, and unknown jump rate $λ$. To estimate nonparametrically the jump rate, we first construct an adaptive estimator of the stationary density, then we derive a quotient estimator $\hatλ_n$ of $λ$. We provide uniform bounds for the risk of these estimators, and prove that the estimator of the jump rate is nearly minimax (up to a $\ln^2(n)$ factor). Simulations illustrate the behavior of our estimator.
We study the nonparametric estimators of the infinitesimal coefficients of the second-order jump-diffusion models. Under the mild conditions, we obtain the weak consistency and the asymptotic normalities of the estimators.
We present a nonparametric family of estimators for the tail index of a Pareto-type distribution when covariate information is available. Our estimators are based on a weighted sum of the log-spacings between some selected observations. This selection is achieved through a moving window approach on the covariate domain and a random threshold on the variable of interest. Asymptotic normality is proved under mild regularity conditions and illustrated for some weight functions. Finite sample performances are presented on a real data study.
We consider nonparametric statistical inference for Lévy processes sampled irregularly, at low frequency. The estimation of the jump dynamics as well as the estimation of the distributional density are investigated. Non-asymptotic risk bounds are derived and the corresponding rates of convergence are discussed under global as well as local regularity assumptions. Moreover, minimax optimality is proved for the estimator of the jump measure. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate the practical performance of the estimation procedure.
Consider discrete time observations (X_{\ellδ})_{1\leq \ell \leq n+1}$ of the process $X$ satisfying $dX_t= \sqrt{V_t} dB_t$, with $V_t$ a one-dimensional positive diffusion process independent of the Brownian motion $B$. For both the drift and the diffusion coefficient of the unobserved diffusion $V$, we propose nonparametric least square estimators, and provide bounds for theirrisk. Estimators are chosen among a collection of functions belonging to a finite dimensional space whose dimension is selected by a data driven procedure. Implementation on simulated data illustrates how the method wo…
In this paper, nonparametric estimation of the conditional Weibull-tail coefficient when the variable of interest is right random censored is addressed. A Weissman-type estimator of conditional extreme quantile is also proposed. In addition, a simulation study is conducted to assess the finite-sample behavior of the proposed estimators and a comparison with alternative strategies is provided. Finally, the practical applicability of the methodology is presented using a real datasets of men suffering from a larynx cancer.
The coefficient function of the leading differential operator is estimated from observations of a linear stochastic partial differential equation (SPDE). The estimation is based on continuous time observations which are localised in space. For the asymptotic regime with fixed time horizon and with the spatial resolution of the observations tending to zero, we provide rate-optimal estimators and establish scaling limits of the deterministic PDE and of the SPDE on growing domains. The estimators are robust to lower order perturbations of the underlying differential operator and achieve the param…
Nonparametric identification and maximum likelihood estimation for finite-state hidden Markov models are investigated. We obtain identification of the parameters as well as the order of the Markov chain if the transition probability matrices have full-rank and are ergodic, and if the state-dependent distributions are all distinct, but not necessarily linearly independent. Based on this identification result, we develop nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation theory. First, we show that the asymptotic contrast, the Kullback--Leibler divergence of the hidden Markov model, identifies the true…
Stochastic volatility modelling of financial processes has become increasingly popular. The proposed models usually contain a stationary volatility process. We will motivate and review several nonparametric methods for estimation of the density of the volatility process. Both models based on discretely sampled continuous time processes and discrete time models will be discussed. The key insight for the analysis is a transformation of the volatility density estimation problem to a deconvolution model for which standard methods exist. Three type of nonparametric density estimators are reviewed: …
We consider nonparametric estimation for functional autoregressive processes with Markov switching. First, we study the case where complete data is available; i.e. when we observe the Markov switching regime. Then we estimate the regression function in each regime using a Nadaraya-Watson type estimator. Second, we introduce a nonparametric recursive algorithm in the case of hidden Markov switching regime. Our algorithm restores the missing data by means of a Monte-Carlo step and estimate the regression function via a Robbins-Monro step. Consistency of the estimators are proved in both cases. F…
This paper deals with the nonparametric density estimation of the regression error term assuming its independence with the covariate. The difference between the feasible estimator which uses the estimated residuals and the unfeasible one using the true residuals is studied. An optimal choice of the bandwidth used to estimate the residuals is given. We also study the asymptotic normality of the feasible kernel estimator and its rate-optimality.
Let X be a second order random process indexed by a compact interval [0,T]. Assume that n independent realizations of X are observed on a fixed grid of p time points. Under mild regularity assumptions on the sample paths of X, we show the asymptotic normality of suitable nonparametric estimators of the trend function mu = EX in the space C([0,T]) as n, p go to infinity and, using Gaussian process theory, we derive approximate simultaneous confidence bands for mu.
