Quasi-likelihood analysis and its applications

The Ibragimov–Khasminskii theory established a scheme that gives asymptotic properties of the likelihood estimators through the convergence of the likelihood ratio random field. This scheme is extending to various nonlinear stochastic processes, combined with a polynomial type large deviation inequality proved for a general locally asymptotically quadratic quasi-likelihood random field. We give an overview of the quasi-likelihood analysis and its applications to ergodic/non-ergodic statistics for stochastic processes.

     

Adaptive Bayes type estimators of ergodic diffusion processes from discrete observations

We consider adaptive Bayesian estimation of both drift and diffusion coefficient parameters for ergodic multidimensional diffusion processes based on sampled data. Under a general condition on the discretization step of the sampled data, three kinds of adaptive Bayes type estimators are proposed by applying adaptive maximum likelihood type methods of Uchida and Yoshida (Stoch Process Appl 122:2885–2924, 2012) to Bayesian procedures. We show asymptotic normality and convergence of moments for the adaptive Bayes type estimators by means of the Ibragimov–Has’minskii–Kutoyants program together with the polynomial type large deviation inequality for the statistical random field.     

A second-order Monte Carlo method for the solution of the Ito stochastic differential equation

A difference approximation that is second-order accurate in the time step his derived for the general Ito stochastic differential equation. The difference equation has the form of a second-order random walk in which the random terms are non-linear combinations of Gaussian random variables. For a wide class of problems, the transition pdf is joint-normal to second order in h; the technique then reduces to a Gaussian random walk, but its application is not limited to problems having a Gaussian solution. A large number of independent sample paths are generated in a Monte Carlo solution algorithm; any statistical function of the solution (e.g., moments or pdf's) can be estimated by ensemble averaging over these paths     

Moment convergence in regularized estimation under multiple and mixed-rates asymptotics

In M-estimation under standard asymptotics, the weak convergence combined with the polynomial type large deviation estimate of the associated statistical random field Yoshida (2011) provides us with not only the asymptotic distribution of the associated M-estimator but also the convergence of its moments, the latter playing an important role in theoretical statistics. In this paper, we study the above program for statistical random fields of multiple and also possibly mixedrates type in the sense of Radchenko (2008) where the associated statistical random fields may be nondifferentiable and may fail to be locally asymptotically quadratic. Consequently, a very strong mode of convergence of a wide range of regularized M-estimators is ensured.Our results are applied to regularized estimation of an ergodic diffusion observed at high frequency.     

Bidimensional random effect estimation in mixed stochastic differential model

In this work, a mixed stochastic differential model is studied with two random effects in the drift. We assume that N trajectories are continuously observed throughout a large time interval [0, T]. Two directions are investigated. First we estimate the random effects from one trajectory and give a bound of the \(L^2\)-risk of the estimators. Secondly, we build a nonparametric estimator of the common bivariate density of the random effects. The mean integrated squared error is studied. The performances of the density estimator are illustrated on simulations.     

Asymptotic behavior of solutions: An application to stochastic NLP

In this article we study the consistency of optimal and stationary (KKT) points of a stochastic non-linear optimization problem involving expectation functionals, when the underlying probability distribution associated with the random variable is weakly approximated by a sequence of random probability measures. The optimization model includes constraints with expectation functionals those are not captured in direct application of the previous results on optimality conditions exist in the literature. We first study the consistency of stationary points of a general NLP problem with convex and locally Lipschitz data and then apply those results to the stochastic NLP problem and stochastic minimax problem. Moreover, we derive an exponential bound for such approximations using a large deviation principle.

