In this work we study the fundamental limits of approximate recovery in the context of group testing. One of the most well-known, theoretically optimal, and easy to implement testing procedures is the non-adaptive Bernoulli group testing problem, where all tests are conducted in parallel, and each item is chosen to be part of any certain test independently with some fixed probability. In this setting, there is an observed gap between the number of tests above which recovery is information theoretically (IT) possible, and the number of tests required by the currently best known efficient algorithms to succeed. Often times such gaps are explained by a phase transition in the landscape of the solution space of the problem (an Overlap Gap Property phase transition).
In this paper we seek to understand whether such a phenomenon takes place for Bernoulli group testing as well. Our main contributions are the following: (1) We provide first moment evidence that, perhaps surprisingly, such a phase transition does not take place throughout the regime for which recovery is IT possible. This fact suggests that the model is in fact amenable to local search algorithms ; (2) we prove the complete absence of "bad" local minima for a part of the "hard" regime, a fact which implies an improvement over known theoretical results on the performance of efficient algorithms for approximate recovery without false-negatives, and finally (3) we present extensive simulations that strongly suggest that a very simple local algorithm known as Glauber Dynamics does indeed succeed, and can be used to efficiently implement the well-known (theoretically optimal) Smallest Satisfying Set (SSS) estimator.
Nowadays data compressors are applied to many problems of text analysis, but many such applications are developed outside of the framework of mathematical statistics. In this paper we overcome this obstacle and show how several methods of classical mathematical statistics can be developed based on applications of the data compressors.
We address the following question in this paper: "What are the most robust statistical methods for social choice?'' By leveraging the theory of uniformly least favorable distributions in the Neyman-Pearson framework to finite models and randomized tests, we characterize uniformly most powerful (UMP) tests, which is a well-accepted statistical optimality w.r.t. robustness, for testing whether a given alternative is the winner under Mallows' model and under Condorcet's model, respectively.
Under a multinormal distribution with arbitrary unknown covariance matrix, the main purpose of this paper is to propose a framework to achieve the goal of reconciliation of Bayesian, frequentist and Fisherian paradigms for the problems of testing mean against restricted alternatives (closed convex cones). Combining Fisher's fiducial inference and Wald's decision theory via d-admissibility into an unified approach, the goal can then be achieved. To proceed, the tests constructed via the union-intersection principle are studied.
This article describes the inferential procedures and Bayesian optimal life-testing issues under Type-II unified hybrid censoring scheme. First, the explicit expressions of expected number of failures, expected duration of testing and Fisher information matrix for the unknown parameters of the underlying lifetime model are derived. Then, using these quantities, the Bayesian optimal life-testing plans are computed in subsequent section. A cost constraint D-optimal optimization problem has been formulated and the corresponding solution algorithm is provided to obtain optimal plans. Computational…
TU Dortmund（多特蒙德工业大学）；Georgia Tech（佐治亚理工学院）；MIT（麻省理工学院）
We study the group testing problem where the goal is to identify a set of k infected individuals carrying a rare disease within a population of size n, based on the outcomes of pooled tests which return positive whenever there is at least one infected individual in the tested group. We consider two different simple random procedures for assigning individuals to tests: the constant-column design and Bernoulli design. Our first set of results concerns the fundamental statistical limits. For the constant-column design, we give a new information-theoretic lower bound which implies that the proport…
This paper presents a selective survey of recent developments in statistical inference and multiple testing for high-dimensional regression models, including linear and logistic regression. We examine the construction of confidence intervals and hypothesis tests for various low-dimensional objectives such as regression coefficients and linear and quadratic functionals. The key technique is to generate debiased and desparsified estimators for the targeted low-dimensional objectives and estimate their uncertainty. In addition to covering the motivations for and intuitions behind these statistica…
University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）
We study the problem of hypothesis testing between two discrete distributions, where we only have access to samples after the action of a known reversible Markov chain, playing the role of noise. We derive instance-dependent minimax rates for the sample complexity of this problem, and show how its dependence in time is related to the spectral properties of the Markov chain. We show that there exists a wide statistical window, in terms of sample complexity for hypothesis testing between different pairs of initial distributions. We illustrate these results in several concrete examples.
