When using optimal linear prediction to interpolate point observations of a mean square continuous stationary spatial process, one often finds that the interpolant mostly depends on those observations located nearest to the predictand. This phenomenon is called the screening effect. However, there are situations in which a screening effect does not hold in a reasonable asymptotic sense, and theoretical support for the screening effect is limited to some rather specialized settings for the observation locations. This paper explores conditions on the observation locations and the process model under which an asymptotic screening effect holds. A series of examples shows the difficulty in formulating a general result, especially for processes with different degrees of smoothness in different directions, which can naturally occur for spatial-temporal processes. These examples lead to a general conjecture and two special cases of this conjecture are proven. The key condition on the process is that its spectral density should change slowly at high frequencies. Models not satisfying this condition of slow high-frequency change should be used with caution.

The transition density of a diffusion process does not admit an explicit expression in general, which prevents the full maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) based on discretely observed sample paths. Aït-Sahalia [J. Finance 54 (1999) 1361–1395; Econometrica 70 (2002) 223–262] proposed asymptotic expansions to the transition densities of diffusion processes, which lead to an approximate maximum likelihood estimation (AMLE) for parameters. Built on Aït-Sahalia’s [Econometrica 70 (2002) 223–262; Ann. Statist. 36 (2008) 906–937] proposal and analysis on the AMLE, we establish the consistency and convergence rate of the AMLE, which reveal the roles played by the number of terms used in the asymptotic density expansions and the sampling interval between successive observations. We find conditions under which the AMLE has the same asymptotic distribution as that of the full MLE. A first order approximation to the Fisher information matrix is proposed.

In many situations, data are recorded over a period of time and may be regarded as realizations of a stochastic process. In this paper, robust estimators for the principal components are considered by adapting the projection pursuit approach to the functional data setting. Our approach combines robust projection-pursuit with different smoothing methods. Consistency of the estimators are shown under mild assumptions. The performance of the classical and robust procedures are compared in a simulation study under different contamination schemes.

The frequentist behavior of nonparametric Bayes estimates, more specifically, rates of contraction of the posterior distributions to shrinking L^r-norm neighborhoods, 1 ≤ r ≤ ∞, of the unknown parameter, are studied. A theorem for nonparametric density estimation is proved under general approximation-theoretic assumptions on the prior. The result is applied to a variety of common examples, including Gaussian process, wavelet series, normal mixture and histogram priors. The rates of contraction are minimax-optimal for 1 ≤ r ≤ 2, but deteriorate as r increases beyond 2. In the case of Gaussian nonparametric regression a Gaussian prior is devised for which the posterior contracts at the optimal rate in all L^r-norms, 1 ≤ r ≤ ∞.

Image segmentation is a long-studied and important problem in image processing. Different solutions have been proposed, many of which follow the information theoretic paradigm. While these information theoretic segmentation methods often produce excellent empirical results, their theoretical properties are still largely unknown. The main goal of this paper is to conduct a rigorous theoretical study into the statistical consistency properties of such methods. To be more specific, this paper investigates if these methods can accurately recover the true number of segments together with their true boundaries in the image as the number of pixels tends to infinity. Our theoretical results show that both the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and the minimum description length (MDL) principle can be applied to derive statistically consistent segmentation methods, while the same is not true for the Akaike information criterion (AIC). Numerical experiments were conducted to illustrate and support our theoretical findings.

We study a problem of estimation of a Hermitian nonnegatively definite matrix ρ of unit trace (e.g., a density matrix of a quantum system) based on n i.i.d. measurements (X₁, Y₁), …, (X_n, Y_n), where

Y_j = tr(ρX_j) + ξ_j, j = 1, …, n,

{X_j} being random i.i.d. Hermitian matrices and {ξ_j} being i.i.d. random variables with ${\mathbb{E}}(\xi_{j}|X_{j})=0$. The estimator $$\hat{\rho}^{\varepsilon }:=\mathop{\arg\min}_{S\in{\mathcal{S}}}\Biggl[n^{-1}\sum_{j=1}^{n}\bigl(Y_{j}-\operatorname{tr}(SX_{j})\bigr)^{2}+\varepsilon \operatorname{tr}(S\log S)\Biggr] $$ is considered, where ${\mathcal{S}}$ is the set of all nonnegatively definite Hermitian m × m matrices of trace 1. The goal is to derive oracle inequalities showing how the estimation error depends on the accuracy of approximation of the unknown state ρ by low-rank matrices.

