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Béatrice Laurent

Publications and source records attributed to Béatrice Laurent.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

New statistical methodology for second level global sensitivity analysis

Global sensitivity analysis (GSA) of numerical simulators aims at studying the global impact of the input uncertainties on the output. To perform the GSA, statistical tools based on inputs/output dependence measures are commonly used. We focus here on dependence measures based on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces: the Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion denoted HSIC. Sometimes, the probability distributions modeling the uncertainty of inputs may be themselves uncertain and it is important to quantify the global impact of this uncertainty on GSA results. We call it here the second-level global sensitivity analysis (GSA2). However, GSA2, when performed with a double Monte Carlo loop, requires a large number of model evaluations which is intractable with CPU time expensive simulators. To cope with this limitation, we propose a new statistical methodology based on a single Monte Carlo loop with a limited calculation budget. Firstly, we build a unique sample of inputs from a well chosen probability distribution and the associated code outputs are computed. From this inputs/output sample, we perform GSA for various assumed probability distributions of inputs by using weighted HSIC measures estimators. Statistical properties of these weighted esti-mators are demonstrated. Finally, we define 2 nd-level HSIC-based measures between the probability distributions of inputs and GSA results, which constitute GSA2 indices. The efficiency of our GSA2 methodology is illustrated on an analytical example, thereby comparing several technical options. Finally, an application to a test case simulating a severe accidental scenario on nuclear reactor is provided.

math.ST↗
arXiv2026

Second-level global sensitivity analysis of numerical simulators with application to an accident scenario in a sodium-cooled fast reactor

Numerical simulators are widely used to model physical phenomena and global sensitivity analysis (GSA) aims at studying the global impact of the input uncertainties on the simulator output. To perform GSA, statistical tools based on inputs/output dependence measures are commonly used. We focus here on the Hilbert-Schmidt independence criterion (HSIC). Sometimes, the probability distributions modeling the uncertainty of inputs may be themselves uncertain and it is important to quantify their impact on GSA results. We call it here the second-level global sensitivity analysis (GSA2). However, GSA2, when performed with a Monte Carlo double-loop, requires a large number of model evaluations, which is intractable with CPU time expensive simulators. To cope with this limitation, we propose a new statistical methodology based on a Monte Carlo single-loop with a limited calculation budget. First, we build a unique sample of inputs and simulator outputs, from a well-chosen probability distribution of inputs. From this sample, we perform GSA for various assumed probability distributions of inputs by using weighted HSIC measures estimators. Statistical properties of these weighted estimators are demonstrated. Subsequently, we define 2 nd-level HSICbased measures between the distributions of inputs and GSA results, which constitute GSA2 indices. The efficiency of our GSA2 methodology is illustrated on an analytical example, thereby comparing several technical options. Finally, an application to a test case simulating a severe accidental scenario on nuclear reactor is provided.

stat.ME↗
arXiv2025

Minimax density estimation in the adversarial framework under local differential privacy

We consider the problem of nonparametric density estimation under privacy constraints in an adversarial framework. To this end, we study minimax rates over Sobolev spaces under local differential privacy. We first obtain a lower bound which allows us to quantify the impact of privacy compared with the classical framework. Next, we introduce a new Coordinate block privacy mechanism that guarantees local differential privacy, which, coupled with a projection estimator, achieves the minimax optimal rates. Finally, we develop an adaptive procedure which is optimal in the minimax sense up to logarithmic terms.

