We consider the problem of pointwise estimation of multi-dimensional signals $s$, from noisy observations $(y_τ)$ on the regular grid $\bZd$. Our focus is on the adaptive estimation in the case when the signal can be well recovered using a (hypothetical) linear filter, which can depend on the unknown signal itself.
The basic setting of the problem we address here can be summarized as follows: suppose that the signal $s$ is "well-filtered", i.e. there exists an adapted time-invariant linear filter $q^*_T$ with the coefficients which vanish outside the "cube" $\{0,..., T\}^d$ which recovers $s_0$ from observations with small mean-squared error. We suppose that we do not know the filter $q^*$, although, we do know that such a filter exists. We give partial answers to the following questions: -- is it possible to construct an adaptive estimator of the value $s_0$, which relies upon observations and recovers $s_0$ with basically the same estimation error as the unknown filter $q^*_T$? -- how rich is the family of well-filtered (in the above sense) signals?
We show that the answer to the first question is affirmative and provide a numerically efficient construction of a nonlinear adaptive filter. Further, we establish a simple calculus of "well-filtered" signals, and show that their family is quite large: it contains, for instance, sampled smooth signals, sampled modulated smooth signals and sampled harmonic functions.
An adaptive nonparametric estimation procedure is constructed for heteroscedastic regression when the noise variance depends on the unknown regression. A non-asymptotic upper bound for a quadratic risk (oracle inequality) is obtained
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.
We consider the problem of recovering of continuous multi-dimensional functions from the noisy observations over the regular grid. Our focus is at the adaptive estimation in the case when the function can be well recovered using a linear filter, which can depend on the unknown function itself. In the companion paper "Nonparametric Denoising of Signals with Unknown Local Structure, I: Oracle Inequalities" we have shown in the case when there exists an adapted time-invariant filter, which locally recovers "well" the unknown signal, there is a numerically efficient construction of an adaptive fil…
The celebrated Nadaraya-Watson kernel estimator is among the most studied method for nonparametric regression. A classical result is that its rate of convergence depends on the number of covariates and deteriorates quickly as the dimension grows, which underscores the "curse of dimensionality" and has limited its use in high dimensional settings. In this article, we show that when the true regression function is single or multi-index, the effects of the curse of dimensionality may be mitigated for the Nadaraya-Watson kernel estimator. Specifically, we prove that with $K$-fold cross-validation,…
The performance of Least Squares (LS) estimators is studied in isotonic, unimodal and convex regression. Our results have the form of sharp oracle inequalities that account for the model misspecification error. In isotonic and unimodal regression, the LS estimator achieves the nonparametric rate $n^{-2/3}$ as well as a parametric rate of order $k/n$ up to logarithmic factors, where $k$ is the number of constant pieces of the true parameter. In univariate convex regression, the LS estimator satisfies an adaptive risk bound of order $q/n$ up to logarithmic factors, where $q$ is the number of aff…
We develop a set of scalable Bayesian inference procedures for a general class of nonparametric regression models. Specifically, nonparametric Bayesian inferences are separately performed on each subset randomly split from a massive dataset, and then the obtained local results are aggregated into global counterparts. This aggregation step is explicit without involving any additional computation cost. By a careful partition, we show that our aggregated inference results obtain an oracle rule in the sense that they are equivalent to those obtained directly from the entire data (which are computa…
This paper studies oracle properties of $\ell_1$-penalized least squares in nonparametric regression setting with random design. We show that the penalized least squares estimator satisfies sparsity oracle inequalities, i.e., bounds in terms of the number of non-zero components of the oracle vector. The results are valid even when the dimension of the model is (much) larger than the sample size and the regression matrix is not positive definite. They can be applied to high-dimensional linear regression, to nonparametric adaptive regression estimation and to the problem of aggregation of arbitr…
We study the Nonparametric Maximum Likelihood Estimator (NPMLE) for estimating Gaussian location mixture densities in $d$-dimensions from independent observations. Unlike usual likelihood-based methods for fitting mixtures, NPMLEs are based on convex optimization. We prove finite sample results on the Hellinger accuracy of every NPMLE. Our results imply, in particular, that every NPMLE achieves near parametric risk (up to logarithmic multiplicative factors) when the true density is a discrete Gaussian mixture without any prior information on the number of mixture components. NPMLEs can natural…
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 consider the nonparametric robust estimation problem for regression models in continuous time with semi-Markov noises. An adaptive model selection procedure is proposed. Under general moment conditions on the noise distribution a sharp non-asymptotic oracle inequality for the robust risks is obtained and the robust efficiency is shown. It turns out that for semi-Markov models the robust minimax convergence rate may be faster or slower than the classical one.
