## probabilistic numerics

Posted in pictures, Running, Statistics, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2015 by xi'an

I attended an highly unusual workshop while in Warwick last week. Unusual for me, obviously. It was about probabilistic numerics, i.e., the use of probabilistic or stochastic arguments in the numerical resolution of (possibly) deterministic problems. The notion in this approach is fairly Bayesian in that it makes use to prior information or belief about the quantity of interest, e.g., a function, to construct an usually Gaussian process prior and derive both an estimator that is identical to a numerical method (e.g., Runge-Kutta or trapezoidal integration) and uncertainty or variability around this estimator. While I did not grasp much more than the classy introduction talk by Philipp Hennig, this concept sounds fairly interesting, if only because of the Bayesian connection, and I wonder if we will soon see a probability numerics section at ISBA! More seriously, placing priors on functions or functionals is a highly formal perspective (as in Bayesian non-parametrics) and it makes me wonder how much of the data (evaluation of a function at a given set of points) and how much of the prior is reflected in the output [variability]. (Obviously, one could also ask a similar question for statistical analyses!)  For instance, issues of singularity arise among those stochastic process priors.

Another question that stemmed from this talk is whether or not more efficient numerical methods can derived that way, in addition to recovering the most classical ones. Somewhat, somehow, given the idealised nature of the prior, it feels like priors could be more easily compared or ranked than in classical statistical problems. Since the aim is to figure out the value of an integral or the solution to an ODE. (Or maybe not, since again almost the same could be said about estimating a normal mean.)

## estimating a constant (not really)

Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 12, 2012 by xi'an

Larry Wasserman wrote a blog entry on the normalizing constant paradox, where he repeats that he does not understand my earlier point…Let me try to recap here this point and the various comments I made on StackExchange (while keeping in mind all this is for intellectual fun!)

The entry is somehow paradoxical in that Larry acknowledges (in that post) that the analysis in his book, All of Statistics, is wrong. The fact that “g(x)/c is a valid density only for one value of c” (and hence cannot lead to a notion of likelihood on c) is the very reason why I stated that there can be no statistical inference nor prior distribution about c: a sample from f does not bring statistical information about c and there can be no statistical estimate of c based on this sample. (In case you did not notice, I insist upon statistical!)

To me this problem is completely different from a statistical problem, at least in the modern sense: if I need to approximate the constant c—as I do in fact when computing Bayes factors—, I can produce an arbitrarily long sample from a certain importance distribution and derive a converging (and sometimes unbiased) approximation of c. Once again, this is Monte Carlo integration, a numerical technique based on the Law of Large Numbers and the stabilisation of frequencies. (Call it a frequentist method if you wish. I completely agree that MCMC methods are inherently frequentist in that sense, And see no problem with this because they are not statistical methods. Of course, this may be the core of the disagreement with Larry and others, that they call statistics the Law of Large Numbers, and I do not. This lack of separation between both notions also shows up in a recent general public talk on Poincaré’s mistakes by Cédric Villani! All this may just mean I am irremediably Bayesian, seeing anything motivated by frequencies as non-statistical!) But that process does not mean that c can take a range of values that would index a family of densities compatible with a given sample. In this Monte Carlo integration approach, the distribution of the sample is completely under control (modulo the errors induced by pseudo-random generation). This approach is therefore outside the realm of Bayesian analysis “that puts distributions on fixed but unknown constants”, because those unknown constants parameterise the distribution of an observed sample. Ergo, c is not a parameter of the sample and the sample Larry argues about (“we have data sampled from a distribution”) contains no information whatsoever about c that is not already in the function g. (It is not “data” in this respect, but a stochastic sequence that can be used for approximation purposes.) Which gets me back to my first argument, namely that c is known (and at the same time difficult or impossible to compute)!

Let me also answer here the comments on “why is this any different from estimating the speed of light c?” “why can’t you do this with the 100th digit of π?” on the earlier post or on StackExchange. Estimating the speed of light means for me (who repeatedly flunked Physics exams after leaving high school!) that we have a physical experiment that measures the speed of light (as the original one by Rœmer at the Observatoire de Paris I visited earlier last week) and that the statistical analysis infers about c by using those measurements and the impact of the imprecision of the measuring instruments (as we do when analysing astronomical data). If, now, there exists a physical formula of the kind

$c=\int_\Xi \psi(\xi) \varphi(\xi) \text{d}\xi$

where φ is a probability density, I can imagine stochastic approximations of c based on this formula, but I do not consider it a statistical problem any longer. The case is thus clearer for the 100th digit of π: it is also a fixed number, that I can approximate by a stochastic experiment but on which I cannot attach a statistical tag. (It is 9, by the way.) Throwing darts at random as I did during my Oz tour is not a statistical procedure, but simple Monte Carlo à la Buffon…

Overall, I still do not see this as a paradox for our field (and certainly not as a critique of Bayesian analysis), because there is no reason a statistical technique should be able to address any and every numerical problem. (Once again, Persi Diaconis would almost certainly differ, as he defended a Bayesian perspective on numerical analysis in the early days of MCMC…) There may be a “Bayesian” solution to this particular problem (and that would nice) and there may be none (and that would be OK too!), but I am not even convinced I would call this solution “Bayesian”! (Again, let us remember this is mostly for intellectual fun!)