math.ST↗
arXiv2023

MMD Aggregated Two-Sample Test

We propose two novel nonparametric two-sample kernel tests based on the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD). First, for a fixed kernel, we construct an MMD test using either permutations or a wild bootstrap, two popular numerical procedures to determine the test threshold. We prove that this test controls the probability of type I error non-asymptotically. Hence, it can be used reliably even in settings with small sample sizes as it remains well-calibrated, which differs from previous MMD tests which only guarantee correct test level asymptotically. When the difference in densities lies in a Sobolev ball, we prove minimax optimality of our MMD test with a specific kernel depending on the smoothness parameter of the Sobolev ball. In practice, this parameter is unknown and, hence, the optimal MMD test with this particular kernel cannot be used. To overcome this issue, we construct an aggregated test, called MMDAgg, which is adaptive to the smoothness parameter. The test power is maximised over the collection of kernels used, without requiring held-out data for kernel selection (which results in a loss of test power), or arbitrary kernel choices such as the median heuristic. We prove that MMDAgg still controls the level non-asymptotically, and achieves the minimax rate over Sobolev balls, up to an iterated logarithmic term. Our guarantees are not restricted to a specific type of kernel, but hold for any product of one-dimensional translation invariant characteristic kernels. We provide a user-friendly parameter-free implementation of MMDAgg using an adaptive collection of bandwidths. We demonstrate that MMDAgg significantly outperforms alternative state-of-the-art MMD-based two-sample tests on synthetic data satisfying the Sobolev smoothness assumption, and that, on real-world image data, MMDAgg closely matches the power of tests leveraging the use of models such as neural networks.

stat.ML↗
arXiv2021

Minimax optimal goodness-of-fit testing for densities and multinomials under a local differential privacy constraint

Finding anonymization mechanisms to protect personal data is at the heart of recent machine learning research. Here, we consider the consequences of local differential privacy constraints on goodness-of-fit testing, i.e. the statistical problem assessing whether sample points are generated from a fixed density $f_0$, or not. The observations are kept hidden and replaced by a stochastic transformation satisfying the local differential privacy constraint. In this setting, we propose a testing procedure which is based on an estimation of the quadratic distance between the density $f$ of the unobserved samples and $f_0$. We establish an upper bound on the separation distance associated with this test, and a matching lower bound on the minimax separation rates of testing under non-interactive privacy in the case that $f_0$ is uniform, in discrete and continuous settings. To the best of our knowledge, we provide the first minimax optimal test and associated private transformation under a local differential privacy constraint over Besov balls in the continuous setting, quantifying the price to pay for data privacy. We also present a test that is adaptive to the smoothness parameter of the unknown density and remains minimax optimal up to a logarithmic factor. Finally, we note that our results can be translated to the discrete case, where the treatment of probability vectors is shown to be equivalent to that of piecewise constant densities in our setting. That is why we work with a unified setting for both the continuous and the discrete cases.

math.ST↗
arXiv2021

Adaptive test of independence based on HSIC measures

Dependence measures based on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, also known as Hilbert-Schmidt Independence Criterion and denoted HSIC, are widely used to statistically decide whether or not two random vectors are dependent. Recently, non-parametric HSIC-based statistical tests of independence have been performed. However, these tests lead to the question of the choice of the kernels associated to the HSIC. In particular, there is as yet no method to objectively select specific kernels with theoretical guarantees in terms of first and second kind errors. One of the main contributions of this work is to develop a new HSIC-based aggregated procedure which avoids such a kernel choice, and to provide theoretical guarantees for this procedure. To achieve this, we first introduce non-asymptotic single tests based on Gaussian kernels with a given bandwidth, which are of prescribed level $α\in (0,1)$. From a theoretical point of view, we upper-bound their uniform separation rate of testing over Sobolev and Nikol'skii balls. Then, we aggregate several single tests, and obtain similar upper-bounds for the uniform separation rate of the aggregated procedure over the same regularity spaces. Another main contribution is that we provide a lower-bound for the non-asymptotic minimax separation rate of testing over Sobolev balls, and deduce that the aggregated procedure is adaptive in the minimax sense over such regularity spaces. Finally, from a practical point of view, we perform numerical studies in order to assess the efficiency of our aggregated procedure and compare it to existing independence tests in the literature.