     

Large deviations for Poisson systems of independent random walks

Summary We prove large deviation theorems for occupation time functionals of independent random walks started from a Poisson field on Z ^d. In dimensions 1 and 2 the large deviation tails are larger than exponential. Exact asymptotics are derived.Partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant MCS 81-02131 and MCS 81-00256Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow     

On the errors committed by sequences of estimator functionals

Consider a sequence of estimators [^(q)] _n\hat \theta _n which converges almost surely to θ ₀ as the sample size n tends to infinity. Under weak smoothness conditions, we identify the asymptotic limit of the last time [^(q)] _n\hat \theta _n is further than ɛ away from θ ₀ when ɛ → 0⁺. These limits lead to the construction of sequentially fixed width confidence regions for which we find analytic approximations. The smoothness conditions we impose is that [^(q)] _n\hat \theta _n is to be close to a Hadamard-differentiable functional of the empirical distribution, an assumption valid for a large class of widely used statistical estimators. Similar results were derived in Hjort and Fenstad (1992) for the case of Euclidean parameter spaces; part of the present contribution is to lift these results to situations involving parameter functionals. The apparatus we develop is also used to derive appropriate limit distributions of other quantities related to the far tail of an almost surely convergent sequence of estimators, like the number of times the estimator is more than ɛ away from its target. We illustrate our results by giving a new sequential simultaneous confidence set for the cumulative hazard function based on the Nelson-Aalen estimator and investigate a problem in stochastic programming related to computational complexity.     

Quasi-likelihood analysis for the stochastic differential equation with jumps

In this paper, we consider a multidimensional diffusion process X with jumps whose jump term is driven by a compound Poisson process, and discuss its parametric estimation. We present asymptotic normality and convergence of moments of any order for a quasi-maximum likelihood estimator and a Bayes type estimator by assuming an exponential mixing property of X. To show these properties, we use the polynomial type large deviation theory.     

Deviation inequalities for quadratic Wiener functionals and moderate deviations for parameter estimators

We study deviation inequalities for some quadratic Wiener functionals and moderate deviations for parameter estimators in a linear stochastic differential equation model. Firstly, we give some estimates for Laplace integrals of the quadratic Wiener functionals by calculating the eigenvalues of the associated Hilbert-Schmidt operators. Then applying the estimates, we establish deviation inequalities for the quadratic functionals and moderate deviation principles for the parameter estimators.     

分数布朗运动随机微分方程的MLE和Bayes估计的大偏差不等式

本文研究了分数布朗运动随机微分方程未知参数的极大似然估计和Bayes估计的偏差不等式.在一定的正则条件下.利用似然方法给出了这两个估计量的大偏差不等式.     

Asymptotic behaviors for functionals of random dynamical systems

In this article, we consider asymptotic behaviors for functionals of dynamical systems with small random perturbations. First, we present a deviation inequality for Gaussian approximation of dynamical systems with small random perturbations under Hölder norms and establish the moderate deviation principle and the central limit theorem for the dynamical systems by the deviation inequality. Then, applying these results to forward-backward stochastic differential equations and diffusions in small time intervals, combining the delta method in large deviations, we give a moderate deviation principle for solutions of forward-backward stochastic differential equations with small random perturbations, and obtain the central limit theorem, the moderate deviation principle and the iterated logarithm law for functionals of diffusions in small time intervals.     

A penalty method for nonparametric estimation of the logarithmic derivative of a density function

Summary Given a random sample of sizen from a densityf ₀ on the real line satisfying certain regularity conditions, we propose a nonparametric estimator forψ ₀=−f ₀ ^′ /f⁰. The estimate is the minimizer of a quadratic functional of the formλJ(ψ)+∫[ψ ²−2ψ′]dF_n where λ>0 is a smoothing parameter,J(·) is a roughness penalty, andF _n is the empirical c.d.f. of the sample. A characterization of the estimate (useful for computational purposes) is given which is related to spline functions. A more complete study of the caseJ(ψ)=∫[d ²ψ/dx²]² is given, since it has the desirable property of giving the maximum likelihood normal estimate in the infinite smoothness limit (λ→∞). Asymptotics under somewhat restrictive assumptions (periodicity) indicate that the estimator is asymptotically consistent and achieves the optimal rate of convergence. This type of estimator looks promising because the minimization problem is simple in comparison with the analogous penalized likelihood estimators. This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research under Grant Number N00014-82-C-0062.     

