arrow
Return

A new computational framework for log-concave density estimation

delete2024-04-30
delete0
delete
OA
AI
W
Wenyu Chen
R
Rahul Mazumder *
R
Richard J. Samworth
DOI:10.1007/s12532-024-00252-0delete
deleteOriginal
deleteOriginal request for help
deleteShare
deleteSave
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
In statistics, log-concave density estimation is a central problem within the field of nonparametric inference under shape constraints. Despite great progress in recent years on the statistical theory of the canonical estimator, namely the log-concave maximum likelihood estimator, adoption of this method has been hampered by the complexities of the non-smooth convex optimization problem that underpins its computation. We provide enhanced understanding of the structural properties of this optimization problem, which motivates the proposal of new algorithms, based on both randomized and Nesterov smoothing, combined with an appropriate integral discretization of increasing accuracy. We prove that these methods enjoy, both with high probability and in expectation, a convergence rate of order 1/T up to logarithmic factors on the objective function scale, where T denotes the number of iterations. The benefits of our new computational framework are demonstrated on both synthetic and real data, and our implementation is available in a github repository LogConcComp (Log-Concave Computation).
Keywords:
Dual averaging
Large-scale computation
Log-concavity
Nesterov smoothing
Randomized smoothing
Shape-constrained density estimation

Journal

Mathematical Programming Computation cover
Mathematical Programming Computation
IF:
3.6
Papers:
194
Citations:
1.9K

Organization

U
University of Cambridge
Scholars:
7.7W
Papers: 7.1W
Citations: 13.7W