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We consider estimation and inference in a single index regression model with an unknown but smooth link function. In contrast to the standard approach of using kernels or regression splines, we use smoothing splines to estimate the smooth…
We introduce and analyse a new nonparametric estimator of a multi-dimensional density. Our smooth projection estimator (SPE) is defined by a least squares projection of the sample onto an infinite dimensional mixture class via an…
A robust estimator, namely M-smoother, for piecewise-constant smoothing is revisited in this paper. Starting from its generalized formulation, we propose a numerical scheme/framework for solving it via a series of weighted-average filtering…
We present a static analysis for discovering differentiable or more generally smooth parts of a given probabilistic program, and show how the analysis can be used to improve the pathwise gradient estimator, one of the most popular methods…
Solving bilevel optimization (BLO) problems to global optimality is generally intractable. A common surrogate is to compute a hyper-stationary point -- a stationary point of the hyper-objective function obtained by minimizing or maximizing…
In this work, we present a globalized stochastic semismooth Newton method for solving stochastic optimization problems involving smooth nonconvex and nonsmooth convex terms in the objective function. We assume that only noisy gradient and…
Fine stratification survey is useful in many applications as its point estimator is unbiased, but the variance estimator under the design cannot be easily obtained, particularly when the sample size per stratum is as small as one unit. One…
We consider estimation of a functional parameter of a realistically modeled data distribution based on observing independent and identically distributed observations. We define an $m$-th order Spline Highly Adaptive Lasso Minimum Loss…
Smoothing splines have been used pervasively in nonparametric regressions. However, the computational burden of smoothing splines is significant when the sample size $n$ is large. When the number of predictors $d\geq2$, the computational…
This paper provides a framework to analyze stochastic gradient algorithms in a mean squared error (MSE) sense using the asymptotic normality result of the stochastic gradient descent (SGD) iterates. We perform this analysis by taking the…
Stability selection has gained popularity as a method for enhancing the performance of variable selection algorithms while controlling false discovery rates. However, achieving these desirable properties depends on correctly specifying the…
In this paper we propose a (non-linear) smoothing algorithm for group-affine observation systems, a recently introduced class of estimation problems on Lie groups that bear a particular structure. As most non-linear smoothing methods, the…
We consider the unconstrained optimization problem whose objective function is composed of a smooth and a non-smooth conponents where the smooth component is the expectation a random function. This type of problem arises in some interesting…
In many statistical problems, stochastic signals can be represented as a sequence of noisy wavelet coefficients. In this paper, we develop general empirical Bayes methods for the estimation of true signal. Our estimators approximate certain…
The James-Stein estimator is a biased estimator -- for a finite number of samples its expected value is not the true mean. The maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE), is unbiased and asymptotically optimal. Yet, when estimating the mean of $3$…
We consider the approximation of expectations with respect to the distribution of a latent Markov process given noisy measurements. This is known as the smoothing problem and is often approached with particle and Markov chain Monte Carlo…
Instrumental variables (IV) estimation is a fundamental method in econometrics and statistics for estimating causal effects in the presence of unobserved confounding. However, challenges such as untestable model assumptions and poor finite…
We propose a method of bi-coordinate variations for non-stationary and non-smooth optimization problems, which involve a single linear equality and box constraints. Here only approximation sequences are known instead of exact values of the…
Item response theory (IRT) models for categorical response data are widely used in the analysis of educational data, computerized adaptive testing, and psychological surveys. However, most IRT models rely on both the assumption that…
Given noisy data, function estimation is considered when the unknown function is known a priori to consist of a small number of regions where the function is either convex or concave. When the number of regions is unknown, the model…