In this paper we discuss the estimation of a nonparametric component $f_1$ of a nonparametric additive model $Y=f_1(X_1) + ...+ f_q(X_q) + ε$. We allow the number $q$ of additive components to grow to infinity and we make sparsity assumptions about the number of nonzero additive components. We compare this estimation problem with that of estimating $f_1$ in the oracle model $Z= f_1(X_1) + ε$, for which the additive components $f_2,\dots,f_q$ are known. We construct a two-step presmoothing-and-resmoothing estimator of $f_1$ and state finite-sample bounds for the difference between our estimator…
We discuss the problem of adaptive discrete-time signal denoising in the situation where the signal to be recovered admits a "linear oracle" -- an unknown linear estimate that takes the form of convolution of observations with a time-invariant filter. It was shown by Juditsky and Nemirovski (2009) that when the $\ell_2$-norm of the oracle filter is small enough, such oracle can be "mimicked" by an efficiently computable adaptive estimate of the same structure with an observation-driven filter. The filter in question was obtained as a solution to the optimization problem in which the $\ell_\inf…
In this paper for the first time the nonparametric autoregression estimation problem for the quadratic risks is considered. To this end we develop a new adaptive sequential model selection method based on the efficient sequential kernel estimators proposed by Arkoun and Pergamenshchikov (2016). Moreover, we develop a new analytical tool for general regression models to obtain the non asymptotic sharp or- acle inequalities for both usual quadratic and robust quadratic risks. Then, we show that the constructed sequential model selection proce- dure is optimal in the sense of oracle inequalities.
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.
In this paper we develop the James - Stein improved estimation method for a nonparametric periodic function observed with the Levy noises in continuous time. An adaptive model selection procedure based on the improved weighted least square estimates is constructed. The improvement effect for the nonparametric models is obtained. It turns out that in the nonasymptotic studies the accuracy improvement for nonparametric problems is more significantly than for the parametric one. Moreover, sharp oracle inequalities for the robust risks have been shown and the efficiency property for the improved m…
This paper is a survey of recent results on the adaptive robust non parametric methods for the continuous time regression model with the semi - martingale noises with jumps. The noises are modeled by the Lévy processes, the Ornstein -- Uhlenbeck processes and semi-Markov processes. We represent the general model selection method and the sharp oracle inequalities methods which provide the robust efficient estimation in the adaptive setting. Moreover, we present the recent results on the improved model selection methods for the nonparametric estimation problems.
We propose a model selection approach for covariance estimation of a multi-dimensional stochastic process. Under very general assumptions, observing i.i.d replications of the process at fixed observation points, we construct an estimator of the covariance function by expanding the process onto a collection of basis functions. We study the non asymptotic property of this estimate and give a tractable way of selecting the best estimator among a possible set of candidates. The optimality of the procedure is proved via an oracle inequality which warrants that the best model is selected.
