arXiv research

Method estimates sparse inverse covariance and partial correlation matrices efficiently.

The graphical lasso (glasso) is a widely-used fast algorithm for estimating sparse inverse covariance matrices. The glasso solves an L1 penalized maximum likelihood problem and is available as an R library on CRAN. The output from the glasso, a regularized covariance matrix estimate a sparse inverse covariance matrix e…

NGD improves multivariate Gaussian inference by optimizing Fisher information.

New methods improve portfolio risk minimization by estimating covariance matrix more accurately.

Develops a fast algorithm for fitting multilevel factor models.

EiGLasso speeds up sparse Kronecker-sum covariance estimation.

The paper proposes AIS for Bayesian inversion of multioutput signals with covariance estimation.

We investigate the relationship between the structure of a discrete graphical model and the support of the inverse of a generalized covariance matrix. We show that for certain graph structures, the support of the inverse covariance matrix of indicator variables on the vertices of a graph reflects the conditional indepe…

Sparse Inverse Covariance Estimation (SICE) is useful in many practical data analyses. Recovering the connectivity, non-connectivity graph of covariates is classified amongst the most important data mining and learning problems. In this paper, we introduce a novel SICE approach using adaptive thresholding. Our method i…

Paper proposes a generalized precision matrix for t-Student distributions to improve portfolio optimization.

New distribution simplifies covariance matrix inference.

The inverse covariance matrix provides considerable insight for understanding statistical models in the multivariate setting. In particular, when the distribution over variables is assumed to be multivariate normal, the sparsity pattern in the inverse covariance matrix, commonly referred to as the precision matrix, cor…

We study the problem of estimating from data, a sparse approximation to the inverse covariance matrix. Estimating a sparsity constrained inverse covariance matrix is a key component in Gaussian graphical model learning, but one that is numerically very challenging. We address this challenge by developing a new adaptive…

New method optimizes sparse inverse covariance estimation with guaranteed optimality.

We simplify matrix computations for block matrices, especially useful for covariance and correlation matrices.

Paper presents a new framework for covariance matrix estimation with geometric insights.

Gaussian graphical models are of great interest in statistical learning. Because the conditional independencies between different nodes correspond to zero entries in the inverse covariance matrix of the Gaussian distribution, one can learn the structure of the graph by estimating a sparse inverse covariance matrix from…

Given $n$ i.i.d. observations of a random vector $(X,Z)$, where $X$ is a high-dimensional vector and $Z$ is a low-dimensional index variable, we study the problem of estimating the conditional inverse covariance matrix $Ω(z) = (E[(X-E[X \mid Z])(X-E[X \mid Z])^T \mid Z=z])^{-1}$ under the assumption that the set of non…

A new method reduces the bias in estimating inverse covariance matrices from sketches.

The sparse inverse covariance estimation problem is commonly solved using an $\ell_{1}$-regularized Gaussian maximum likelihood estimator known as "graphical lasso", but its computational cost becomes prohibitive for large data sets. A recent line of results showed--under mild assumptions--that the graphical lasso esti…

Several methods have been recently proposed for estimating sparse Gaussian graphical models using $\ell_{1}$ regularization on the inverse covariance matrix. Despite recent advances, contemporary applications require methods that are even faster in order to handle ill-conditioned high dimensional modern day datasets. I…

In distributed systems, communication is a major concern due to issues such as its vulnerability or efficiency. In this paper, we are interested in estimating sparse inverse covariance matrices when samples are distributed into different machines. We address communication efficiency by proposing a method where, in a si…

We consider the problem of estimating the inverse covariance matrix by maximizing the likelihood function with a penalty added to encourage the sparsity of the resulting matrix. We propose a new approach based on the split Bregman method to solve the regularized maximum likelihood estimation problem. We show that our m…

Optimal data splitting improves covariance matrix estimation in large datasets.

In this paper, we introduce a new directed graphical model from Gaussian data: the Gaussian graphical interaction model (GGIM). The development of this model comes from considering stationary Gaussian processes on graphs, and leveraging the equations between the resulting steady-state covariance matrix and the Laplacia…

New method recovers graph structure from covariance queries efficiently.