Along the lines of Janssen's and Pfanzagl's work the testing theory for statistical functionals is further developed for non-parametric one-sample problems. Efficient tests for the one-sided and two-sided problems are derived for nonparametric statistical functionals. The asymptotic power function is calculated under implicit alternatives and hypotheses, which are given by the functional itself, for the one- sided and two-sided cases. Under mild regularity assumptions it is shown that these tests are asymptotic most powerful. The combination of the modern theory of Le Cam and approximation in …
Statistical analysis of multimodal imaging data is a challenging task, since the data involves high-dimensionality, strong spatial correlations and complex data structures. In this paper, we propose rigorous statistical testing procedures for making inferences on the complex dependence of multimodal imaging data. Motivated by the analysis of multi-task fMRI data in the Human Connectome Project (HCP) study, we particularly address three hypothesis testing problems: (a) testing independence among imaging modalities over brain regions, (b) testing independence between brain regions within imaging…
We generalize standard credal set models for imprecise probabilities to include higher order credal sets -- confidences about confidences. In doing so, we specify how an agent's higher order confidences (credal sets) update upon observing an event. Our model begins to address standard issues with imprecise probability models, like Dilation and Belief Inertia. We conjecture that when higher order credal sets contain all possible probability functions, then in the limiting case the highest order confidences converge to form a uniform distribution over the first order credal set, where we define …
In this paper, we consider the hypothesis testing of correlation between two $m$-uniform hypergraphs on $n$ unlabelled nodes. Under the null hypothesis, the hypergraphs are independent, while under the alternative hypothesis, the hyperdges have the same marginal distributions as in the null hypothesis but are correlated after some unknown node permutation. We focus on two scenarios: the hypergraphs are generated from the Gaussian-Wigner model and the dense Erdös-Rényi model. We derive the sharp information-theoretic testing threshold. Above the threshold, there exists a powerful test to distin…
The performance of multiple hypothesis testing is known to be affected by the statistical dependence among random variables involved. The mechanisms responsible for this, however, are not well understood. We study the effects of the dependence structure of a finite state hidden Markov model (HMM) on the likelihood ratios critical for optimal multiple testing on the hidden states. Various convergence results are obtained for the likelihood ratios as the observations of the HMM form an increasing long chain. Analytic expansions of the first and second order derivatives are obtained for the case …
In this work, we introduce statistical testing under distributional shifts. We are interested in the hypothesis $P^* \in H_0$ for a target distribution $P^*$, but observe data from a different distribution $Q^*$. We assume that $P^*$ is related to $Q^*$ through a known shift $τ$ and formally introduce hypothesis testing in this setting. We propose a general testing procedure that first resamples from the observed data to construct an auxiliary data set and then applies an existing test in the target domain. We prove that if the size of the resample is at most $o(\sqrt{n})$ and the resampling w…
We consider the following statistical problem: based on an i.i.d.sample of size n of integer valued random variables with common law m, is it possible to test whether or not the support of m is finite as n goes to infinity? This question is in particular connected to a simple case of Tsirelson's equation, for which it is natural to distinguish between two main configurations, the first one leading only to laws with finite support, and the second one including laws with infinite support. We show that it is in fact not possible to discriminate between the two situations, even using a very weak n…
Siberian State University of Telecommunications and Informatics（西伯利亚国立电信与信息大学）
We show how universal codes can be used for solving some of the most important statistical problems for time series. By definition, a universal code (or a universal lossless data compressor) can compress any sequence generated by a stationary and ergodic source asymptotically to the Shannon entropy, which, in turn, is the best achievable ratio for lossless data compressors. We consider finite-alphabet and real-valued time series and the following problems: estimation of the limiting probabilities for finite-alphabet time series and estimation of the density for real-valued time series, the on-…
Shafer (2021) offers a betting perspective on statistical testing which may be useful for foundational debates, given that disputes over such testing continue to be intense. To be helpful for researchers, however, this perspective will need more elaboration using real examples in which (a) the betting score has a justification and interpretation in terms of study goals that distinguishes it from the uncountable mathematical possibilities, and (b) the assumptions in the sampling model are uncertain. On justification, Shafer says 'No one has made a convincing case for any particular choice' of a…
The Mapper algorithm does not include a check for whether the cover produced conforms to the requirements of the nerve lemma. To perform a check for obstructions to the nerve lemma, statistical considerations of multiple testing quickly arise. In this paper, we propose several statistical approaches to finding obstructions: through a persistent nerve lemma, through simulation testing, and using a parametric refinement of simulation tests. We suggest Certified Mapper -- a method built from these approaches to generate certificates of non-obstruction, or identify specific obstructions to the ner…
Although there are many ideas for the formulations of statistical hypothesis testing, we consider that the likelihood ratio test is the most reasonable and orthodox. However, it is not handy, and thus, it is not usual in elementary books. That is, the statistical hypothesis testing written in elementary books is different from the likelihood ratio test. Thus, from the theoretical point of view, we have the following question: "What is the statistical hypothesis testing written in elementary books?" For example, we consider that even the difference between "one sided test" and "two sided test" …
In this paper, we propose a general method for testing composite hypotheses. Our idea is to use confidence limits to define stopping and decision rules. The requirements of operating characteristic function can be satisfied by adjusting the coefficients of the confidence limits. For common distributions, such adjustment can be done via efficient computation by making use of the monotonicity of the associated operating characteristic function. We show that the problem of testing multiple hypotheses can be cast into the general framework of constructing sequential random intervals with prescribe…
We study the problem of detecting planted solutions in a random satisfiability formula. Adopting the formalism of hypothesis testing in statistical analysis, we describe the minimax optimal rates of detection. Our analysis relies on the study of the number of satisfying assignments, for which we prove new results. We also address algorithmic issues, and give a computationally efficient test with optimal statistical performance. This result is compared to an average-case hypothesis on the hardness of refuting satisfiability of random formulas.
As a general rule of thumb the resolution of a light microscope (i.e. the ability to discern objects) is predominantly described by the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of its point spread function (psf)---the diameter of the blurring density at half of its maximum. Classical wave optics suggests a linear relationship between FWHM and resolution also manifested in the well known Abbe and Rayleigh criteria, dating back to the end of 19th century. However, during the last two decades conventional light microscopy has undergone a shift from microscopic scales to nanoscales. This increase in reso…
Estimation of the covariance matrix of asset returns is crucial to portfolio construction. As suggested by economic theories, the correlation structure among assets differs between emerging markets and developed countries. It is therefore imperative to make rigorous statistical inference on correlation matrix equality between the two groups of countries. However, if the traditional vector-valued approach is undertaken, such inference is either infeasible due to limited number of countries comparing to the relatively abundant assets, or invalid due to the violations of temporal independence ass…
Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；Singapore University of Technology and Design（新加坡科技设计大学）；VinAI Research（VinAI研究院）
We present a statistical testing framework to detect if a given machine learning classifier fails to satisfy a wide range of group fairness notions. The proposed test is a flexible, interpretable, and statistically rigorous tool for auditing whether exhibited biases are intrinsic to the algorithm or due to the randomness in the data. The statistical challenges, which may arise from multiple impact criteria that define group fairness and which are discontinuous on model parameters, are conveniently tackled by projecting the empirical measure onto the set of group-fair probability models using o…