The paper considers the problem of robust estimating a periodic function in a continuous time regression model with dependent disturbances given by a general square integrable semimartingale with unknown distribution. An example of such a noise is non-gaussian Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with the Lévy process subordinator, which is used to model the financial Black-Scholes type markets with jumps. An adaptive model selection procedure, based on the weighted least square estimates, is proposed. Under general moment conditions on the noise distribution, sharp non-asymptotic oracle inequalities fo…
We consider stationary hidden Markov models with finite state space and nonparametric modeling of the emission distributions. It has remained unknown until very recently that such models are identifiable. In this paper, we propose a new penalized least-squares esti-mator for the emission distributions which is statistically optimal and practically tractable. We prove a non asymptotic oracle inequality for our nonparametric estimator of the emission distributions. A consequence is that this new estimator is rate minimax adaptive up to a logarithmic term. Our methodology is based on projections …
This paper describes an estimator of the additive components of a nonparametric additive model with a known link function. When the additive components are twice continuously differentiable, the estimator is asymptotically normally distributed with a rate of convergence in probability of n^{-2/5}. This is true regardless of the (finite) dimension of the explanatory variable. Thus, in contrast to the existing asymptotically normal estimator, the new estimator has no curse of dimensionality. Moreover, the estimator has an oracle property. The asymptotic distribution of each additive component is…
Motivated by improving mortality tables from human demography databases, we investigate statistical inference of a stochastic age-evolving density of a population alimented by time inhomogeneous mortality and fertility. Asymptotics are taken as the size of the population grows within a limited time horizon: the observation gets closer to the solution of the Von Foerster Mc Kendrick equation, and the difficulty lies in controlling simultaneously the stochastic approximation to the limiting PDE in a suitable sense together with an appropriate parametrisation of the anisotropic solution. In this …
We consider the problem of nonparametric regression when the covariate is $d$-dimensional, where $d \geq 1$. In this paper we introduce and study two nonparametric least squares estimators (LSEs) in this setting---the entirely monotonic LSE and the constrained Hardy-Krause variation LSE. We show that these two LSEs are natural generalizations of univariate isotonic regression and univariate total variation denoising, respectively, to multiple dimensions. We discuss the characterization and computation of these two LSEs obtained from $n$ data points. We provide a detailed study of their risk pr…
We study the problem of nonparametric estimation under $\bL_p$-loss, $p\in [1,\infty)$, in the framework of the convolution structure density model on $\bR^d$. This observation scheme is a generalization of two classical statistical models, namely density estimation under direct and indirect observations. In Part I the original pointwise selection rule from a family of "kernel-type" estimators is proposed. For the selected estimator, we prove an $\bL_p$-norm oracle inequality and several of its consequences. In Part II the problem of adaptive minimax estimation under $\bL_p$--loss over the sca…
In this paper, we consider a functional linear regression model, where both the covariate and the response variable are functional random variables. We address the problem of optimal nonparametric estimation of the conditional expectation operator in this model. A collection of projection estimators over finite dimensional subspaces is first introduce. We provide a non-asymptotic bias-variance decomposition for the Mean Square Prediction error in the case where these subspaces are generated by the (empirical) PCA functional basis. The automatic trade-off is realized thanks to a model selection…
In the framework of an abstract statistical model we discuss how to use the solution of one estimation problem ({\it Problem A}) in order to construct an estimator in another, completely different, {\it Problem B}. As a solution of {\it Problem A} we understand a data-driven selection from a given family of estimators $\mathbf{A}(\mH)=\big\{\widehat{A}_\mh, \mh\in\mH\big\}$ and establishing for the selected estimator so-called oracle inequality. %parameterized by some se t$\mH$. If $\hat{\mh}\in\mH$ is the selected parameter and $\mathbf{B}(\mH)=\big\{\widehat{B}_\mh, \mh\in\mH\big\}$ is an es…
