We propose a goodness-of-fit test for the distribution of errors from a multivariate indirect regression model. The test statistic is based on the Khmaladze transformation of the empirical process of standardized residuals. This goodness-of-fit test is consistent at the root-n rate of convergence, and the test can maintain power against local alternatives converging to the null at a root-n rate.
Goodness-of-fit tests are often used in data analysis to test the agreement of a distribution to a set of data. These tests can be used to detect an unknown signal against a known background or to set limits on a proposed signal distribution in experiments contaminated by poorly understood backgrounds. Out-of-the-box non-parametric tests that can target any proposed distribution are only available in the univariate case. In this paper, we discuss how to build goodness-of-fit tests for arbitrary multivariate distributions or multivariate data generation models.
Goodness-of-fit tests based on the empirical Wasserstein distance are proposed for simple and composite null hypotheses involving general multivariate distributions. For group families, the procedure is to be implemented after preliminary reduction of the data via invariance.This property allows for calculation of exact critical values and p-values at finite sample sizes. Applications include testing for location--scale families and testing for families arising from affine transformations, such as elliptical distributions with given standard radial density and unspecified location vector and s…
We present a unified approach to goodness-of-fit testing in $\mathbb{R}^d$ and on lower-dimensional manifolds embedded in $\mathbb{R}^d$ based on sums of powers of weighted volumes of $k$-th nearest neighbor spheres. We prove asymptotic normality of a class of test statistics under the null hypothesis and under fixed alternatives. Under such alternatives, scaled versions of the test statistics converge to the $α$-entropy between probability distributions. A simulation study shows that the procedures are serious competitors to established goodness-of-fit tests.
Unbinned maximum likelihood is a common procedure for parameter estimation. After parameters have been estimated, it is crucial to know whether the fit model adequately describes the experimental data. Univariate Goodness of Fit procedures have been thoroughly analyzed. In multi-dimensions, Goodness of Fit test powers have rarely been studied on realistic problems. There is no definitive answer to regarding which method is better. Test performance is strictly related to specific analysis characteristics. In this work, a review of multi-variate Goodness of Fit techniques is presented.
We employ a general Monte Carlo method to test composite hypotheses of goodness-of-fit for several popular multivariate models that can accommodate both asymmetry and heavy tails. Specifically, we consider weighted L2-type tests based on a discrepancy measure involving the distance between empirical characteristic functions and thus avoid the need for employing corresponding population quantities which may be unknown or complicated to work with. The only requirements of our tests are that we should be able to draw samples from the distribution under test and possess a reasonable method of esti…
In many applications, we encounter data on Riemannian manifolds such as torus and rotation groups. Standard statistical procedures for multivariate data are not applicable to such data. In this study, we develop goodness-of-fit testing and interpretable model criticism methods for general distributions on Riemannian manifolds, including those with an intractable normalization constant. The proposed methods are based on extensions of kernel Stein discrepancy, which are derived from Stein operators on Riemannian manifolds. We discuss the connections between the proposed tests with existing ones …
We consider the problem of estimating the population probability distribution given a finite set of multivariate samples, using the maximum entropy approach. In strict keeping with Jaynes' original definition, our precise formulation of the problem considers contributions only from the smoothness of the estimated distribution (as measured by its entropy) and the loss functional associated with its goodness-of-fit to the sample data, and in particular does not make use of any additional constraints that cannot be justified from the sample data alone. By mapping the general multivariate problem …
We consider the identity testing problem - or goodness-of-fit testing problem - in multivariate binomial families, multivariate Poisson families and multinomial distributions. Given a known distribution $p$ and $n$ iid samples drawn from an unknown distribution $q$, we investigate how large $ρ>0$ should be to distinguish, with high probability, the case $p=q$ from the case $d(p,q) \geq ρ$, where $d$ denotes a specific distance over probability distributions. We answer this question in the case of a family of different distances: $d(p,q) = \|p-q\|_t$ for $t \in [1,2]$ where $\|\cdot\|_t$ is the…
We propose a new class of estimators of the multivariate response linear regression coefficient matrix that exploits the assumption that the response and predictors have a joint multivariate Normal distribution. This allows us to indirectly estimate the regression coefficient matrix through shrinkage estimation of the parameters of the inverse regression, or the conditional distribution of the predictors given the responses. We establish a convergence rate bound for estimators in our class and we study two examples. The first example estimator exploits an assumption that the inverse regression…
We consider a multivariable functional errors-in-variables model $AX\approx B$, where the data matrices $A$ and $B$ are observed with errors, and a matrix parameter $X$ is to be estimated. A goodness-of-fit test is constructed based on the total least squares estimator. The proposed test is asymptotically chi-squared under null hypothesis. The power of the test under local alternatives is discussed.
