arXiv subjects

Karl Oskar Ekvall

Publications and source records attributed to Karl Oskar Ekvall.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Asymptotics for likelihood ratio tests of boundary points with singular information and unidentifiable nuisance parameters

We establish the asymptotic distribution of likelihood ratio tests when nuisance parameters are unidentifiable under the null hypothesis, parameters of interest lie on the boundary, and the information matrix of the identifiable parameters may be singular. Mixture models, change point models and genetic linkage analysis exhibit all three features simultaneously. Under the null hypothesis the limit is the supremum of a chi-bar-squared process, whose marginal distributions are mixtures of chi-squared distributions with weights depending on the nuisance parameter; under local alternatives it is the supremum of a noncentral chi-bar-squared process. Unlike prior work on singular information, where singularity stems from the parameter of interest and changes the limit's form, here it occurs only at isolated values of the nuisance parameter, and under additional conditions the limit keeps its nonsingular form. Classical boundary results and application-specific results for mixtures, change points and linkage analysis are recovered and extended.

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arXiv2026

Score-based confidence intervals for variance-covariance parameters in linear mixed models

We propose confidence intervals with near-nominal coverage of variance-covariance parameters in linear mixed models, even when interest or nuisance parameters are near the boundary, that is, when some random effects have small variances or are strongly correlated. In such settings, our simulations show standard Wald, likelihood ratio, and score intervals with nominal level 95% can have coverage as low as 45% and as high as 99%, while the proposed intervals are near nominal. The proposed intervals invert a modified profile score statistic based on the restricted likelihood, with nuisance parameters estimated on an extended parameter set. In a longitudinal study of socialization in children with autism, where the estimated correlation between the random intercept and slope is near minus one, our intervals show that children who start higher improve more slowly. In a genetic study of white blood cell count in mice, they distinguish the contributions of variant classes even though several intervals include zero. Compared to universal inference intervals, which are valid in finite samples, ours are 1.7 to 3.1 times narrower, and finite where one universal interval is not, at a forty-seventh of the computing time. We establish asymptotically correct coverage uniformly in the parameter under a condition known to hold with independent clusters and crossed random effects.

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arXiv2026

Likelihood-Based Inference with Separable Correlation Matrices

This paper proposes methods for likelihood-based inference in multivariate linear regressions when the correlation matrix of the responses is separable; that is, it has a Kronecker product structure, but the variances are unrestricted. The methods are enabled by a block-coordinate ascent-like algorithm with closed-form updates that strictly increases the likelihood at every iteration until convergence. In the numerical experiments, the proposed algorithm is 300--2500 times faster than a general-purpose solver, making parametric bootstrap tests of correlation and covariance separability practical. Parameters are identifiable, and standard errors can therefore be obtained from the expected Fisher information, which can be computed efficiently using the Kronecker product structure. Simulations show that the proposed estimator has lower error than both separable covariance and unrestricted estimators when the model holds, and that bootstrap tests maintain nominal size where asymptotic tests fail. An application to dissolved oxygen data from the Mississippi River demonstrates that separable correlation captures location-specific variance patterns that separable covariance cannot.

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arXiv2025

Universal inference for variance components

We consider universal inference in variance components models, focusing on settings where the parameter is near or at the boundary of the parameter set. Two cases, which are not handled by existing state-of-the-art methods, are of particular interest: (i) inference on a variance component when other variance components are near or at the boundary, and (ii) inference on near-unity proportions of variability, that is, one variance component divided by the sum of all variance components. Case (i) is relevant, for example, for the construction of componentwise confidence intervals, as often used by practitioners. Case (ii) is particularly relevant when making inferences about heritability in modern genetics. For both cases, we show how to construct confidence intervals that are uniformly valid in finite samples. We propose algorithms which, by exploiting the structure of variance components models, lead to substantially faster computing than naive implementations of universal inference. The usefulness of the proposed methods is illustrated by simulations and a data example with crossed random effects, which are known to be complicated for conventional inference procedures.