In this paper we investigate the problem of designing experiments for series estimators in nonparametric regression models with correlated observations. We use projection based estimators to derive an explicit solution of the best linear oracle estimator in the continuous time model for all Markovian-type error processes. These solutions are then used to construct estimators, which can be calculated from the available data along with their corresponding optimal design points. Our results are illustrated by means of a simulation study, which demonstrates that the new series estimator has a bett…
We consider a system of $N$ interacting particles, governed by transport and diffusion, that converges in a mean-field limit to the solution of a McKean-Vlasov equation. From the observation of a trajectory of the system over a fixed time horizon, we investigate nonparametric estimation of the solution of the associated nonlinear Fokker-Planck equation, together with the drift term that controls the interactions, in a large population limit $N \rightarrow \infty$. We build data-driven kernel estimators and establish oracle inequalities, following Lepski's principle. Our results are based on a …
We propose a time-varying generalization of the Bradley-Terry model that allows for nonparametric modeling of dynamic global rankings of distinct teams. We develop a novel estimator that relies on kernel smoothing to pre-process the pairwise comparisons over time and is applicable in sparse settings where the Bradley-Terry may not be fit. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of our estimator. We also derive time-varying oracle bounds for both the estimation error and the excess risk in the model-agnostic setting where the Bradley-Terry model is not nec…
Nonparametric estimation for semilinear SPDEs, namely stochastic reaction-diffusion equations in one space dimension, is studied. We consider observations of the solution field on a discrete grid in time and space with infill asymptotics in both coordinates. Firstly, we derive a nonparametric estimator for the reaction function of the underlying equation. The estimate is chosen from a finite-dimensional function space based on a least squares criterion. Oracle inequalities provide conditions for the estimator to achieve the usual nonparametric rate of convergence. Adaptivity is provided via mo…
University of Michigan（密歇根大学）；Technische Universität Berlin（柏林工业大学）
Recent research has established sufficient conditions for finite mixture models to be identifiable from grouped observations. These conditions allow the mixture components to be nonparametric and have substantial (or even total) overlap. This work proposes an algorithm that consistently estimates any identifiable mixture model from grouped observations. Our analysis leverages an oracle inequality for weighted kernel density estimators of the distribution on groups, together with a general result showing that consistent estimation of the distribution on groups implies consistent estimation of m…
In the framework of nonparametric multivariate function estimation we are interested in structural adaptation. We assume that the function to be estimated has the "single-index" structure where neither the link function nor the index vector is known. We suggest a novel procedure that adapts simultaneously to the unknown index and smoothness of the link function. For the proposed procedure, we prove a "local" oracle inequality (described by the pointwise seminorm), which is then used to obtain the upper bound on the maximal risk of the adaptive estimator under assumption that the link function …
We develop a new model selection method for the adaptive robust efficient nonparametric signal estimation observed with impulse noise which is defined by the general non Gaussian Lévy processes. On the basis of the developed method, we construct the estimation procedures which are analyzed in two settings: in non asymptotic and asymptotic ones. For the first time for such models we show non asymptotic sharp oracle inequalities for the quadratic and for the robust risks, i.e. we show that the constructed procedures are optimal in the sharp oracle inequalities sense. Next, by making use of the o…
We focus on the nonparametric density estimation problem with directional data. We propose a new rule for bandwidth selection for kernel density estimation. Our procedure is automatic, fully data-driven and adaptive to the smoothness degree of the density. We obtain an oracle inequality and optimal rates of convergence for the L2 error. Our theoretical results are illustrated with simulations.
