arXiv subjects

Snigdha Panigrahi

Publications and source records attributed to Snigdha Panigrahi.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Carving model-free inference

Complex studies involve many steps. Selecting promising findings based on pilot data is a first step. As more observations are collected, the investigator must decide how to combine the new data with the pilot data to construct valid selective inference. Carving, introduced by Fithian et al. (2014), enables the reuse of pilot data during selective inference and accounts for over-optimism from the selection process. Currently, the justification for carving is tied to parametric models, like the commonly used Gaussian model. In this paper, we develop the asymptotic theory to substantiate the use of carving beyond Gaussian models. Through both simulated and real instances, we find that carving produces valid and tight confidence intervals within a model-free setting.

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arXiv2023

Treatment Effect Estimation with Efficient Data Aggregation

Data aggregation, also known as meta analysis, is widely used to combine knowledge on parameters shared in common (e.g., average treatment effect) between multiple studies. In this paper, we introduce an attractive data aggregation scheme that pools summary statistics from various existing studies. Our scheme informs the design of new validation studies and yields us unbiased estimators for the shared parameters. In our setup, each existing study applies a LASSO regression to select a parsimonious model from a large set of covariates. It is well known that post-hoc estimators, in the selected model, tend to be biased. We show that a novel technique called \textit{data carving} yields us a new unbiased estimator by aggregating simple summary statistics from all existing studies. Our estimator has two key features: (a) we make the fullest possible use of data, from all studies, without the risk of bias from model selection; (b) we enjoy the added benefit of individual data privacy, because raw data from these studies need not be shared or stored for efficient estimation.

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arXiv2023

Selective Inference with Distributed Data

As datasets grow larger, they are often distributed across multiple machines that compute in parallel and communicate with a central machine through short messages. In this paper, we focus on sparse regression and propose a new procedure for conducting selective inference with distributed data. Although many distributed procedures exist for point estimation in the sparse setting, few options are available for estimating uncertainties or conducting hypothesis tests based on the estimated sparsity. We solve a generalized linear regression on each machine, which then communicates a selected set of predictors to the central machine. The central machine uses these selected predictors to form a generalized linear model (GLM). To conduct inference in the selected GLM, our proposed procedure bases approximately-valid selective inference on an asymptotic likelihood. The proposal seeks only aggregated information, in relatively few dimensions, from each machine which is merged at the central machine for selective inference. By reusing low-dimensional summary statistics from local machines, our procedure achieves higher power while keeping the communication cost low. This method is also applicable as a solution to the notorious p-value lottery problem that arises when model selection is repeated on random splits of data.

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arXiv2022

Approximate Post-Selective Inference for Regression with the Group LASSO

After selection with the Group LASSO (or generalized variants such as the overlapping, sparse, or standardized Group LASSO), inference for the selected parameters is unreliable in the absence of adjustments for selection bias. In the penalized Gaussian regression setup, existing approaches provide adjustments for selection events that can be expressed as linear inequalities in the data variables. Such a representation, however, fails to hold for selection with the Group LASSO and substantially obstructs the scope of subsequent post-selective inference. Key questions of inferential interest -- for example, inference for the effects of selected variables on the outcome -- remain unanswered. In the present paper, we develop a consistent, post-selective, Bayesian method to address the existing gaps by deriving a likelihood adjustment factor and an approximation thereof that eliminates bias from the selection of groups. Experiments on simulated data and data from the Human Connectome Project demonstrate that our method recovers the effects of parameters within the selected groups while paying only a small price for bias adjustment.

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arXiv2022

Integrative Bayesian models using Post-selective Inference: a case study in Radiogenomics

Integrative analyses based on statistically relevant associations between genomics and a wealth of intermediary phenotypes (such as imaging) provide vital insights into their clinical relevance in terms of the disease mechanisms. Estimates for uncertainty in the resulting integrative models are however unreliable unless inference accounts for the selection of these associations with accuracy. In this article, we develop selection-aware Bayesian methods which: (i) counteract the impact of model selection bias through a "selection-aware posterior" in a flexible class of integrative Bayesian models post a selection of promising variables via $\ell_1$-regularized algorithms; (ii) strike an inevitable tradeoff between the quality of model selection and inferential power when the same dataset is used for both selection and uncertainty estimation. Central to our methodological development, a carefully constructed conditional likelihood function deployed with a reparameterization mapping provides notably tractable updates when gradient-based MCMC sampling is used for estimating uncertainties from the selection-aware posterior. Applying our methods to a radiogenomic analysis, we successfully recover several important gene pathways and estimate uncertainties for their associations with patient survival times.