Large deviations for small noise diffusions with discontinuous statistics

This paper proves the large deviation principle for a class of non-degenerate small noise diffusions with discontinuous drift and with state-dependent diffusion matrix. The proof is based on a variational representation for functionals of strong solutions of stochastic differential equations and on weak convergence methods. Received: 26 May 1998 / Revised version: 24 February 1999     

Estimating tail probabilities of heavy tailed distributions with asymptotically zero relative error

Efficient estimation of tail probabilities involving heavy tailed random variables is amongst the most challenging problems in Monte-Carlo simulation. In the last few years, applied probabilists have achieved considerable success in developing efficient algorithms for some such simple but fundamental tail probabilities. Usually, unbiased importance sampling estimators of such tail probabilities are developed and it is proved that these estimators are asymptotically efficient or even possess the desirable bounded relative error property. In this paper, as an illustration, we consider a simple tail probability involving geometric sums of heavy tailed random variables. This is useful in estimating the probability of large delays in M/G/1 queues. In this setting we develop an unbiased estimator whose relative error decreases to zero asymptotically. The key idea is to decompose the probability of interest into a known dominant component and an unknown small component. Simulation then focuses on estimating the latter ‘residual’ probability. Here we show that the existing conditioning methods or importance sampling methods are not effective in estimating the residual probability while an appropriate combination of the two estimates it with bounded relative error. As a further illustration of the proposed ideas, we apply them to develop an estimator for the probability of large delays in stochastic activity networks that has an asymptotically zero relative error.      

On maximum likelihood estimation of the drift matrix of a degenerated O–U process

In this work, we consider a 2n-dimension Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (O–U) process with a singular diffusion matrix. This process represents a currently used model for mechanical systems subject to random vibrations. We study the problem of estimating the drift parameters of the stochastic differential equation that governs the O–U process. The maximum likelihood estimator proposed and explored in Koncz (J Anal Math 13(1):75–91, 1987) is revisited and applied to our model. We prove the local asymptotic normality property and the convergence of moments of the estimator. Simulation studies based on representative examples taken from the literature illustrate the obtained theoretical results.     

Adaptive estimation in circular functional linear models

We consider the problem of estimating the slope parameter in circular functional linear regression, where scalar responses Y ₁, ..., Y _n are modeled in dependence of 1-periodic, second order stationary random functions X ₁, ...,X _n . We consider an orthogonal series estimator of the slope function β, by replacing the first m theoretical coefficients of its development in the trigonometric basis by adequate estimators. We propose a model selection procedure for m in a set of admissible values, by defining a contrast function minimized by our estimator and a theoretical penalty function; this first step assumes the degree of ill-posedness to be known. Then we generalize the procedure to a random set of admissible m’s and a random penalty function. The resulting estimator is completely data driven and reaches automatically what is known to be the optimal minimax rate of convergence, in terms of a general weighted L ²-risk. This means that we provide adaptive estimators of both β and its derivatives.     

Generalized calculus and sdes with non regular drift

In this note we prove a precise asymptotic estimate for Laplace type functionals for a parabolic SPDE. We use a large deviation principle, the stochastic Taylor expansion, some exponential inequalities and support theorems for our stochastic partial differential equation     

Estimation of the distribution of random shifts deformation

Consider discrete values of functions shifted by unobserved translation effects, which are independent realizations of a random variable with unknown distribution μ modeling the variability in the response of each individual. Our aim is to construct a nonparametric estimator of the density of these random translation deformations using semiparametric preliminary estimates of the shifts. Based on the results of Dalalyan et al. [7], semiparametric estimators are obtained in our discrete framework and their performance studied. From these estimates we construct a nonparametric estimator of the target density. Both rates of convergence and an algorithm to construct the estimator are provided.