14,832 research outputs found
Sparse permutation invariant covariance estimation
The paper proposes a method for constructing a sparse estimator for the
inverse covariance (concentration) matrix in high-dimensional settings. The
estimator uses a penalized normal likelihood approach and forces sparsity by
using a lasso-type penalty. We establish a rate of convergence in the Frobenius
norm as both data dimension and sample size are allowed to grow, and
show that the rate depends explicitly on how sparse the true concentration
matrix is. We also show that a correlation-based version of the method exhibits
better rates in the operator norm. We also derive a fast iterative algorithm
for computing the estimator, which relies on the popular Cholesky decomposition
of the inverse but produces a permutation-invariant estimator. The method is
compared to other estimators on simulated data and on a real data example of
tumor tissue classification using gene expression data.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-EJS176 the Electronic
Journal of Statistics (http://www.i-journals.org/ejs/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Neural Connectivity with Hidden Gaussian Graphical State-Model
The noninvasive procedures for neural connectivity are under questioning.
Theoretical models sustain that the electromagnetic field registered at
external sensors is elicited by currents at neural space. Nevertheless, what we
observe at the sensor space is a superposition of projected fields, from the
whole gray-matter. This is the reason for a major pitfall of noninvasive
Electrophysiology methods: distorted reconstruction of neural activity and its
connectivity or leakage. It has been proven that current methods produce
incorrect connectomes. Somewhat related to the incorrect connectivity
modelling, they disregard either Systems Theory and Bayesian Information
Theory. We introduce a new formalism that attains for it, Hidden Gaussian
Graphical State-Model (HIGGS). A neural Gaussian Graphical Model (GGM) hidden
by the observation equation of Magneto-encephalographic (MEEG) signals. HIGGS
is equivalent to a frequency domain Linear State Space Model (LSSM) but with
sparse connectivity prior. The mathematical contribution here is the theory for
high-dimensional and frequency-domain HIGGS solvers. We demonstrate that HIGGS
can attenuate the leakage effect in the most critical case: the distortion EEG
signal due to head volume conduction heterogeneities. Its application in EEG is
illustrated with retrieved connectivity patterns from human Steady State Visual
Evoked Potentials (SSVEP). We provide for the first time confirmatory evidence
for noninvasive procedures of neural connectivity: concurrent EEG and
Electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings on monkey. Open source packages are
freely available online, to reproduce the results presented in this paper and
to analyze external MEEG databases
An Inexact Successive Quadratic Approximation Method for Convex L-1 Regularized Optimization
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 method, computes a step by minimizing a piecewise quadratic model of the
objective function. In order to make this approach efficient in practice, it is
imperative to perform this inner minimization inexactly. In this paper, we give
inexactness conditions that guarantee global convergence and that can be used
to control the local rate of convergence of the iteration. Our inexactness
conditions are based on a semi-smooth function that represents a (continuous)
measure of the optimality conditions of the problem, and that embodies the
soft-thresholding iteration. We give careful consideration to the algorithm
employed for the inner minimization, and report numerical results on two test
sets originating in machine learning
Pairwise MRF Calibration by Perturbation of the Bethe Reference Point
We investigate different ways of generating approximate solutions to the
pairwise Markov random field (MRF) selection problem. We focus mainly on the
inverse Ising problem, but discuss also the somewhat related inverse Gaussian
problem because both types of MRF are suitable for inference tasks with the
belief propagation algorithm (BP) under certain conditions. Our approach
consists in to take a Bethe mean-field solution obtained with a maximum
spanning tree (MST) of pairwise mutual information, referred to as the
\emph{Bethe reference point}, for further perturbation procedures. We consider
three different ways following this idea: in the first one, we select and
calibrate iteratively the optimal links to be added starting from the Bethe
reference point; the second one is based on the observation that the natural
gradient can be computed analytically at the Bethe point; in the third one,
assuming no local field and using low temperature expansion we develop a dual
loop joint model based on a well chosen fundamental cycle basis. We indeed
identify a subclass of planar models, which we refer to as \emph{Bethe-dual
graph models}, having possibly many loops, but characterized by a singly
connected dual factor graph, for which the partition function and the linear
response can be computed exactly in respectively O(N) and operations,
thanks to a dual weight propagation (DWP) message passing procedure that we set
up. When restricted to this subclass of models, the inverse Ising problem being
convex, becomes tractable at any temperature. Experimental tests on various
datasets with refined or regularization procedures indicate that
these approaches may be competitive and useful alternatives to existing ones.Comment: 54 pages, 8 figure. section 5 and refs added in V
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