Large-scale computer experiments are becoming increasingly important in science. A multi-step procedure is introduced to statisticians for modeling such experiments, which builds an accurate interpolator in multiple steps. In practice, the procedure shows substantial improvements in overall accuracy, but its theoretical properties are not well established. We introduce the terms nominal and numeric error and decompose the overall error of an interpolator into nominal and numeric portions. Bounds on the numeric and nominal error are developed to show theoretically that substantial gains in overall accuracy can be attained with the multi-step approach.

This paper addresses the estimation of the nonparametric conditional moment restricted model that involves an infinite-dimensional parameter g₀. We estimate it in a quasi-Bayesian way, based on the limited information likelihood, and investigate the impact of three types of priors on the posterior consistency: (i) truncated prior (priors supported on a bounded set), (ii) thin-tail prior (a prior that has very thin tail outside a growing bounded set) and (iii) normal prior with nonshrinking variance. In addition, g₀ is allowed to be only partially identified in the frequentist sense, and the parameter space does not need to be compact. The posterior is regularized using a slowly growing sieve dimension, and it is shown that the posterior converges to any small neighborhood of the identified region. We then apply our results to the nonparametric instrumental regression model. Finally, the posterior consistency using a random sieve dimension parameter is studied.

In many semiparametric models that are parameterized by two types of parameters—a Euclidean parameter of interest and an infinite-dimensional nuisance parameter—the two parameters are bundled together, that is, the nuisance parameter is an unknown function that contains the parameter of interest as part of its argument. For example, in a linear regression model for censored survival data, the unspecified error distribution function involves the regression coefficients. Motivated by developing an efficient estimating method for the regression parameters, we propose a general sieve M-theorem for bundled parameters and apply the theorem to deriving the asymptotic theory for the sieve maximum likelihood estimation in the linear regression model for censored survival data. The numerical implementation of the proposed estimating method can be achieved through the conventional gradient-based search algorithms such as the Newton–Raphson algorithm. We show that the proposed estimator is consistent and asymptotically normal and achieves the semiparametric efficiency bound. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed method performs well in practical settings and yields more efficient estimates than existing estimating equation based methods. Illustration with a real data example is also provided.

The asymptotic theory of various estimators based on Gaussian likelihood has been developed for the unit root and near unit root cases of a first-order moving average model. Previous studies of the MA(1) unit root problem rely on the special autocovariance structure of the MA(1) process, in which case, the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the covariance matrix of the data vector have known analytical forms. In this paper, we take a different approach to first consider the joint likelihood by including an augmented initial value as a parameter and then recover the exact likelihood by integrating out the initial value. This approach by-passes the difficulty of computing an explicit decomposition of the covariance matrix and can be used to study unit root behavior in moving averages beyond first order. The asymptotics of the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) statistic for testing unit roots are also studied. The GLR test has operating characteristics that are competitive with the locally best invariant unbiased (LBIU) test of Tanaka for some local alternatives and dominates for all other alternatives.

High throughput genetic sequencing arrays with thousands of measurements per sample and a great amount of related censored clinical data have increased demanding need for better measurement specific model selection. In this paper we establish strong oracle properties of nonconcave penalized methods for nonpolynomial (NP) dimensional data with censoring in the framework of Cox’s proportional hazards model. A class of folded-concave penalties are employed and both LASSO and SCAD are discussed specifically. We unveil the question under which dimensionality and correlation restrictions can an oracle estimator be constructed and grasped. It is demonstrated that nonconcave penalties lead to significant reduction of the “irrepresentable condition” needed for LASSO model selection consistency. The large deviation result for martingales, bearing interests of its own, is developed for characterizing the strong oracle property. Moreover, the nonconcave regularized estimator, is shown to achieve asymptotically the information bound of the oracle estimator. A coordinate-wise algorithm is developed for finding the grid of solution paths for penalized hazard regression problems, and its performance is evaluated on simulated and gene association study examples.