In this work, a goodness-of-fit test for the null hypothesis of a functional linear model with scalar response is proposed. The test is based on a generalization to the functional framework of a previous one, designed for the goodness-of-fit of regression models with multivariate covariates using random projections. The test statistic is easy to compute using geometrical and matrix arguments, and simple to calibrate in its distribution by a wild bootstrap on the residuals. The finite sample properties of the test are illustrated by a simulation study for several types of basis and under differ…
We consider the convolution model where i.i.d. random variables $X_i$ having unknown density $f$ are observed with additive i.i.d. noise, independent of the $X$'s. We assume that the density $f$ belongs to either a Sobolev class or a class of supersmooth functions. The noise distribution is known and its characteristic function decays either polynomially or exponentially asymptotically. We consider the problem of goodness-of-fit testing in the convolution model. We prove upper bounds for the risk of a test statistic derived from a kernel estimator of the quadratic functional $\int f^2$ based o…
We present new families of goodness-of-fit tests of uniformity on a full-dimensional set $W\subset\R^d$ based on statistics related to edge lengths of random geometric graphs. Asymptotic normality of these statistics is proven under the null hypothesis as well as under fixed alternatives. The derived tests are consistent and their behaviour for some contiguous alternatives can be controlled. A simulation study suggests that the procedures can compete with or are better than established goodness-of-fit tests. We show with a real data example that the new tests can detect non-uniformity of a sma…
We propose a new multiple change-point detection framework for multivariate and non-Euclidean data. First, we combine graph-based statistics with wild binary segmentation or seeded binary segmentation to search for a pool of candidate change-points. We then prune the candidate change-points through a novel goodness-of-fit statistic. Numerical studies show that this new framework outperforms existing methods under a wide range of settings. The resulting change-points can further be arranged hierarchically based on the goodness-of-fit statistic. The new framework is illustrated on a Neuropixels …
Appropriate preprocessing is a fundamental prerequisite for analyzing a noisy dataset. The purpose of this paper is to apply a nonparametric preprocessing method, called Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA), to a variety of datasets which are subsequently analyzed by means of multiple statistical hypothesis tests. SSA is a nonparametric preprocessing method which has recently been utilized in the context of many life science problems. In the present work, SSA is compared with three other state-of-the-art preprocessing methods in terms of goodness of denoising and in terms of the statistical power …
Parametric max-stable processes are increasingly used to model spatial extremes. Starting from the fact that the dependence structure of a max-stable process is completely characterized by an extreme-value copula, a class of goodness-of-fit tests is proposed based on the comparison between a nonparametric and a parametric estimator of the corresponding unknown multivariate Pickands dependence function. Because of the high-dimensional setting under consideration, these functional estimators are only compared at a specific set of points at which they coincide, up to a multiplicative constant, wi…
A general and relatively simple method for construction of multivariate goodness-of-fit tests is introduced. The proposed test is applied to elliptical distributions. The method is based on a characterization of probability distributions via their characteristic function. The consistency and other limit properties of the new test statistics are studied. Also in a simulation study the proposed tests are compared with earlier as well as more recent competitors.