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arXiv2025

Uniform inference in linear mixed models

We provide finite-sample distribution approximations, that are uniform in the parameter, for inference in linear mixed models. Focus is on variances and covariances of random effects in cases where existing theory fails because their covariance matrix is nearly or exactly singular, and hence near or at the boundary of the parameter set. Quantitative bounds on the differences between the standard normal density and those of linear combinations of the score function enable, for example, the assessment of sufficient sample size. The bounds also lead to useful asymptotic theory in settings where both the number of parameters and the number of random effects grow with the sample size. We consider models with independent clusters and ones with a possibly diverging number of crossed random effects, which are notoriously complicated. Simulations indicate the theory leads to practically relevant methods. In particular, the studied confidence regions, which are straightforward to implement, have near-nominal coverage in finite samples even when some random effects have variances near or equal to zero, or correlations near or equal to $\pm 1$.

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arXiv2024

Fast and reliable confidence intervals for a variance component

We show that confidence intervals in a variance component model, with asymptotically correct uniform coverage probability, can be obtained by inverting certain test-statistics based on the score for the restricted likelihood. The results apply in settings where the variance is near or at the boundary of the parameter set. Simulations indicate the proposed test-statistics are approximately pivotal and lead to confidence intervals with near-nominal coverage even in small samples. We illustrate our methods' application in spatially-resolved transcriptomics where we compute approximately 15,000 confidence intervals, used for gene ranking, in less than 4 minutes. In the settings we consider, the proposed method is between two and 28,000 times faster than popular alternatives, depending on how many confidence intervals are computed.

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arXiv2024

Direct covariance matrix estimation with compositional data

Compositional data arise in many areas of research in the natural and biomedical sciences. One prominent example is in the study of the human gut microbiome, where one can measure the relative abundance of many distinct microorganisms in a subject's gut. Often, practitioners are interested in learning how the dependencies between microbes vary across distinct populations or experimental conditions. In statistical terms, the goal is to estimate a covariance matrix for the (latent) log-abundances of the microbes in each of the populations. However, the compositional nature of the data prevents the use of standard estimators for these covariance matrices. In this article, we propose an estimator of multiple covariance matrices which allows for information sharing across distinct populations of samples. Compared to some existing estimators, which estimate the covariance matrices of interest indirectly, our estimator is direct, ensures positive definiteness, and is the solution to a convex optimization problem. We compute our estimator using a proximal-proximal gradient descent algorithm. Asymptotic properties of our estimator reveal that it can perform well in high-dimensional settings. Through simulation studies, we demonstrate that our estimator can outperform existing estimators. We show that our method provides more reliable estimates than competitors in an analysis of microbiome data from subjects with chronic fatigue syndrome.

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arXiv2022

Concave likelihood-based regression with finite-support response variables

We propose a unified framework for likelihood-based regression modeling when the response variable has finite support. Our work is motivated by the fact that, in practice, observed data are discrete and bounded. The proposed methods assume a model which includes models previously considered for interval-censored variables with log-concave distributions as special cases. The resulting log-likelihood is concave, which we use to establish asymptotic normality of its maximizer as the number of observations $n$ tends to infinity with the number of parameters $d$ fixed, and rates of convergence of $L_1$-regularized estimators when the true parameter vector is sparse and $d$ and $n$ both tend to infinity with $\log(d) / n \to 0$. We consider an inexact proximal Newton algorithm for computing estimates and give theoretical guarantees for its convergence. The range of possible applications is wide, including but not limited to survival analysis in discrete time, the modeling of outcomes on scored surveys and questionnaires, and, more generally, interval-censored regression. The applicability and usefulness of the proposed methods are illustrated in simulations and data examples.