math.ST↗
arXiv2018

Wikistat 2.0: Educational Resources for Artificial Intelligence

Big data, data science, deep learning, artificial intelligence are the key words of intense hype related with a job market in full evolution, that impose to adapt the contents of our university professional trainings. Which artificial intelligence is mostly concerned by the job offers? Which methodologies and technologies should be favored in the training programs? Which objectives, tools and educational resources do we needed to put in place to meet these pressing needs? We answer these questions in describing the contents and operational resources in the Data Science orientation of the specialty Applied Mathematics at INSA Toulouse. We focus on basic mathematics training (Optimization, Probability, Statistics), associated with the practical implementation of the most performing statistical learning algorithms, with the most appropriate technologies and on real examples. Considering the huge volatility of the technologies, it is imperative to train students in seft-training, this will be their technological watch tool when they will be in professional activity. This explains the structuring of the educational site github.com/wikistat into a set of tutorials. Finally, to motivate the thorough practice of these tutorials, a serious game is organized each year in the form of a prediction contest between students of Master degrees in Applied Mathematics for IA.

cs.CY↗
arXiv2017

Multiple testing for outlier detection in functional data

We propose a novel procedure for outlier detection in functional data, in a semi-supervised framework. As the data is functional, we consider the coefficients obtained after projecting the observations onto orthonormal bases (wavelet, PCA). A multiple testing procedure based on the two-sample test is defined in order to highlight the levels of the coefficients on which the outliers appear as significantly different to the normal data. The selected coefficients are then called features for the outlier detection, on which we compute the Local Outlier Factor to highlight the outliers. This procedure to select the features is applied on simulated data that mimic the behaviour of space telemetries, and compared with existing dimension reduction techniques.

stat.ML↗
arXiv2016

Non-asymptotic detection of two-component mixtures with unknown means

This work is concerned with the detection of a mixture distribution from a $\mathbb{R}$-valued sample. Given a sample $X_1,\dots,X_n$ and an even density $ϕ$, our aim is to detect whether the sample distribution is $ϕ(\cdot-μ)$ for some unknown mean $μ$, or is defined as a two-component mixture based on translations of $ϕ$. We propose a procedure which is based on several spacings of the order statistics, which provides a level-$α$ test for all $n$. Our test is therefore a multiple testing procedure and we prove from a theoretical and practical point of view that it automatically adapts to the proportion of the mixture and to the difference of the means of the two components of the mixture under the alternative. From a theoretical point of view, we prove the optimality of the power of our procedure in various situations. A simulation study shows the good performances of our test compared with several classical procedures.

math.ST↗
arXiv2015

Multidimensional two-component Gaussian mixtures detection

Let $(X\_1,\ldots,X\_n)$ be a $d$-dimensional i.i.d sample from a distribution with density $f$. The problem of detection of a two-component mixture is considered. Our aim is to decide whether $f$ is the density of a standard Gaussian random $d$-vector ($f=ϕ\_d$) against $f$ is a two-component mixture: $f=(1-\varepsilon)ϕ\_d +\varepsilon ϕ\_d (.-μ)$ where $(\varepsilon,μ)$ are unknown parameters. Optimal separation conditions on $\varepsilon, μ, n$ and the dimension $d$ are established, allowing to separate both hypotheses with prescribed errors. Several testing procedures are proposed and two alternative subsets are considered.

math.ST↗
arXiv2013

Fixed effects Selection in high dimensional Linear Mixed Models

We consider linear mixed models in which the observations are grouped. A L1-penalization on the fixed effects coefficients of the log-likelihood obtained by considering the random effects as missing values is proposed. A multicycle ECM algorithm is used to solve the optimization problem; it can be combined with any variable selection method developed for linear models. The algorithm allows the number of parameters p to be larger than the total number of observations n; it is faster than the lmmLasso (Schelldorfer,2011) since no n*n matrix has to be inverted. We show that the theoretical results of Schelldorfer (2011) apply for our method when the variances of both the random effects and the residuals are known. The combination of the algorithm with a variable selection method (Rohart 2011) shows good results in estimating the set of relevant fixed effects coefficients as well as estimating the variances; it outperforms the lmmLasso both in the common case (p< n) and in the high-dimensional case (p > n).