We study the theoretical properties of image denoising via total variation penalized least-squares. We define the total vatiation in terms of the two-dimensional total discrete derivative of the image and show that it gives rise to denoised images that are piecewise constant on rectangular sets. We prove that, if the true image is piecewise constant on just a few rectangular sets, the denoised image converges to the true image at a parametric rate, up to a log factor. More generally, we show that the denoised image enjoys oracle properties, that is, it is almost as good as if some aspects of t…
Inhomogeneous random graph models encompass many network models such as stochastic block models and latent position models. We consider the problem of statistical estimation of the matrix of connection probabilities based on the observations of the adjacency matrix of the network. Taking the stochastic block model as an approximation, we construct estimators of network connection probabilities -- the ordinary block constant least squares estimator, and its restricted version. We show that they satisfy oracle inequalities with respect to the block constant oracle. As a consequence, we derive op…
In the framework of nonparametric multivariate function estimation we are interested in structural adaptation. We assume that the function to be estimated possesses the single-index structure where neither the link function nor the index vector is known. We propose a novel procedure that adapts simultaneously to the unknown index and smoothness of link function. For the proposed procedure, we present a "local" oracle inequality (described by the pointwise seminorm), which is then used to obtain the upper bound on the maximal risk under regularity assumption on the link function. The lower boun…
This paper consider penalized empirical loss minimization of convex loss functions with unknown non-linear target functions. Using the elastic net penalty we establish a finite sample oracle inequality which bounds the loss of our estimator from above with high probability. If the unknown target is linear this inequality also provides an upper bound of the estimation error of the estimated parameter vector. These are new results and they generalize the econometrics and statistics literature. Next, we use the non-asymptotic results to show that the excess loss of our estimator is asymptotically…
We study trend filtering, a relatively recent method for univariate nonparametric regression. For a given positive integer $r$, the $r$-th order trend filtering estimator is defined as the minimizer of the sum of squared errors when we constrain (or penalize) the sum of the absolute $r$-th order discrete derivatives of the fitted function at the design points. For $r=1$, the estimator reduces to total variation regularization which has received much attention in the statistics and image processing literature. In this paper, we study the performance of the trend filtering estimator for every po…
In this paper, we consider a one-dimensional diffusion process with jumps driven by a Hawkes process. We are interested in the estimations of the volatility function and of the jump function from discrete high-frequency observations in a long time horizon which remained an open question until now. First, we propose to estimate the volatility coefficient. For that, we introduce a truncation function in our estimation procedure that allows us to take into account the jumps of the process and estimate the volatility function on a linear subspace of L2(A) where A is a compact interval of R. We obt…
A Theory of Nonparametric Covariance Function Estimation for Discretely Observed Data
Graduate School of Engineering Science, The University of Osaka（大阪大学大学院工程学研究科）；Center for Advanced Integrated Intelligence Research, RIKEN（理化学研究所先进智能集成研究中心）
We consider the problem of simultaneous variable selection and estimation in additive, partially linear models for longitudinal/clustered data. We propose an estimation procedure via polynomial splines to estimate the nonparametric components and apply proper penalty functions to achieve sparsity in the linear part. Under reasonable conditions, we obtain the asymptotic normality of the estimators for the linear components and the consistency of the estimators for the nonparametric components. We further demonstrate that, with proper choice of the regularization parameter, the penalized estimat…
Tessellation Localized Transfer learning for nonparametric regression
Télécom SudParis, Institut Polytechnique de Paris（巴黎理工学院电信南巴黎学院）；Université Paris Nanterre（巴黎楠泰尔大学）；Fédération Enac ISAE-SUPAERO,université de Toulouse（图卢兹大学Enac ISAE-SUPAERO联合会）；ESILV, Pôle Léonard de Vinci（里昂达芬奇中心ESILV）
In this article we consider the nonparametric robust estimation problem for regression models in continuous time with semi-Markov noises observed in discrete time moments. An adaptive model selection procedure is proposed. A sharp non-asymptotic oracle inequality for the robust risks is obtained. We obtain sufficient conditions on the frequency observations under which the robust efficiency is shown. It turns out that for the semi-Markov models the robust minimax convergence rate may be faster or slower than the classical one.
Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；Technion – Israel Institute of Technology（以色列理工学院）
We consider the problem of reconstructing a discrete-time signal (sequence) with continuous-valued components corrupted by a known memoryless channel. When performance is measured using a per-symbol loss function satisfying mild regularity conditions, we develop a sequence of denoisers that, although independent of the distribution of the underlying `clean' sequence, is universally optimal in the limit of large sequence length. This sequence of denoisers is universal in the sense of performing as well as any sliding window denoising scheme which may be optimized for the underlying clean signal…