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arXiv2022

Mixed-type multivariate response regression with covariance estimation

We propose a new method for multivariate response regression and covariance estimation when elements of the response vector are of mixed types, for example some continuous and some discrete. Our method is based on a model which assumes the observable mixed-type response vector is connected to a latent multivariate normal response linear regression through a link function. We explore the properties of this model and show its parameters are identifiable under reasonable conditions. We impose no parametric restrictions on the covariance of the latent normal other than positive definiteness, thereby avoiding assumptions about unobservable variables which can be difficult to verify in practice. To accommodate this generality, we propose a novel algorithm for approximate maximum likelihood estimation that works "off-the-shelf" with many different combinations of response types, and which scales well in the dimension of the response vector. Our method typically gives better predictions and parameter estimates than fitting separate models for the different response types and allows for approximate likelihood ratio testing of relevant hypotheses such as independence of responses. The usefulness of the proposed method is illustrated in simulations; and one biomedical and one genomic data example.

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arXiv2022

Confidence Regions Near Singular Information and Boundary Points With Applications to Mixed Models

We propose confidence regions with asymptotically correct uniform coverage probability of parameters whose Fisher information matrix can be singular at important points of the parameter set. Our work is motivated by the need for reliable inference on scale parameters close or equal to zero in mixed models, which is obtained as a special case. The confidence regions are constructed by inverting a continuous extension of the score test statistic standardized by expected information, which we show exists at points of singular information under regularity conditions. Similar results have previously only been obtained for scalar parameters, under conditions stronger than ours, and applications to mixed models have not been considered. In simulations our confidence regions have near-nominal coverage with as few as $n = 20$ independent observations, regardless of how close to the boundary the true parameter is. It is a corollary of our main results that the proposed test statistic has an asymptotic chi-square distribution with degrees of freedom equal to the number of tested parameters, even if they are on the boundary of the parameter set.

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arXiv2021

Targeted Principal Components Regression

We propose a principal components regression method based on maximizing a joint pseudo-likelihood for responses and predictors. Our method uses both responses and predictors to select linear combinations of the predictors relevant for the regression, thereby addressing an oft-cited deficiency of conventional principal components regression. The proposed estimator is shown to be consistent in a wide range of settings, including ones with non-normal and dependent observations; conditions on the first and second moments suffice if the number of predictors ($p$) is fixed and the number of observations ($n$) tends to infinity and dependence is weak, while stronger distributional assumptions are needed when $p \to \infty$ with $n$. We obtain the estimator's asymptotic distribution as the projection of a multivariate normal random vector onto a tangent cone of the parameter set at the true parameter, and find the estimator is asymptotically more efficient than competing ones. In simulations our method is substantially more accurate than conventional principal components regression and compares favorably to partial least squares and predictor envelopes. The method's practical usefulness is illustrated in a data example with cross-sectional prediction of stock returns.

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arXiv2020

Convergence Analysis of a Collapsed Gibbs Sampler for Bayesian Vector Autoregressions

We study the convergence properties of a collapsed Gibbs sampler for Bayesian vector autoregressions with predictors, or exogenous variables. The Markov chain generated by our algorithm is shown to be geometrically ergodic regardless of whether the number of observations in the underlying vector autoregression is small or large in comparison to the order and dimension of it. In a convergence complexity analysis, we also give conditions for when the geometric ergodicity is asymptotically stable as the number of observations tends to infinity. Specifically, the geometric convergence rate is shown to be bounded away from unity asymptotically, either almost surely or with probability tending to one, depending on what is assumed about the data generating process. This result is one of the first of its kind for practically relevant Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms. Our convergence results hold under close to arbitrary model misspecification.

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arXiv2019

Consistent Maximum Likelihood Estimation Using Subsets with Applications to Multivariate Mixed Models

We present new results for consistency of maximum likelihood estimators with a focus on multivariate mixed models. Our theory builds on the idea of using subsets of the full data to establish consistency of estimators based on the full data. It requires neither that the data consist of independent observations, nor that the observations can be modeled as a stationary stochastic process. Compared to existing asymptotic theory using the idea of subsets we substantially weaken the assumptions, bringing them closer to what suffices in classical settings. We apply our theory in two multivariate mixed models for which it was unknown whether maximum likelihood estimators are consistent. The models we consider have non-stochastic predictors and multivariate responses which are possibly mixed-type (some discrete and some continuous).

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