stat.CO↗
arXiv2012

The two-sample problem for Poisson processes: adaptive tests with a non-asymptotic wild bootstrap approach

Considering two independent Poisson processes, we address the question of testing equality of their respective intensities. We first propose single tests whose test statistics are U-statistics based on general kernel functions. The corresponding critical values are constructed from a non-asymptotic wild bootstrap approach, leading to level αtests. Various choices for the kernel functions are possible, including projection, approximation or reproducing kernels. In this last case, we obtain a parametric rate of testing for a weak metric defined in the RKHS associated with the considered reproducing kernel. Then we introduce, in the other cases, an aggregation procedure, which allows us to import ideas coming from model selection, thresholding and/or approximation kernels adaptive estimation. The resulting multiple tests are proved to be of level α, and to satisfy non-asymptotic oracle type conditions for the classical L2-norm. From these conditions, we deduce that they are adaptive in the minimax sense over a large variety of classes of alternatives based on classical and weak Besov bodies in the univariate case, but also Sobolev and anisotropic Nikol'skii-Besov balls in the multivariate case.

math.ST↗
arXiv2010

Non asymptotic minimax rates of testing in signal detection with heterogeneous variances

The aim of this paper is to establish non-asymptotic minimax rates of testing for goodness-of-fit hypotheses in a heteroscedastic setting. More precisely, we deal with sequences $(Y_j)_{j\in J}$ of independent Gaussian random variables, having mean $(θ_j)_{j\in J}$ and variance $(σ_j)_{j\in J}$. The set $J$ will be either finite or countable. In particular, such a model covers the inverse problem setting where few results in test theory have been obtained. The rates of testing are obtained with respect to $l_2$ and $l_{\infty}$ norms, without assumption on $(σ_j)_{j\in J}$ and on several functions spaces. Our point of view is completely non-asymptotic.

math.ST↗
arXiv2008

Adaptive estimation of linear functionals by model selection

We propose an estimation procedure for linear functionals based on Gaussian model selection techniques. We show that the procedure is adaptive, and we give a non asymptotic oracle inequality for the risk of the selected estimator with respect to the $\mathbb{L}_p$ loss. An application to the problem of estimating a signal or its $r^{th}$ derivative at a given point is developed and minimax rates are proved to hold uniformly over Besov balls. We also apply our non asymptotic oracle inequality to the estimation of the mean of the signal on an interval with length depending on the noise level. Simulations are included to illustrate the performances of the procedure for the estimation of a function at a given point. Our method provides a pointwise adaptive estimator.

math.ST↗
arXiv2006

Adaptive goodness-of-fit tests in a density model

Given an i.i.d. sample drawn from a density $f$, we propose to test that $f$ equals some prescribed density $f_0$ or that $f$ belongs to some translation/scale family. We introduce a multiple testing procedure based on an estimation of the $\mathbb{L}_2$-distance between $f$ and $f_0$ or between $f$ and the parametric family that we consider. For each sample size $n$, our test has level of significance $α$. In the case of simple hypotheses, we prove that our test is adaptive: it achieves the optimal rates of testing established by Ingster [J. Math. Sci. 99 (2000) 1110--1119] over various classes of smooth functions simultaneously. As for composite hypotheses, we obtain similar results up to a logarithmic factor. We carry out a simulation study to compare our procedures with the Kolmogorov--Smirnov tests, or with goodness-of-fit tests proposed by Bickel and Ritov [in Nonparametric Statistics and Related Topics (1992) 51--57] and by Kallenberg and Ledwina [Ann. Statist. 23 (1995) 1594--1608].

math.ST↗