The bivariate Poisson distribution is commonly used to model bivariate count data. In this paper we study a goodness-of-fit test for this distribution. We also provide a review of the existing tests for the bivariate Poisson distribution, and its multivariate extension. The proposed test is consistent against any fixed alternative. It is also able to detect local alternatives converging to the null at the rate $n^{-\frac{1}{2}}$. The bootstrap can be employed to consistently estimate the null distribution of the test statistic. Through a simulation study we investigated the goodness of the boo…
We introduce a new goodness-of-fit test for regular vine (R-vine) copula models, a flexible class of multivariate copulas based on a pair-copula construction (PCC). The test arises from the information matrix ratio. The corresponding test statistic is derived and its asymptotic normality is proven. The test's power is investigated and compared to 14 other goodness-of-fit tests, adapted from the bivariate copula case, in a high dimensional setting. The extensive simulation study shows the excellent performance with respect to size and power as well as the superiority of the information matrix r…
The process comparing the empirical cumulative distribution function of the sample with a parametric estimate of the cumulative distribution function is known as the empirical process with estimated parameters and has been extensively employed in the literature for goodness-of-fit testing. The simplest way to carry out such goodness-of-fit tests, especially in a multivariate setting, is to use a parametric bootstrap. Although very easy to implement, the parametric bootstrap can become very computationally expensive as the sample size, the number of parameters, or the dimension of the data incr…
We introduce a new goodness-of-fit test for regular vine (R-vine) copula models. R-vine copulas are a very flexible class of multivariate copulas based on a pair-copula construction (PCC). The test arises from the information matrix equality and specification test proposed by White (1982) and extends the goodness-of-fit test for copulas introduced by Huang and Prokhorov (2011). The corresponding critical value can be approximated by asymptotic theory or simulation. The simulation based test shows excellent performance with regard to observed size and power in an extensive simulation study, whi…
This paper develops a smooth test of goodness-of-fit for elliptical distributions. The test is adaptively omnibus, invariant to affine-linear transformations and has a convenient expression that can be broken into components. These components have diagnostic capabilities and can be used to identify specific departures. This helps in correcting the null model when the test rejects. As an example, the results are applied to the multivariate normal distribution for which the R package ECGofTestDx is available. It is shown that the proposed test strategy encompasses and generalizes a number of exi…
The problem of characterizing a multivariate distribution of a random vector using examination of univariate combinations of vector components is an essential issue of multivariate analysis. The likelihood principle plays a prominent role in developing powerful statistical inference tools. In this context, we raise the question: can the univariate likelihood function based on a random vector be used to provide the uniqueness in reconstructing the vector distribution? In multivariate normal (MN) frameworks, this question links to a reverse of Cochran's theorem that concerns the distribution of …
Researchers are often interested in understanding the relationship between a set of covariates and a set of response variables. To achieve this goal, the use of regression analysis, either linear or generalized linear models, is largely applied. However, such models only allow users to model one response variable at a time. Moreover, it is not possible to directly calculate from the regression model a correlation measure between the response variables. In this article, we employed the Multivariate Generalized Linear Mixed Models framework, which allows the specification of a set of response va…
We propose and study a general method for construction of consistent statistical tests on the basis of possibly indirect, corrupted, or partially available observations. The class of tests devised in the paper contains Neyman's smooth tests, data-driven score tests, and some types of multi-sample tests as basic examples. Our tests are data-driven and are additionally incorporated with model selection rules. The method allows to use a wide class of model selection rules that are based on the penalization idea. In particular, many of the optimal penalties, derived in statistical literature, can …
We develop a general theory for the goodness-of-fit test to non-linear models. In particular, we assume that the observations are noisy samples of a submanifold defined by a \yao{sufficiently smooth non-linear map}. The observation noise is additive Gaussian. Our main result shows that the "residual" of the model fit, by solving a non-linear least-square problem, follows a (possibly noncentral) $χ^2$ distribution. The parameters of the $χ^2$ distribution are related to the model order and dimension of the problem. We further present a method to select the model orders sequentially. We demonstr…
MC-GTA: Metric-Constrained Model-Based Clustering using Goodness-of-fit Tests with Autocorrelations
University of California Santa Barbara(加州大学圣巴巴拉分校);University of Georgia(佐治亚大学);University of Texas at Austin(德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校);University of Vienna(维也纳大学);Google(谷歌公司)
