Efficient semiparametric estimation and model selection for multidimensional mixtures

In this paper, we consider nonparametric multidimensional finite mixture models and we are interested in the semiparametric estimation of the population weights. Here, the i.i.d. observations are assumed to have at least three components which are independent given the population. We approximate the semiparametric model by projecting the conditional distributions on step functions associated to some partition. Our first main result is that if we refine the partition slowly enough, the associated sequence of maximum likelihood estimators of the weights is asymptotically efficient, and the posterior distribution of the weights, when using a Bayesian procedure, satisfies a semiparametric Bernstein von Mises theorem. We then propose a cross-validation like procedure to select the partition in a finite horizon. Our second main result is that the proposed procedure satisfies an oracle inequality. Numerical experiments on simulated data illustrate our theoretical results

Composite multiclass losses

We consider loss functions for multiclass prediction problems. We show when a multiclass loss can be expressed as a “proper composite loss”, which is the composition of a proper loss and a link function. We extend existing results for binary losses to multiclass losses. We subsume results on “classification calibration” by relating it to properness. We determine the stationarity condition, Bregman representation, order-sensitivity, and quasi-convexity of multiclass proper losses. We then characterise the existence and uniqueness of the composite representation formulti class losses. We show how the composite representation is related to other core properties of a loss: mixability, admissibility and (strong) convexity of multiclass losses which we characterise in terms of the Hessian of the Bayes risk. We show that the simple integral representation for binary proper losses can not be extended to multiclass losses but offer concrete guidance regarding how to design different loss functions. The conclusion drawn from these results is that the proper composite representation is a natural and convenient tool for the design of multiclass loss functions

Composite Multiclass Losses

We consider loss functions for multiclass prediction problems. We show when a multiclass loss can be expressed as a "proper composite loss", which is the composition of a proper loss and a link function. We extend existing results for binary losses to mu

Non Parametric Mixture Models and Hidden Markov Models : Asymptotic Behaviour of the Posterior Distribution and Efficiency

Les modèles latents sont très utilisés en pratique, comme en génomique, économétrie, reconnaissance de parole... Comme la modélisation paramétrique des densités d’émission, c’est-à-dire les lois d’une observation sachant l’état latent, peut conduire à de mauvais résultats en pratique, un récent intérêt pour les modèles latents non paramétriques est apparu dans les applications. Or ces modèles ont peu été étudiés en théorie. Dans cette thèse je me suis intéressée aux propriétés asymptotiques des estimateurs (dans le cas fréquentiste) et de la loi a posteriori (dans le cadre Bayésien) dans deux modèles latents particuliers : les modèles de Markov caché et les modèles de mélange. J’ai tout d’abord étudié la concentration de la loi a posteriori dans les modèles non paramétriques de Markov caché. Plus précisément, j’ai étudié la consistance puis la vitesse de concentration de la loi a posteriori. Enfin je me suis intéressée à l’estimation efficace du paramètre de mélange dans les modèles semi paramétriques de mélange.Latent models have been widely used in diverse fields such as speech recognition, genomics, econometrics. Because parametric modeling of emission distributions, that is the distributions of an observation given the latent state, may lead to poor results in practice, in particular for clustering purposes, recent interest in using non parametric latent models appeared in applications. Yet little thoughts have been given to theory in this framework. During my PhD I have been interested in the asymptotic behaviour of estimators (in the frequentist case) and the posterior distribution (in the Bayesian case) in two particuliar non parametric latent models: hidden Markov models and mixture models. I have first studied the concentration of the posterior distribution in non parametric hidden Markov models. More precisely, I have considered posterior consistency and posterior concentration rates. Finally, I have been interested in efficient estimation of the mixture parameter in semi parametric mixture models

Non Parametric Mixture Models and Hidden Markov Models : Asymptotic Behaviour of the Posterior Distribution and Efficiency

Latent models have been widely used in diverse fields such as speech recognition, genomics, econometrics. Because parametric modeling of emission distributions, that is the distributions of an observation given the latent state, may lead to poor results in practice, in particular for clustering purposes, recent interest in using non parametric latent models appeared in applications. Yet little thoughts have been given to theory in this framework. During my PhD I have been interested in the asymptotic behaviour of estimators (in the frequentist case) and the posterior distribution (in the Bayesian case) in two particuliar non parametric latent models: hidden Markov models and mixture models. I have first studied the concentration of the posterior distribution in non parametric hidden Markov models. More precisely, I have considered posterior consistency and posterior concentration rates. Finally, I have been interested in efficient estimation of the mixture parameter in semi parametric mixture models.Les modèles latents sont très utilisés en pratique, comme en génomique, économétrie, reconnaissance de parole... Comme la modélisation paramétrique des densités d’émission, c’est-à-dire les lois d’une observation sachant l’état latent, peut conduire à de mauvais résultats en pratique, un récent intérêt pour les modèles latents non paramétriques est apparu dans les applications. Or ces modèles ont peu été étudiés en théorie. Dans cette thèse je me suis intéressée aux propriétés asymptotiques des estimateurs (dans le cas fréquentiste) et de la loi a posteriori (dans le cadre Bayésien) dans deux modèles latents particuliers : les modèles de Markov caché et les modèles de mélange. J’ai tout d’abord étudié la concentration de la loi a posteriori dans les modèles non paramétriques de Markov caché. Plus précisément, j’ai étudié la consistance puis la vitesse de concentration de la loi a posteriori. Enfin je me suis intéressée à l’estimation efficace du paramètre de mélange dans les modèles semi paramétriques de mélange

A Bayesian nonparametric approach for generalized Bradley-Terry models in random environment

This paper deals with the estimation of the unknown distribution of hidden random variables from the observation of pairwise comparisons between these variables. This problem is inspired by recent developments on Bradley-Terry models in random environment since this framework happens to be relevant to predict for instance the issue of a championship from the observation of a few contests per team. This paper provides three contributions on a Bayesian nonparametric approach to solve this problem. First, we establish contraction rates of the posterior distribution. We also propose a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm to approximately sample from this posterior distribution inspired from a recent Bayesian nonparametric method for hidden Markov models. Finally, the performance of this algorithm are appreciated by comparing predictions on the issue of a championship based on the actual values of the teams and those obtained by sampling from the estimated posterior distribution

A quantitative Mc Diarmid's inequality for geometrically ergodic Markov chains

International audienceWe state and prove a quantitative version of the bounded difference inequality for geometrically ergodic Markov chains. Our proof uses the same martingale decomposition as \cite{MR3407208} but, compared to this paper, the exact coupling argument is modified to fill a gap between the strongly aperiodic case and the general aperiodic case