We consider the estimation of integrated covariance (ICV) matrices of high dimensional diffusion processes based on high frequency observations. We start by studying the most commonly used estimator, the realized covariance (RCV) matrix. We show that in the high dimensional case when the dimension p and the observation frequency n grow in the same rate, the limiting spectral distribution (LSD) of RCV depends on the covolatility process not only through the targeting ICV, but also on how the covolatility process varies in time. We establish a Marčenko–Pastur type theorem for weighted sample covariance matrices, based on which we obtain a Marčenko–Pastur type theorem for RCV for a class $\mathcal {C}$ of diffusion processes. The results explicitly demonstrate how the time variability of the covolatility process affects the LSD of RCV. We further propose an alternative estimator, the time-variation adjusted realized covariance (TVARCV) matrix. We show that for processes in class $\mathcal {C}$, the TVARCV possesses the desirable property that its LSD depends solely on that of the targeting ICV through the Marčenko–Pastur equation, and hence, in particular, the TVARCV can be used to recover the empirical spectral distribution of the ICV by using existing algorithms.

We consider the estimation of parametric fractional time series models in which not only is the memory parameter unknown, but one may not know whether it lies in the stationary/invertible region or the nonstationary or noninvertible regions. In these circumstances, a proof of consistency (which is a prerequisite for proving asymptotic normality) can be difficult owing to nonuniform convergence of the objective function over a large admissible parameter space. In particular, this is the case for the conditional sum of squares estimate, which can be expected to be asymptotically efficient under Gaussianity. Without the latter assumption, we establish consistency and asymptotic normality for this estimate in case of a quite general univariate model. For a multivariate model, we establish asymptotic normality of a one-step estimate based on an initial √n-consistent estimate.

We introduce a principal support vector machine (PSVM) approach that can be used for both linear and nonlinear sufficient dimension reduction. The basic idea is to divide the response variables into slices and use a modified form of support vector machine to find the optimal hyperplanes that separate them. These optimal hyperplanes are then aligned by the principal components of their normal vectors. It is proved that the aligned normal vectors provide an unbiased, √n-consistent, and asymptotically normal estimator of the sufficient dimension reduction space. The method is then generalized to nonlinear sufficient dimension reduction using the reproducing kernel Hilbert space. In that context, the aligned normal vectors become functions and it is proved that they are unbiased in the sense that they are functions of the true nonlinear sufficient predictors. We compare PSVM with other sufficient dimension reduction methods by simulation and in real data analysis, and through both comparisons firmly establish its practical advantages.

We consider the problem of detecting the true quantum state among r possible ones, based of measurements performed on n copies of a finite-dimensional quantum system. A special case is the problem of discriminating between r probability measures on a finite sample space, using n i.i.d. observations. In this classical setting, it is known that the averaged error probability decreases exponentially with exponent given by the worst case binary Chernoff bound between any possible pair of the r probability measures. Define analogously the multiple quantum Chernoff bound, considering all possible pairs of states. Recently, it has been shown that this asymptotic error bound is attainable in the case of r pure states, and that it is unimprovable in general. Here we extend the attainability result to a larger class of r-tuples of states which are possibly mixed, but pairwise linearly independent. We also construct a quantum detector which universally attains the multiple quantum Chernoff bound up to a factor 1/3.

The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, the positive predictive value (PPV) curve and the negative predictive value (NPV) curve are three measures of performance for a continuous diagnostic biomarker. The ROC, PPV and NPV curves are often estimated empirically to avoid assumptions about the distributional form of the biomarkers. Recently, there has been a push to incorporate group sequential methods into the design of diagnostic biomarker studies. A thorough understanding of the asymptotic properties of the sequential empirical ROC, PPV and NPV curves will provide more flexibility when designing group sequential diagnostic biomarker studies. In this paper, we derive asymptotic theory for the sequential empirical ROC, PPV and NPV curves under case-control sampling using sequential empirical process theory. We show that the sequential empirical ROC, PPV and NPV curves converge to the sum of independent Kiefer processes and show how these results can be used to derive asymptotic results for summaries of the sequential empirical ROC, PPV and NPV curves.

