Uniform estimation in stochastic block models is slow

We explicitly quantify the empirically observed phenomenon that estimation under a stochastic block model (SBM) is hard if the model contains classes that are similar. More precisely, we consider estimation of certain functionals of random graphs generated by a SBM. The SBM may or may not be sparse, and the number of classes may be fixed or grow with the number of vertices. Minimax lower and upper bounds of estimation along specific submodels are derived. The results are nonasymptotic and imply that uniform estimation of a single connectivity parameter is much slower than the expected asymptotic pointwise rate. Specifically, the uniform quadratic rate does not scale as the number of edges, but only as the number of vertices. The lower bounds are local around any possible SBM. An analogous result is derived for functionals of a class of smooth graphons

Absent Data Generating Classifier for Imbalanced Class Sizes

We propose an algorithm for two-class classification problems when the training data are imbalanced. This means the number of training instances in one of the classes is so low that the conventional classification algorithms become ineffective in detecting the minority class. We present a modification of the kernel Fisher discriminant analysis such that the imbalanced nature of the problem is explicitly addressed in the new algorithm formulation. The new algorithm exploits the properties of the existing minority points to learn the effects of other minority data points, had they actually existed. The algorithm proceeds iteratively by employing the learned properties and conditional sampling in such a way that it generates sufficient artificial data points for the minority set, thus enhancing the detection probability of the minority class. Implementing the proposed method on a number c©2015 Arash Pourhabib, Bani K. Mallick and Yu Ding. Article preprint--accepted for publication, Feb 201

Minimum Description Length Model Selection - Problems and Extensions

The thesis treats a number of open problems in Minimum Description Length model selection, especially prediction problems. It is shown how techniques from the "Prediction with Expert Advice" literature can be used to improve model selection performance, which is particularly useful in nonparametric settings

Wavelet Estimators in Nonparametric Regression: A Comparative Simulation Study

Wavelet analysis has been found to be a powerful tool for the nonparametric estimation of spatially-variable objects. We discuss in detail wavelet methods in nonparametric regression, where the data are modelled as observations of a signal contaminated with additive Gaussian noise, and provide an extensive review of the vast literature of wavelet shrinkage and wavelet thresholding estimators developed to denoise such data. These estimators arise from a wide range of classical and empirical Bayes methods treating either individual or blocks of wavelet coefficients. We compare various estimators in an extensive simulation study on a variety of sample sizes, test functions, signal-to-noise ratios and wavelet filters. Because there is no single criterion that can adequately summarise the behaviour of an estimator, we use various criteria to measure performance in finite sample situations. Insight into the performance of these estimators is obtained from graphical outputs and numerical tables. In order to provide some hints of how these estimators should be used to analyse real data sets, a detailed practical step-by-step illustration of a wavelet denoising analysis on electrical consumption is provided. Matlab codes are provided so that all figures and tables in this paper can be reproduced