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We consider the problem of selective inference after solving a (randomized) convex statistical learning program in the form of a penalized or constrained loss function. Our first main result is a change-of-measure formula that describes many conditional sampling problems of interest in selective inference. Our approach is model-agnostic in the sense that users may provide their own statistical model for inference, we simply provide the modification of each distribution in the model after the selection. Our second main result describes the geometric structure in the Jacobian appearing in the change of measure, drawing connections to curvature measures appearing in Weyl-Steiner volume-of-tubes formulae. This Jacobian is necessary for problems in which the convex penalty is not polyhedral, with the prototypical example being group LASSO or the nuclear norm. We derive explicit formulae for the Jacobian of the group LASSO. To illustrate the generality of our method, we consider many examples throughout, varying both the penalty or constraint in the statistical learning problem as well as the loss function, also considering selective inference after solving multiple statistical learning programs. Penalties considered include LASSO, forward stepwise, stagewise algorithms, marginal screening and generalized LASSO. Loss functions considered include squared-error, logistic, and log-det for covariance matrix estimation. Having described the appropriate distribution we wish to sample from through our first two results, we outline a framework for sampling using a projected Langevin sampler in the (commonly occuring) case that the distribution is log-concave.
Inspired by sample splitting and the reusable holdout introduced in the field of differential privacy, we consider selective inference with a randomized response. We discuss two major advantages of using a randomized response for model selection. First, the selectively valid tests are more powerful after randomized selection. Second, it allows consistent estimation and weak convergence of selective inference procedures. Under independent sampling, we prove a selective (or privatized) central limit theorem that transfers procedures valid under asymptotic normality without selection to their corresponding selective counterparts. This allows selective inference in nonparametric settings. Finally, we propose a framework of inference after combining multiple randomized selection procedures. We focus on the classical asymptotic setting, leaving the interesting high-dimensional asymptotic questions for future work.
Selective inference is a recent research topic that tries to perform valid inference after using the data to select a reasonable statistical model. We propose MAGIC, a new method for selective inference that is general, powerful and tractable. MAGIC is a method for selective inference after solving a convex optimization problem with smooth loss and $ell_1$ penalty. Randomization is incorporated into the optimization problem to boost statistical power. Through reparametrization, MAGIC reduces the problem into a sampling problem with simple constraints. MAGIC applies to many $ell_1$ penalized optimization problem including the Lasso, logistic Lasso and neighborhood selection in graphical models, all of which we consider in this paper.
Estimation of the prediction error of a linear estimation rule is difficult if the data analyst also use data to select a set of variables and construct the estimation rule using only the selected variables. In this work, we propose an asymptotically unbiased estimator for the prediction error after model search. Under some additional mild assumptions, we show that our estimator converges to the true prediction error in $L^2$ at the rate of $O(n^{-1/2})$, with $n$ being the number of data points. Our estimator applies to general selection procedures, not requiring analytical forms for the selection. The number of variables to select from can grow as an exponential factor of $n$, allowing applications in high-dimensional data. It also allows model misspecifications, not requiring linear underlying models. One application of our method is that it provides an estimator for the degrees of freedom for many discontinuous estimation rules like best subset selection or relaxed Lasso. Connection to Steins Unbiased Risk Estimator is discussed. We consider in-sample prediction errors in this work, with some extension to out-of-sample errors in low dimensional, linear models. Examples such as best subset selection and relaxed Lasso are considered in simulations, where our estimator outperforms both $C_p$ and cross validation in various settings.
We consider the problem of choosing the best of $n$ samples, out of a large random pool, when the sampling of each member is associated with a certain cost. The quality (worth) of the best sample clearly increases with $n$, but so do the sampling costs, and one important question is how many to sample for optimal gain (worth minus costs). If, in addition, the assessment of worth for each sample is associated with some measurement error, the perceived best out of $n$ might not be the actual best, complicating the issue. Situations like this are typical in mate selection, job hiring, and food foraging, to name just a few. We tackle the problem by standard order statistics, yielding suggestions for optimal strategies, as well as some unexpected insights.
We introduce a new sufficient statistic for the population parameter vector by allowing for the sampling design to first be selected at random amongst a set of candidate sampling designs. In contrast to the traditional approach in survey sampling, we achieve this by defining the observed data to include a mention of the sampling design used for the data collection aspect of the study. We show that the reduced data consisting of the unit labels together with their corresponding responses of interest is a sufficient statistic under this setup. A Rao-Blackwellization inference procedure is outlined and it is shown how averaging over hypothetical observed data outcomes results in improved estimators; the improved strategy includes considering all possible sampling designs in the candidate set that could have given rise to the reduced data. Expressions for the variance of the Rao-Blackwell estimators are also derived. The results from two simulation studies are presented to demonstrate the practicality of our approach. A discussion on how our approach can be useful when the analyst has limited information on the data collection procedure is also provided.