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arXiv2022

Approximate selective inference via maximum likelihood

Several strategies have been developed recently to ensure valid inference after model selection; some of these are easy to compute, while others fare better in terms of inferential power. In this paper, we consider a selective inference framework for Gaussian data. We propose a new method for inference through approximate maximum likelihood estimation. Our goal is to: (i) achieve better inferential power with the aid of randomization, (ii) bypass expensive MCMC sampling from exact conditional distributions that are hard to evaluate in closed forms. We construct approximate inference, e.g., p-values, confidence intervals etc., by solving a fairly simple, convex optimization problem. We illustrate the potential of our method across wide-ranging values of signal-to-noise ratio in simulations. On a cancer gene expression data set we find that our method improves upon the inferential power of some commonly used strategies for selective inference.

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arXiv2020

Causal Structure Discovery from Distributions Arising from Mixtures of DAGs

We consider distributions arising from a mixture of causal models, where each model is represented by a directed acyclic graph (DAG). We provide a graphical representation of such mixture distributions and prove that this representation encodes the conditional independence relations of the mixture distribution. We then consider the problem of structure learning based on samples from such distributions. Since the mixing variable is latent, we consider causal structure discovery algorithms such as FCI that can deal with latent variables. We show that such algorithms recover a "union" of the component DAGs and can identify variables whose conditional distribution across the component DAGs vary. We demonstrate our results on synthetic and real data showing that the inferred graph identifies nodes that vary between the different mixture components. As an immediate application, we demonstrate how retrieval of this causal information can be used to cluster samples according to each mixture component.

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arXiv2020

Integrative Methods for Post-Selection Inference Under Convex Constraints

Inference after model selection has been an active research topic in the past few years, with numerous works offering different approaches to addressing the perils of the reuse of data. In particular, major progress has been made recently on large and useful classes of problems by harnessing general theory of hypothesis testing in exponential families, but these methods have their limitations. Perhaps most immediate is the gap between theory and practice: implementing the exact theoretical prescription in realistic situations---for example, when new data arrives and inference needs to be adjusted accordingly---may be a prohibitive task. In this paper we propose a Bayesian framework for carrying out inference after model selection in the linear model. Our framework is very flexible in the sense that it naturally accommodates different models for the data, instead of requiring a case-by-case treatment. At the core of our methods is a new approximation to the exact likelihood conditional on selection, the latter being generally intractable. We prove that, under appropriate conditions, our approximation is asymptotically consistent with the exact truncated likelihood. The advantages of our methods in practical data analysis are demonstrated in simulations and in application to HIV drug-resistance data.

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arXiv2018

Maximal Moments and Uniform Modulus of Continuity for Stable Random Fields

In this work, we solve an open problem mentioned in Xiao (2010) and provide sharp bounds on the rate of growth of maximal moments for stationary symmetric stable random fields using structure theorem of finitely generated abelian groups and ergodic theory of quasi-invariant group actions. We also investigate the relationship between this rate of growth and the path regularity properties of self-similar stable random fields with stationary increments, and establish uniform modulus of continuity of such fields. In the process, a new notion of weak effective dimension is introduced for stable random fields and is connected to maximal moments and path properties. Our results establish a boundary between shorter and longer memory in relation to Holder continuity of S alpha S random fields confirming a conjecture of Samorodnitsky (2004).

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arXiv2018

Selection-adjusted inference: an application to confidence intervals for cis-eQTL effect sizes

The goal of eQTL studies is to identify the genetic variants that influence the expression levels of the genes in an organism. High throughput technology has made such studies possible: in a given tissue sample, it enables us to quantify the expression levels of approximately 20,000 genes and to record the alleles present at millions of genetic polymorphisms. While obtaining this data is relatively cheap once a specimen is at hand, obtaining human tissue remains a costly endeavor. Thus, eQTL studies continue to be based on relatively small sample sizes, with this limitation particularly serious for tissues of most immediate medical relevance. Given the high dimensional nature of this datasets and the large number of hypotheses tested, the scientific community has adopted early on multiplicity adjustment procedures, which primarily control the false discoveries rate for the identification of genetic variants with influence on the expression levels. In contrast, a problem that has not received much attention to date is that of providing estimates of the effect sizes associated to these variants, in a way that accounts for the considerable amount of selection. We illustrate how the recently developed conditional inference approach can be deployed to obtain confidence intervals for the eQTL effect sizes with reliable coverage. The procedure we propose is based on a randomized hierarchical strategy that both reflects the steps typically adopted in state of the art investigations and introduces the use of randomness instead of data splitting to maximize the use of available data. Analysis of the GTEx Liver dataset (v6) suggests that naively obtained confidence intervals would likely not cover the true values of effect sizes and that the number of local genetic polymorphisms influencing the expression level of genes might be underestimated.

