A resurgence of interest in multiple hypothesis testing has occurred in the last decade. Motivated by studies in genomics, microarrays, DNA sequencing, drug screening, clinical trials, bioassays, education and psychology, statisticians have been devoting considerable research energy in an effort to properly analyze multiple endpoint data. In response to new applications, new criteria and new methodology, many ad hoc procedures have emerged. The classical requirement has been to use procedures which control the strong familywise error rate (FWE) at some predetermined level α. That is, the probability of any false rejection of a true null hypothesis should be less than or equal to α. Finding desirable and powerful multiple test procedures is difficult under this requirement. One of the more recent ideas is concerned with controlling the false discovery rate (FDR), that is, the expected proportion of rejected hypotheses which are, in fact, true. Many multiple test procedures do control the FDR. A much earlier approach to multiple testing was formulated by Lehmann [Ann. Math. Statist. 23 (1952) 541-552 and 28 (1957) 1-25]. Lehmann's approach is decision theoretic and he treats the multiple endpoints problem as a 2^k finite action problem when there are k endpoints. This approach is appealing since unlike the FWE and FDR criteria, the finite action approach pays attention to false acceptances as well as false rejections.
For any class of one-sided $1-α$ confidence intervals with a certain monotonicity ordering on the random confidence limit, the smallest interval, in the sense of the set inclusion for the difference of two proportions of two independent binomial random variables, is constructed based on a direct analysis of coverage probability function. A special ordering on the confidence limit is developed and the corresponding smallest confidence interval is derived. This interval is then applied to identify the minimum effective dose (MED) for binary data in dose-response studies, and a multiple test proc…
A statistical test can be seen as a procedure to produce a decision based on observed data, where some decisions consist of rejecting a hypothesis (yielding a significant result) and some do not, and where one controls the probability to make a wrong rejection at some pre-specified significance level. Whereas traditional hypothesis testing involves only two possible decisions (to reject or not a null hypothesis), Kaiser's directional two-sided test as well as the more recently introduced Jones and Tukey's testing procedure involve three possible decisions to infer on unidimensional parameter. …
The p-values are often implicitly used as a measure of evidence for the hypotheses of the tests. This practice has been analyzed with different approaches. It is generally accepted for the one-sided hypothesis problem, but it is often criticized for the two-sided hypothesis problem. We analyze this practice with a new approach to statistical inference. First we select good decision rules without using a loss function, we call them experts. Then we define a probability distribution on the space of experts. The measure of evidence for a hypothesis is the inductive probability of experts that dec…
In this article, a general problem of sequential statistical inference for general discrete-time stochastic processes is considered. The problem is to minimize an average sample number given that Bayesian risk due to incorrect decision does not exceed some given bound. We characterize the form of optimal sequential stopping rules in this problem. In particular, we have a characterization of the form of optimal sequential decision procedures when the Bayesian risk includes both the loss due to incorrect decision and the cost of observations.
Gaussian Graphical Model selection problem is considered. Concentration graph is identified by multiple decision procedure based on individual tests. Optimal unbiased individual tests are constructed. It is shown that optimal tests are equivalent to sample partial correlation tests. Associated multiple decision procedure is compared with standard procedure.
We present a multivariate one-sided sensitivity analysis for matched observational studies, appropriate when the researcher has specified that a given causal mechanism should manifest itself in effects on multiple outcome variables in a known direction. The test statistic can be thought of as the solution to an adversarial game, where the researcher determines the best linear combination of test statistics to combat nature's presentation of the worst-case pattern of hidden bias. The corresponding optimization problem is convex, and can be solved efficiently even for reasonably sized observatio…
We construct a procedure to test the stochastic order of two samples of interval-valued data. We propose a test statistic which belongs to U-statistic and derive its asymptotic distribution under the null hypothesis. We compare the performance of the newly proposed method with the existing one-sided bivariate Kolmogorov-Smirnov test using real data and simulated data.
Gaussian graphical model is a graphical representation of the dependence structure for a Gaussian random vector. It is recognized as a powerful tool in different applied fields such as bioinformatics, error-control codes, speech language, information retrieval and others. Gaussian graphical model selection is a statistical problem to identify the Gaussian graphical model from a sample of a given size. Different approaches for Gaussian graphical model selection are suggested in the literature. One of them is based on considering the family of individual conditional independence tests. The appli…
We consider $n$ independent $p$-dimensional Gaussian vectors with covariance matrix having Toeplitz structure. We test that these vectors have independent components against a stationary distribution with sparse Toeplitz covariance matrix, and also select the support of non-zero entries. We assume that the non-zero values can occur in the recent past (time-lag less than $p/2$). We build test procedures that combine a sum and a scan-type procedures, but are computationally fast, and show their non-asymptotic behaviour in both one-sided (only positive correlations) and two-sided alternatives, re…
We focus on one-sided, mixture-based stopping rules for the problem of sequential testing a simple null hypothesis against a composite alternative. For the latter, we consider two cases---either a discrete alternative or a continuous alternative that can be embedded into an exponential family. For each case, we find a mixture-based stopping rule that is nearly minimax in the sense of minimizing the maximal Kullback-Leibler information. The proof of this result is based on finding an almost Bayes rule for an appropriate sequential decision problem and on high-order asymptotic approximations for…
The paper suggests a method of extrapolation of notion of one-sided semi-infinite sequences representing traces of two-sided band-limited sequences; this features ensure uniqueness of this extrapolation and possibility to use this for forecasting. This lead to a forecasting method for more general sequences without this feature based on minimization of the mean square error between the observed path and a predicable sequence. These procedure involves calculation of this predictable path; the procedure can be interpreted as causal smoothing. The corresponding smoothed sequences allow unique ext…
We consider the model of nonregular nonparametric regression where smoothness constraints are imposed on the regression function $f$ and the regression errors are assumed to decay with some sharpness level at their endpoints. The aim of this paper is to construct an adaptive estimator for the regression function $f$. In contrast to the standard model where local averaging is fruitful, the nonregular conditions require a substantial different treatment based on local extreme values. We study this model under the realistic setting in which both the smoothness degree $β>0$ and the sharpness degre…
Improved procedures, in terms of smaller missed discovery rates (MDR), for performing multiple hypotheses testing with weak and strong control of the family-wise error rate (FWER) or the false discovery rate (FDR) are developed and studied. The improvement over existing procedures such as the Šidák procedure for FWER control and the Benjamini--Hochberg (BH) procedure for FDR control is achieved by exploiting possible differences in the powers of the individual tests. Results signal the need to take into account the powers of the individual tests and to have multiple hypotheses decision functio…
Let $X_1,X_2,...$ be a discrete-time stochastic process with a distribution $P_θ$, $θ\inΘ$, where $Θ$ is an open subset of the real line. We consider the problem of testing a simple hypothesis $H_0:$ $θ=θ_0$ versus a composite alternative $H_1:$ $θ>θ_0$, where $θ_0\inΘ$ is some fixed point. The main goal of this article is to characterize the structure of locally most powerful sequential tests in this problem. For any sequential test $(ψ,ϕ)$ with a (randomized) stopping rule $ψ$ and a (randomized) decision rule $ϕ$ let $α(ψ,ϕ)$ be the type I error probability, $\dot β_0(ψ,ϕ)$ the derivative, a…