Undirected graphs are often used to describe high dimensional distributions. Under sparsity conditions, the graph can be estimated using $\ell_1$-penalization methods. We propose and study the following method. We combine a multiple regression approach with ideas of thresholding and refitting: first we infer a sparse u…

In this paper we consider the task of estimating the non-zero pattern of the sparse inverse covariance matrix of a zero-mean Gaussian random vector from a set of iid samples. Note that this is also equivalent to recovering the underlying graph structure of a sparse Gaussian Markov Random Field (GMRF). We present two no…

We propose an algorithmic framework for convex minimization problems of a composite function with two terms: a self-concordant function and a possibly nonsmooth regularization term. Our method is a new proximal Newton algorithm that features a local quadratic convergence rate. As a specific instance of our framework, w…

Consider jointly Gaussian random variables whose conditional independence structure is specified by a graphical model. If we observe realizations of the variables, we can compute the covariance matrix, and it is well known that the support of the inverse covariance matrix corresponds to the edges of the graphical model…

The paper develops scalable Bayesian models for dynamic covariance matrices using Gaussian processes.

In this work we construct an optimal shrinkage estimator for the precision matrix in high dimensions. We consider the general asymptotics when the number of variables $p\rightarrow\infty$ and the sample size $n\rightarrow\infty$ so that $p/n\rightarrow c\in (0, +\infty)$. The precision matrix is estimated directly, wit…

In a Gaussian graphical model, the conditional independence between two variables are characterized by the corresponding zero entries in the inverse covariance matrix. Maximum likelihood method using the smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD) penalty (Fan and Li, 2001) and the adaptive LASSO penalty (Zou, 2006) hav…

Paper presents a rank-1 approximation method for natural policy gradients in deep RL.

Alpha-based performance evaluation may fail to capture correlated residuals due to model errors. This paper proposes using the Generalized Information Ratio (GIR) to measure performance under misspecified benchmarks. Motivated by the theoretical link between abnormal returns and residual covariance matrix, GIR is deriv…

We introduce a distributionally robust maximum likelihood estimation model with a Wasserstein ambiguity set to infer the inverse covariance matrix of a $p$-dimensional Gaussian random vector from $n$ independent samples. The proposed model minimizes the worst case (maximum) of Stein's loss across all normal reference d…

Undirected graphs can be used to describe matrix variate distributions. In this paper, we develop new methods for estimating the graphical structures and underlying parameters, namely, the row and column covariance and inverse covariance matrices from the matrix variate data. Under sparsity conditions, we show that one…

Anomalies and outliers are common in real-world data, and they can arise from many sources, such as sensor faults. Accordingly, anomaly detection is important both for analyzing the anomalies themselves and for cleaning the data for further analysis of its ambient structure. Nonetheless, a precise definition of anomali…

Gaussian Markov random fields (GMRFs) are useful in a broad range of applications. In this paper we tackle the problem of learning a sparse GMRF in a high-dimensional space. Our approach uses the l1-norm as a regularization on the inverse covariance matrix. We utilize a novel projected gradient method, which is faster …

Missing data estimation is an important challenge with high-dimensional data arranged in the form of a matrix. Typically this data matrix is transposable, meaning that either the rows, columns or both can be treated as features. To model transposable data, we present a modification of the matrix-variate normal, the mea…

The paper explores how multiway data from PDEs can be accurately tracked using EnKF with specific covariance and precision estimators.

Bayesian approach learns linear networks from high-dimensional data.

Training Gaussian process-based models typically involves an $O(N^3)$ computational bottleneck due to inverting the covariance matrix. Popular methods for overcoming this matrix inversion problem cannot adequately model all types of latent functions, and are often not parallelizable. However, judicious choice of model…

Meta-learning improves predictions with generalized ridge regression in high-dimensional settings.

Machine learning and geostatistics are powerful mathematical frameworks for modeling spatial data. Both approaches, however, suffer from poor scaling of the required computational resources for large data applications. We present the Stochastic Local Interaction (SLI) model, which employs a local representation to impr…

New method learns decisions from collective preferences without individual covariates.

A-BLINK speeds up Gaussian process covariance estimation.

The L1-regularized Gaussian maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) has been shown to have strong statistical guarantees in recovering a sparse inverse covariance matrix, or alternatively the underlying graph structure of a Gaussian Markov Random Field, from very limited samples. We propose a novel algorithm for solving the…