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arXiv2017

A relevance-scalability-interpretability tradeoff with temporally evolving user personas

The current work characterizes the users of a VoD streaming space through user-personas based on a tenure timeline and temporal behavioral features in the absence of explicit user profiles. A combination of tenure timeline and temporal characteristics caters to business needs of understanding the evolution and phases of user behavior as their accounts age. The personas constructed in this work successfully represent both dominant and niche characterizations while providing insightful maturation of user behavior in the system. The two major highlights of our personas are demonstration of stability along tenure timelines on a population level, while exhibiting interesting migrations between labels on an individual granularity and clear interpretability of user labels. Finally, we show a trade-off between an indispensable trio of guarantees, relevance-scalability-interpretability by using summary information from personas in a CTR (Click through rate) predictive model. The proposed method of uncovering latent personas, consequent insights from these and application of information from personas to predictive models are broadly applicable to other streaming based products.

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arXiv2017

Scalable methods for Bayesian selective inference

Modeled along the truncated approach in Panigrahi (2016), selection-adjusted inference in a Bayesian regime is based on a selective posterior. Such a posterior is determined together by a generative model imposed on data and the selection event that enforces a truncation on the assumed law. The effective difference between the selective posterior and the usual Bayesian framework is reflected in the use of a truncated likelihood. The normalizer of the truncated law in the adjusted framework is the probability of the selection event; this is typically intractable and it leads to the computational bottleneck in sampling from such a posterior. The current work lays out a primal-dual approach of solving an approximating optimization problem to provide valid post-selective Bayesian inference. The selection procedures are posed as data-queries that solve a randomized version of a convex learning program which have the advantage of preserving more left-over information for inference. We propose a randomization scheme under which the optimization has separable constraints that result in a partially separable objective in lower dimensions for many commonly used selective queries to approximate the otherwise intractable selective posterior. We show that the approximating optimization under a Gaussian randomization gives a valid exponential rate of decay for the selection probability on a large deviation scale. We offer a primal-dual method to solve the optimization problem leading to an approximate posterior; this allows us to exploit the usual merits of a Bayesian machinery in both low and high dimensional regimes where the underlying signal is effectively sparse. We show that the adjusted estimates empirically demonstrate better frequentist properties in comparison to the unadjusted estimates based on the usual posterior, when applied to a wide range of constrained, convex data queries.

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arXiv2017

An MCMC-free approach to post-selective inference

We develop a Monte Carlo-free approach to inference post output from randomized algorithms with a convex loss and a convex penalty. The pivotal statistic based on a truncated law, called the selective pivot, usually lacks closed form expressions. Inference in these settings relies upon standard Monte Carlo sampling techniques at a reference parameter followed by an exponential tilting at the reference. Tilting can however be unstable for parameters that are far off from the reference parameter. We offer in this paper an alternative approach to construction of intervals and point estimates by proposing an approximation to the intractable selective pivot. Such an approximation solves a convex optimization problem in |E| dimensions, where |E| is the size of the active set observed from selection. We empirically show that the confidence intervals obtained by inverting the approximate pivot have valid coverage.

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arXiv2017

Kinematic Formula for Heterogeneous Gaussian Related Fields

We provide a generalization of the Gaussian Kinematic Formula (GKF) in Taylor(2006) for multivariate, heterogeneous Gaussian-related fields. The fields under consideration are non-Gaussian fields built out of smooth, independent Gaussian fields with heterogeneity in distribution amongst the individual building blocks. Our motivation comes from potential applications in the analysis of Cosmological Data (CMB). Specifically, future CMB experiments will be focusing on polarization data, typically modeled as isotropic vector-valued Gaussian related fields with independent, but non-identically distributed Gaussian building blocks; this necessitates such a generalization. Extending results of Taylor(2006) to these more general Gaussian relatives with distributional heterogeneity, we present a generalized Gaussian Kinematic Formula (GKF). The GKF in this paper decouples the expected Euler characteristic of excursion sets into Lipschitz Killing Curvatures (LKCs) of the underlying manifold and certain Gaussian Minkowski Functionals (GMFs). These GMFs arise from Gaussian volume expansions of ellipsoidal tubes as opposed to the usual tubes in the Euclidean volume of classical tube formulae. The GMFs form a main contribution of this work that identifies this tubular structure and a corresponding volume of tubes expansion in which the GMFs appear.

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arXiv2016

Selective sampling after solving a convex problem

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.

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