Extending the Scope of Inverse Regression Methods in Sufficient Dimension Reduction

In the area of sufficient dimension reduction, two structural conditions are often assumed: the linearity condition that is close to assuming ellipticity of underlying distribution of predictors, and the constant variance condition that nears multivariate normality assumption of predictors. Imposing these conditions are considered as necessary trade-off for overcoming the “curse of dimensionality”. However, it is very hard to check whether these conditions hold or not. When these conditions are violated, some methods such as marginal transformation and re-weighting are suggested so that data fulfill them approximately. In this article, we assume an independence condition between the projected predictors and their orthogonal complements which can ensure the commonly used inverse regression methods to identify the central subspace of interest. The independence condition can be checked by the gridded chi-square test. Thus, we extend the scope of many inverse regression methods and broaden their applicability in the literature. Simulation studies and an application to the car price data are presented for illustration.     

Sparse Sufficient Dimension Reduction for Markov Blanket Discovery

In this article, we propose to use sparse sufficient dimension reduction as a novel method for Markov blanket discovery of a target variable, where we do not take any distributional assumption on the variables. By assuming sparsity on the basis of the central subspace, we developed a penalized loss function estimate on the high-dimensional covariance matrix. A coordinate descent algorithm based on an inverse regression is used to get the sparse basis of the central subspace. Finite sample behavior of the proposed method is explored by simulation study and real data examples.     

Shrinkage inverse regression estimation for model-free variable selection

Summary.  The family of inverse regression estimators that was recently proposed by Cook and Ni has proven effective in dimension reduction by transforming the high dimensional predictor vector to its low dimensional projections. We propose a general shrinkage estimation strategy for the entire inverse regression estimation family that is capable of simultaneous dimension reduction and variable selection. We demonstrate that the new estimators achieve consistency in variable selection without requiring any traditional model, meanwhile retaining the root n estimation consistency of the dimension reduction basis. We also show the effectiveness of the new estimators through both simulation and real data analysis.     

Dimension Reduction in Regressions through Weighted Variance Estimation

Because sliced inverse regression (SIR) using the conditional mean of the inverse regression fails to recover the central subspace when the inverse regression mean degenerates, sliced average variance estimation (SAVE) using the conditional variance was proposed in the sufficient dimension reduction literature. However, the efficacy of SAVE depends heavily upon the number of slices. In the present article, we introduce a class of weighted variance estimation (WVE), which, similar to SAVE and simple contour regression (SCR), uses the conditional variance of the inverse regression to recover the central subspace. The strong consistency and the asymptotic normality of the kernel estimation of WVE are established under mild regularity conditions. Finite sample studies are carried out for comparison with existing methods and an application to a real data is presented for illustration.     

Matching Using Sufficient Dimension Reduction for Causal Inference

ABSTRACT

To estimate causal treatment effects, we propose a new matching approach based on the reduced covariates obtained from sufficient dimension reduction. Compared with the original covariates and the propensity score, which are commonly used for matching in the literature, the reduced covariates are nonparametrically estimable and are effective in imputing the missing potential outcomes, under a mild assumption on the low-dimensional structure of the data. Under the ignorability assumption, the consistency of the proposed approach requires a weaker common support condition. In addition, researchers are allowed to employ different reduced covariates to find matched subjects for different treatment groups. We develop relevant asymptotic results and conduct simulation studies as well as real data analysis to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed approach.     

Model-free variable selection

Summary.  The importance of variable selection in regression has grown in recent years as computing power has encouraged the modelling of data sets of ever-increasing size. Data mining applications in finance, marketing and bioinformatics are obvious examples. A limitation of nearly all existing variable selection methods is the need to specify the correct model before selection. When the number of predictors is large, model formulation and validation can be difficult or even infeasible. On the basis of the theory of sufficient dimension reduction, we propose a new class of model-free variable selection approaches. The methods proposed assume no model of any form, require no nonparametric smoothing and allow for general predictor effects. The efficacy of the methods proposed is demonstrated via simulation, and an empirical example is given.     

Sufficient dimension reduction through informative predictor subspace

The purpose of this paper is to define the central informative predictor subspace to contain the central subspace and to develop methods for estimating the former subspace. Potential advantages of the proposed methods are no requirements of linearity, constant variance and coverage conditions in methodological developments. Therefore, the central informative predictor subspace gives us the benefit of restoring the central subspace exhaustively despite failing the conditions. Numerical studies confirm the theories, and real data analyses are presented.     