Adaptive and interacting Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms (MCMC) have been recently introduced in the literature. These novel simulation algorithms are designed to increase the simulation efficiency to sample complex distributions. Motivated by some recently introduced algorithms (such as the adaptive Metropolis algorithm and the interacting tempering algorithm), we develop a general methodological and theoretical framework to establish both the convergence of the marginal distribution and a strong law of large numbers. This framework weakens the conditions introduced in the pioneering paper by Roberts and Rosenthal [J. Appl. Probab. 44 (2007) 458–475]. It also covers the case when the target distribution π is sampled by using Markov transition kernels with a stationary distribution that differs from π.

A topological multiple testing scheme for one-dimensional domains is proposed where, rather than testing every spatial or temporal location for the presence of a signal, tests are performed only at the local maxima of the smoothed observed sequence. Assuming unimodal true peaks with finite support and Gaussian stationary ergodic noise, it is shown that the algorithm with Bonferroni or Benjamini–Hochberg correction provides asymptotic strong control of the family wise error rate and false discovery rate, and is power consistent, as the search space and the signal strength get large, where the search space may grow exponentially faster than the signal strength. Simulations show that error levels are maintained for nonasymptotic conditions, and that power is maximized when the smoothing kernel is close in shape and bandwidth to the signal peaks, akin to the matched filter theorem in signal processing. The methods are illustrated in an analysis of electrical recordings of neuronal cell activity.

The variance–covariance matrix plays a central role in the inferential theories of high-dimensional factor models in finance and economics. Popular regularization methods of directly exploiting sparsity are not directly applicable to many financial problems. Classical methods of estimating the covariance matrices are based on the strict factor models, assuming independent idiosyncratic components. This assumption, however, is restrictive in practical applications. By assuming sparse error covariance matrix, we allow the presence of the cross-sectional correlation even after taking out common factors, and it enables us to combine the merits of both methods. We estimate the sparse covariance using the adaptive thresholding technique as in Cai and Liu [J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 106 (2011) 672–684], taking into account the fact that direct observations of the idiosyncratic components are unavailable. The impact of high dimensionality on the covariance matrix estimation based on the factor structure is then studied.

We obtain two theorems extending the use of a saddlepoint approximation to multiparameter problems for likelihood ratio-like statistics which allow their use in permutation and rank tests and could be used in bootstrap approximations. In the first, we show that in some cases when no density exists, the integral of the formal saddlepoint density over the set corresponding to large values of the likelihood ratio-like statistic approximates the true probability with relative error of order 1/n. In the second, we give multivariate generalizations of the Lugannani–Rice and Barndorff-Nielsen or r* formulas for the approximations. These theorems are applied to obtain permutation tests based on the likelihood ratio-like statistics for the k sample and the multivariate two-sample cases. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the high degree of accuracy, and these statistics are compared to the classical statistics in both cases.

Test statistics are often strongly dependent in large-scale multiple testing applications. Most corrections for multiplicity are unduly conservative for correlated test statistics, resulting in a loss of power to detect true positives. We show that the Westfall–Young permutation method has asymptotically optimal power for a broad class of testing problems with a block-dependence and sparsity structure among the tests, when the number of tests tends to infinity.

We introduce a class of dimension reduction estimators based on an ensemble of the minimum average variance estimates of functions that characterize the central subspace, such as the characteristic functions, the Box–Cox transformations and wavelet basis. The ensemble estimators exhaustively estimate the central subspace without imposing restrictive conditions on the predictors, and have the same convergence rate as the minimum average variance estimates. They are flexible and easy to implement, and allow repeated use of the available sample, which enhances accuracy. They are applicable to both univariate and multivariate responses in a unified form. We establish the consistency and convergence rate of these estimators, and the consistency of a cross validation criterion for order determination. We compare the ensemble estimators with other estimators in a wide variety of models, and establish their competent performance.

The space of positive definite symmetric matrices has been studied extensively as a means of understanding dependence in multivariate data along with the accompanying problems in statistical inference. Many books and papers have been written on this subject, and more recently there has been considerable interest in high-dimensional random matrices with particular emphasis on the distribution of certain eigenvalues. With the availability of modern data acquisition capabilities, smoothing or nonparametric techniques are required that go beyond those applicable only to data arising in Euclidean spaces. Accordingly, we present a Fourier method of minimax Wishart mixture density estimation on the space of positive definite symmetric matrices.

This note is to correct an error in Lemma A.7 of Wang et al. (2010). The original claim of asymptotically higher efficiency no longer holds.