For the problem of nonparametric estimation of signal in Gaussian noise we point out the strong asymptotically minimax estimators on maxisets for linear estimators (see \cite{ker93,rio}). It turns out that the order of rates of convergence of Pinsker estimator on this maxisets is worse than the order of rates of convergence for the class of linear estimators considered on this maxisets. We show that balls in Sobolev spaces are maxisets for Pinsker estimators.
We study a class of nonlinear nonparametric inverse problems. Specifically, we propose a nonparametric estimator of the dynamics of a monotonically increasing trajectory defined on a finite time interval. Under suitable regularity conditions, we prove consistency of the proposed estimator and show that in terms of $L^2$-loss, the optimal rate of convergence for the proposed estimator is the same as that for the estimation of the derivative of a trajectory. This is a new contribution to the area of nonlinear nonparametric inverse problems. We conduct a simulation study to examine the finite sam…
We introduce and study a local linear nonparametric regression estimator for censorship model. The main goal of this paper is, to establish the uniform almost sure consistency result with rate over a compact set for the new estimate. To support our theoretical result, a simulation study has been done to make comparison with the classical regression estimator.
In this paper, we consider the robust adaptive non parametric estimation problem for the drift coefficient in diffusion processes. An adaptive model selection procedure, based on the improved weighted least square estimates, is proposed. Sharp oracle inequalities for the robust risk have been obtained.
We discuss nonparametric estimators of the distribution of the incubation time of a disease. The classical approach in these models is to use parametric families like Weibull, log-normal or gamma in the estimation procedure. We analyze instead the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and show that, under some conditions, its rate of convergence is cube root $n$ and that its limit behavior is given by Chernoff's distribution. We also study smooth estimates, based on the MLE. The density estimates, based on the MLE, are capable of catching finer or unexpected aspects of the density, …
A central goal of causal inference is to detect and estimate the treatment effects of a given treatment or intervention on an outcome variable of interest, where a member known as the heterogeneous treatment effect (HTE) is of growing popularity in recent practical applications such as the personalized medicine. In this paper, we model the HTE as a smooth nonparametric difference between two less smooth baseline functions, and determine the tight statistical limits of the nonparametric HTE estimation as a function of the covariate geometry. In particular, a two-stage nearest-neighbor-based est…
In this paper, we consider an unknown functional estimation problem in a general nonparametric regression model with the feature of having both multiplicative and additive noise.We propose two new wavelet estimators in this general context. We prove that they achieve fast convergence rates under the mean integrated square error over Besov spaces. The obtained rates have the particularity of being established under weak conditions on the model. A numerical study in a context comparable to stochastic frontier estimation (with the difference that the boundary is not necessarily a production funct…
We propose a nonparametric estimation for a class of fractional stochastic differential equations (FSDE) with random effects. We precisely consider general linear fractional stochastic differential equations with drift depending on random effects and non-random diffusion. We build ordinary kernel estimators and histogram estimators and study their Lp-risk (p =1 or 2), when H>1/2. Asymptotic results are evaluated as both T = T(N) and N tend to infinity.
In this paper we consider multivariate Hawkes processes with baseline hazard and kernel functions that depend on time. This defines a class of locally stationary processes. We discuss estimation of the time-dependent baseline hazard and kernel functions based on a localized criterion. Theory on stationary Hawkes processes is extended to develop asymptotic theory for the estimator in the locally stationary model.
A Bayesian nonparametric estimator to entropy is proposed. The derivation of the new estimator relies on using the Dirichlet process and adapting the well-known frequentist estimators of Vasicek (1976) and Ebrahimi, Pflughoeft and Soofi (1994). Several theoretical properties, such as consistency, of the proposed estimator are obtained. The quality of the proposed estimator has been investigated through several examples, in which it exhibits excellent performance.
This paper considers hidden Markov models where the observations are given as the sum of a latent state which lies in a general state space and some independent noise with unknown distribution. It is shown that these fully nonparametric translation models are identifiable with respect to both the distribution of the latent variables and the distribution of the noise, under mostly a light tail assumption on the latent variables. Two nonparametric estimation methods are proposed and we prove that the corresponding estimators are consistent for the weak convergence topology. These results are ill…
In this article, we consider the estimation of the marginal distributions for pairs of data are recorded, with unobserved order in each pair. New estimators are proposed and their asymptotic properties are established, by proving a Glivenko-Cantelli theorem and a functional central limit result. Results from a simulation study are included and we illustrate the applicability of the method on the homologous chromosomes data.
We define a new bandwidth-dependent kernel density estimator that improves existing convergence rates for the bias, and preserves that of the variation, when the error is measured in $L_1$. No additional assumptions are imposed to the extant literature.
This paper presents a nonparametric method for estimating the conditional density associated to the jump rate of a piecewise-deterministic Markov process. In our framework, the estimation needs only one observation of the process within a long time interval. Our method relies on a generalization of Aalen's multiplicative intensity model. We prove the uniform consistency of our estimator, under some reasonable assumptions related to the primitive characteristics of the process. A simulation example illustrates the behavior of our estimator.