Sufficient dimension reduction via distance covariance with multivariate responses

In this article, we propose a new method for sufficient dimension reduction when both response and predictor are vectors. The new method, using distance covariance, keeps the model-free advantage, and can fully recover the central subspace even when many predictors are discrete. We then extend this method to the dual central subspace, including a special case of canonical correlation analysis. We illustrated estimators through extensive simulations and real datasets, and compared to some existing methods, showing that our estimators are competitive and robust.     

Sliced Average Variance Estimation for Censored Data

We consider a nonlinear censored regression problem with a vector of predictors. With censoring, high-dimensional regression analysis becomes much more complicated. Since censoring can cause severe bias in estimation, modification to adjust such bias is needed to be made. Based on the weight adjustment, we develop the modification of sliced average variance estimation for estimating the lifetime central subspace without requiring a prespecified parametric model. Our proposed method preserves as much regression information as possible. Simulation results are reported and comparisons are made with the sliced inverse regression of Li et al. (1999 Li , K. C. , Wang , J. L. , Chen , C. H. ( 1999 ). Dimension reduction for censored regression data . Ann. Statist. 27 : 1 – 23 . [Google Scholar]).     

Dimension reduction for the conditional kth moment in regression

The idea of dimension reduction without loss of information can be quite helpful for guiding the construction of summary plots in regression without requiring a prespecified model. Central subspaces are designed to capture all the information for the regression and to provide a population structure for dimension reduction. Here, we introduce the central k th-moment subspace to capture information from the mean, variance and so on up to the k th conditional moment of the regression. New methods are studied for estimating these subspaces. Connections with sliced inverse regression are established, and examples illustrating the theory are presented.     

大数据下张量充分降维方法及其应用研究

在大数据时代,金融学、基因组学和图像处理等领域产生了大量的张量数据。Zhong等(2015)提出了张量充分降维方法,并给出了处理二阶张量的序列迭代算法。鉴于高阶张量在实际生活中的广泛应用,本文将Zhong等(2015)的算法推广到高阶,以三阶张量为例,提出了两种不同的算法:结构转换算法和结构保持算法。两种算法都能够在不同程度上保持张量原有结构信息,同时有效降低变量维度和计算复杂度,避免协方差矩阵奇异的问题。将两种算法应用于人像彩图的分类识别,以二维和三维点图等形式直观展现了算法分类结果。将本文的结构保持算法与K-means聚类方法、t-SNE非线性降维方法、多维主成分分析、多维判别分析和张量切片逆回归共五种方法进行对比,结果表明本文所提方法在分类精度方面有明显优势,因此在图像识别及相关应用领域具有广阔的发展前景。     

Special Invited Paper: Dimension Reduction and Visualization in Discriminant Analysis (with discussion)

This paper discusses visualization methods for discriminant analysis. It does not address numerical methods for classification per se, but rather focuses on graphical methods that can be viewed as pre-processors, aiding the analyst's understanding of the data and the choice of a final classifier. The methods are adaptations of recent results in dimension reduction for regression, including sliced inverse regression and sliced average variance estimation. A permutation test is suggested as a means of determining dimension, and examples are given throughout the discussion.     

A Note on Multiple Regression for Single Index Model

Abstract

A simple method based on sliced inverse regression (SIR) is proposed to explore an effective dimension reduction (EDR) vector for the single index model. We avoid the principle component analysis step of the original SIR by using two sample mean vectors in two slices of the response variable and their difference vector. The theories become simpler, the method is equivalent to the multiple linear regression with dichotomized response, and the estimator can be expressed by a closed form, although the objective function might be an unknown nonlinear. It can be applied for the case when the number of covariates is large, and it requires no matrix operation or iterative calculation.     

Estimating the structural dimension of regressions via parametric inverse regression

A new estimation method for the dimension of a regression at the outset of an analysis is proposed. A linear subspace spanned by projections of the regressor vector X , which contains part or all of the modelling information for the regression of a vector Y on X , and its dimension are estimated via the means of parametric inverse regression. Smooth parametric curves are fitted to the p inverse regressions via a multivariate linear model. No restrictions are placed on the distribution of the regressors. The estimate of the dimension of the regression is based on optimal estimation procedures. A simulation study shows the method to be more powerful than sliced inverse regression in some situations.     

