A change-point problem and inference for segment signals

We address the problem of detection and estimation of one or two change-points in the mean of a series of random variables. We use the formalism of set estimation in regression: To each point of a design is attached a binary label that indicates whether that point belongs to an unknown segment and this label is contaminated with noise. The endpoints of the unknown segment are the change-points. We study the minimal size of the segment which allows statistical detection in different scenarios, including when the endpoints are separated from the boundary of the domain of the design, or when they are separated from one another. We compare this minimal size with the minimax rates of convergence for estimation of the segment under the same scenarios. The aim of this extensive study of a simple yet fundamental version of the change-point problem is twofold: Understanding the impact of the location and the separation of the change points on detection and estimation and bringing insights about the estimation and detection of convex bodies in higher dimensions.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1404.622

Near-Optimal Recovery of Linear and N-Convex Functions on Unions of Convex Sets

In this paper we build provably near-optimal, in the minimax sense, estimates of linear forms and, more generally, "$N$-convex functionals" (the simplest example being the maximum of several fractional-linear functions) of unknown "signal" known to belong to the union of finitely many convex compact sets from indirect noisy observations of the signal. Our main assumption is that the observation scheme in question is good in the sense of A. Goldenshluger, A. Juditsky, A. Nemirovski, Electr. J. Stat. 9(2) (2015), arXiv:1311.6765, the simplest example being the Gaussian scheme where the observation is the sum of linear image of the signal and the standard Gaussian noise. The proposed estimates, same as upper bounds on their worst-case risks, stem from solutions to explicit convex optimization problems, making the estimates "computation-friendly.