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We consider least squares approximation of a function of one variable by a continuous, piecewise-linear approximand that has a small number of breakpoints. This problem was notably considered by Bellman who proposed an approximate algorithm…
We establish asymptotic properties of $M$-estimators, defined in terms of a contrast function and observations from a continuous-time locally stationary process. Using the stationary approximation of the sequence, $\theta$-weak dependence,…
The semivarying coefficient models are widely used in the application of finance, economics, medical science and many other areas. The functional coefficients are commonly estimated by local smoothing methods, e.g. local linear estimator.…
Randomized approximation algorithms for many #P-complete problems (such as the partition function of a Gibbs distribution, the volume of a convex body, the permanent of a $\{0,1\}$-matrix, and many others) reduce to creating random…
Optimization under uncertainty and risk is indispensable in many practical situations. Our paper addresses stability of optimization problems using composite risk functionals which are subjected to measure perturbations. Our main focus is…
We consider the problem of approximating an analytic function on a compact interval from its values at $M+1$ distinct points. When the points are equispaced, a recent result (the so-called impossibility theorem) has shown that the best…
Probability estimation is essential for every statistical data compression algorithm. In practice probability estimation should be adaptive, recent observations should receive a higher weight than older observations. We present a…
We consider the problem of estimating the asymptotic variance of a function defined on a Markov chain, an important step for statistical inference of the stationary mean. We design a novel recursive estimator that requires $O(1)$…
In this paper, we consider a broad class of nonconvex and nonsmooth optimization problems, where one objective component is a nonsmooth weakly convex function composed with a linear operator. By integrating variable smoothing techniques…
We propose a proximal variable smoothing algorithm for a nonsmooth optimization problem whose cost function is the sum of three functions including a weakly convex composite function. The proposed algorithm has a single-loop structure…
The estimation of parameters in the frequency spectrum of a seasonally persistent stationary stochastic process is addressed. For seasonal persistence associated with a pole in the spectrum located away from frequency zero, a new…
Stochastic non-smooth convex optimization constitutes a class of problems in machine learning and operations research. This paper considers minimization of a non-smooth function based on stochastic subgradients. When the function has a…
Large sectors of the recent optimization literature focused in the last decade on the development of optimal stochastic first order schemes for constrained convex models under progressively relaxed assumptions. Stochastic proximal point is…
We study a Newton-like method for the minimization of an objective function that is the sum of a smooth convex function and an l-1 regularization term. This method, which is sometimes referred to in the literature as a proximal Newton…
This paper analyzes inverse scattering for the one-dimensional Helmholtz equation in the case where the wave speed is piecewise constant. Scattering data recorded for an arbitrarily small interval of frequencies is shown to determine the…
Numerical solutions of differential equations are usually not smooth functions. However, they should resemble the smoothness of the corresponding real solutions in one way or another. In two of our recent papers, a kind of spacial…
Stochastic approximation is a foundation for many algorithms found in machine learning and optimization. It is in general slow to converge: the mean square error vanishes as $O(n^{-1})$. A deterministic counterpart known as quasi-stochastic…
We develop Stein's method for $\alpha$-stable approximation with $\alpha\in(0,1]$, continuing the recent line of research by Xu \cite{lihu} and Chen, Nourdin and Xu \cite{C-N-X} in the case $\alpha\in(1,2).$ The main results include an…
We consider estimating a piecewise-constant image, or a gradient-sparse signal on a general graph, from noisy linear measurements. We propose and study an iterative algorithm to minimize a penalized least-squares objective, with a penalty…
We consider the problem of uncertainty quantification in change point regressions, where the signal can be piecewise polynomial of arbitrary but fixed degree. That is we seek disjoint intervals which, uniformly at a given confidence level,…