Dealing with big data: comparing dimension reduction and shrinkage regression methods

In the past decades, the number of variables explaining observations in different practical applications increased gradually. This has led to heavy computational tasks, despite of widely using provisional variable selection methods in data processing. Therefore, more methodological techniques have appeared to reduce the number of explanatory variables without losing much of the information. In these techniques, two distinct approaches are apparent: ‘shrinkage regression’ and ‘sufficient dimension reduction’. Surprisingly, there has not been any communication or comparison between these two methodological categories, and it is not clear when each of these two approaches are appropriate. In this paper, we fill some of this gap by first reviewing each category in brief, paying special attention to the most commonly used methods in each category. We then compare commonly used methods from both categories based on their accuracy, computation time, and their ability to select effective variables. A simulation study on the performance of the methods in each category is generated as well. The selected methods are concurrently tested on two sets of real data which allows us to recommend conditions under which one approach is more appropriate to be applied to high-dimensional data.     

Dimension test approach of heteroscedasticity in the linear model

Heteroscedasticity testing has a long history and is still an important matter in the linear model. There exist many types of tests, but they are limited in use to their own specific cases and sensitive to normality. Here, we propose a dimension test approach to heteroscedasticity. The proposed test overcomes the shortcomings of the existing methods, so that it is robust to normality and is unified in sense that it is applicable in the linear model with multi-dimensional response. Numerical studies confirm that the proposed test is favorable over the existing tests with moderate sample sizes, and real data analysis is presented.     

An Inverse‐regression Method of Dependent Variable Transformation for Dimension Reduction with Non‐linear Confounding

Many model‐free dimension reduction methods have been developed for high‐dimensional regression data but have not paid much attention on problems with non‐linear confounding. In this paper, we propose an inverse‐regression method of dependent variable transformation for detecting the presence of non‐linear confounding. The benefit of using geometrical information from our method is highlighted. A ratio estimation strategy is incorporated in our approach to enhance the interpretation of variable selection. This approach can be implemented not only in principal Hessian directions (PHD) but also in other recently developed dimension reduction methods. Several simulation examples that are reported for illustration and comparisons are made with sliced inverse regression and PHD in ignorance of non‐linear confounding. An illustrative application to one real data is also presented.     

Unstructured principal fitted response reduction in multivariate regression

In this paper, an unstructured principal fitted response reduction approach is proposed. The new approach is mainly different from two existing model-based approaches, because a required condition is assumed in a covariance matrix of the responses instead of that of a random error. Also, it is invariant under one of popular ways of standardizing responses with its sample covariance equal to the identity matrix. According to numerical studies, the proposed approach yields more robust estimation than the two existing methods, in the sense that its asymptotic performances are not severely sensitive to various situations. So, it can be recommended that the proposed method should be used as a default model-based method.     

Dimension reduction for the conditional mean and variance functions in time series

This paper deals with the nonparametric estimation of the mean and variance functions of univariate time series data. We propose a nonparametric dimension reduction technique for both mean and variance functions of time series. This method does not require any model specification and instead we seek directions in both the mean and variance functions such that the conditional distribution of the current observation given the vector of past observations is the same as that of the current observation given a few linear combinations of the past observations without loss of inferential information. The directions of the mean and variance functions are estimated by maximizing the Kullback–Leibler distance function. The consistency of the proposed estimators is established. A computational procedure is introduced to detect lags of the conditional mean and variance functions in practice. Numerical examples and simulation studies are performed to illustrate and evaluate the performance of the proposed estimators.     

Dimension reduction in estimating equations with covariates missing at random

To estimate parameters defined by estimating equations with covariates missing at random, we consider three bias-corrected nonparametric approaches based on inverse probability weighting, regression and augmented inverse probability weighting. However, when the dimension of covariates is not low, the estimation efficiency will be affected due to the curse of dimensionality. To address this issue, we propose a two-stage estimation procedure by using the dimension-reduced kernel estimation in conjunction with bias-corrected estimating equations. We show that the resulting three estimators are asymptotically equivalent and achieve the desirable properties. The impact of dimension reduction in nonparametric estimation of parameters is also investigated. The finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators is studied through simulation, and an application to an automobile data set is also presented.