Many statistical procedures, including goodness-of-fit tests and methods for independent component analysis, rely critically on the estimation of the entropy of a distribution. In this paper, we seek entropy estimators that are efficient and achieve the local asymptotic minimax lower bound with respect to squared error loss. To this end, we study weighted averages of the estimators originally proposed by Kozachenko and Leonenko (1987), based on the $k$-nearest neighbour distances of a sample of $n$ independent and identically distributed random vectors in $\mathbb{R}^d$. A careful choice of we…
A Linear Relationship between Correlation and Cohen's Kappa for Binary Data and Simulating Multivariate Nominal and Ordinal Data with Specified Kappa Matrix
A framework for assessing the matrix variate normality of three-way data is developed. The framework comprises a visual method and a goodness of fit test based on the Mahalanobis squared distance (MSD). The MSD of multivariate and matrix variate normal estimators, respectively, are used as an assessment tool for matrix variate normality. Specifically, these are used in the form of a distance-distance (DD) plot as a graphical method for visualizing matrix variate normality. In addition, we employ the popular Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of fit test in the context of assessing matrix variate norm…
We propose an empirical likelihood test that is able to test the goodness of fit of a class of parametric and semi-parametric multiresponse regression models. The class includes as special cases fully parametric models; semi-parametric models, like the multiindex and the partially linear models; and models with shape constraints. Another feature of the test is that it allows both the response variable and the covariate be multivariate, which means that multiple regression curves can be tested simultaneously. The test also allows the presence of infinite-dimensional nuisance functions in the mo…
In this paper, we use and further develop upon a recently proposed multivariate, distribution-free Goodness-of-Fit (GoF) test based on the theory of Optimal Transport (OT) called the Rank Energy (RE) [1], for non-parametric and unsupervised Change Point Detection (CPD) in multivariate time series data. We show that directly using RE leads to high sensitivity to very small changes in distributions (causing high false alarms) and it requires large sample complexity and huge computational cost. To alleviate these drawbacks, we propose a new GoF test statistic called as soft-Rank Energy (sRE) that…
This article introduces an informative goodness-of-fit (iGOF) approach to study multivariate distributions. When the null model is rejected, iGOF allows us to identify the underlying sources of mismodeling and naturally equips practitioners with additional insights on the nature of the deviations from the true distribution. The informative character of the procedure is achieved by exploiting smooth tests and random fields theory to facilitate the analysis of multivariate data. Simulation studies show that iGOF enjoys high power for different types of alternatives. The methods presented here di…
Consider a set of multivariate distributions, $F_1,\dots,F_M$, aiming to explain the same phenomenon. For instance, each $F_m$ may correspond to a different candidate background model for calibration data, or to one of many possible signal models we aim to validate on experimental data. In this article, we show that tests for a wide class of apparently different models $F_{m}$ can be mapped into a single test for a reference distribution $Q$. As a result, valid inference for each $F_m$ can be obtained by simulating \underline{only} the distribution of the test statistic under $Q$. Furthermore,…
We provide novel characterizations of multivariate normality that incorporate both the characteristic function and the moment generating function, and we employ these results to construct a class of affine invariant, consistent and easy-to-use goodness-of-fit tests for normality. The test statistics are suitably weighted $L^2$-statistics, and we provide their asymptotic behavior both for i.i.d. observations as well as in the context of testing that the innovation distribution of a multivariate GARCH model is Gaussian. We also study the finite-sample behavior of the new tests and compare the ne…
In this work, we propose to catch the complexity of the membrane potential's dynamic of a motoneuron between its spikes, taking into account the spikes from other neurons around. Our approach relies on two types of data: extracellular recordings of multiple spikes trains and intracellular recordings of the membrane potential of a central neuron. Our main contribution is to provide a unified framework and a complete pipeline to analyze neuronal activity from data extraction to statistical inference. The first step of the procedure is to select a subnetwork of neurons impacting the central neuro…
Mediation analysis is appealing for its ability to improve understanding of the mechanistic drivers of causal effects, but real-world data complexities challenge its successful implementation, including: 1) the existence of post-exposure variables that also affect mediators and outcomes (thus, confounding the mediator-outcome relationship), that may also be 2) multivariate, and 3) the existence of multivariate mediators. Interventional direct and indirect effects (IDE/IIE) accommodate post-exposure variables that confound the mediator-outcome relationship, but currently, no estimator for IDE/I…