## estimating a constant

Posted in Books, Statistics with tags , , , , , , , , , on October 3, 2012 by xi'an

Paulo (a.k.a., Zen) posted a comment in StackExchange on Larry Wasserman‘s paradox about Bayesians and likelihoodists (or likelihood-wallahs, to quote Basu!) being unable to solve the problem of estimating the normalising constant c of the sample density, f, known up to a constant

$f(x) = c g(x)$

(Example 11.10, page 188, of All of Statistics)

My own comment is that, with all due respect to Larry!, I do not see much appeal in this example, esp. as a potential criticism of Bayesians and likelihood-wallahs…. The constant c is known, being equal to

$1/\int_\mathcal{X} g(x)\text{d}x$

If c is the only “unknown” in the picture, given a sample x1,…,xn, then there is no statistical issue whatsoever about the “problem” and I do not agree with the postulate that there exist estimators of c. Nor priors on c (other than the Dirac mass on the above value). This is not in the least a statistical problem but rather a numerical issue.That the sample x1,…,xn can be (re)used through a (frequentist) density estimate to provide a numerical approximation of c

$\hat c = \hat f(x_0) \big/ g(x_0)$

is a mere curiosity. Not a criticism of alternative statistical approaches: e.g., I could also use a Bayesian density estimate…

Furthermore, the estimate provided by the sample x1,…,xn is not of particular interest since its precision is imposed by the sample size n (and converging at non-parametric rates, which is not a particularly relevant issue!), while I could use importance sampling (or even numerical integration) if I was truly interested in c. I however find the discussion interesting for many reasons

1. it somehow relates to the infamous harmonic mean estimator issue, often discussed on the’Og!;
2. it brings more light on the paradoxical differences between statistics and Monte Carlo methods, in that statistics is usually constrained by the sample while Monte Carlo methods have more freedom in generating samples (up to some budget limits). It does not make sense to speak of estimators in Monte Carlo methods because there is no parameter in the picture, only “unknown” constants. Both fields rely on samples and probability theory, and share many features, but there is nothing like a “best unbiased estimator” in Monte Carlo integration, see the case of the “optimal importance function” leading to a zero variance;
3. in connection with the previous point, the fascinating Bernoulli factory problem is not a statistical problem because it requires an infinite sequence of Bernoullis to operate;
4. the discussion induced Chris Sims to contribute to StackExchange!

## Numerical analysis for statisticians

Posted in Books, R, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 26, 2011 by xi'an

“In the end, it really is just a matter of choosing the relevant parts of mathematics and ignoring the rest. Of course, the hard part is deciding what is irrelevant.”

Somehow, I had missed the first edition of this book and thus I started reading it this afternoon with a newcomer’s eyes (obviously, I will not comment on the differences with the first edition, sketched by the author in the Preface). Past the initial surprise of discovering it was a mathematics book rather than an algorithmic book, I became engrossed into my reading and could not let it go! Numerical Analysis for Statisticians, by Kenneth Lange, is a wonderful book. It provides most of the necessary background in calculus and some algebra to conduct rigorous numerical analyses of statistical problems. This includes expansions, eigen-analysis, optimisation, integration, approximation theory, and simulation, in less than 600 pages. It may be due to the fact that I was reading the book in my garden, with the background noise of the wind in tree leaves, but I cannot find any solid fact to grumble about! Not even about  the MCMC chapters! I simply enjoyed Numerical Analysis for Statisticians from beginning till end.

“Many fine textbooks (…) are hardly substitutes for a theoretical treatment emphasizing mathematical motivations and derivations. However, students do need exposure to real computing and thoughtful numerical exercises. Mastery of theory is enhanced by the nitty gritty of coding.”

From the above, it may sound as if Numerical Analysis for Statisticians does not fulfill its purpose and is too much of a mathematical book. Be assured this is not the case: the contents are firmly grounded in calculus (analysis) but the (numerical) algorithms are only one code away. An illustration (among many) is found in Section 8.4: Finding a Single Eigenvalue, where Kenneth Lange shows how the Raleigh quotient algorithm of the previous section can be exploited to this aim, when supplemented with a good initial guess based on Gerschgorin’s circle theorem. This is brilliantly executed in two pages and the code is just one keyboard away. The EM algorithm is immersed into a larger M[&]M perspective. Problems are numerous and mostly of high standards, meaning one (including me) has to sit and think about them. References are kept to a minimum, they are mostly (highly recommended) books, plus a few papers primarily exploited in the problem sections. (When reading the Preface, I found that “John Kimmel, [his] long suffering editor, exhibited extraordinary patience in encouraging [him] to get on with this project”. The quality of Numerical Analysis for Statisticians is also a testimony to John’s editorial acumen!)

“Every advance in computer architecture and software tempts statisticians to tackle numerically harder problems. To do so intelligently requires a good working knowledge of numerical analysis. This book equips students to craft their own software and to understand the advantages and disadvantages of different numerical methods. Issues of numerical stability, accurate approximation, computational complexity, and mathematical modeling share the limelight in a broad yet rigorous overview of those parts of numerical analysis most relevant to statisticians.”

While I am reacting so enthusiastically to the book (imagine, there is even a full chapter on continued fractions!), it may be that my French math background is biasing my evaluation and that graduate students over the World would find the book too hard. However, I do not think so: the style of Numerical Analysis for Statisticians is very fluid and the rigorous mathematics are mostly at the level of undergraduate calculus. The more advanced topics like wavelets, Fourier transforms and Hilbert spaces are very well-introduced and do not require prerequisites in complex calculus or functional analysis. (Although I take no joy in this, even measure theory does not appear to be a prerequisite!) On the other hand, there is a prerequisite for a good background in statistics. This book will clearly involve a lot of work from the reader, but the respect shown by Kenneth Lange to those readers will sufficiently motivate them to keep them going till assimilation of those essential notions. Numerical Analysis for Statisticians is also recommended for more senior researchers and not only for building one or two courses on the bases of statistical computing. It contains most of the math bases that we need, even if we do not know we need them! Truly an essential book.