For nonparametric regression with one-sided errors and a boundary curve model for Poisson point processes we consider the problem of efficient estimation for linear functionals. The minimax optimal rate is obtained by an unbiased estimation method which nevertheless depends on a Hölder condition or monotonicity assumption for the underlying regression or boundary function. We first construct a simple blockwise estimator and then build up a nonparametric maximum-likelihood approach for exponential noise variables and the point process model. In that approach also non-asymptotic efficiency is ob…
In this paper we consider the nonparametric estimation of density and regression functions with non-negative support using a gamma kernel procedure introduced by Chen (2000). Strong uniform consistency and asymptotic normality of the corresponding estimators are established under a general ergodic assumption on the data generation process. Our results generalize those of Shi and Song (2016), obtained in the classic i.i.d. framework, and the works of Bouezmarni and Rombouts (2008, 2010b) and Gospodinov and Hirukawa (2007) for mixing time series.
We consider settings where data are available on a nonparametric function and various partial derivatives. Such circumstances arise in practice, for example in the joint estimation of cost and input functions in economics. We show that when derivative data are available, local averages can be replaced in certain dimensions by nonlocal averages, thus reducing the nonparametric dimension of the problem. We derive optimal rates of convergence and conditions under which dimension reduction is achieved. Kernel estimators and their properties are analyzed, although other estimators, such as local po…
In this paper, we consider the filtering and smoothing recursions in nonparametric finite state space hidden Markov models (HMMs) when the parameters of the model are unknown and replaced by estimators. We provide an explicit and time uniform control of the filtering and smoothing errors in total variation norm as a function of the parameter estimation errors. We prove that the risk for the filtering and smoothing errors may be uniformly upper bounded by the risk of the estimators. It has been proved very recently that statistical inference for finite state space nonparametric HMMs is possible…
Motivated by finance and technical applications, the objective of this paper is to consider adaptive estimation of regression and density distribution based on Fourier-Legendre expansion, and construction of confidence intervals - also adaptive. The estimators are asymptotically optimal and adaptive in the sense that they can adapt to unknown smoothness.
This paper is devoted to the nonparametric estimation of the jump rate and the cumulative rate for a general class of non-homogeneous marked renewal processes, defined on a separable metric space. In our framework, the estimation needs only one observation of the process within a long time. Our approach is based on a generalization of the multiplicative intensity model, introduced by Aalen in the seventies. We provide consistent estimators of these two functions, under some assumptions related to the ergodicity of an embedded chain and the characteristics of the process. The paper is illustrat…
Bandwidth selection is crucial in the kernel estimation of density level sets. A risk based on the symmetric difference between the estimated and true level sets is usually used to measure their proximity. In this paper we provide an asymptotic $L^p$ approximation to this risk, where $p$ is characterized by the weight function in the risk. In particular the excess risk corresponds to an $L^2$ type of risk, and is adopted to derive an optimal bandwidth for nonparametric level set estimation of $d$-dimensional density functions ($d\geq 1$). A direct plug-in bandwidth selector is developed for ke…
A two-class mixture model, where the density of one of the components is known, is considered. We address the issue of the nonparametric adaptive estimation of the unknown probability density of the second component. We propose a randomly weighted kernel estimator with a fully data-driven bandwidth selection method, in the spirit of the Goldenshluger and Lepski method. An oracle-type inequality for the pointwise quadratic risk is derived as well as convergence rates over Holder smoothness classes. The theoretical results are illustrated by numerical simulations.
Consider a Poisson point process with unknown support boundary curve $g$, which forms a prototype of an irregular statistical model. We address the problem of estimating non-linear functionals of the form $\int Φ(g(x))\,dx$. Following a nonparametric maximum-likelihood approach, we construct an estimator which is UMVU over Hölder balls and achieves the (local) minimax rate of convergence. These results hold under weak assumptions on $Φ$ which are satisfied for $Φ(u)=|u|^p$, $p\ge 1$. As an application, we consider the problem of estimating the $L^p$-norm and derive the minimax separation rates…
The main purpose is to estimate the regression function of a real random variable with functional explanatory variable by using a recursive nonparametric kernel approach. The mean square error and the almost sure convergence of a family of recursive kernel estimates of the regression function are derived. These results are established with rates and precise evaluation of the constant terms. Also, a central limit theorem for this class of estimators is established. The method is evaluated on simulations and real data set studies.
Nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation is intended to infer the unknown density distribution while making as few assumptions as possible. To alleviate the over parameterization in nonparametric data fitting, smoothing assumptions are usually merged into the estimation. In this paper a novel boosting-based method is introduced to the nonparametric estimation in univariate cases. We deduce the boosting algorithm by the second-order approximation of nonparametric log-likelihood. Gaussian kernel and smooth spline are chosen as weak learners in boosting to satisfy the smoothing assumptions. Si…
